Understanding and Supporting 'Families with Complex Needs'


Book Description

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Understanding and Supporting 'Families with Complex Needs'" that was published in Social Sciences




Parenting Matters


Book Description

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.




Working with Families of Young Children with Special Needs


Book Description

This user-friendly book presents research-based best practices for serving families of children with special needs from birth to age 6. Expert contributors demonstrate how early intervention and early childhood special education can effectively address a wide range of family concerns, which in turn optimizes children's development and learning. Tightly edited, the volume offers indispensable tools for assessing families; identifying and capitalizing on their strengths; providing information, support, and coaching; collaborating with parents and teachers to address children's functional needs in the context of everyday routines; and coordinating care. Over a dozen reproducible checklists and forms help professionals immediately implement the techniques and strategies described.




Global Social Transformation and Social Action: The Role of Social Workers


Book Description

Global social transformation calls for global social action. 2010 saw the launch of The Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development, which detailed how social workers can strive to bring about increased social justice. The time is right to start to address and demonstrate the actions that might be required to develop and accomplish the Agenda - with regard to methods in practice and research, in social policy and social work education, and in a broader discourse of global commitment and cooperation. This informative and incisively written edited collection brings together experts from around the world to discuss issues which the social work and social welfare sectors face every day and to ensure a closer link between evidence-based practice, policy objectives and social development goals. Furthermore, this book reveals how these may affect the conditions of people and demonstrate how the social work and social development community can contribute to sustainable development.




Patient Safety and Quality


Book Description

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/




Families Caring for an Aging America


Book Description

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.




Aching Joy


Book Description

When his oldest son was diagnosed with severe autism, pastor Jason Hague found himself trapped, stuck between perpetual sadness and a lower, safer kind of hope. This is the common struggle for those of us walking through the Land of Unanswered Prayer. Life doesn’t look the way we expected, so we seek to protect ourselves from further disappointment. But God has a third path for us, beyond sadness or resignation: the way of aching joy. Christ himself is with us here, beckoning us toward the treasures hidden in the darkness. Aching Joy is an honest psalm of hope for those walking between pain and promise: the aching of a broken world and the beauty of a loving God. In this place, rather than trying to dodge the pain, we choose to feel it all—and to see where Jesus is in the midst of struggle. And because we make that choice, we feel all the good that comes with it, too. This is Jason’s story. This is your story. Come, find your joy within the aching.




Working with Children and Youth with Complex Needs


Book Description

Working with Children and Youth with Complex Needs provides a detailed description of techniques and rich stories of how social workers, psychologists, counselors, and child and youth care workers can help young people become more resilient. With ample case studies and fascinating explanations of research, Dr. Ungar shows why we need to work just as hard changing the environments that surround children as we do changing children themselves. Building on lessons learned from clinical, community and residential settings, Dr. Ungar discusses 20 skills that can enhance the effectiveness of frontline mental health services. Along with descriptions of the skills necessary to talk with clients about the factors that put their mental health at risk, Working with Children and Youth with Complex Needs also presents systemic practices clinicians can use in their everyday work. Engaging with children’s extended family, addressing issues of community violence, racism and homophobia, and helping parents and teachers understand children’s maladaptive coping strategies as sometimes necessary are among the many practical strategies that are discussed which clinicians can use to enhance and sustain the therapeutic value of their work.




Creating Change for Complex Children and their Families


Book Description

The strain of caring for children struggling with severe and complex mental health needs affects the entire family. The staff at the innovative Croft Child and Family Unit have developed a unique approach of working intensively with the whole family, and encouraging them to share their experiences with other families, to instigate a complete change that will benefit all family members. Using detailed case studies to illustrate the model, the book focuses on the needs of children with a wide range of developmental, emotional and behavioural difficulties, and explores the complicated interactions between these children, their families and their communities. The care team includes nurses, psychiatrists, doctors, family therapists and creative therapists, social workers and teachers. They examine how to integrate a range of therapeutic interventions and how to use the powerful relationships that develop between professionals and families to enable positive, lasting changes. This book will be indispensable reading for trainees and professionals working with children with mental health problems and their families, and special needs educationalists wanting to understand the benefits of an intensive, multi-family approach to treatment for children who do not respond to standard community interventions.




Understanding System Change in Child Protection and Welfare


Book Description

This book provides an account of the experience of a multifaceted system-change programme to strengthen the capacity of Ireland’s statutory child protection and welfare agency in the areas of prevention, early intervention and family support. Many jurisdictions globally are involved in system change processes focused on increasing investment in services that seek to prevent children’s entry into child protection and welfare systems, through early intervention, greater support to families, and an increased emphasis on rights and participation. Based on a four-year in-depth study by a team of University-based researchers, this text adds to the emerging knowledge-base on developing, implementing and evaluating system change in child protection and welfare. Study methodological approaches were wide ranging and involved a number of key stakeholders including children, parents, social workers and social care workers, service managers, agency leaders and policy makers. Since the change process involved an agency-university partnership encompassing design, technical support and evaluation, the book also contributes to understandings of the potential and limits of such partnerships in the child protection and welfare field. Uniquely, the book gives voice to the experience of both agency personnel and academic in the accounts provided. It will be of interest to all scholars, students and practitioners in the areas of child protection and welfare.