There are three separate yet interrelated products that made up this final capstone product. The completed product is focused on pet hospice veterinary support staff and the need for an evidence-based mitigation protocol to combat secondary traumatic stress.

The first product was the Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The SLR utilized a scoping review process to locate prior research or literature related to pet hospice veterinary support staff and secondary traumatic stress. No existing literature or research was found on these two topics.

The second product was a conceptual paper that introduced the creation of psychoeducational support groups for pet hospice veterinary support staff, once the occupational hazard of secondary traumatic stress was defined for this population. Psychoeducational support groups, using the andragogy within adult learning theory as a platform, provided the intervention for support within veterinary medicine.

The third and final product was the practice application paper, which outlined how to operationalize a psychoeducational support group in a pet hospice setting with support staff. This final product also explored limitations and future directions for social work practice.

What does the research say about the connection between volunteerism and rural community development? This session will present findings from the literature base, specifically regarding how the community functions as an ecosystem in which every member has a role to play. Focus will be given to challenges facing rural communities, cultural strengths of rural people, and how volunteerism can utilize those strengths to increase community development.

A new training curriculum grounded in research will be conceptualized as a solution to increasing volunteer reliability in the service delivery process. Major takeaways for those working with volunteers include new ways of thinking about intrinsic motivation, connecting volunteer work to larger community challenges, and important considerations for working in culturally sensitive ways with rural people and communities.

What is an alternative learning environment, and who attends school in these settings? A quick Google search can answer this and more about alternative learning environments and attendees. However, little is known about the caregivers of these students–the parents, grandparents, and guardians whose lives are significantly impacted by their patterns of school difficulty.

Alternative learning environments are often the last shot at education for students and the last hope for their caregivers. For the latter, there may also be other feelings about the transition, layered with environmental and familial stressors, impacting their beliefs and attitudes about it. This transition is an opportunity for school personnel to address the systemic factors affecting caregivers and students that played a role in this transition. The opportunity begins with reimagining the intake process.

This presentation is for education system stakeholders and participants interested in school social work or school administration, particularly in alternative learning environments. Participants will be challenged to explore reasons why the overall approach to the engagement of caregivers of students in alternative learning environments must change. A brief overview of traditional approaches to engagement will be provided, noting why these approaches have not been effective for this population of students and caregivers. Participants will be introduced to a conceptual model grounded in an ecological systems approach to the intake process. Finally, implications for practice application and further will be discussed.

This session will disseminate the scholarship and Capstone Project on addressing racial inequity in child welfare through child welfare worker training. Content will include statistics and data on the current scope of racial inequity in child welfare to provide awareness of the practice problem. A synthesize of the literature will be provided on anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) training topic and fidelity for child welfare workers.

The identification of training ineffectiveness in worker ability to apply skills learned in practice will be highlighted, along with identification of current theory guiding practice and ADEI training. A new theoretical framework will be presented including Critical Race Theory currently guiding some implementation of training, and the addition of Transformative Learning Theory, Active Learning Theory, and Social Learning Theory to guide child welfare worker learning and ability to apply knowledge in practice.

Lastly, a proposed application to practice will be presented, including the delivery of training on an ongoing basis, activities to facilitate belief transformation, activities to facilitate active learning, and the enhancement of fidelity in practice through coaching, modeling, and inclusion in supervision.

The period after psychiatric hospitalization can be difficult for individuals for a number of reasons. Numerous barriers exist to establishing outpatient mental health care. Without continued treatment, individuals are at risk for increased symptom burden, hospital readmission, and suicide.

Emerging best practice recommends that hospitals follow-up with patients following discharge to ensure good continuity of care. Despite this growing acknowledgement and need for accountability, hospitals are slow to implement such interventions. The following capstone project explores whether transitional care interventions led by social workers improve various patient and systems-level outcomes.

Employing a functional use of self, social workers are uniquely equipped to implement creative interventions in the gap following psychiatric discharge. Finally, research informs practice through direct implementation of a caring contacts program. Both the literature review and practical application of phone-based contact interventions show promise in positively impacting various outcomes, including reduced suicide rate, decreased hospital readmissions, and increased kept outpatient appointments.

Humans manage healthcare systems, and all systems change the experience and acknowledgment of systematic errors. Fortunately, for the most prominent life-preserving system in the world – the United States Healthcare System, human error is the beginning of creativity and change. The mental healthcare system and its workforce are desperate to create an effective burnout remediation program.

Burnout affects an individual’s quality of life and impacts an organization’s treatment outcomes. The phenomenon is commonly addressed through minimization or, worse, a professionally acceptable experience in the mental health field. Current prevention and remediation efforts rely heavily on self-care practices while ignoring the organization’s contributory role in burnout causality.

The system highlights an error in organizational responsibility to address burnout as its latter approach, focused on individual self-care accountability, has drastically failed. This capstone presentation synthesizes decades of research on burnout, emotional intelligence, and organizational leadership practices to support the development of burnout remediation programs across the mental health profession.

Individuals experiencing homelessness demonstrate more significant health disparities than their housed counterparts and are among the most vulnerable of all populations, which has been proven to result in premature mortality. The mortality rates of people experiencing homelessness (PEH) have been comprehensively documented; however, the United States has no formal tracking method or statistics for people who die while experiencing homelessness.

A community partnership between federally qualified health centers, hospitals, community-based mental health agencies, homeless service providers, and the medical examiner will assist in tracking the health and mortality of the population through street outreach to ensure accurate assessments and screeners are used to track, advocate, and support this population. Research has concluded that achieving an integrated approach to care depends on successfully coordinating services through complex but sensitive care coordination. A homeless mortality review task force can address this detrimental gap in services for PEH if we ground practice in theory. The standpoint framework drives social workers and other health care professionals to be analytically mindful of the complexities and intersectionality of the population and to be comprehensive in our approach to practice.

