Research at the School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley
CSSR e-NEWSLETTER VOL 3 No. 2, January-February 2005

Welcome to an email newsletter from the School of Social Welfare, Center for Social Services Research. Approximately every 2-3 months we will be sending this communication to School faculty, staff, students, alumni, and others interested in the School’s research activities. We hope you find this useful! 

(p.s. You can find these newsletters archived on the CSSR website at http://cssr.berkeley.edu/about/.)

If you know anyone else who should receive this communication, let us know.
Do you have any items for the next newsletter? Contact us

List of Contents, v3(2)

Click on the links below to get to the content… (Note--these links might not work on CalMail via the web, but should work on other local or web-based email programs.)

1. A Note from the CSSR Director:  The School's contributions to the 2005 annual conference of the Society for Social Work and Research, Miami
2. CSSR Staffing News & Accomplishments
3. Research Project Highlights
4. Research In Focus: A School Social Work Research Agenda, by Assistant Professor Susan Stone
5. CSSR Website Redesign!
6. CSSR Research Training Series, Spring 2005
7. Resource: Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research
8. Update: Prop 63: The Mental Health Services Act
9. Quote quiz...
10. Contact us / Comments, suggestions, unintended omissions, etc.

A note from the CSSR Director:        

The School of Social Welfare made an impressive showing at this year's conference of the Society for Social Work and Research (January 13-16 in Miami). Our students and faculty presented their work in oral presentations, poster sessions, symposia, and workshops. These included:

1. A Roundtable entitled "Practical Experience Teaching Evidence-Based Practice" with Hutto Patterson Professor Eilleen Gambrill and other international experts
2. A symposium entitled "Asian Americans--No Model Minority" with papers by Professors Yu-Wen Ying and Julian Chow; Dr. Meekyung Han, and Kathy Lemon, MSW (Doctoral student)
3. A symposium entitled "Evaluating Child Welfare Intensive Services: Results from California's Title IV-E Waiver Child Welfare Demonstration Project" by Dr. Edward Cohen, with papers by Dr. Charlie Ferguson and doctoral researchers Stephanie Berzin, MSW and Brenda Lorentzen, MSW.
4. A paper entitled "The Prevalence and Predictive Power of Conditions Enabling Reunification Bypass in a CPS-Involved Sample" by Dr. Amy C. D'Andrade
5. Poster session on "The Impact of Parental Public Assistance and Employment on Mental Health and Substance Abuse Outcomes for Emerging Adults" By Doctoral students Sean R. Hogan, MSW, George J. Unick, MSW, Terry V. Shaw, MSW, Allison C. De Marco, MSW, and Stephanie C. Berzin, MSW
6. Poster session on "The Effect of Parental Work History and Public Assistance Use on the Transition to Adulthood" (Doctoral students Stephanie C. Berzin, MSW, Allison C. De Marco, MSW, Terry V. Shaw, MSW, George J. Unick, MSW, and Sean R. Hogan, MSW).
7. A paper entitled "Self-Assessed Health Among Individuals with Mental Illnesses" by Dr. Hyeouk C. Hahm, Post-Doctoral Trainee (co-author Professor Steven P. Segal)
8. A paper entitled "Gender and acculturation differences in Asian American adolescents' sexual activity" by Dr. Hyeouk C. Hahm, Post-Doctoral Trainee and Rose M. Barreto, MSW (Doctoral student)
9. A paper entitled "Using Administrative Child Welfare Data to Identify Sibling Groups" by Doctoral students Bridgette Lery, MSW, Terry V. Shaw, MSW and Joseph Magruder, MSW.
10. A paper entitled "Using Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis to Examine Neighborhood Structure and Foster Care Entry" by Bridgette Lery, MSW (Doctoral student).
11. A paper entitled "Effects of Capitation on Outpatient Mental Health Episodes of Children" by Dr. Edward Cohen (co-author Professor Lonnie Snowden)..
12. In addition, Bridgette Lery moderated in Interest Group on Geographic Information Systems, and Ed Cohen led one on Social Work Research Center Development.

Full abstracts and more information about the conference can still be found at SSWR -- Society for Social Work and Research.

The variety of topics speaks to the variety in social welfare practice and research, as well as the wide range of research interests in our School.

Congratulations to all of our presenters!

