inSocialWork - The Podcast Series of the University at Buffalo School of Social Work

In this episode, Dr. Julie Spielberger discusses findings from her study of a system of prevention and early intervention services for families of young children in low-income communities in Florida’s Palm Beach County. She describes her data examining the use of a broad array of health, educational, and social services by families in targeted low-income communities, patterns of service use over time, barriers and facilitators of service use, and how service use is related to family functioning, child development, and school readiness.

In this episode, Dr. Elizabeth Robinson discusses her work on spiritual and religious changes associated with recovery from alcohol problems. Dr. Robinson notes changes in client sense of forgiveness and purpose as well as day-to-day religious practices and experiences. Dr. Robinson also offers insights about how to nurture the spiritual quest as part of social work practice behaviors.

In this episode, Joyce James of the Texas Department of Family Protective Services and Carolyne Rodriguez of Casey Family Programs' Texas State Strategy systems improvement initiative discuss how their collaboration is addressing disproportionality statewide through promising practices and innovations in undoing racism trainings, values-based leadership development, and community engagement strategies.

In this episode, Drs. Raphael Travis and Anne Deepak discuss using Hip Hop as a framework for understanding client populations and educating social work students.

In this episode, Dr. John Bricout discusses his work and the powerful impact he believes that technology is having on persons with a disability. He describes the implications for social work practice, persons with disabilities, and the communities we live in, and the potential for change in how we construct meaning around what constitutes being "normal."

In this episode, Dr. Jean Kutner discusses the history and role of evidence-based practice in hospice care, changes in hospice care, and barriers and facilitators to building an evidence base.

In this episode, trauma expert and author Dr. Judith Herman discusses her initial encounters with oppressed women and how she initially organized her thinking about victims of trauma. Dr. Herman describes what she is currently learning from a sample of trauma survivors about what they are interested in regarding justice, healing, forgiveness, and the role of the community in their healing.

In this episode, Professor of Law Susan Mangold discusses how child welfare services are funded, and reviews her findings as she "follows the money." She goes on to describe how the type or source of funding impacts outcomes and quality of child welfare services to a larger degree than the amount of that funding.

In this episode, author and journalist Robert Whitaker discusses what he has discovered through study of the evidence that is utilized to guide the treatment of psychiatric illness. With a critical eye, he describes the paradoxes in the conventional wisdom and practice in this field and how faithfully "following the evidence" would transform care for the drug-based treatment of mental illness.

In this episode, Dr. Caitlin Ryan discusses the challenges of breaking ground in new areas of research, especially work that may be considered controversial, and what it takes to do work that is culturally and linguistically appropriate. The conversation ends with advice for those interested in following similar lines of research.

In this episode, Dr. Leopoldo Cabassa discusses his research and development of culturally competent interventions for Latinos experiencing mental health issues. He describes his motivation to work with the Latino community and the social work practice implications in developing mental health literacy tools for them.

This is the second of two episodes on spiritually and older women survivors of interpersonal trauma. Dr. Bowland discusses emergent themes such as forgiveness, isolation, and strength in the midst of struggle. Dr. Bowland also notes the utility of a feminist critique of the harmful and helpful aspects of faith traditions in relation to the experience of interpersonal trauma and the need to make space for discussions of religion in social work.

In this episode, Dr. Lani V. Jones discusses her research in the area of evidence-based practice with a focus on psychosocial competence, group work, and positive mental health outcomes with Black women accessing services in mental health settings.

Dr. Sharon Bowland discusses a spiritually-based, psycho-social intervention for older women survivors of interpersonal trauma. In this first of two episodes, Dr. Bowland describes the intervention and reports on the positive mental health and spiritual well-being outcomes.

In this final episode of a three-part series, Dr. Mo Yee Lee address some of the challenges and opportunities of applying the integrative approach in social work research and practice. She explores some of the common misperceptions about meditation and eastern practices, and the role that education and information can play in an accurate adoption of these practices. Dr. Lee highlights issues of empowerment, helping people to help themselves, and the role of complementary interventions in this area to build on our existing knowledge base for practice.