The systematic review focused on evaluating a HMRTF’s ability to successfully decrease mortality rates in individuals experiencing homelessness while increasing routine medical appointment utilization through street outreach, data collection, and collaboration among community partners. The conceptual paper theoretically grounded the HMRTF in the standpoint perspective of social work. This framework enhances the HMRTF’s effectiveness in working with vulnerable populations and demonstrates the intersections of race, ability, poverty, and homelessness. The final product, the practice application paper, focused on applying research knowledge and synthesis to this gap in services.

Social work professionals who utilize standpoint theory are more cognizant of the population’s unique barriers, social determinants of health, susceptibility to premature mortality, and the necessity of meeting PEH where they are to treat their chronic conditions. To effectively treat PEH, the implications of their illness, identity, and the possibility of early mortality must be examined. Negligence of these factors will result in less effective social work and health care coordination.

This capstone presentation is focused on presenting a new modality of treatment for women with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The presentation contains an introduction and overview of three products:

(1) a systematic review of the literature regarding wellbeing and retreats; (2) a conceptual paper grounded in the person-centered theory related to utilizing retreats as an adjunct treatment to traditional psychotherapy; and (3) a practice paper that outlines the formulation of a new treatment modality for women with PTSD.

Each of these products are affiliated and presented together to create the final framework and for this capstone presentation.

Racial trauma, or race-based traumatic stress (RBTS), describes the emotional and psychological distress that people of color experience as a result of racism and discrimination. African American, or Black people, are the most vulnerable group for experiences of and exposure to racism and discrimination. Discrimination on the basis of race can have negative impact African American individuals, their families, and their communities as a whole.

Symptoms similar to those of post-traumatic stress (PTSD) can manifest as a result of racism and discrimination. It is important to understand that racial trauma can occur as a result of historical trauma, transgenerational trauma, and racial microaggressions. No culturally sensitive tool has been developed to assess for racial trauma specifically in African Americans.

This capstone presentation will provide an overview of a systematic literature review describing forms of racial trauma and contributing factors to racial trauma, the impact of racial trauma on mental health, and introduce a culturally appropriate assessment tool to assess for racial trauma in African American adults.

When the clinician or treating therapist shifts their perspective from pathology to person, stigmatizing beliefs and generalizations can cause a decrease in compassion, understanding, and effectiveness of treatment. This presentation seeks
to educate its viewers on ways to mitigate stigma within the clinical setting and enhance treatment effectiveness through the use of a proposed shift in treatment modality, training, and assessment. The writer additionally introduced a new
course of therapeutic treatment and introduces the relational model of social work practice to BPD in addition to the use of mentalization-based therapy (MBT).

A revamped assessment tool will aid in accurately diagnosing and treating the pathology of borderline personality disorder through measurable data over treatment, specifically in the PHP, IOP. and OP settings. Finally, clinician training has been introduced to ensure all clinicians are adequately informed on the use of relational-engagement therapy and its benefits for those diagnosed with or displaying borderline traits.

In totality, this presentation ultimately seeks to debunk much of the stigma in the clinical setting towards a very much misunderstood and misdiagnosed population.

Disparities in access to mental healthcare among marginalized K-12 youth in Georgia are severe. Georgia ranks 49th in the nation in access to mental health services but first in the prevalence of mental health issues (Reinert et al., 2022). In addition, despite substantial research and evidence highlighting the importance of early intervention treatment for mental health issues, complex and compounding treatment barriers persist.

Research demonstrates that children with access to in-school mental health services are significantly more likely to receive treatment. Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT), a culturally sensitive, evidence-based therapeutic intervention, is poised to be able to address these disparities in access to care. In addition, school-based social workers—already serving in K-12 Georgia schools—are perfectly positioned to provide critically-needed school-based mental health treatment services.

Product one is a systematic review focused on primary research that assessed the outcomes of the effectiveness of CCPT in addressing unmet mental health needs in K-12 public schools. The purpose of conducting a systematic literature review was to establish a foundation of quality research assessing play therapy outcomes in school settings and to explore previous attempts to address inequities in access to care. Next, product two is a conceptual paper exploring grounding CCPT theoretically in the systems perspective of social work and an anti-oppressive practice approach. Finally, product three outlines a holistic approach to operationalizing child-centered play therapy (CCPT) training in K-12 school systems across Georgia—through targeted enhancements to social work continuing education training.

Through innovative social work education initiatives—such as widespread Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) training during school social worker continuing education—social work educators could increase clinical education opportunities for K-12 school staff while increasing access to quality mental health care for our most at-risk youth—and potentially transforming Georgia’s mental health in the process.

Social work and volunteerism have been closely connected throughout history as each is rooted in service to others and their creation shares an intertwined beginning. While research is lacking around leadership in nonprofit, charity, and volunteer organizations, the connection between leadership behaviors and volunteer commitment significantly impacts volunteer service on both the domestic and international stages. As volunteerism rates are at historic lows, many aspects and populations in society rely on volunteers to provide necessary support and resources in order to survive.

This presentation examines how leadership behaviors impact volunteer commitment and how leaders of nonprofits can utilize a best practice framework to positively impact the volunteer experience to increase motivation and engagement. By closing this gap in research and providing context around leadership, nonprofit organizations can enhance effective leadership, improve culture and climate, and increase volunteer engagement and retention. Analyzing volunteer motivation to engage and commit to an organization as related and impacted by leadership behaviors provides insight into future direction for research and program implementation.