When Traumatic Stressors are Not Past, But Now: Psychosocial Treatment to Develop Resilience with Children and Youth Enduring Concurrent, Complex Trauma

The article discusses a project called the Empowering Counseling Program (ECP) conducted in community schools using participatory action and consumer evaluation designs. It addressed the elements of treatment theories used by mental health providers such as values, assumptions and concepts. It cites findings that clients suffering from complex trauma in under-resourced communities, unavoidably traumatized concurrently with treatment do not benefit from treatment guidelines

Even in Fateful Situations a Vital Optimism Remains: Social Work “Accompaniment” with Persons with Cancer

To advance a social work model for working with patients with diagnoses of cancer in diverse global contexts, this paper draws from qualitative research with clients diagnosed with cancer, and their social workers, in Lithuania. As in many countries, Lithuanian social work is a new profession, finding its way to helping people through many life stressors in a unique cultural context. The threat cancer presents – of dying from a protracted and painful illness – requires social work strategies, especially because many countries lack Hospice supports. Key aspects of the findings are the life crisis that a diagnosis of cancer presents, with great fear, anguish, and shifts in personal identity. Clients and social workers describe physical and emotional suffering and alienation from others. While some aspects of clients’ suffering cannot be alleviated by social workers, alienation can be, so here we focus on that possibility. The data from clients and social workers are used to revise crisis intervention theories to suit this unique type of crisis, and an alternative concept of “accompaniment” is offered to capture how social workers can reduce alienation. Drawing from the work of Farmer, Watkins, and O’Donoghue, accompaniment is compatible with strengths-based and wholistic approaches to practice and is adaptable for those with any belief system

Community Collaborations with Saving Lives, Inspiring Youth: A Community-Based Cross-Age Peer Mentoring Program

Scholar-community collaborations offer an opportunity to conduct translational research that is both useful and respectful to the population of study (Foster-Fishman, Berkowitz, Lounsbury, Jacobson & Allen, 2001). When projects involve an intervention targeted towards a marginalized community, it is even more important to perform the research with such regard. Community-based interventions are more likely to find sustained success with community members as part of the service and research team. However, tensions between researchers and practitioners may present challenges with this work (e.g., researchers devaluing practitioner insights, practitioners and community members concerned about past histories of mistreatment of research subjects), particularly in marginalized communities experiencing systemic oppression. This case study aims to recognize community collaborator challenges, contributing factors, and solutions from Saving Lives, Inspiring Youth (SLIY), a community-based participatory cross-age peer mentoring program based in the south and west sides of Chicago. Specifically, we present challenges navigating a partnership with our community collaborators at a SLIY mentoring site on the west side of Chicago in 2017