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.

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.

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.

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.

Maternal morbidity and mortality among African American women has been a systemic and pervasive issue in the United States for decades. In 2020, Congress began to address the issues around the deaths of African American women in the Mombius 2020 Act. In 2021 congress expanded those efforts by passing the “Protect Moms Who Serve Act 2020”.

This act began to address the lack of maternal health services to veterans and services members throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs, with a focus on African American and Native women. This presentation will outline the current issues around maternal outcomes in African American women veterans and service members. This presentation will address how using Story Theory, medical professionals can begin to listen to the narratives African American Service Members.

The Story and Narrative Theory centered B.O.O.T. Maternal Assessment and Interview is being proposed to address communication issues between providers and patients. The B.O.O.T.S. assessment can be used by military, veteran, and civilian providers alike.

This presentation will take a close look into the issue of burnout among marginalized healthcare providers (women and LGBTQ+). This showcase will dissect key points in history that target wellness and define terms that are relevant to understanding the effects of burnout on a person’s work-life balance. It will be divided into several sections, including an overview of the problem and contributing factors, a thorough review of relevant literature, a conceptual idea that will explore both the problem at hand and theories that can help with its effects, and finally a practice application that will serve as the recommendation for a change in policy to act as preventative care and education for working social workers in the field.

Each section will walk us through existing research, theory, and practice of Kentucky state-licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs). The end goal of this paper will be the acknowledgment of the professional failings for social workers in the field, as well as an actionable plan that will create change for a healthier practice for the future of the social work profession.

Sexual Reproductive Healthcare (SRH) and the right to control over one’s own body in sexual and reproductive matters, are fundamental core component of an individual’s being. The SRH landscape changes on a daily basis with changes to policy and legislation, majority of which further restrict access. Advocacy and education will be key in advancing SRH access moving forward however in order to move forward we must examine and acknowledge past practices.

Mental health Technology is an innovative service delivery method used to minimize healthcare access challenges. African-Americans have increased their engagement in mental health technology in various aspects as professionals and patients while companies scale in capacity and funding to expand their technological reach globally. The need to explore the intentionality of cultural inclusion, research analysis, evidence-based practices, program design, organizational structures, and policy implementation is essential to ensure the sustainability of mental health technology as a reliable model in the future of healthcare.

This presentation will examine the capstone project as a collection of three papers, the Systematic Literature review, Concept paper, and Practical application paper, analyzing cultural inclusion concerns from the African-American patient and professional perspective. There was an examination of patient issues related to program design, evidence-based interventions, therapist matching, marketing, and research, with professionals experiencing inequities in hiring practices, career ladders, diversity training, strategic planning, STEM careers, and organizational ownership.

This presentation will take a deeper dive into the systematic literature review which explored the current literature, common themes, research barriers, and future research implication for practice. It will further explain the concept paper which described the interconnection between anti-oppressive theory, systems theory, the historical constructs of structural racism, and the structural discrepancies that reinforce obstructive ideologies in the cultural inclusion reform process. Lastly, it will discuss the practice application paper which investigated the root cause of cultural equity challenges, examined behavioral leadership theory doctrines, and provided problem-solving strategies using a three-tiered method of practical reform interventions. This is a call to action for mental health technology cultural inclusion reform.