Episode 136: I am humbled and honored to let you know that I have been selected as one of 25 Social Work Pioneers for starting the first podcast by and for social workers. The NASW Social Work Pioneers program celebrates some of the most influential social workers in the nation. There is no way I would have been considered for this prestigious honor had it not been for you, the long time devoted listeners of the social work podcast. You have welcomed me into your morning and evening commutes, bus rides to class, your workouts, and wherever you learn on the go. Thank you. Also, thank you to Linda Grobman, Jennifer Luna, and Allan Barsky for supporting my nomination. You can check out my bio on the Social Work Pioneers page: https://naswfoundation.org/Our-Work/NASW-Social-Workers-Pioneers/NASW-Social-Workers-Pioneers-Listing.aspx?id=950 or read a transcript of today's interview at https://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2023/07/pioneer.html. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 135: Today's episode is the second of a two-part series with Lisa Damour about her 2023 book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents. In today’s episode we talk about how decades of research on the gender binary can provide insight into the emotional lives of adolescents across the gender spectrum. We talk about intersection of race and gender. We end our conversation talking about how it is important to help teens express their emotions, but perhaps more important to help them regain control. In Part 1 we talked about the difference between adolescent distress and adolescent mental illness, how the COVID-19 pandemic made it more difficult for parents to distinguish between normative adolescent distress or pandemic-related mental health concerns. Lisa talked about the most destructive myth that is out there about adolescent mental health and what we as parents, professional and a society can do about that. Along the way Lisa shared some practical tips about to manage a teenage meltdown, a story about swimming pools, and she encouraged us to think critically about the research that is being done on adolescent mental health and how the news media is portraying adolescent distress. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2023/04/Damour-2.html You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 134: Today's episode is the first of a two-part series with Lisa Damour about her 2023 book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents. In today’s episode we talk about the difference between adolescent distress and adolescent mental illness, how the COVID-19 pandemic made it more difficult for parents to distinguish between normative adolescent distress or pandemic-related mental health concerns. She talks about the most destructive myth that is out there about adolescent mental health and what we as parents, professional and a society can do about that. Along the way Lisa shared some practical tips about to manage a teenage meltdown, a story about swimming pools, and she encourages us to think critically about the research that is being done on adolescent mental health and how the news media is portraying adolescent distress. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2023/02/Damour2023-1.html You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 133: In today's interview, NASW-IL Executive Director, Joel Rubin, and I talk about the legislative process that NASW-IL went through to eliminate the requirement that BSW and MSW graduates from accredited social work programs in Illinois had to take the ASWB licensing exam in order to get their LSW. Joel shares the story about how and why the legislation changed. We talked about how the legislative process works, from connecting with other social workers online about pressing issues, to reaching out to NASW staff and volunteer board members, supporting prospective legislative candidates, meeting with your elected officials and how NASW state chapters serve as a resource for social workers and legislators. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2023/02/NASWIL.html You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 132: In today's interview, Stacey and I talk about how she drew on her personal and professional experiences to write a book for families, friends and parents of someone who is suicidal. She talks about why and how families can create support teams, when and why it might not be appropriate to reach out to others, and how to navigate reaching out even when the suicidal person doesn't want you to. We talked about how to find support on social networks like Facebook. She talks about how friends and family can feel manipulated by a suicidal loved one, even if the suicidal person isn't being manipulative. Throughout the interview, Stacey speaks to families AND social workers. For example, in her book she takes the classic therapy phrase "active listening" and suggests that for families we call it "brave listening." I love that. Active listening is so professional. If you're listening to your kid or your partner or your parent talk about how they don't want to live any more, you're brave listening... that's what it is. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2022/12/Freedenthal2022.html You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 131: In today's episode, I speak with Scott Miller, Ph.D. about how we can use feedback to improve client outcomes. Scott is one of the developers of Feedback Informed Treatment, or FIT - an "empirically supported, pantheoretical approach for evaluating and improving the quality and effectiveness of behavioral health services. It involves routinely and formally soliciting feedback from clients regarding the therapeutic alliance," client outcomes, and using that information to improve services. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2021/12/FIT.html You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 130: Today’s episode is about the 2021 revision of the NASW Code of Ethics to include self-care and cultural humility. To unpack these two new additions, I spoke with Allan Barsky, Professor of Social Work at Florida Atlantic University and former Chair of the National Ethics Committee of the National Association of Social Workers. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/technology-articles/power-podcasting-social-work-education/. Listen to Shimon's podcast at https://dointhework.podbean.com/. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 129: Today's episode is about the Power of Podcasting in Social Work Education. Shimon Cohen, founder and host of Doin' The Work: Frontlines of Social Change, and I read the article we wrote for New Social Worker Magazine about podcasting for social work education You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/technology-articles/power-podcasting-social-work-education/. Listen to Shimon's podcast at https://dointhework.podbean.com/. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 128: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is a conversation with Dr. Holly Oxhandler (https://hollyoxhandler.com/). I speak with Holly about the definitions of religion and spirituality, similarities and differences in religious and spiritual affiliation between social work professionals and their clients, how to address religion and spirituality in practice, and her experience as the co-host of the CXMH podcast (https://www.CXMHpodcast.com). You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 127:Today's episode is the audio recording of a Facebook Live discussion that happened on Tuesday, July 14, 2020 called Both/And or Either/Or: Social Work and Policing. My guests were Alan Dettlaff, Laura Abrams, Charles E. Lewis, Jr., and Terry Mizrahi. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 126:In today's episode of the Social Work Podcast I speak with Carol Tosone, Ph.D., Professor of Social Work and Director, DSW Program in Clinical Social Work at NYU's Silver School of Social Work. In today's episode we talked about how the concept of shared trauma can help us to understand what's going on in a global pandemic, how we can think about the role of technology-mediated services, and what social workers can do to care for themselves while caring for others. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

One of the solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic is physical distancing. Because there is a relationship between physical and social distancing, I am rebroadcasting Episode 70 from 2011 which deals with loneliness. I hope you enjoy. Today’s episode of the Social Work Podcast is about loneliness. According to my guest, Thomas Joiner, the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, loneliness might be at the heart of one of the most perplexing contemporary public health paradoxes. That paradox is, despite the fact that men are by all indicators the most powerful and privileged in every country in the world, “for each of the 12 leading causes of death, mortality is higher for men than women” (Joiner, 2011, p. 7). If we look at just one of those causes of death, suicide, the disparity between men and women is astounding: Of the approximately 36,000 Americans who died by suicide in 2009, approximately 80% were men. Of those men, approximately 90% were white men. Why would white men, who are the most privileged of the privileged, be the most likely to kill themselves? Dr. Joiner’s answer is simple: Loneliness. Dr. Joiner is the author of the book, "Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men's Success" published in 2011 by Palgrave Macmillan. In today's episode of the social work podcast, Dr. Joiner and I talk about biological and social factors that contribute to men's loneliness. We talk about the effects of loneliness on men's health and wellbeing, including the issue of suicide. We talk about how Dr. Joiner's research speaks to women and men who are not on the top, for example sexual and racial minorities. We talk about some of the solutions that Dr. Joiner proposes, including the simple soution of reaching out. We end our conversation on a personal note. I tell Dr. Joiner that my wife recently gave birth to twin boys. I ask him what I can do to prevent my sons from growing up and becoming lonely men. He was kind enough to give me some free advice. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 125: In today's social work podcast, I speak with three men on a mission to prevent suicide. Matt Runnells, Kevin Hines, and Greg Van Borssum shared their stories of managing suicidal thoughts, self-care, caring for others, and building a global network of support for suicide prevention. I spoke with Matt, Kevin and Greg at the American Association of Suicidology annual conference in April 2018. These three guys were so pumped up about suicide prevention, so full of inspirational quotes and stories, that by the end of the interview I found myself speaking with the cadence and phrasing of a motivational speaker. Published on World Suicide Prevention Day 2019 as part of National Suicide Prevention Week 2019 and Suicide Prevention Month 2019. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

[Rebroadcast] Episode 24: In today's podcast I talked with Chris Wolf about Sex Addiction. Sex addiction has been defined as "engaging in persistent and escalating patterns of sexual behavior despite increasingly negative consequences to self and others" (Ewald, 2003). Chris is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified sex addiction counselor. She received her masters in counseling psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and trained with pioneering sex addictions researcher, Patrick Carnes. Our interview covered a broad range of topics, including how sex addiction is similar to and different from substance use addiction, common characteristics of sexually addicted clients, basic skills and competencies clinicians need when working with sexually addicted clients, and some resources for further study or learning. Please check our website at https://socialworkpodcast.com for more information.

Episode 124: Today’s episode is Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is an interview with Lori Gottlieb - NY Times best-selling author, advice columnist for The Atlantic, and therapist. We talked about how her experience as a writer influences her work as a therapist, and how her therapy informs her writing. We talked about how she takes a client’s story out of the therapy room and turns it into something that therapists can appreciate, and non-therapists can get excited about. Lori reads from her 2019 bestseller, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. We ended our conversation talking about how difficult and necessary it is for therapists to be the client. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 123: Today’s episode is the second of a two-part conversation with Dr. Lisa Damour, author of the 2019 book Under Pressure. In today's episode we talk about rape culture; the problem with the word "consent"; and how society's criticisms of the way girls speak is really just another way of criticizing girls. In Part 1, Lisa and I talk about the difference between stress, anxiety and trauma; what "good" and "bad" pressure look like; and how schools, parents, and providers can think about pressure. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 122: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is the first of a two part-series about Dr. Lisa Damour's 2019 text Under Pressure. In today’s episode we talk about the difference between stress, anxiety and trauma; what "good" and "bad" pressure look like; how schools, parents, and providers can think about pressure. In part two we move the conversation into issues of rape culture and how society criticizes the way girls speak as a cover for criticizing girls. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 121: In today's episode of the Social Work Podcast, I speak with Dr. Darlyne Bailey and Dr. Terry Mizrahi about the Special Commission on Macro Practice. We talk about how their social work experiences led them to co-chairing the Special Commission, the relationship between case and cause, moment and movement, and process and product. We talked about the false dichotomy between micro and macro practice, and that there is nothing wrong with focusing your energies on one or the other. We ended the episode with a call for the social work profession to focus energies on increasing the percentage of macro-concentration social work students to 20 percent by 2020. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 120: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is an interview with Marion Bogo and Toula Kourgiantakis from the University of Toronto Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. We talk about how simulation can be used to teach holistic competence. Marion and Toula talk about how in the late 2000s, they recognized that there were several problems with the existing model of teaching students practice skills. Their solution was to simulate real-world problems so that students could practice specific skills, get feedback, and improve their practice. Marion and Toula detail the steps necessary for creating simulations, how they involved field supervisors in the development of client simulations, the iterative nature of improving the simulations over time, and an innovative approach to help students learn knowledge and skills through practice and feedback they call "Practice Friday". You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 119: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is an interview with Stacey Freedenthal, Ph.D., LCSW about her book, Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques for Professionals. we talk about five tips: Tip #10 - Embrace a Narrative Approach: "Suicidal Storytelling" Tip #35 - Know When and Why to (and not to) Pursue Hospitalization Tip #36 - Know Why not to Pursue Hospitalization Tip #64 - Incorporate a Hope Kit Tip #88 - Propose a Letter to the Suicidal Self You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 118: In today’s episode, I talk to Erlene Grise-Owens, Justin "Jay" Miller, and Mindy Eaves, the editors of the The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals, published by The New Social Worker Press. We talk about self care plans, organizational care, and what schools of social work should do to support emergins social workers to make self care a practice. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 117: NOTE: This has the correct MP3 file. Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is an introduction to the Social Work Month 2018 essay I wrote for the New Social Worker online called "Open Letter to Social Work Professors Who Love Social Work Month." You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 116: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about the intersection of offline gang violence and online gang activity. I spoke with Dr. Desmond Patton about his research on cyberbanging, and his thoughts about social workers and social media. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 115: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is the third of a three-part series on the 2018 National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. I spoke with Allan Barsky, JD, MSW, PhD. In today's episode, Allan and I talked about 1.06(g) – professional affiliations and the removal of the word disability. Allan talks about the difference between baseline standards – don’t have sex with your clients, and aspirational standards – the ideal world in which, for example, we will always be promoting social justice. We talked about section 1.15 – disruption in electronic communications. We ended with a discussion of resources, such as the free NASW webinar on changes to the 2018 NASW Code of Ethics, and ways that you can provide feedback about things that you like or don’t like about the 2018 NASW Code of Ethics. Allan encourages people to be involved in the many online discussions of ethics. He encouraged folks to read and write articles for the Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics and other sites. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 114: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is the second of a three-part series on the 2018 National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. I spoke with Allan Barsky, JD, MSW, PhD. We talk about Section 1.05, cultural competence and whether online communities fall under the ethical standard of cultural competence. Allan mentions the NASW 2016 Standards and Indicators for Cultural Competence. A few minutes later I mention the 2017 NASW, ASWB, CSWE, and CSWA Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice, and feedback that the Tech Standards and the 2018 Code of Ethics painted technology as problematic. Spoiler alert: Allan disagreed. All of the NASW Practice Standards and Guidelines can be found on the NASW website. We talk about section 1.04(e), knowing the laws in your jurisdiction and the one where your client lives and how that affects practicing across state lines with or without technology. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 113: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is the first of a three-part series on the 2018 National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. I spoke with Allan Barsky, JD, MSW, PhD (whom you might remember from Episode 78 on social work ethics and Episode 76 about social workers in court). In Part 1 we provide a historical overview of the NASW Code of Ethics and discusses why the NASW Code of Ethics was revised for 2018. Then, Allan and I talk about Section 1.03, Informed Consent, and specifically subsection “i” which has to do with electronic searches. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 112: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about the parallels between social workers and superheroes. I spoke with John Vassello. John is the Associate Director of Field Education and Admissions in the Binghamton University Department of Social Work. He also serves as the Continuing Education Coordinator. John and I talk about an innovative approach to marketing the University of Binghamton's social work program AND the buzz he creates at conferences and recruitment events, all with squishy little superhero stress dolls. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 111: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about engaging people who are suicidal into professional mental health services. I spoke with Dr. Dana Alonzo from Fordham University. We talked about some of the reasons why people might not want to seek professional mental health services when they are suicidal, and some of the things that mental health professionals do to make it hard for folks to want to stay in treatment. Dana sees this as a problem of engagement. She described the process of how she developed her intervention and what it entails. She ends with some tips for how to improve engagement in treatment for anyone, regardless of suicide risk. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 110: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is the first of a three-part series on the arc of therapy – the beginning, middle and end. In today’s episode I’m going to talk about the beginning phase of therapy. I'll talk about some conceptual issues like what do people want when they come to treatment, and how should you be with clients? I’m also going to review some of the more concrete aspects of the beginning of treatment like biopsychosocial and DSM assessment, talking about confidentiality and billing. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 109: Today’s episode of the Social Work Podcast is about Death and Grief in the Digital Age. In today’s episode I spoke with Dr. Carla Sofka about the role of social media in how, why, where and when, who we grieve. She shares stories of people whose loved ones have died, only to find out that because of social media they are the last to know. Carla provides some digital literacy around death and grief in the digital age. She talks about social media posts as death notifications, about establishing digital advance directives and thinking about our digital dust. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 58: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is a rebroadcast of a 2010 interview with international social work recruiter David Dininio. I'm rebroadcasting Episode 58 because Kai Searle with Amicus Recruit has a fantastic opportunity for licensed social workers from the USA, Canada, South Africa, and Australia to do child protection work in the UK starting in January / February 2017. If you’re a licensed social worker with experience in child protective services and want to do social work in South East England, email kai@amicusrecruit.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 107: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about self-psychology. Tom is a retired professor of social work from Widener University and the author of several publications on social work and self psychology. In today's episode Tom talks about the role of empathy in self psychology, the function of mirroring, idealizing, and twinship experiences in the development of the self, how self psychology can be applied in individual, couple, and family contexts. Tom talks us through a case involving an adolescent male and shares resources for those interested in learning more. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 106: Today's Social Work Podcast is about "Zero Suicide" an effort to make suicide a "never event" in health care settings. I spoke with David W. Covington, LPC, MBA about how he went from clinician to health care executive, from running a crisis service to evangelizing Zero Suicide around the world. We talked about what Zero Suicide means for providers and health care leaders. He ends with information about how folks can get involved in Zero Suicide initiatives. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 105: Today's Social Work Podcast is about Recovery High Schools. I spoke with Dr. Lori Holleran Steiker, Distinguished Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Social Work, and author of the 2016 book, Youth and Substance Use: Prevention, Intervention and Recovery. We talk about risk factors for addiction, adolescent brain development, how to think about addiction from a biopsychosocial-spiritual perspective, why recovery or sober high schools fit an essential gap in the continuum of care for youth struggling with drugs and alcohol and how you can help to bring one to your community. We end our conversation with Lori making an impassioned plea to join the fight against adolescent addiction. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes, Google Play, or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 104: Today's guest, Kevin Briggs, is a retired motor Sargent from the California Highway Patrol. His patrol included the Golden Gate Bridge, which has between 25 - 60 suicide deaths every year. Kevin has talked down hundreds of people from the bridge. Kevin and I talk about what it was like to be a negotiator working with people seconds away from jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge. Kevin shared some of his strategies and his struggles working with hundreds of people, some of whom jumped and some of whom didn’t. He talked about getting famous and doing a TED talk. And then he shared something very personal – the story of how he found out that his son had been thinking of killing himself. Kevin provides valuable insight in the professional and personal side of crisis work. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 103: Today's episode is about the Grand Challenge Initiative for Social Work. I asked Dr. Richard P. Barth if there was a plan to bring practitioners, educators and policy makers on board with the Grand Challenge initiatives - he said they were already on board. I asked him to walk us through a Grand Challenge topic – he picked the challenge "Ensure Healthy Development for All Youth." I asked him if he hopes the Grand Challenge Initiative will make more funding available to the profession – he said that he hopes for more resources, not just funding. I asked him if he thought doctoral students should hitch their wagons to the Grand Challenges. He was very diplomatic, but basically said "yes." I asked him about the challenges coordinating between the major social work organizations, NASW which represents practitioners, CSWE which represents educators, and SSWR which represents researchers. He said he’s never seen organizations working together so closely as they have with the Grand Challenges. I asked him if there were topics that people would be surprised to find out were not Grand Challenge topics. He said, there were several and then explained why. As an author of a Grand Challenge paper, I know that we were asked to conceptualize what could be accomplished in the next 10 years. So I asked Dr. Barth what he hoped he would be able to say at the 10 year anniversary event of the Grand Challenges. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 102: In today’s episode of the Social Work Podcast, I speak with Lisa Damour, Ph.D. about her 2016 book, "Untangled: Guiding teenage girls through the seven transitions into adulthood." We talked about why a teenage girl’s erratic and confusing behavior is actually healthy, necessary, and natural. We talked about what’s going on in the minds of teenage girls and how parents can reframe their daughter’s thoughts feelings and actions. We talked about how society essentially abandons teenage girls and their parents. We talked about sex and the internet. And even though about 70% of the book focuses on how and when parents can know what’s going right, Dr. Damour draws on her extensive clinical experience to alert parents of when they have reason to worry. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 101: Episode 101 of the Social Work Podcast is a critique of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition: DSM-5 My guest is social work faculty member from Florida State University, Jeffrey Lacasse, Ph.D. Dr. Lacasse has published several critiques of the changes in DSM-5. In today's episode, Dr. Lacasse critiques the definition of mental illness, the empirical support for and reliability of most diagnoses, the politics associated with the DSM and the implications for social workers who represent the single largest group of professionals who provide DSM diagnoses. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 100: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about private practice. My guest, Dr. Julie Hanks, LCSW talks about key ingredients for a successful private practice including: identifying your "big message;" building relationships online and offline; knowing what you're good at and outsourcing what you're not good at; and reconciling "social work" with "private practice." We end our conversation with information about resources for social workers who want to start or build a private practice. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 99: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about becoming a clinical social worker. My guest is Dr. Danna Bodenheimer. In today's interview Danna and I talk about what makes a social worker a clinical social worker, what distinguishes a good from a bad clinical social worker, the one essential thing that all social workers bring to supervision, and the role of narcissism, observing ego, transference, counter-transference and the real relationship in clinical social work. We end with a discussion of money and how social workers need to earn enough so they can be present with their clients. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 98: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about Cognitive Enhancement Therapy (Eack, 2012) - a relatively new approach to addressing some of the most persistent and intractable problems faced by people with schizophrenia. In order to learn more CET, I spoke with Shaun Eack, Ph.D. Dr. Eack has been involved in most of the clinical research on CET. He is the David E. Epperson Associate Professor of Social Work and Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, and the director of the ASCEND Program, which stands for "Advanced Support and Cognitive Enhancement for Neurodevelopmental Disorders. I spoke with Shaun at the 2015 Society for Social Work and Research conference. In our interview, Shaun talks about the development of CET, the computer exercises and group therapy - the two components of the treatment, some amazing research findings, and how social workers can get trained in CET. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 97: Today’s episode of the Social Work Podcast answers that age-old question, how do I live tweet a conference? In April 2014, I recorded a conversation with members of the social media team that was live tweeting the 2014 American Association of Suicidology conference: April Foreman, Tony Wood, Quintin Hunt, Dese'Rae Stage, and Cara Anna. The conversation was recorded at the end of four intense days. You’ll hear team members talking about the personal and professional benefits of live tweeting, how they handled controversial comments, and what it was like to be part of an historic moment. [Note: this is an updated file that corrects an editing glitch.] You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 96: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is on family therapy for depressed and suicidal youth. I speak with two of the three developers of Attachment-based Family Therapy (ABFT), Guy S. Diamond, Ph.D. and Suzanne Levy, Ph.D. The third developer Gary M. Diamond (no relation to Guy Diamond) lives in Israel and was unavailable for the interview. ABFT is the only family-based psychotherapy with empirical support for reducing suicidal ideation in youth. In today's interview, Dr. Diamond and Dr. Levy discuss the theory and practice of Attachment-Based Family Therapy. Dr. Diamond mostly covers theory and concepts, and Dr. Levy addresses the question of "what does the therapist actually do in the therapy room." If you're interested in learning more about ABFT, you can buy the treatment manual Attachment Based Family Therapy for Depressed Adolescents, watch a free webinar http://youtu.be/KcwHznzq-S4, or attend a 3-day workshop April 22-24 in Philadelphia. More information and registration can be found here: https://www.drexel.edu/cnhp/academics/continuing-education/Health-Professions-CE-Programs/ABFT/. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 95: March is Social Work Month. I know, you're saying, but every month is social work month. Yes. That’s true... for social workers. But, social work is one of those professions that, to misquote Ogden Rogers [Episode 87], if you’re doing it well, people don’t know you’re doing it. So, let’s have a month to remind the general public of what social workers do. In that spirit, today's episode is a quick and dirty rundown of upcoming episodes, resources for social work and technology, and information about my book, Suicide in Schools, published by Routledge Press in December 2014. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 94: Today’s episode of the Social Work Podcast is on Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for social work. My guests, Marion Bogo and Mary Rawlings, and their co-authors Ellen Katz and Carmen Logie, are pioneers in the development, implementation, and evaluation of OSCE adapted for social work.The audience for today's episode is social work faculty, specifically practice instructors who are interested in learning more about how to objectively evaluate their student's skills. Today's episode reviews the origins of OSCE adapted for social work, how it is implemented in different types of social work programs, some findings from the research that has been conducted on OSCE, and some recommendations for faculty who are interested in learning more about this approach. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 93: Today’s episode of the Social Work Podcast is on Religious Child Maltreatment.In today’s episode I spoke with two people who bring very different perspectives to this issue. Bethany Brittan is on the board of the Child Friendly Faith project and is a survivor of RCM. Ann Haralamby is a certified family law specialist and a certified child welfare law specialist practicing in Tucson Arizona. I had two goals for our interview. The first was to give voice to the experience of people who have survived RCM. To that end, I present Bethany’s story as un-interrupted tape. The second was to unpack some of the differences between the personal experience of RCM and the professional challenges associated with protecting children from religious maltreatment. You’ll hear Ann and me talk about legal, educational, and bureaucratic issues associated with child maltreatment. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 92: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast looks at an innovative approach to developing strengths and resilience in youth experiencing homelessness - a music studio housed within an agency. I speak with Brian Kelly, Ph.D., assistant professor at Loyola University Chicago. Brian briefly describes factors that put youth at risk for homelessness and the three levels of services provided to homeless youth. We end with Brian playing some clips from the audio documentary, and discussing how the music provides insight into the youths' lives. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 91: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about shared trauma, one in which the provider and client experienced the same traumatic event simultaneously. I spoke with Dr. Carol Tosone, one of a handful of scholars whose writings and research have defined shared trauma. Dr. Tosone is Associate Professor at New York University Silver School of Social Work. She is a Distinguished Scholar in Social Work in the National Academies of Practice in Washington, D.C. Dr. Tosone unpacks the concept of shared trauma. She uses her personal experience of being in a therapy session on September 11, 2001, when the first plane flew over her building, and how sharing the trauma of 9/11 with her client affected her professional and personal life. During our conversation she answered many questions: How does a concurrent experience of the same traumatic event as your client affect the treatment relationship? In what ways is it beneficial to the treatment relationship? How do you know when it is detrimental? We end our conversation with recommendations for practitioners. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 90: In today's interview I speak with Dr. Laurence Steinberg, author of Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence. We spoke about the growing gap between onset of puberty and the end of adolescence; challenges facing parents, providers, and policy makers to provide adolescents with experiences and skills needed to be successful; and how reconceptualizing adolescence as an age of opportunity rather than an age risk is an essential reframe to address the needs of this youth in this developmental stage. We ended our conversation with recommendations for practitioners, educators, and policy makers. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 89: Today’s episode of the social work podcast about Cystic Fibrosis, or CF. We’re looking at CF in two parts. In part I we learn about this chronic, terminal illness. In Part II we learn about what social workers can do when working with people with CF. I speak with Elizabeth Shuman, LCSW. Liz is a clinical social worker with the Grove School, lives with CF, and is the co-founder of the non-profit OutRun38.org. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 88: Today's episode is about Medicaid, the most important program that most Americans know nothing about. I spoke with Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. We talked about his role in NAMD and the function of the organization. We spoke at length about the ethical and economic dilemma that has faced Medicaid lately - the development of a cure for Hepatitis C (Sovaldi). As Mr. Salo explained in this New York Times piece from August 2, 2014, Medicaid directors estimated that covering this cure for Hepatitis C could drive up the cost of health care by 10% to 15% across the board. Mr. Salo and I talked about how social workers can advocate for clients within a system that is constrained by economics. In the second half of our conversation, Mr. Salo described a future for health care that addressed many of the criticisms of the way managed care was conceptualized. He talked about the role of social workers in this new world of integrative behavioral health. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 87: In today's social work podcast, we're looking at the beginning, middle, and end of social work. No, this is not an apocalyptic tale of burning towers of progress notes and zombie utilization managers... although that does sound kind of interesting. No. Today’s episode is much more innocent than that. Ask any social worker, first year undergrad or emeritus professor, "what are the most basic phases of social work?" They will tell you: beginning, middle, and end. In today's Social Work Podcast we hear excerpts from a collection of poems and short stories called Beginnings, Middles and Ends: Sideways Stories on the Art and Soul of Social Work, written by Ogden W. Rogers, Ph.D., LCSW, ACSW, Professor and Chair of the Department of Social Work at The University of Wisconsin-River Falls, and published in 2013 by White Hat Communications. Ogden has written a beautiful little collection of stories from his 30 years of social work experience. Of the 99 stories in his collection, we’ll hear six, two each from Beginnings, Middles, and Ends. Special thanks to the musicians who gave permission to use their music: Thanks to guitarists Brett Parnell and Geremy Schulick of the group Threefifty. You heard clips from tunes "Home Somewhere" and "29" from their album "Collapses." Thanks to French pianist Laurent Assoulen, whose haunting piece MUSC from the album of the same name we heard on the final story Decathexis. And thanks to Michael McEachern, "One Way Heartbeats" from the album "New For Me." Sound effects from http://www.freesound.org You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 86: In today's social work podcast I spoke with two leading on youth suicide in schools. Jim Mazza and Dave Miller. Jim is at the University of Washington and director of their school psychology program. Jim is the past-president of the American Association of Suicidology. Dave Miller, is at SUNY Albany in the educational and counseling psychology program. He is the president-elect of the American Association of Suicidology and author the highly regarded text, Children and Adolescent Suicidal Behavior: School Based Prevention and Intervention published in 2011 by Guilford Press I spoke with Jim and Dave in April 2014 at the American Association of Suicidology conference. We talked about what is known and not known about what works to address suicide risk in schools, some of the barriers to implementing effective suicide prevention programs, and the value in framing school-based suicide prevention and intervention in a broader context, both as a way of selling the idea to school administrators and parents, as well as to think beyond just addressing students in a suicidal crisis. As an example, Jim talked about a curriculum he has been developing that uses concepts from Dialectical Behavior Therapy that is intended to improve emotion regulation and other issues in all students. A couple of notes about the interview. I recorded it in my conference hotel room and you might hear some street noises in the background. Right before we recorded the interview we had been in the hotel lobby talking with Marsha Linehan, developer of Dialectical Behavior Therapy. This is important, not because I like to name drop, but because you'll hear Dave and Jim reference Marsha and the conversation they were just having with Marsha downstairs. It all made great sense in the moment, but could understandably be a bit confusing if you weren't with us. Downstairs. With Marsha Linehan. At one point Jim mentions research that he is doing with his wife, but doesn't mention her name. She is Elizabeth Dexter-Mazza, licensed psychologist and expert in Dialectical Behavior Therapy. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 85: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast explores the similarities and differences between social work in the United States and the United Kingdom. David is the former National Chair of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW). He has over 30 years national and international experience in the field of social welfare and is recognized as an independent expert on matters of child protection and parenting. He is the founder and host of the Social World Podcast (www.socialworldpodcast.com). You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 84: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about Motivational Interviewing, Third Edition. In today's episode I speak with Mary Velasquez, Ph.D., Centennial Professor in Leadership for Community, Professional and Corporate Excellence and Director of the Health Behavior Research and Training Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Velasquez is a trainer for the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers and has been involved in research that informed the changes to Motivational Interviewing, Third Edition. In today's interview Mary talks about how she became involved with Motivational Interviewing, what has changed and stayed the same in the revised version of Motivational Interviewing, DARN CATS, the four change processes, and how people can experience Motivational Interviewing in less than 15 minutes. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 83: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about sex. My guest is Dr. Gail Wyatt. Dr. Wyatt and I talked a bit about the research, but mostly we talked about two of the techniques that were used in the clinical trial. The first was a way of having couples plan and enjoy safe sex. The second had to do with addressing past histories of abuse within the context of a consensual sexual relationship. It was at this point that the conversation moved away from couples therapy into a conversation about healthy sexual behaviors. Dr. Wyatt made the point that most health and mental health providers ask about a client's "age of first sexual contact" without distinguishing between consensual and non-consensual sexual contact. She pointed out that adolescents sometimes do not distinguish between the two. She encouraged providers to be more precise in their questions, and to find out if their clients are current victims of sexual abuse. We about how to include adolescent clients in mandated abuse reporting calls if current abuse is uncovered, and how to address the issue of sex among adolescents who are victims of past or current sexual abuse. And, as usual, I asked Dr. Wyatt if she could provide some resources for people who were interested in learning more, and she was happy to oblige. For those of you interested in learning more about Dr. Wyatt's research, I posted a list of resources on socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 82: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about how to balance the demands of doing good research with the passion that practitioners and advocates have for addressing the social problems that face their communities. My guests are Corey Shdaimah and Sanford Schram. I speak with Corey and Sandy about the differences between Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and why they use PAR rather than CBPR in their work with communities. They give examples of how challenging it is to actually do PAR. They talked about the need to bridge the gap between research and practice and how that was one of their motivations for writing their text, Change Research. Throughout our conversation Sandy and Corey bring up lots of ideas that are perfect discussion points for research classes, both at the masters and doctoral level. For those of you interested in learning more about doing the kind of community-based change research that we talk about in today's episode, I posted a list of resources on socialworkpodcast.com that Corey very generously provided. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 81: In today's social work podcast I spoke with Rebecca J. Macy. I started our conversation asking Rebecca how she became interested in identification of sex trafficking victims in human service delivery. Most of our conversation focused on how to identify and respond to victims of sex trafficking. We talked about the interdisciplinary nature of sex trafficking; how it involves representatives from law, medicine, social services, and how social workers can and should take the lead in coordinating efforts to help victims. And, as is the custom, we ended our conversation with resources for social workers, the Polaris project in particular. Rebecca was kind enough to send me a list of references and resources that I have posted to the socialworkpodcast.com website. If you want to find additional references and resources, as well as a transcript of my conversation with Rebecca, please go to the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 80: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast looks at Trauma Informed Care, one of the most promising approaches to working with people without causing additional trauma. And I had the honor of talking about Trauma-informed care with Nancy Smyth, professor and Dean of the School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo. There are three reasons why Nancy was the perfect guest for today's topic. First, she understands what it means to address trauma at the micro, mezzo, and macro level. She has worked in both mental health and addiction treatment settings for over 35 years as a clinician, manager, educator, researcher, and program developer. Second, she's what we like to call a “content” expert. She is a Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress. Her research, teaching, and practice focuses on trauma, substance abuse, and on working with people recovering from those experiences, including the use of innovative treatment approaches like EMDR and mindfulness meditation. In today's episode, we talked about Nancy's interest in TIC. She identified the basic assumptions behind Trauma-informed care. She clarified the relationship between a trauma-informed approach to working with clients and specific empirically supported treatments for people with trauma histories, and treatment for people with PTSD. She talked about some of the ways that she has translated trauma-informed principles into micro-level treatment practices. We ended with resources for people who are interested in learning more about Trauma-Informed Care, including a bunch of episodes on the inSocialWork podcast series. If you want to find additional references and resources, as well as a transcript of my conversation with Nancy, please go to the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 79: In today's episode, I spoke with one of the profession's leading scholars and experts on perinatal loss, associate professor of social work at Virginia Commonwealth University, Dr. Sarah Kye Price. We talked why it is important to do a thorough assessment of pregnancy and pregnancy-related loss during a biopsychosocialspiritual assessment. She talked about the importance of allowing mothers and parents to tell their story. She pointed out that, although no loss is worse than any other, there are different intensities and needs depending on the loss. She also noted that families in which there was a perinatal loss, there can also be growth. We talked about the different types of interventions and treatment approaches for individuals and families who experience perinatal loss. We ended our conversation with resources for people interested in learning more. If you want to find additional references and resources, as well as a transcript of my conversation with Sarah, please go to the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 78: Today's episode is about Social Work Ethics. I spoke with Allan Barsky, author of the Oxford University Press book, Ethics and Values in Social Work. We spoke about Allan's relational 6-stage model of ethical decision making, discussed dual relationships, did a role play, and analyzed the role play. We ended our conversation with Allan providing some resources for social workers who want to know more. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 77: Despite the fact that social workers are on the front lines and behind the scenes in nearly every facet of life, we're mostly invisible in the entertainment and news media. And when we do show up in the news, it is rarely good. In order to get an idea of what social workers could do to make a difference, I decided to go to the source - a journalist. In today's episode of the Social Work Podcast, I speak with award-winning journalist, Maiken Scott from WHYY in Philadelphia. Maiken starts by describing what she does – a day in the life of a reporter. She talks about how she finds experts to interview. We talked about how social workers can combat this misperception that social workers are the same as child welfare workers. She encouraged social workers to become advocates for their own professions. She points out that psychology, medicine, and nursing gets all sorts of information to reporters. Social work does not. She talked about what she looks for in a "good interview." We ended with Maiken's ideas for how social workers could influence the stories that are heard in the media. If you want to find additional references and resources, as well as a transcript of my conversation with Maiken, please go to the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 76: In today's interview, Allan and I talked about what it means for a social worker to be "court ready," especially for social workers whose jobs do not typically involve going to court. We talked about the difference between forensic social workers and social workers who have to appear in court. Allan talked about the difference between client confidentiality and client privilege, between being a witness and an expert witness, and between preparing for legal proceedings and disciplinary proceedings. He gave some pointers on how social workers should respond to a subpoena. I asked him about what for many clinicians is the most stressful part of going to court - examination and cross-examination. We talked about how social workers can prepare for it, including some strategies for dealing with "tough questions" during a cross-examination. We ended our conversation with Allan providing some resources for social workers who want to know more. If you want to find additional references and resources, as well as a transcript of my conversation with Allan, please go to the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 75: In today's Social Work Podcast, I spoke with Micki Washburn, LPC-S, and Danielle Parrish, Ph.D. about the proposed changes to DSM-5, including cross-cutting dimensional assessment, changes in the organization, and changes in diagnoses such as ADHD, Asperger's, Autism, Depression, Substance Use, and personality disorders. We talked about some of the intended consequences such as greater accuracy for diagnosis, and some of the possible unintended consequences such as loss of funding for diagnostic-specific services. We end with some thoughts about social work's role in the new DSM. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 74: Today's Social Work Podcast explores the issue of, "how do we know if our client wants to die by suicide?" Uncovering suicidal ideation and intent is one of the most challenging things that clinicians are expected to do. And if you can't do that, then you can't really do a thorough suicide assessment. And, as we all know, doing a thorough suicide assessment is one of the basic expectations of clinical social work. So, even though one of my first episodes of the Social Work Podcast addresses suicide assessment, I wanted to provide more in-depth information on the topic. So, I was very glad to be able to talk with one of the leading experts in the world, Shawn Christopher Shea. My interview with Shawn is a single episode in two continuous parts. In Part I Shawn and I talk about the CASE approach, including some of the validity techniques he has developed or uses to elicit suicidal ideation and intent. In the second part Shawn and I do a role play where he uses the CASE approach. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 73: Today's Social Work Podcast looks at the issue of non-suicidal self-injury, or NSSI. According to the International Society for the Study of Self-Injury, NSSI is the intentional destruction of body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially sanctioned. I spoke with Jennifer Muehlenkamp, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, and one of the world's leading experts in NSSI. In today's episode, Jennifer and I talked about the definition of NSSI, the intersection between suicidal and non-suicidal self-injury, and some things that clinicians should and should not do when working with clients who self-injure. We ended our conversation with some speculation on the future of NSSI as a stand-alone psychiatric disorder in the DSM-5. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app. http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.

Episode 72: In today's Social Work Podcast, episode 72, Psychodynamic therapy with vulnerable and oppressed populations, I speak with social work professor and author, Joan Berzoff. Dr. Berzoff addressed this issue in great detail in her 2012 edited text, Falling Through the Cracks: Psychodynamic Practice with Vulnerable and Oppressed Populations, published by Columbia University Press. In today's interview I asked Dr. Berzoff, what makes psychodynamic theory a valuable or useful approach for working with vulnerable, at-risk, and oppressed populations? Why should therapists be concerned about that which is symbolic in a client's life? Dr. Berzoff talked about the value of curiosity in psychotherapy; the use of insight; applications of psychodynamic theory to school-based programs; why don't people think of basic social work practice as psychodynamic; and how to conceptualize the role of insight-oriented work with clients whose basic needs are not being met. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Great news! Thanks to all of you who voted, the Social Work Podcast has won the 2012 NASW Media Award for best website. This is a huge honor and it would not have happened without your votes. If you convinced your friends, family members, classmates, colleagues and co-workers to vote, please extend my thanks to them. I am very honored. Thank you! Please head over to SocialWorkersSpeak.org to read the full list of winners: http://www.socialworkersspeak.org/hollywood-connection/and-the-2012-nasw-media-award-winners-are.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 71: In today's Social Work Podcast, episode 71, Religious Child Maltreatment, I speak with award-winning journalist and author, Janet Heimlich about her book: Breaking Their Will: Shedding Light on Religious Child Maltreatment published in 2011 by Prometheus Books. I was really interested in talking with Janet because her book focuses on something that is rarely discussed in social work - the role of religion in child abuse and neglect. In today's interview, Janet defines religious child maltreatment, we talk about religious authoritarian cultures; discuss examples of religiously motivated physical, emotional and sexual abuse, and medical neglect; talk about the laws that are in place that encourage religious child maltreatment, and discuss some ways that social service providers can talk with parents about authoritarian religious communities and religious child maltreatment. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 70: Today’s episode of the Social Work Podcast is about loneliness. According to my guest, Thomas Joiner, the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, loneliness might be at the heart of one of the most perplexing contemporary public health paradoxes. That paradox is, despite the fact that men are by all indicators the most powerful and privileged in every country in the world, “for each of the 12 leading causes of death, mortality is higher for men than women” (Joiner, 2011, p. 7). If we look at just one of those causes of death, suicide, the disparity between men and women is astounding: Of the approximately 36,000 Americans who died by suicide in 2009, approximately 80% were men. Of those men, approximately 90% were white men. Why would white men, who are the most privileged of the privileged, be the most likely to kill themselves? Dr. Joiner’s answer is simple: Loneliness. Dr. Joiner is the author of the book, "Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men's Success" published in 2011 by Palgrave Macmillan. In today's episode of the social work podcast, Dr. Joiner and I talk about biological and social factors that contribute to men's loneliness. We talk about the effects of loneliness on men's health and wellbeing, including the issue of suicide. We talk about how Dr. Joiner's research speaks to women and men who are not on the top, for example sexual and racial minorities. We talk about some of the solutions that Dr. Joiner proposes, including the simple soution of reaching out. We end our conversation on a personal note. I tell Dr. Joiner that my wife recently gave birth to twin boys. I ask him what I can do to prevent my sons from growing up and becoming lonely men. He was kind enough to give me some free advice. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast.

Episode 69: Today's Social Work Podcast, Cultural Considerations in Military Social Work, is the second in a two-part series with Anthony Hassan on Military Social Work. In Part I, Anthony and I spoke about The Training and Education of Military Social Workers. Any discussion of culture and culturally relevant practice begins with the idea that we are all cultural beings. We see the world differently depending on which culturally-informed lenses we have on. In the United States, where military service is not a requirement, being in the military offers a unique set of lenses. I got a glimpse of the very practical, day-to-day implications of seeing the world through military lenses when I asked today's guest what I thought was a very straightforward question – a question I ask all my guests before the interview starts – "what do you want me to call you?" Jonathan Singer: I didn't actually ask you – what do you want me to call you? Do you want me to call you Anthony? Dr. Hassan?... Anthony Hassan: Oh, please, Anthony. Surely not Major Hassan. You know I'm still in my own transition. It is interesting. It has been a year and a half now. I still reach to put on my hat. If my hair is blowing in the wind, it is like, "why is that happening? Oh – you don't have your hat on." So I go to reach for a hat. Or, just the other day I was like, "my goodness my left arm is tired from carrying this brief case." But I wouldn't put it in my right hand. I'm thinking, "why aren't you putting it in your right hand, Anthony?" Well, because I've always had to keep my right hand free to salute. Jonathan Singer: Oh... Anthony Hassan: And you know, believe it or not, this morning I walked out of my house, it was a little breezy – I feel it in my hair, and I thought instantly, "where is your cover? where is your hat?" It is still a transition that we all have to make. And so when I jokingly said, "don't call me Major Hassan" it is because, you know, sometime I still talk as if I'm still in the service. And I talk about people I talk with every day as "civilians." It is a transition. And here I am, you know moving from one career to the next, pretty seamless, everything is going ok. Just imagine what it must be like to leave service, young, without a job, without any skills, having been to war twice, and maybe having a wife and a three year old daughter. You're all of the sudden in Los Angeles again where you grew up. What is that going to be like? That's all I want social workers to try to understand. How can we help this family, this individual, navigate this transition? So, how can we help? The Council on Social Work Education's Military Social Work task force, chaired by Anthony Hassan, provides some guidance on the knowledge, values and skills that all military social workers should have. Here's their statement on educational policy 2.1.4 - engaging diversity and difference in practice "Advanced practitioners in military social work understand there are many subgroups and subcultures in the military and veterans' communities. Interventions and personal reactions differ over time with changes in social policy and diversity among individuals. Advanced practitioners in military social work understand the power and authority structure within the military (as part of the culture) and the impact this structure can have on the lives of service members and their families. They recognize the impact of intersectionality of various diversity factors (e.g., in-rank structure [hierarchy]; military occupational specialty statuses; racial status; gender; service cultures and practices; "family" composition and definition; sexual orientation; age; disability; life stage; culture and ethnicity; spirituality; and citizenship status) on direct practice. They understand the differences in factors that motivate people to enter, serve, separate from, and transition into the VA system of care. CSWE identified the following practice behaviors: - Advanced practitioners in military social work manage potential conflicts between diverse identities within and among individuals and the military and veterans' organizations; - manage potential conflicts between personal feelings/expression and collective/ institutional responsibility; - recognize the potential risk and protective factors among diverse populations and communities that may be the result of military service; and - communicate with a culturally responsive approach that includes service members with varying statuses such as active duty/retired, guard/ reserves, and combat/garrison." (CSWE, 2010, pp. 7 -8). In today's interview, Anthony and I talked about the similarities and differences between military and non-military social work; is it necessary for social workers to have military experience in order to be effective doing military social work?; what are some mistakes that civilians make when working with people in the military?; What are the treatment needs of community dwelling veterans? How the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have advanced our understanding of and treatments for PTSD and other disorders. Anthony ended our conversation emphasizing that when we think of community dwelling veterans we should remember their strengths as well as their needs.

Episode 68: Today's Social Work Podcast, The Training and Education of Military Social Workers, is the first of a two-part series. Part II, is a discussion of Cultural considerations in military social work. I'm doing this two part series because whether you agree or disagree with America n's involvement in what has now become the longest continuous combat engagement in its 235 year history, "There is an urgent need to understand and engage with the military service members, veterans, their families, and their communities in effective [social work] practices" (CSWE, 2010, p. 2). I hear some of you right now; I'm reading your thoughts: you don't work for the Veterans Administration; you're not contracted by the military to provide services; you don't wear the uniform and serve in the armed forces. And yet, according to my guest, Anthony Hassan, you could still be a military social worker. According to a 2011 Rand report, "Since October 2001, approximately 2 million U.S. troops have deployed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Many of these previously deployed individuals have since left the military or retired, and most previously deployed National Guard and reservists have returned to their home communities" (p. iii). These "community dwelling veterans" seek services where they live - in their communities. So, for all of you who work in communities - and that's everyone - chances are you're providing services to veterans and their families. And that's the main focus of today's military social work. And yet, most of us, unless we work directly with the military, have no idea what might be required for effective practice with this population. By all accounts, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have exacted a significant toll on community dwelling veterans and their families. In response to this need, in 2010, the Council on Social Work Education published guidelines for educational competencies for advanced social work practice in military social work. The authors of these guidelines explained, "with no end in sight and the ultimate results of these wars uncertain, we are now challenged with both a military that is exhibiting the stress-related consequences of these long and multiple combat deployments and a rapidly growing veteran population in need of a wide range of combat-related physical and mental health care services. Every community in the United States has been affected, and service delivery systems are trying to respond. Military social work, as a field of practice and research, is critical to our relevance as social workers, to the advancement of new career options, and in our leadership among the helping professions. This does not mean that we endorse war or aggression, but rather that we extend meaningful help to those who have been affected. This is a moment in history when we can reassert our central influence as a pivotal healing profession in the midst of wartime and in the aftermath by promoting a vigorous social work research agenda and appropriate training to effectively prepare military social workers" (CSWE, 2010, p. 2). In order to better understand both the training and education of military social workers, I spoke with a man who is on the forefront of the current reconceptualization of military social work. My guest, Anthony Hassan, is a retired Air Force officer with 25 years of experience in military social work. He served during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 on the first-ever Air Force combat stress control and prevention team embedded with an Army unit. He led the largest military substance abuse and family advocacy programs in the Pacific which were recognized as benchmark programs and training sites for all other Pacific bases. He chaired the committee responsible for creating the Council on Social Work Education's model for advanced social work practice in military social work (CSWE, 2010) which I quoted a few minutes ago. And, if those bona fides aren't enough, he is currently the director of the Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans and Military Families at the University of Southern California's School of Social Work. In today's Social Work Podcast, Anthony and I talked about the how the definition of military social work has changed over time, how educators and practitioners can use the CSWE guidelines, opportunities for advanced training at the master's and doctoral level in military social work at USC's school of social work, and online certificate programs for non-USC students. We talked about the use of a "virtual patient" as part of the training program. We talked about the central role that the profession of social work could and should play addressing the issues faced by active duty military, community dwelling veterans, and their families. We talked about the kinds of jobs that military social workers do. We ended our conversation with some resources for listeners wanting to know more. A couple of notes about this interview. Anthony and I spoke for an hour and a half. Our conversation about education and training actually happened in the second half of our interview. Because I'm presenting it as "Part I" there are a couple of times when he makes reference to information that we discussed in the beginning of the conversation... which is now Part II. I hope that's not too confusing. Another thing that stands out about this interview is that, for the first time, I invited listeners of the social work podcast who are fans on the social work podcast Facebook page, to submit questions for Anthony. The response was fantastic. There were over 20 questions, most of which I couldn't ask. But those that were suggested on Facebook I identified as such. So, thank you to everyone who posted questions - you'll recognize your contribution to this interview. And I'll definitely be asking folks to submit questions for future podcasts. Finally, as with all my remote interviews, this one was done using Skype. Anthony was in Los Angeles and I was 3,000 miles away in Philadelphia. And now, without further ado, on to episode 68 of the Social Work Podcast, The Training and Education of Military Social Workers: An Interview with Dr. Anthony Hassan.

Episode 67: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is an interview with Maureen Blaha, the Executive Director of the National Runaway Switchboard (http://www.nrscrisisline.org/). So, if you're a social worker and you work in outpatient or inpatient or residential or you're in a school-based setting and you have a client who says I'm out of here. I am running away from home or maybe they don't even say I'm out of here. Maybe they're saying I don't know how I can live with my parents here. So, what do you do? What are some resources for you? If you're in a school setting and you're working with groups of kids, are there curricula that you can get a hold of, free curricula that you can use with your clients? Well, these are all setup questions because, of course, the answers are in today's episode of the Social Work Podcast. Maureen Blaha, the Executive Director, talks about the National Runaway Switchboard which was established in 1971 and serves as the federally-designated national communication system for homeless and runaway youth. Recognized as the oldest hotline of its kind in the world, NRS with the support of more than 150 volunteers handles an average of 100,000 calls annually. NRS provides crisis intervention, referrals to local resources and education and prevention services to youth, families and community members throughout the country 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Over 13,000 youth have been reunited with their families through the NRS home free program done in collaboration with Greyhound Lines, Inc. The NRS Crisis Hotline is 1-800-RUNAWAY and for more information, you can visit their website at http://www.1800runaway.org. In today's interview, Maureen and I talked a little bit about what's different for kids who are runaways and homeless compared to 1971 when the Switchboard was established. We also talked about why the end of the school year is an at-risk time for teens in crisis and talk about some signs the parents can look for, what things parents, teachers and adults can do to address this issue of teens in crisis. She talks a little bit about the use of social media including a new live chat service that has been implemented on the website and how that's a way to connect with teens who maybe don't feel comfortable calling but who feel very comfortable chatting. And finally, we talked a bit about how they got Chris "Ludacris" Bridges involved to do their most recent public service announcement. And now, on to Episode 67 of the Social Work Podcast: The National Runaway Switchboard: Interview with Maureen Blaha

Episode 66: Today's Social Work Podcast is about helping families adjust to a gay or lesbian child. According to the website, comingoutcominghome.com, "The discovery that a child is gay or lesbian can send shockwaves throughout a family. A mother will question how she's raised her son; a father will worry that his daughter will experience discrimination. From the child's perspective, gay and lesbian youth fear their families will reject them, and that they will lose financial and emotional support. All in all, learning a child is gay challenges long held views about sexuality and relationships, and the resulting uncertainty can produce, for all parties, anger, resentment, and concern for safety and acceptance." So, how can social workers help families adjust to a gay or lesbian child? To get some answers, I spoke with Dr. Michael LaSala author of the 2010 book, Coming Out, Coming Home: Helping Families Adjust to a Gay or Lesbian Child, published by Columbia University Press. Dr. LaSala is director of the MSW program and associate professor at the School of Social Work at Rutgers University. He has been in practice for more than twenty-five years and he currently treats LGBT individuals and families at the Institute for Personal Growth in Highland Park, NJ. (www.ipgcounseling.com). Dr. LaSala recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Estonia where he investigated the impacts of stigma on Estonian lesbians and gay men. In addition to his book and numerous scholarly publications, you can read his blog on Gay and Lesbian Well-Being on PsychologyToday.com I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. LaSala when he came to Temple University in March of 2011. He gave a talk sponsored by Temple's School of Social Work about his federally funded qualitative study of 65 families of gay and lesbian youth, which formed the basis for his book, Coming Out, Coming Home. One of the surprising findings in his study was that some of the young people he interviewed "wanted to disclose their sexual orientation to their mothers and fathers because they believed that their parents could provide the support they needed to cope with the challenges of being gay" (LaSala, 2010, p. 55). Ok, so what's surprising about kids wanting their parents support? Well, until recently, it was just kind of assumed that straight parents wouldn't be supportive if and when they found out their child was gay or lesbian. Gay and lesbian children often found themselves disowned, kicked out of the house, cut-off financially, and even abused. As a result individual therapists and programs for LGBT youth focused on finding support networks (peers, friends, gay and lesbian adults, straight supporters), people who became the youth's "chosen family" who could provide emotional, financial and emergency support when biological families turned their backs on their LGBT kids. For decades it was standard operating procedure for professionals to support youth to stay "in the closet" until college or into adulthood when they could be financially and emotionally independent of their parents. So, ignoring the family seemed to make sense in 1980. But, according to researchers like Michael LaSala, Cindy Conley (whom you might remember from episode 62 of the Social Work Podcast), Caitlin Ryan (whom you can hear on episode 33 of Living Proof, the podcast series of the School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo) and others, ignoring the family doesn't work so well for gay and lesbian youth in in 2011. And it wasn't what the kids in Dr. LaSala's study said they wanted from their parents. There's a very practical reason for this shift: youth are coming out much younger than in the past. According to a 2006 study by Caitlin Ryan and her colleagues, kids in the USA are, on average, 13 when they come out. For professionals this means that you're not dealing with kids about to graduate from high school, or in the middle of college. You're dealing with 8th graders. And there's a big difference between supporting a graduating senior to stay in the closet for three months so that her parents won't refuse to pay for college, and supporting an 8th grader to stay in the closet for five to six years. We've also learned that that parental support matters to adolescents. Even though peer influence increases during adolescence, it turns out that parents and families are more important peers. Pop quiz - what's more important in keeping high school students from trying to kill themselves – parental support or peer support? Ok. I know that was a bad pop quiz because I set you up for the answer. But, just to be clear, it is parental support (Kidd et al., 2006). This recent emphasis on families is creating a paradigm shift in work with gay and lesbian youth. The importance of families in the health and well-being of LGBT youth was highlighted by the Institute of Medicine's first-ever report on LGBT health, published in April 2011. In that report, families were identified as "an important social structure." Now the kids in Dr. LaSala's study didn't need to read an IOM report to know that. They knew that their families were an important source of support. They also knew that coming out wouldn't be easy, and that's why they wanted to come out to their parents - so their parents could provide that support. The IOM report also said that families were "a promising venue for interventions." Dr. LaSala's study, Coming Out, Coming Home, provides valuable insight into the types of interventions that might be useful with families of gay and lesbian youth. In today's interview, Michael and I talked about the five stages that families in his study described going through before, during, and after finding out their child was gay or lesbian. We talked about some of the challenges that social workers face when a child hasn't come out to his or her parents. Michael gave some examples of practical and useful indirect questions that therapists can use with young clients whom they suspect are questioning their sexual orientation, but are ambivalent about discussing it. We talked about how managing stigma was a family affair. We ended our conversation with a discussion about empirical support for family-based work with gay and lesbian youth, as well as resources for social workers interested in learning more. And now, on to Episode 66 of the Social Work Podcast: Coming Out, Coming Home: Interview with Michael C. LaSala, Ph.D.

Episode 65: [Corrected audio file] Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast looks at Evidence Based Practice. I wanted to do an episode on Evidence-Based Practice because it has been the subject of a lot of debate in Social Work. One of the controversies is over how to define evidence based practice. So, how do you define it? March 2, 2011 I created a poll on the Social Work Podcast website and asked people to vote on one of four possible definitions of evidence-based practice. I let people know about the poll through a brief podcast update, a tweet on the SWP twitter feed, and a message on the Facebook fan page. In seven days 183 people voted. One person said EBP was "a waste of time." Seven people (3% of respondents) said that EBP was "when practitioners are mandated to use certain interventions/programs by a funding source (e.g., managed care)." Fifty-eight people - almost 1/3 of respondents - said that EBP was "using empirically supported treatments (e.g. DBT or MST)." 117 people - nearly two thirds of respondents - said that EBP was "a process that uses the best available research, along with client values and practitioner expertise, to answer a variety of practice questions." So, who is right? Well, according to a 2011 article written by today's guest, Danielle Parrish and her co-author Allen Rubin, EBP is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individuals [clients]" (Sackett, Rosenberg, Gray, Haynes, and Richardson, 1996, p. 71) and "the integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and [client] values" (Sackett, Straus, Richardson, Rosenberg, and Haynes, 2000, p.1). In other words, EBP is a process that uses the best available research, and practitioner expertise and client values, to answer a variety of practice questions. So, why isn't Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or one of the agency-mandated programs considered Evidence-Based Practice? Stay tuned and find out. In today's interview, Danielle and I talk about the difference between the process of evidence-based practice and evidence-based practices, also known as empirically-supported treatments. We talk about why social workers should use the evidence-base practice process. Danielle identified some of the limitations of the EBP process, resources for social workers interested in accessing the evidence-base, and ways that social workers could support each other in being evidence-based practitioners. Today's episode does not cover the history of evidence-based practice. That was covered by Bruce Thyer in a 2009 episode of Living Proof, the podcast series of the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. Oh, and I'm talking to Danielle because she's one of our profession's experts on this subject. Check out her bio: Danielle E. Parrish, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor with the University of Houston, Graduate College of Social Work. Dr. Parrish's research broadly focuses on the development and implementation of evidence-based behavioral health interventions for adolescents and adult females. Dr. Parrish was the PI on a large cross-sectional survey, which assessed the views and implementation of evidence-based practice among a diverse sample of behavioral health practitioners in Texas and validated a short version of the Evidence-Based Practice Process Assessment Scale (EBPPAS-Short Version), which she co-authored with Allen Rubin. She has also developed and evaluated a training model for community practitioners on the EBP process. She's published articles and book chapters on the process of Evidence-Based Practice and made numerous invited and peer reviewed presentations on this model and the integration of EBP into social work education. Today's interview was recorded in Portland at the 2011 Society for Social Work and Research conference. And now, on to Episode 65 of the Social Work Podcast: The Process of Evidence-Based Practice: An interview with Danielle E. Parrish, Ph.D.

Update: Next week I'm posting an episode on Evidence-Based Practice. The interview is really nice and I think you'll really like it. With all episodes I do an intro where I introduce my guest, talk about why this topic is relevant to social workers, and then talk about what is covered in the interview. And so that's all well-and-good. Except that I've struggled with this intro because everyone seems to have a different understanding of what is Evidence-Based Practice. So, this is where you come in. Twice. First thing - I've posted a poll on the Social Work Podcast website, socialworkpodcast.com. Take a minute – literally one minute – to go to the site and select the definition of EBP you most agree with. I'm going to use the final tally in the introduction. The second thing is I want to hear from you. I want to know how you use evidence-based practice in your social work practice. There's a very easy way to do this: call and leave a message on the Social Work Podcast answering machine – 215.948.2456. You can either dial the number directly, or go to make the call for free, go the Social Work Podcast website and click on the "CALL ME" button and Google will connect you to the answering machine for free. When you call, tell me your first name, where you're from, and what you think. If you can help me out with those two things – the poll and the voicemail, I'll be set for next week. Thanks so much for listening to the Social Work Podcast, check back next week for the episode on Evidence-Based Practice, and keep on making a difference wherever you are.

Episode 64: Today's Social Work Podcast is a "behind the scenes" look at the Social Work Podcast. Danielle Parrish, social work faculty at the University of Houston, interviews the founder and host, Jonathan Singer, about how the Social Work Podcast started, how he selects his topics and the people that he interviews and how after the interview the podcast is actually produced and then finally how he uses Twitter, Facebook, and Google Voice [215.948-2456] to connect with listeners. And now on to Episode 64 of the Social Work Podcast: Behind the Scenes at the Social Work Podcast: Interview with Jonathan Singer

Happy New Year to all of the listeners of the Social Work Podcast. There are 100,000 of you from 178 countries. You make up an amazing community. Thanks so much for listening and making the Social Work Podcast one of the professions most visible resources.

Episode 63: Today's Social Work Podcast is a broad overview of current policies and practices associated with adoption in the United States. According to the Evan B. Donaldson Institute, 6 in 10 Americans have had experience with adoption, meaning you, or a family member or close friend was adopted, adopted a child, or put a child up for adoption. Although most Americans have experience with adoption, as you'll hear in today's interview, the world of adoption is incredibly complex. For example, is it ever acceptable to consider the race of a prospective adoptive family when making placement decisions? For example, you're looking to place an African American child. You have three prospective adoptive families - two African American and one White. Assuming all things are equal, could you use race as an exclusionary criterion? What about if the child was White, Latino, or Native American? If you know the answer - congratulations. If not, keep listening. And even if you know the answer, keep listening. My guest, Dr. Ruth McRoy, has been an academician, researcher, practitioner, trainer and lecturer in the field for over 30 years. She is a member of the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) Board and is a Senior Research Fellow and member of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute Board. In today's conversation, Ruth talks about different kinds of adoptions such as transracial, international, infant placement, and foster care adoption. She talks about the role of the social worker in adoption, from pre-placement to post-placement. She talks about some of the national and international laws that regulate adoption, such as the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and the Hague Convention. We end today's conversation with some resources that you can tap for more information about adoption, including the Evan B. Donaldson Institute, the National Resource Center for Adoption, AdoptUsKids.org, and the North American Counsel on Adoptable Children. One quick word about today's Social Work Podcast: I recorded the interview with my Zoom H2 digital recorder. Ruth and I were sitting in an empty lecture hall at the Oregon Convention Center during the Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education. Empty rooms are something of a commodity at conventions and I've done my best to edit out the sounds of people opening and closing the door looking for their own place to get some privacy. And now, without further ado, on to Episode 63 of the Social Work Podcast: Adoption Policy and Practice in the USA: Interview with Ruth McRoy, Ph.D.

Episode 62: Risk for suicide among gay youth has caught a lot of attention in the American media as of late. There have been a number of youth who have been bullied because they have been gay or perceived to be gay and who have consequently died by suicide. Dan Savage and friends and colleagues and supporters have put together an amazing project called "It Gets Better" (http://www.itgetsbetterproject.com/) focusing on the issue of youth suicide for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, question and queer teens. Now there is good reason for this. According to the U.S. Government's Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide, gay and lesbian youth bear an increased risk of suicide, substance abuse, school problems, and isolation because of a "hostile and condemning environment, verbal and physical abuse, rejection and isolation from [peers and family]" (Gibson, 1989). Social worker and pioneer gay and lesbian researcher Caitlin Ryan, found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults who reported higher levels of family rejection during adolescence were 8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide, 5.9 times more likely to report high levels of depression, 3.4 times more likely to use illegal drugs, and 3.4 times more likely to report having engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse compared with peers from families that reported no or low levels of family rejection. So, here's the thing. Families who reject their kids are doing their kids a huge disservice. And that's the point of today's podcast. Today I'm talking with Dr. Cynthia Conley about the concerns of heterosexual parents of gay and lesbian youth. Cynthia Conley, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Her research focuses on parental concerns about having gay and lesbian children. Currently, Professor Conley is investigating the types of clinical interventions used with heterosexual parents of gay and lesbian children to develop a best practice model to improve family cohesion during the coming out crisis. Professor Conley has worked with LGBT adolescents and their parents since the late 1990s, focusing on heterosexual parent’s acceptance of their LGBT children. She provides consultation to organizations, educational institutions, and service providers on working with families of LGBT children. She received her B.A. from Purdue University, her MSW from Indiana University, and her Ph.D. from the University of Louisville. So here's the pop quiz for you: When lesbian or gay youth come out to their parents, what concerns are their parents most likely to have? Well, I'm not going to answer - you'll have to listen to the podcast for that. And I hope you like it. So, on to episode 62 of the Social Work Podcast, Concerns of Parents of Gays and Lesbians: An Interview with Dr. Cynthia Conley. To read more about this episode, or the Social Work Podcast, please visit https://www.socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 61: We've all heard the Serenity prayer. Even if you don't know what it is called, you'll recognize it by the first few words... "God grant me the serenity..." The serenity prayer is synonymous with Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-step programs. Hundreds of millions of people have used the serenity prayer to fight and beat addiction. And it is only three lines and 25 words. Most episodes of the social work podcast take huge topics - like stigma, suicide, and cognitive-behavior therapy, and try to distill them into 30-minute overviews. Today's podcast flips that on its head. Today we're spending over thirty minutes to unpack 25 words. My hope is that listeners learn something about the Serenity prayer - something that they can incorporate into their social work education or practice. In today's social work podcast, I spoke with Eileen Flanagan, author of the award winning book, "The Wisdom to know the difference: When to make a change - and when to let go." Her book was endorsed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She holds a B.A. from Duke and an M.A. from Yale and teaches at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You can read more about her work at her website, http://www.eileenflanagan.com. To read more about this episode, or the Social Work Podcast, please visit https://www.socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 60: Today's Social Work Podcast is on social skills training with children and adolescents. My guest, Craig Winston LeCroy defines social skills as "a complex set of skills that facilitate the successful interactions between peers, parents, teachers, and other adults" (LeCroy, 2009, 653). Social skills include everything from dress and behavior codes, to rules about what, when, and how to say or not to say something. Social skills training is a form of behavior therapy, and as such focuses on behaviors, rather than thoughts or feelings, as the targets for change. Traditional behavior modification is often thought of in terms of task completion, for example, using star charts to get kids to clean their rooms or do homework. But in social skills training, behavior modification principles are used to teach people skills that help them to be successful in social situations. I encountered an example of social skills training last week with my 2 1/2 year old daughter. My daughter's daycare is really good about letting us know what the kids did during the day. My wife and I often use that information as the basis for conversations with our daughter. During dinner, we'll ask questions like, "Did anyone plant flowers today?" to which my daughter has typically has yelled out an enthusiastic, "me!" Last week we were playing this game and I asked, "Did anyone pretend to be a train today?" For the first time since she could talk, my daughter sat there in silence. Was she ignoring my question? No. She was answering my question non-verbally. She was raising her hand. My wife and I were shocked. You're probably not shocked to learn that at home, my wife and I don't raise our hands in response to questions. So, who is teaching her to raise her hand? The next day, I went to pick her up from preschool, a classroom that she transitioned into about three weeks ago. The class was sitting in a circle and her teacher was asking the class questions. My daughter and her little friends were all answering by raising their hands. Clearly this is where she had learned this very specific social skill – that you answer questions by raising your hand, not by shouting. I don't know how her teacher did it, but I suspect that she used basic behavior modification strategies such as explaining the new behavior, modeling it, and consistently reinforcing it by rewarding those who did it, and punishing (either by calling out or ignoring) those who did not. I also suspect that my daughter learned by watching her older classmates do it. While part of me was sad to see that my daughter's enthusiastic "me" had been converted into a very calm, silent, and socially acceptable raised hand, another part of me understood that becoming Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter was not in her best interest. Now, I can tell you that when I was working with kids who were getting expelled for talking back to their teachers, arrested for provoking the cops, or getting beaten up because they managed to say exactly the wrong thing to the wrong person, hearing a parental anecdote about a toddler raising her hand would have left me wanting just a little bit more. So I asked one of social work's leading experts, Craig Winston LeCroy, professor of social work at Arizona State University, to talk with us about social skills training for children and adolescents. Professor LeCroy has developed and tested social skills prevention and intervention programs, including a social skills-based prevention program for adolescent girls (LeCroy, 2001), a social skills program for training home visitors (LeCroy & Whitaker, 2005), and an empirically based treatment manual outlining a social skills program for middle school students (LeCroy, 2008). In today's interview, Craig defines social skills training and emphasizes fit between social skills training and the ecological and strengths orientation of social work. He talks about the how social workers can effectively train youth in social skills, giving particular emphasis to the concepts of overlearning, role playing and modeling. He talks about providing skills training in groups, as well as an alternative to traditional expressive play therapy - individual child skill therapy. Craig emphasizes that successful social skills training requires knowledge of specific situations and can therefore be very culturally responsive. He talks about how early social skills training programs focused on juvenile delinquency, and discusses some of the existing evidence, particularly around modeling, to support social skills training as an effective intervention. Craig talks about his current research on using social skills in a universal prevention program with adolescent girls called "Empowering Adolescent Girls." We finish our conversation with a discussion of resources around social skills training. One quick word about today's social work podcast: I recorded it using a Zoom H2 recorder on location at the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) annual conference. If you listen closely you can hear the sounds of San Francisco in the background: a clock chiming, busses loading and unloading passengers, and even some pigeons congregating outside of the interview room. They don't detract from the interview, but I wanted to give fair warning in case you were listening to this podcast anywhere were those sounds might be cause for alarm. So, without further ado, on to Episode 60 of the Social Work Podcast, Social Skills Training with Children and Adolescents: Interview with Craig LeCroy, Ph.D.

Episode 59: Today's Social Work Podcast is on incorporating religion and spirituality into social work practice with African Americans. Or at least that's the official title. The unofficial title is, "If my client brings God into the conversation, what should I do?" I spoke with Nancy Boyd-Franklin, best-selling author, multicultural researcher, family therapist and clinical trainer, and recipient of awards from the American Psychological Association, Association of Black Psychologists, and the American Family Therapy academy. When I was a social work intern, I worked with an African American mother who had AIDS and whose 6 children were HIV+. The father of her children had been an IV drug user who had died of AIDS. The mother was in poor health, and rarely sought her own treatment. I had a hard time tracking her down because she spent most of the day, every day, on public transportation with one child or another taking them to and from medical appointments. I remember being on the bus with her one day (because that was only place I could meet with her), listening to her talk about how she had successfully fought hospital administration to get treatment for one of her kids. Being the eager social work student that I was, fully prepared to acknowledge my clients strengths and resources, I told her that I was in awe of her strength. "How do you do it?" I asked her. Her response totally caught me off guard. She said, "The good lord will give me only as much as I can handle." I had no idea how to respond. See, I was expecting her to say something like, "a parent will do what a parent has to do," or maybe, "I don't know either; I sure could use a vacation." I expected her response to be much more... textbook? You know, the kind of response that I had read about in my textbooks so that I could follow up with, "and so if you took a vacation, what would be different?" Which really makes no sense at all since she was obviously not about to zip off to the Dominican Republic for a week at the beach. Not so textbook. In that moment, on the bus, I found myself completely at a loss for words. Not that I didn't have a million things running through my head, I did. I just thought they all sounded stupid. On one level I was trying to figure out what she meant: "ok. She said that the good lord will give her only as much as she can handle... does that mean that when she can't handle any more, she'll die? or that the good lord knows exactly how much she can handle and then when she can't handle any more the good lord will stop giving her things to handle, or is there a third option I'm just not thinking about. I mean, I'm just a social work intern, I'm not sure what I can offer above and beyond what the "good lord" can offer her, so what now?" Ok, so in case you got lost in all of my self-talk here's a quick recap. I asked my client a question. She responded. That's it. What should have come next was me saying something intelligent. Instead, what I said was, "Wow." So why did I have such a hard time coming up with an appropriate response? Well, for one, I thought that as a social worker I should know what my client meant, and I should understand what she meant... Another things was that I had a different belief system from my client and it didn't seem right to disagree with her, nor did it seem right to agree with her, because that wouldn't be genuine. My social work education did not prepare me to deal with issues of religion and spirituality. My textbooks didn't provide me with templates for how to respond when my clients brought up the issue of God. Prior to 2001, accreditation guidelines from the Council on Social Work Education didn't require schools to include spiritual assessment in the biopsychosocial assessment, which I talk about in more detail in Episode 2, Biopsychosocial-spiritual Assessment and Mental Status Exam. Another reason is that there has been a long and contentious relationship between religion and the helping professions. Religion was either the answer or the problem. On one hand, the social work profession is in part rooted in the Friendly Visitor movement which believed that the right version of religion was the answer to poverty. On the other hand, you have Freud's legacy of religion being considered an obsessional neurosis. So for many providers, the only safe middle ground was "Religion is not within my scope of practice and therefore I'm not going to deal with it at all." Well, today's guest, Nancy Boyd Franklin, would say that when religion or spirituality is part of a client's life, the effective provider has to be able to deal with and be willing to engage in conversations about it. "Wow" just won't cut it. She would see this mother's belief in the power of the good lord as a sign of strength and resilience, not weakness or pathology. She would also say that I could have simply responded to the mother's statement by saying, "tell me more." In today's interview, Nancy spoke about the heterogeneity of beliefs among Black Americans. She and I talked about the difference between religion and spirituality, what a church family is and why it is so important, whether or not social workers should ask about religion and spirituality if clients don't bring it up, and what the role of religion and spirituality is in traditional African American families. I interviewed Nancy at Temple University's School of Social Work. She was the invited speaker for the school's lecture series on social work research. For more information about Temple's School of Social Work, or the research lecture series, please visit their website at www.temple.edu/ssa.org. And now, without further ado, on to episode 59 of the Social Work Podcast. Incorporating religion and spirituality into social work practice with African Americans: Interview with Nancy Boyd-Franklin, Ph.D. For links to resources mentioned in this episode, or other episodes on social work topics, please visit our website at https://socialworkpodcast.com

Episode 58: Let's be honest. You didn't become a social worker because you wanted to travel the world. Even if you're someone who has the travel bug - You're a social worker. You're not making a whole lot of money? How are you going to finance it? Today's Social Work Podcast is about how social workers can work abroad. So, if you're interested in learning more about working abroad means, if you're really interested in traveling to the U.K., or Australia. If you have questions about, "Can I bring my cat?", "Do I need a license," "Do I have to be a community organizer, do I have to be a policy person, can I do direct practice?" this podcast is for you - all of these questions will be answered. In today's Social Work Podcast I speak with David Dininio, Recruitment Manager for HCL Social Care International. David and his team of consultants are responsible for collaborating with US and Canadian Social Workers to help them achieve their dream of working abroad in the UK and Australia. To read more about working abroad, and to hear other podcasts, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 57: Today's Social Work Podcast is on community-based prevention services for children and adolescents. I spoke with Dr. Richard Catalano, who along with David Hawkins, developed Communities That Care, a prevention-planning system that promotes the positive development of children and youth and prevents problem behaviors, including substance use, delinquency, teen pregnancy, school drop-out and violence. It is a system for identifying community needs, matching those needs to evidence-based prevention programs, and evaluating the outcomes. The system has been used in dozens of communities around the United States, and has demonstrated effectiveness in reducing problem behaviors and promoting positive youth development. But before we get to the interview, I want you to imagine for a moment how you would work with a pregnant 16-year old sexual abuse survivor who was addicted to crack, semi-illiterate, suicidal, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and whose baby daddy was prostituting her in exchange for drugs. Ok, got your treatment plan figured out? If you’re thinking, "I know I need to address her suicidality first, but after that, I’m not really sure," then you’d be right, and you’re probably not alone. Most social workers, most service providers, treat individual or family problems once they’ve occurred. And this young woman has a lot of problems. So, what if I suggested that the best place to start with this client was 17 years ago, before she was born, before she was raped, before she turned to drugs to dull her pain or perhaps used drugs to make herself look cooler to her father-figure boyfriend pimp? What if I suggested that the best use of time and money was in preventing these problems from occurring in the first place? If you’re with me on this one, you’re not alone. In 2006, the New Yorker published an article by Katherine Boo (2006, Feb 6) called "Swamp Nurse." The story takes place about an hour southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana, a place where infant mortality, illiteracy rates, and child poverty are among the highest in the country. The title, Swamp Nurse, refers to a group of nurses who do home visits with low-income women during pregnancy and work with them until their child turns two. These nurses are expected to, and I’m not making this up, reduce infant mortality, illiteracy rates and child poverty, and in turn improve the overall health, education, and economic self-sufficiency of these families and consequently the community as a whole. Uh huh. All through home visits. I know. And the most remarkable part? They did it, more or less. How? They were part of a decades-old prevention program called the Nurse-Family Partnership (www.nursefamilypartnership.org/About/What-we-do). These nurses promoted the use of prenatal care, healthy eating, not using cigarettes, alcohol or illegal drugs. They worked with parents to provide responsible and competent care – and to a 16 year old that might include getting them to understand that it is their job to make their baby feel loved, not the other way around. And they helped the parents plan for their future, including future pregnancies, education, and jobs. This program works because it prevents certain behaviors by promoting others. That is the essence of prevention programs. And, according to Dr. Catalano, there are tons of effective prevention programs out there. The trick is to figure which ones are right for your community. Benjamin Franklin famously said, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." This idea, that prevention is a better value for the money that cure, is at the core of public health policy and one of the most compelling arguments for investing in prevention services. Steve Aos, associate director of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy has done cost-benefit analyses on dozens of prevention programs, and found that while most programs do not have a 16:1 return ratio, there are many programs out there that return $3 and $4 dollars per dollar invested. Oh, and the Nurse-Family Partnership? $2.88 per dollar. Steve and his colleagues calculated that by spending $9100 per mother, the Nurse-Family Partnership produced over $26,000 in benefit (www.wa.gov/wsipp). Let’s come back to our 16-year old crack addicted suicidal prostitute for a minute. If she had been involved with a program, or a series of programs that promoted parent-child bonding, emotional, cognitive, behavioral and moral competence, self-determination, belief in the future, and half a dozen other concepts that are included under in the broad heading of positive development, it is likely that she would have never become my client. In order to learn more about how this might happen at a community level, I spoke with Dr. Richard Catalano, or "Rico" as he asked me to call him. Rico is the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence and the Director of the Social Development Research Group in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington. He has published over 225 articles and book chapters, and his work has been recognized by practitioners; criminologists; and prevention scientists. I asked Rico to talk about some of the persistent problems that youth in America face and why we haven’t been able to overcome them. He talked about why he went from being a treatment researcher to a prevention researcher. We talked about the benefits of taking a community-based approach to prevention. Rico described the Communities That Care prevention system, and talked about what makes it an effective approach to preventing adolescent behavior problems and promoting positive development of children and youth. I interviewed Rico at Temple University’s School of Social Work. He was the invited speaker for the school’s lecture series on social work research. For more information about Temple’s School of Social Work, or the research lecture series, please visit their website at www.temple.edu/ssa.org To read more about Communities That Care, and to hear other podcasts, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 56: Today's podcast is on Suicide and Black American Males. Why suicide and Black Americans? Well, there is a belief among most Americans, and particularly among African American adults, that Black Americans do not kill themselves (Joe, 2006). When we think of violent death among Black Americans we think of homicide. Suicide is thought of as a “White” problem. While it is true that suicide was not a leading cause of death for African Americans 40 years ago, today it is the third leading cause of deaths among African Americans 15 – 24 years of age. So why Black American Males specifically? Well, among all racial and ethnic groups, the suicide rate is lowest among Black American females. Given that Black American males, particularly youth, are over-represented in social services, social workers need to be aware of the risk for suicide, and prepared to provide potentially life-saving services. One thing that makes social workers professionals is that we are trained to see things that others do not. Most of us have not been trained to see suicide as an important issue in the Black American community. It is my hope that after hearing today's guest, Dr. Sean Joe from the University of Michigan, you will be more likely to see suicide among Black American males as an important clinical and programmatic issue. Dr. Joe holds a joint position as associate professor in the School of Social Work and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan's School of Medicine. He is also a faculty associate with the Program for Research on Black Americans at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Dr. Joe is a nationally recognized authority on suicidal behavior among African Americans. He is the 2009 recipient of the Edwin Shneidman Award from the American Association of Suicidology for outstanding contributions in research to the field of suicide studies and the 2008 recipient of the Early Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work and Research. He serves on the board of the Suicide Prevention Action Network (SPAN USA), the scientific advisory board of the National Organization of People of Color Against Suicide, and the editorial board of Advancing Suicide Prevention, a policy magazine. He is co-chair of the Emerging Scholars Interdisciplinary Network (ESIN) Research Study Group on African American Suicide, a national interdisciplinary group of researchers committed to advancing research in this area. He has published extensively in the areas of suicide, violence, and firearm-related violence. In today's podcast, Sean talks why it is important to look at the suicide rate among Black American males, specifically adolescent males. He talks about how recent research has started to put together a profile for Black American Males most at risk for suicide, and the factors that seem to protect against suicide. He talks about some of the social and historical factors associated with the increase in suicide rates among Black Americans. Sean gives an example of how he talks with Black Americans about suicide and stigma. We talked about recommendations for social workers who are working with Black American males who might be suicidal, including talking about faith, valuing that child, having a vision of that child as an adult, and healthy masculinity. Sean discussed some resources for social workers interested in learning more about this topic. We ended the interview with Sean extending an invitation to social work clinicians and researchers to join him to better understand suicide and suicidal behaviors in Black Americans. One quick word about today's podcast: I recorded today's podcast using a Zoom H2 recorder on location at the Society for Social Work Research annual conference. If you listen closely you can hear the sounds of San Francisco in the background: a clock chiming, busses loading and unloading passengers, and even some pigeons congregating outside of the interview room. They don't detract from the interview, but I wanted to give fair warning in case you were listening to this podcast anywhere were those sounds might be cause for alarm. To read more about theories for clinical social work practice, and to hear other podcasts, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 55: Today's podcast is about social work with children who have cancer, also referred to as pediatric oncology social work. Although pediatric cancer is relatively rare event, making up less than 1% of the cases diagnosed annually, that single case affects the lives of countless others. From a treatment perspective, when a child is diagnosed with cancer, the whole family is diagnosed with cancer. Children are most likely to get cancer in their first year of life, and least likely between the ages of 5 and 14. If you are white kid in the United States you are nearly two times more likely to get cancer than if you are black. One in 300 boys and one in 330 girls will develop cancer before the age of 20. Every year 2500 children die from cancers with names like Acute Lymphoblastic Lukemia (cancer of the bone marrow - the most common childhood cancer), Hepatoblastoma (cancer of the kidney), neuroblastoma (cancer of the central nervous system), Ewings sarcoma (bone cancer), Hodgin’s Lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes), and Wilms tumor (cancer of the kidney). Notice that the most common forms of adult cancer such as lung, breast and colon are not included on this list. And it is not just that children get some cancers and adults get others. Among children, the cancers most often found in infants and toddlers are not the same as the cancers most often found in teenagers. For children today, getting a diagnosis of cancer is not the death sentence it once was. Before 1970 most children who got cancer died. Today, survival rates are nearly 80%. Currently there are about 270,000 survivors of childhood cancer. Consequently pediatric oncology social workers need to know as much about working with survivors of cancer as they do about issues of death and dying. To help me get a better idea of what being a pediatric oncology entails, I spoke with Dr. Barbara Jones, social worker and faculty member at the school of social work at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Jones is the immediate past president of the Association of Pediatric Oncology Social Workers, on the editorial board for the Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care , and the co-director of the Institute for Grief, Loss and Family Survival at UT-Austin. Dr. Jones recently designed and taught the first social work course in the United States on psychosocial oncology. In today's podcast, Barbara and I talked about the role of a pediatric oncology social worker in a multidisciplinary team, with the child, with the family, in a hospital setting and in the community. We talked about best practices for working with kids with cancer and the role of research in pediatric oncology social work. She talked about practical and ethical issues in pediatric oncology social work such as consent and assent, how to accurately assess a child's pain, and how social workers can take care of themselves. Barbara told some powerful and moving stories about the work she's done with children who have died and children who have survived cancer. We ended our conversation with a discussion about how social workers get training in pediatric oncology social work, and what some resources are for social workers who would like to know more about working with children with cancer. One quick word about today's podcast: I recorded today's podcast using a Zoom H2 recorder on location at the Society for Social Work Research annual conference. If you listen closely you can hear the sounds of San Francisco in the background: a clock chiming, busses loading and unloading passengers, and even some pigeons congregating outside of the interview room. They don’t detract from the interview, but I wanted to give fair warning in case you were listening to this podcast anywhere were those sounds might be cause for alarm.

Episode 54: Today's podcast, Psychoanalytic Treatment in Contemporary Social Work Practice: An Interview with Dr. Carol Tosone, addresses two questions: First, is psychodynamic treatment relevant in contemporary social work practice? In other words, does it meet the needs of the clients, the agencies, and the funding sources? Second, has clinical social work abandoned social work's historical commitment to advocating for social change? I think they are questions worth thinking about. Ask any social work student today what the organizing framework for social work practice is, they won't say, "psychodynamic theory." They'll likely say "the strengths perspective," or "ecological systems theory." When my students do research papers on the best approaches to addressing mental health problems, they usually write about cognitive and behavioral treatments, perhaps because the evidence-base is dominated by studies of cognitive and behavioral approaches. When I ask my students what theoretical perspectives seem to be most consistent with their values and perspectives, they usually say "CBT" or "solution-focused." I usually only have one or two students who take a psychodynamic perspective. My students are usually surprised to hear that in the early 20th century, the social work profession adopted Freudian psychoanalysis as the organizing framework for providing direct services to clients. Social work pioneers such as Mary Richmond were psychoanalytic social workers. The dominance of psychodynamic treatment continued for decades. Even during the 1960s and 70s, when social work returned to its community organizing roots and mezzo and macro level changes were seen as the best way to improve clients' lives, most direct practice social workers identified as psychodynamic. For example, in 1982, a national study reported that even though most clinical social workers were eclectic in their practice, their preferred theoretical orientation was psychoanalytic (Jayaratne, 1982). Fast forward to 2009. Psychoanalytic treatment is widely dismissed as being patriarchal, oppressive, and out-of-touch with the needs and realities of social work clients. Insurance companies are requiring that clinicians use treatments that are short-term, empirically validated, and cost-effective. Agencies are increasingly requiring clinical staff to use prescribed treatments. Clinical social work education has moved towards teaching evidence-based practice, and learning about treatments with a cognitive behavioral, rather than psychodynamic basis. So, if students seem to prefer non-psychodynamic theories, agencies and insurance companies are mandating the use of non-psychodynamic treatments, and an increasing number of schools of social work are teaching cognitive and behavior-based evidence-based treatments, what place does psychodynamic treatment have in contemporary social work practice? Well, in order to answer some of these questions, I spoke with Dr. Carol Tosone about contemporary psychoanalytic treatment. Dr. Tosone completed her psychoanalytic training at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, where she was the recipient of the Postgraduate Memorial Award. She is an Associate Professor at the Silver School of Social Work at New York University, the recipient of the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award and is a Distinguished Scholar in Social Work in the National Academies of Practice in Washington, D.C. In 2007, Dr. Tosone was selected for a Fulbright Senior Specialist Award for teaching and research at the Hanoi University of Education in Vietnam. She is the editor-in-chief of the Clinical Social Work Journal, and the executive producer and writer of four social work education videos. And she is an expert in shared trauma, which is when a client and therapist experience the same traumatic event. In today's podcast, Carol and I talked about what distinguishes contemporary dynamic treatment from traditional psychoanalysis, the role of attachment theory in contemporary dynamic treatment, how talk therapy changes the way the brain processes information, and how brief dynamic treatment can be used in typical social work agency settings. Carol emphasized that contemporary psychoanalytic treatment and concrete services, such as case management, referral, or advocacy work, are not mutually exclusive. She shared how she came to see herself as a social worker first and an analyst second. We ended our conversation with information about resources for social workers in school and in the field who might be interested in learning more about contemporary dynamic treatment. Carol suggested that the best resource social workers have is other social workers and encouraged clinical social workers to write more and share their insights and experiences. I recorded today's interview at the University of Texas at Austin's school of social work. Carol was at UT to give the inaugural Sue Fairbanks Lecture in Psychoanalytic Knowledge. I want to thank the Sue Fairbanks lecture organizing committee, particularly Vicki Packheiser, for helping to coordinate the interview with Carol. You might hear the sound of children playing in the background - Carol and I spoke in an office right above a daycare center.

Trailer: A few months ago I interviewed a mother and a step-mother, Jennifer Newcomb Marine and Carol Marine, two women whose book, "No One's The Bitch: A Ten-Step Plan for the Mother and Stepmother Relationship" had just been published by Globe Pequot Press. Their book quickly became a best-seller on Amazon.com, briefly reaching the #1 spot in the family category. I was really intrigued by what they had to say to social workers - or anyone who works with families. They were saying, "do not forget about the mother / step-mother relationship, it is perhaps the most important relationships to address in a blended family." Well, their message has caught the attention of major media outlets like the Washington Post, and most recently the Dr. Phil show. Although the interview is not ready for prime time, I wanted to give you a preview of the podcast in advance of their appearance on the Dr. Phil show, Tuesday, December 1st. In this three minute excerpt, Jennifer and Carol are talking about some of the typical issues that the mother / step-mother relationship brings. Enjoy this preview, and watch them on the Dr. Phil show Tuesday, December 1st.

Episode 53: This is a re-post of the Stages of Change podcast with a link to the correct MP3 file. Much thanks to Social Work Podcast subscriber and social work professor David Beimers of Minnesota State University for pointing out that the MP3 for Episode 52 (Social Work Theories) was loading instead of Episode 53. Today's podcast is on Prochaska and DiClemente's (1983) Stages of Change Model. This model describes five stages that people go through on their way to change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. The model assumes that although the amount of time an individual spends in a specific stage varies, everyone has to accomplish the same stage-specific tasks in order to move through the change process (Prochaska & Prochaska, 2009). There is an unofficial sixth stage that is variously called "relapse," "recycling," or "slipping" in which an individual reverts to old behaviors. Examples include having a beer after a period of sobriety, or smoking a cigarette a year after quitting. Slipping is so common that it is considered normal. Social Workers are encouraged to be honest with clients about the likelihood of backsliding or reverting to old behaviors once the change process has started, not because we expect our clients to fail, but because it normalizes the experience and takes away some of sense of failure and shame. Although the "Stages of Change" model was identified and developed during a study of smoking cessation (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983), the model has been applied to and studied with numerous bio-psycho-social problems, including domestic violence, HIV prevention, and child abuse (Prochaska & Prochaska, 2009). The "stages of change" model is one component of the "Transtheoretical model of behavior change" (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983). It is called the "transtheoretical model" because it integrates key constructs from other theories. The TTM describes stages of change, the Process of Change, and ways to measure change. In today's podcast, I'm going to focus on the Stages of Change. If you are interested in learning more about the broader Transtheoretial Model, there are dozens of resources online and in print. The University of Rhode Island's Cancer Prevention Research Center website has a clear and concise overview of the TTM; I've posted the link to that description on the Social Work Podcast website: http://www.uri.edu/research/cprc/TTM/detailedoverview.htm. If you are looking for a social work-specific application of the TTM, there is an excellent chapter in the second edition of the Social Workers' Desk Reference on the TTM and child abuse and neglect. The purpose of this podcast is to provide a brief overview of the five stages of change and what intervention approaches are most appropriate at each stage of change. I drew on a number of resources in the preparation of this podcast, including a chapter on the stages of change and motivational interviewing by DiClemente & Velasquez in Miller and Rollnick's second edition of their book, Motivational Interviewing (Miller & Rollnick, 2002); A 2002 article by Norcross and Prochaska (2002) from the Harvard Mental Health Letter called "Using the Stages of Change;" and the chapter by Prochaska and Prochaska (2009) in the second edition of the Social Workers' Desk Reference that I just mentioned. All of these references can be found on the podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com. In today's podcast I'll talk about how to figure out what stage someone is in, and identify a couple of interventions that are most effective for the person in that stage. I'm not going to go into great detail about interventions because there is a major treatment approach called Motivational Interviewing that addresses dozens of intervention techniques. Along the way I'll provide examples of things that social workers can say to people in different stages of change. I've drawn most of my examples from situations other than addictions. I've done this because the Stages of Change model was developed out of addictions research and there are a lot of examples with addictions. Since the Stages of Change is applicable to behaviors other than addictions, I wanted to focus on some of those examples. To read more about the stages of change model, and to hear other podcasts, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 52: Today's podcast looks at the relationship between theory and clinical social work practice. I spoke with Joe Walsh, professor of social work at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), and author of the Brooks/Cole text, Theories for Direct Social Work Practice, which came out in a second edition in 2009. We talked about why social workers should learn practice theories, the differences between practice, developmental and personality theories, the difference between a theory and a model, and why there are so many different practice theories. We talked about how knowing theory makes for better social work practice and how being "eclectic" isn't about eschewing theory, but being well grounded in a few theories and making intentional choices about when and how to draw from them. Joe suggested that social workers in the field can contribute to theory refinement by thinking seriously about how well the theories they use work with the clients they serve. We ended our conversation with some information on resources for social workers who are interested in learning more about practice theories. To read more about theories for clinical social work practice, and to hear other podcasts, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 51: Hello, podcast listener. It is June 21, 2009, the first day of summer. By now all of the schools of social work in the United States have had their spring graduation and unleashed tens of thousands of newly minted social workers into the world. You might be one of these recent graduates. Like those who came before you and those who will come after, you've spent the last 2 - 5 years becoming socialized into the profession of social work. You've written thousands of papers, spent thousands on books, spent thousands of hours with clients (or close to it), you're your share of group projects, process recordings, video taped assignments, ... all to become skilled professionals who can provide competent and ethical social work services to your clients. Well, today's podcast is a tribute to you. And who better to pay tribute than a fellow student. Today we're going to hear Allison Anais Brunner's 2009 MSW graduation speech from Temple University's School of Social Administration. In her speech, entitled, "When in doubt, Give Hope", Allison juxtaposes the anxieties and doubts that recent graduates feel with their professional responsibility to hold hope for their clients. She describes her own doubts as a social worker, relates those to her personal moments of doubt and shares how she drew from those experiences to help her client. Using our experiences to benefit our clients rather than ourselves, is what we call "professional use of self." And as Carl Rogers demonstrated many years ago, bringing our genuine self to the clinical relationship is one of the most important things we can do to help our clients. So, I dedicate this podcast to you, our professions newest members. And now Allison Anais Brunner and her speech, "When in Doubt, Give Hope." To read the full speech and to hear other podcasts, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 50: Today's podcast is on salary negotiation. In today's podcast I speak with Dr. Cynthia Conley,assistant professor of social work at the School of Social Administration at Temple University, about salary negotiation skills for social workers. Cynthia takes us through salary negotiation from the application to the job offer. Today's podcast is a follow-up to our December, 2008 interview in which Cynthia spoke generally about the importance of salary negotiation to both individuals and to the profession. For more information about this podcast or others in our series, and for resources about social work salaries and references to salary research, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 49: Today's podcast is on social workers and depression. I spoke with Mark Meier, a licensed independent clinical social worker from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mark and I started our conversation talking about how social workers are three times as likely to be depressed as people in the general population. We talked about the personal and professional responsibility social workers have in addressing their depression, and the role that schools and colleagues have in supporting social workers to get treatment. Mark shared his personal experience with depression, suicidal ideation, and the subsequent hospitalization. We ended our conversation with a discussion about what programs or workshops schools of social work can provide students to address the issue of social workers and depression. For more information on social workers and depression, treatment of depression, or any of the other podcasts, please visit https://socialworkpodcast.com

Episode 48: Today's podcast is on social work with Immigrants and Refugees. I speak with Fernando Chang-Muy, JD, and Dr. Elaine Congress about their new book on the topic. We talk about why it is important to have both social work and legal perspectives, how social workers and lawyers can work together to improve the lives of immigrants and refugees, how social workers can advocate for their clients on a policy level, and finally how listeners outside of the United States can use the concepts discussed in Fernando and Elaine's latest book in their own countries. For references and resources about social work with immigrants and refugees, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com Related podcast: Listen to Elaine Congress talk about using her visual assessment tool, the Culturagram, when working with immigrants and refugees on the Social Work Podcast. For references and resources about social work with immigrants and refugees, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com

Episode 47: Today's podcast is on salary negotiation. Salary negotiation is a topic that is rarely discussed in schools of social work. Yet, for reasons identified in today's podcast, the social work profession as a whole would benefit if social workers negotiated salaries. In today's podcast, I speak with Dr. Cynthia Conley, assistant professor of social work at the School of Social Administration at Temple University. Dr. Conley's research focuses on salary negotiation, the salary gap between men and women social workers, and leadership skills and social work students. Cynthia and I talk about why salary negotiation is an important topic for social workers and some tips for how to negotiate salaries. I ask Cynthia how realistic it is for social workers to negotiate salaries, especially since many social workers take jobs in agencies where salaries are tied to position, rather than the qualifications of the applicant. Cynthia provides some case examples of successful salary negotiation. We end our conversation with a discussion of Cynthia's research on salary negotiation, and some ideas on where salary negotiation fits in the social work curriculum. For more information about this podcast or others in our series, and for resources about social work salaries and references to salary research, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 46: In today's podcast I speak with Dr. Elaine Congress about her creation, the Culturagram. Elaine and I talk about how and why she developed the culturagram, the ten assessment areas of the culturagram, and how social workers can use the culturagram to improve their services. We end the podcast with a discussion about research and resources about the culturagram. Because Elaine is in New York City and I'm in Philadelphia, I recorded today's podcast with Skype. As a result there are a few sonic glitches, but nothing that detracts from the content of the interview. Elaine has provided a copy of the culturagram which can be downloaded at the socialworkpodcast website. Also on the podcast website is a brief clip of Elaine talking about the issue of acculturation. For more information about this podcast or others in our series, please visit the Social Work Podcast at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 45: In today's podcast, I speak with Shaun Eack about schizophrenia and social work. We talk about some basic information that social workers need to know about the diagnosis of schizophrenia; Shaun identifies and describes the positive, negative and cognitive symptoms that are often present in people with schizophrenia. Around 13 minutes into the conversation we switch the focus from diagnosis to the role of the social worker in working with people with schizophrenia. We end our conversation with a discussion of treatment approaches, including a new approach that addresses cognitive content. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and disabling brain disorder that affects 1.1% of the population over the age of 18. The term "schizophrenia" was coined by Eugene Bleuler from the Greek roots schizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-, "mind"). Schizophrenia literally means "split mind." But, because of the etymology of the word, schizophrenia is commonly misrepresented as a split personality, or in clinical terms - Dissociative Identity Disorder. The symptoms of schizophrenia fall into three broad categories: positive, negative, and cognitive. The combination of positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms, can make people with schizophrenia fearful and withdrawn, and cause difficulties in relationships with other. For more information about this podcast or others in our series, please visit the Social Work Podcast at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 44: Today's podcast is the second in a two part series on measurement for clinical practice and research. In today's podcast I speak with Dr. Mary Rauktis about the difference between measurement in the field and measurement in research settings. We talk about some of the ways that social workers can think about measurement as a tool to improve clinical practice, and some ways that social workers in the field can develop measures that will really benefit their clients. We talk about some of the challenges social workers have using measurement tools because of how rarely measures are integrated into social work courses. We talk about some ideas for how to better integrate measurement into social work education, particularly beyond the required research classes. We end Part II with a discussion of some resources for social workers interested in learning more about measurement. In part one of the podcast we talked about how she became interested in measurement; some key concepts needed to understand measurement including reliability, validity and error; and how to understand measures used in research articles. For more information about this podcast or others in our series, please visit the Social Work Podcast at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 43: Today's podcast is the first in a two part series on measurement for clinical practice and research. In today's podcast I speak with Dr. Mary Rauktis about how she became interested in measurement; some key concepts needed to understand measurement including reliability, validity and error; and how to understand measures used in research articles. In part two of the podcast we talk about the difference between measurement in the field and measurement in research settings. We talk about some of the ways that social workers can think about measurement as a tool to improve clinical practice, and some ways that social workers in the field can develop measures that will really benefit their clients. We talk about some of the challenges social workers have using measurement tools because of how rarely measures are integrated into social work courses. We talk about some ideas for how to better integrate measurement into social work education, particularly beyond the required research classes. We end Part II with a discussion of some resources for social workers interested in learning more about measurement. For more information about this podcast or others in our series, please visit the Social Work Podcast at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Update: On June 30th 2008, I posted the 42nd episode in 17 months and the Social Work Podcast was going strong. But, it has been three months since the last podcast. Today's episode is an update on what's been going on and what you can expect from the podcast over the next few months. To read the full transcript of today's podcast please visit The Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 42: Today's podcast is the third of three interviews with Kia J. Bentley on psychopharmacotherapy. Kia J. Bentley is Professor of social work at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia and has published extensively in the area of psychopharmacotherapy. Psychopharmacotherapy refers to the treatment of psychiatric disorders with the use of medication. But, as Kia pointed out in our interview, psychopharmacotherapy is not just about giving people medication and calling it a day. It is an approach to treatment that acknowledges the strengths and limitations of medications. In today's podcast, Kia talked about a recent, and as of this date unpublished, study she did on the meaning that residents of an in-patient psychiatric facility made out of medication. Kia's study was qualitative, meaning that she analyzed the text of interviews and drawings from the residents to get her results. One of the purposes of qualitative research is to develop a deeper understanding of the meanings that people make out of their lives and experiences. Our conversation turned out to be not only a fascinating view into the meanings that the residents made of medication, but it was also a wonderful sketch of Kia's process of making meaning out of the interviews and drawings. In qualitative research, the researcher is the analytical tool, and Kia's struggles with making sense of these meanings is central to qualitative inquiry. In the first interview, Kia and I talked about key concepts and the role that social workers can play in psychopharmacotherapy. In the second interview, Kia talked about best practices for referring clients for psychiatric medications, resources for social workers interested in learning more about psychopharmacotherapy and how social workers can think critically about psychopharmacotherapy for both adults and children. For more information about psychopharmacotherapy or other topics relevant to social work practice, please visit The Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 41: Today's podcast is the second of three interviews with Kia J. Bentley on psychopharmacotherapy. Kia J. Bentley is Professor of social work at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia and has published extensively in the area of psychopharmacotherapy. Psychopharmacotherapy refers to the treatment of psychiatric disorders with the use of medication. But, as Kia pointed out in our interview, psychopharmacotherapy is not just about giving people medication and calling it a day. It is an approach to treatment that acknowledges the strengths and limitations of medications. In today's podcast, Kia talks about best practices for referring clients for psychiatric medications, resources for social workers interested in learning more about psychopharmacotherapy and how social workers can think critically about psychopharmacotherapy for both adults and children. In the first interview, Kia and I talked about key concepts and the role that social workers can play in psychopharmacotherapy. In the third interview, Kia talks about a recent qualitative research study she did to explore the meaning that medication had for residents in a psychiatric facility. For more information about psychopharmacotherapy or other topics relevant to social work practice, please visit The Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 40: Today's podcast is the first of three interviews with Kia J. Bentley on psychopharmacotherapy. Kia J. Bentley is Professor of social work at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia and has published extensively in the area of psychopharmacotherapy. Psychopharmacotherapy refers to the treatment of psychiatric disorders with the use of medication. But, as Kia pointed out in our interview, psychopharmacotherapy is not just about giving people medication and calling it a day. It is an approach to treatment that acknowledges the strengths and limitations of medications. In today's podcast, we talked about why social workers should be familiar with psychopharmacotherapy, legal and ethical limitations of social workers discussing medications with clients, some challenges social workers might have with agency policy around medications, and the role of social workers on a treatment team. For more information about psychopharmacotherapy or other topics relevant to social work practice, please visit The Social Work Podcast website at https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 39: In this episode of the social work podcast, I continue my conversation with author Dr. Allen Rubin. We talked about how he came to co-author Research Methods for Social Work (the most widely used social work research text) and his most recent text - Practitioner's Guide to Using Research for Evidence-Based Practice. We talked about one of his current research projects - the development of a scale that can be used to evaluate how well social workers are learning evidence-based practice. We ended our conversation with Allen talking about a series of books he is co-editing with David Springer that will have practical "how-to" chapters on evidence-based approaches to today's most important clinical issues. Dr. Rubin can be heard talking about research for social work practitioners [Episode 37] and advice for young social work investigators [Episode 38] at the Social Work Podcast: https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 38: In today's podcast, I continue my conversation with Dr. Allen Rubin about social work research. Allen shared his advice for young social work investigators - that is social work researchers who are just starting out in their career as researchers. Allen talks about the value of getting a postdoc, the importance of getting hooked up with a federally-funded investigator for social workers interested doing federally-funded research, having good relationships with social work agencies, and the challenges of actually doing social work research. Allen shared his thoughts on the problems with so-called hot methodologies and the realities of pursuing federal funding. https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 37: In today's podcast, I talked with Dr. Allen Rubin about research and social work practice. Allen Rubin is the co-author of the most popular social work research text, "Research Methods for Social Work." I spoke with Allen about what research concepts he thought were essential for social work practitioners to understand in order to be informed consumers of empirical research, including the difference between reliability and validity, how to identify sources of error in measurement, and researcher and respondent bias. He talked about these concepts within the framework of evidence-based practice. He distinguished the process of evidence-based practice from evidence-based practices. https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 36: Today's podcast is on Race and Social Problems. On January 15, 2008, I spoke with Dr. Larry E. Davis, Dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh, Donald M. Henderson Professor, and Director of the Center on Race and Social Problems. In our conversation, Dean Davis defined racism, the role of race in understanding social problems, and about how issues of race may or may not change as the percentage of whites in the United States continues to decrease discussed. We talked about some of the racial and gender issues in the current election and talked about how race is different from gender as a point of diversity. We also talked about race and social work, and what social workers can do to fight racism. We ended our conversation with a discussion of the Center on Race and Social Problems and what the Center is doing to fight racism. https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 35: In today's podcast, I talk with Dr. Christina Newhill, a nationally recognized expert on client violence and the author of "Client Violence in Social Work Practice: Prevention, Intervention, and Research," published in 2003 by The Guilford Press. Dr. Newhill defines client violence, talks about why social workers should be concerned with client violence and identifies which social workers are at greater risk for violence. She discusses some ways to assess a client's potential for violence, how to intervene with a violent or potentially violent client, and identifies some strategies for increasing worker safety. We end our interview with information about existing research and resources for social work educators. https://socialworkpodcast.com

Episode 34: Today's podcast marks the one year anniversary of the Social Work Podcast. Jennifer Luna-Idunate interviews your host, Jonathan Singer, about how the podcast got started, the goal of the podcast, how success is measured and what are some goals for the podcast. https://socialworkpodcast.com

Episode 33: Today's podcast is the third in a three part series on Phone Supervision. In today's podcast, I talk with Jody Bechtold about receiving clinical supervision over the phone as she worked towards becoming a Nationally Certified Gambling Counselor. https://socialworkpodcast.com

Episode 32: Today's podcast is the second of a three part series on phone supervision. In parts one and two I speak with Simon Feuerman and Melissa Groman, licensed clinical social workers, clinical supervisors and consultants. https://socialworkpodcast.com

Episode 31: Today's podcast is the first of a three part series on phone supervision. In parts one and two I speak with Simon Feuerman and Melissa Groman, licensed clinical social workers, clinical supervisors and consultants. https://socialworkpodcast.com

Episode 30: In today's podcast, I will talk about some basic concepts in supervision. I define administrative, clinical and supportive supervision, talk about differential uses of supervision, including improvement of clinical services and issues of liability. I also address the ethical standards for social workers providing supervision. For more information about supervision, the transcript of this podcast, and other social work topics, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 29: Today's podcast is the second in a two-part series on Clinical Hypnosis. Today I speak with Dr. Elizabeth Winter about how and when to use clinical hypnosis. In the first episode, I spoke with Dr. Winter about the history of clinical hypnosis, key assumptions, goals, the client's role and types of problems that might be addressed with clinical hypnosis. For more information about clinical hypnosis and other social work topics, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 28: Today's podcast is the first in a two-part series on Clinical Hypnosis. Today I speak with Dr. Elizabeth Winter about the history of clinical hypnosis, key assumptions, goals, the client's role and types of problems that might be addressed with clinical hypnosis. In the second episode, I talk with Dr. Winter about how and when to use clinical hypnosis. For more information about clinical hypnosis and other social work topics, please visit the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 27: In today's podcast, I speak with Carol Anderson, one of the developers of Family Psychoeducation. Family Psychoeducation is an empirically empirically validated treatment for people with serious mental illness. Carol describes the 5 stages of psychoeducation, distinguishes between psychoeducation and other forms of family therapy, and provides some anecdotes about family psychoeducation treatment. For more information on Family Psychoeducation, please visit https://socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 26: In today's podcast, I speak with Sabrina Heller, a social worker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who has used Dialectical Behavior Therapy, (DBT) in a variety of clinical settings, including an inpatient eating disorders clinic and an outpatient substance abuse treatment program. We spoke about the goal of DBT, clinical techniques, the role of the client and clinician, the skills training workshop, the three mind states: reasonable mind, emotion mind, and wise mind, and how Sabrina incorporates DBT into her work with clients.

Episode 25: The first poll asked visitors to the Social Work Podcast website, "What is the ideal length for a Social Work Podcast?" Over a 2 week period, 43 visitors took the pollOnly one respondent thought that ideal length for a Social Work Podcast was less than five minutes. In contrast, an equal number of respondents believed that Social Work Podcasts should be less than 10, 20 or 30 minutes (8, 7 and 8 respectively). The runaway favorite for ideal length? "As long as it needs to be" with 19 votes, or 44% of the respondents. Please check our website at https://socialworkpodcast.com for more information and to take the next poll - What do you use to listen to the Social Work Podcast?

Episode 24: In today's podcast I talked with Chris Wolf about Sex Addiction. Sex addiction has been defined as "engaging in persistent and escalating patterns of sexual behavior despite increasingly negative consequences to self and others" (Ewald, 2003). Chris is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified sex addiction counselor. She received her masters in counseling psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and trained with pioneering sex addictions researcher, Patrick Carnes. Our interview covered a broad range of topics, including how sex addiction is similar to and different from substance use addiction, common characteristics of sexually addicted clients, basic skills and competencies clinicians need when working with sexually addicted clients, and some resources for further study or learning. Please check our website at https://socialworkpodcast.com for more information.

Episode 23: Today's interview with Dr. Edward Sites is the second in a two-part series on grant writing. In today's episode, I talk with Dr. Sites about the three sections most commonly found in grant applications - the narrative, the budget and the appendices. In the first episode, Dr. Sites talks about strategies for developing and writing a grant proposal. You can find the first part of the interview, as well as Dr. Site's thoughts on the role of women in the development of social work in the United States at the social work podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 22: Today's interview with Dr. Edward Sites is the first in a two-part series on the basics of grant proposal writing. In today's episode, I talk with Dr. Sites about strategies for strategies for developing and writing a grant proposal. In the second episode, Dr. Sites goes into more detail about the three sections most commonly found in grant applications - the narrative, the budget and the appendices.

Episode 21: In today's podcast, I speak with Dr. Lambert Maguire about social networks. Dr. Maguire discussed the development of his interest in the topic, as well as some historical context for understanding social networks. We discussed the theoretical assumptions and differential applications in research and clinical work. Dr. Maguire relates the traditional understanding of social networks to contemporary uses of web 2.0 social networking sites such as MySpace.com. We end out interview with a description of how social networks can be conceptualized throughout the life span. A list of Dr. Maguire's books on social networking as well as an example of a social network diagram can be found at socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 20: In this podcast, the last of four on pathological gambling, I speak with Jody Bechtold, LCSW about the process for becoming a nationally certified gambling addictions counselor. Jody compares the national certification process with the process to be designated as "competent" to treat pathological gambling in the state of Pennsylvania. If you are interested in becoming nationally certified, you might want to listen to the podcast a couple of times, as there are a number of steps in the process. Resources on the certification process, including names, email addresses and web sites can be found at socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 19: Today's podcast is the third of four on pathological gambling. I talk with Jody Bechtold, LCSW about two concepts that are central to understanding the thinking of the pathological gambler: Illusions of Control and Chance vs. Skill.

Episode 18: Today's podcast is the second of four on pathological gambling. I talk with Jody Bechtold, LCSW about about treatment basics for clinicians who work with pathological gamblers. We start with a quick overview of crisis intervention and then move into some of the techniques and rationales behind behavioral and cognitive treatments. These are brief theoretical overviews. If you are interested in a more in-depth discussion of these approaches, you can find individual podcasts on those subjects at socialworkpodcast.com. We'll end with a discussion of some of the challenges that clinicians often encounter when working with pathological gamblers. A quick disclaimer - this podcast is intended to be a general overview of treatment approaches, rather than a clinical training. If you are currently working with, or intend to work with people with gambling addiction, proper education and training is essential. In the fourth part of this series, Jody and I talk about some of the requirements for obtaining the NCGC-1 - the national certified gambling counselor certification. That podcast is scheduled to air June 11, 2007 and will be available for download from our website at socialworkpodcast.com.

Episode 17: Today's podcast is the first of four looking at the DSM diagnosis of pathological gambling. In today's podcast, Jody Bechtold looks at what it is, what it is not, and what are the similarities and differences between pathological gambling and substance use disorders.

Episode 16: In today's podcast, I talk with Dr. Edward Sites about women in social work. Dr. Sites gives us a historical perspective of the role of women who were born at or before 1900 in the development of social work as a profession in the United States.

Episode 15: In today's podcast we will look at Reality Therapy, developed by Dr. William Glasser. We briefly review the assumptions of choice theory and how those assumptions are translated into Reality Therapy. The majority of today's short podcast comes from the Gerald Corey chapter on Reality therapy in the 7th edition of his text, Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy.

Episode 14: In today's podcast, we're going to talk about the therapies that take a cognitive-behavioral approach to working with people. I review the theoretical assumptions, therapeutic process, techniques, use in culturally competent practice, and strengths and limitations of CBT. This podcast is longer than most because I use a lot of clinical examples and dialogue to illustrate the concepts.

Episode 13: Today we're going to be talking with Kya Conner about stigma. Kya is a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of social work and a masters student in the school of public health. She is a Hartford doctoral fellow and a CSWE minority research fellow. Kya is also a licensed social worker who maintains a part-time private practice. Her doctoral dissertation is called, Mental Health Treatment Seeking among older adults with depression: The impact of stigma and race. In today's interview, Kya defines stigma and discusses implications for research, direct practice and public health.

Episode 12: In this lecture, I focus on the concepts of stimulus and response, rewards and punishments, and how these concepts make operant conditioning such a powerful approach to behavior change. Also in this lecture I touch on classical conditioning, social learning theory and cognitive behavior therapy. The role of the therapist, client, expectations for treatment, implications for multicultural treatment, and the strengths and limitations of the approach are covered.

Episode 11: In this podcast I cover the basics of problem definition, developing goals and measureable objectives as well as identifying interventions and strategies. The key to good treatment planning is making sure that there is a clear and logical relationship between your assessment, problem formulation, goals, objectives and interventions.

Episode 10: IPT is a time-limited psychotherapy that was developed in the 1970s and 80s as an outpatient treatment for adults who were diagnosed with moderate or severe non-psychotic, unipolar depression. Over the last 30 years, a number of empirical studies have demonstrated the efficacy of IPT in the treatment of depression. Although originally developed as an individual therapy for adults, IPT has been modified for use with adolescents and older adults, dysthymia, bipolar disorder, bulimia, anxiety disorders and couples counseling. IPT has its roots in psychodynamic theory, but differs from the latter in that it focuses on improving interpersonal functioning in the present. It is similar to CBT in its time-limited approach, structured interviews and assessment tools, but also differs from CBT in that it focuses on the client's affect, rather than cognitions, and the development of a more supportive social network. And whereas nearly all CBTs use homework as a standard part of treatment, although Brief ITP (ITP-B) uses homework, regular IPT may not. In today's lecture I will will focus on some of the key concepts of IPT, the role of the therapist and client, the structure and goals of IPT - specifically focusing on grief, interpersonal role dispute, role transition and interpersonal deficits, and some of the techniques used in IPT. I'll end with a brief discussion of the applications of IPT, its strengths and limitations.

Episode 9: Today we're going to talk about the Gestalt therapy, which is part of the existential-phenomenological tradition. The Gestalt approach can be best summed up by the phrase, "the most important moment in a persons life is right now." Gestalt is an experiential therapy that uses experiments and specific techniques to bring the client into the here and now. Through the experience of the here and now, the client is able to make contact with their environment. Contact is a fleeting experience, but it is during contact that we are in the here and now, and thus are in the process of self-actualizing. During the process of self-actualization we are able to make changes. In today's lecture I will will focus on some of the key concepts of Gestalt, the role of the therapist, the client's experience and some of the innovative techniques attributed to Gestalt therapy. I'll end with a brief discussion of the applications of Gestalt, the contributions and limitations of the approach.

Episode 8: Today we're going to talk about Carl Rogers and his revolutionary approach to psychotherapy - Person-Centered Therapy. Next to Freud, no other therapist has influenced the practice of therapy more than Carl Rogers. The humanistic assumptions at the core of Person-Centered therapy stand in stark contrast to the problem-centered, expert-oriented approach of what was then the dominant model of psychotherapy - Freudian Psychoanalysis. Rogers gave us an equation that would change the concept of therapy forever: Empathy + Genuineness + Unconditional Positive Regard = Necessary and sufficient conditions for change. Although the last part - that these conditions are sufficient for change - has not enjoyed empirical support, the first part - that these conditions are necessary for change - has been confirmed in thousands of research studies over the last 50 years. In today's lecture I will look at the major assumptions of Person-centered therapy, the goals of treatment, the role and attributes of the therapist, and discuss the one technique attributed to Rogers - reflective listening. I'll end with a discussion of the contributions and limitations of Person-centered therapy.

Episode 7: In today's podcast, I talk about Existential therapy as an intellectual or philosophical approach to working with people. Although some authors have attempted to manualize Existential therapy (most recently Keshen, A. (2006). A new look at existential psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 60(3), 285-298), the existential approach is not known for specific techniques or procedures. Rather, its influence has been most notable in encouraging clinicians to focus on the ideas of freedom of choice, the responsibility that accompanies choice, and the notion that the inevitability of death is what gives life meaning.

Episode 6: In this lecture, I discuss key elements of Adler's Personal psychology and how this approach contrasts with Freud's theory. The contrast between Adler's and Freud's approaches can best be summed up in the quote "We are pulled by our goals, rather than pushed by our drives."

Episode 5: In this lecture, I discuss key elements of Freud's theory of personality and how that translated into his approach to therapy. The central goal of Freudian psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious.

Episode 4: This is part two of a two-part series on Crisis Intervention. In this lecture, I discuss individual crisis intervention within the context of Roberts's Seven-Stage Model of Crisis Intervention, and the most popular group crisis intervention model currently in use, Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. The podcast ends with a detailed review of suicide assessment.

Episode 3: This is part one of a two-part series on Crisis Intervention. In this lecture, I provide a brief overview of the history of modern crisis intervention and crisis theory. I discuss two approaches to crisis assessment, Myer's Triage Assessment Model and the Dilation-Constriction Continuum model.

Episode 2: This is the second part of a two-part lecture on diagnosis and assessment. In the first episode I reviewed the history of the DSM and the multiaxial system. In this lecture, I discuss the Bio-psychosocial-spiritual (BPSS) assessment as the means for providing context for the client's presenting problems. I discuss the purpose of each of the four life domains and how the information is used in social work practice. Emphasis is placed on solution-focused approaches to assessment.I end with a brief description of traditional format for organizing observations about the client - the Mental Status Exam.

Episode 1: This is the first part of a two-part lecture on diagnosis and assessment. The Bio-psychosocial-spiritual (BPSS) assessment and the DSM diagnosis are the two most common types of assessments made by social workers. In this lecture, I briefly review the history of DSM diagnosis, from the creation of the first ICD in 1900 to the most recent text revision of the DSM-IV in 2000. I discuss the multiaxial system and provide examples. I transition from DSM diagnosis to the BPSS assessment by discussing the similarities and differences between the two assessments.