--Ed Cohen

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CSSR Staffing News & Accomplishments:           

1. Lynn Purcell said goodbye to CSSR in October after deciding to move to New Mexico. Lynn worked at the Center since 1999 and made many important contributions. We thank her for her service and wish her well in her new adventures.
2. Helen Kim, the CSSR Web Master, started coursework in the Fall towards a Master of Information Management and Systems, at UCB's School of Information Management and Systems
3. Ed Bein, a doctoral student in biostatistics, has joined the CASAS group to help with the California Statewide Survey of Caregivers (CSSC) survey analyses.  Ed's previous training is as a clinical psychologist, and he has done psychotherapy outcome research at Stanford and Vanderbilt and AIDS prevention research at UCSF and SF State.  He is particularly interested in applying recently developed statistical methods for causal inference to research in psychology and social welfare.
4. Congratulations! to Charlie Ferguson and Laura Frame on the birth of Stella Rose, born healthy and 8lbs 4oz on 1/30. Both Laura and Charlie have moved on from CSSR after their distinguished and highly valued service to child welfare research. Our best wishes!
5. Ed Cohen has joined the "CalSWEC II" Mental Health Subcommittee, convened to prepare a workforce of social workers for California's public mental health system. Ed will also coordinate Northern California stakeholder meetings on the newly adopted Curriculum Competencies and related implementation strategies. More information on CalSWEC II can be found at http://calswec.berkeley.edu/CalSWEC/NewInitiatives.html.
6. Sarah Taylor and Ed Cohen have contributed their efforts towards the upcoming "Transition-Age Youth Resource Guide", being written by the County Mental Health Directors' Association ASOC/CSOC Transition-Age Youth Subcommittee for county mental health practitioners, managers and administrators. Drafts of chapters and related documents for the Resource Guide can be viewed at http://www.cmhda.org/tayRG.html.

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Research Project Highlights   

1. Recent awards, renewals (since October 2004)                                                                           

• The Center for the Advanced Study of Aging Services (CASAS) (Professor Andy Scharlach, P.I.) just received word that the Kleiner Foundation has made a generous gift of $780,000 to to further the training of social work students and research in the field of aging services.
   
• The National Abandoned Infants Resource Center (Professor Neil Gilbert, P.I.) received a grant of $100,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The grant will fund an analysis of policies and practices regarding the testing, reporting and child welfare treatment of prenatally drug exposed newborns in eight cities throughout the United States. For more information, contact Amy Price at: amyprice@berkeley.edu.
   
• The Child Welfare Research Center was awarded grants from the Walter S. Johnson Foundation and the Stuart Foundation for the project Family to Family Youth Transition Project  (Dr. Barbara Needell, P.I.). This expands the work with the Annie E. Casey Foundations's Family to Family Initiative to include technical assistance for a new strategy that focuses on youth in transition.  This effort will be led by Dr. Amy D' Andrade and Wendy Piccus.

2. News from the Center for the Advanced Study of Aging Services:

• The CASAS faculty, staff and students have been busy publishing and presenting the results of the California Statewide Survey of Caregivers (CSSC) that was commissioned by the
  
  California Department of Aging.  The group is currently preparing the data for analysis from the follow-up to the CSSC, which was completed in January 2005 with funding provided by the Archstone Foundation.
• Visit the CASAS web page at http://cssr.berkeley.edu/aging/ and read the latest Newsletter (Fall, 2004) for recent activities, publications, and announcements.

3. News from the Bay Area Social Service Consortium:

• BASSC has just finished up a literature review of interventions addressing racial/ethnic disproportionality in the front end of the child welfare system. The study utilized a structured review process, with pre-defined search terms and study sources to decrease the chance of bias in the results. Findings were presented to the BASSC Directors at their last retreat on January 28, and included disproportionality statistics for each county's front-end decision points. A short research brief and a longer report will be provided directly to the BASSC agencies within the next month.
• At the request of BASSC directors, BASSC's next project will be to summarize the research literature on child welfare outcomes. Findings from the current project on Risk and Safety Assessment will be presented to the directors at their retreat in Half Moon Bay on March 31-April 1.

4. News from the Child Welfare Research Center:

• Wendy Piccus presented (with rave reviews!) at the statewide Family to Family Conference in Sacramento in January 2005. Her topic was "Siblings in Permanence."
• CWRC staff  (Dr. Daniel Webster, Seon Lee, Michael Armijo and Joe Magruder, with Dr. Aron Shlonsky) have completed a draft Report to the Legislature on the Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program for the California Department of Social Services. This program was implemented on 1/1/00 and provides financial assistance to kin who become guardians of children who have been in their care as foster children.
• Dr. Barbara Needell was invited to serve on the editorial board of the new Journal of Public Child Welfare. She was also invited to participate in a conference sponsored by Children's Rights called Strengthening Data Use and Analysis in Class Action Litigation, January 2005 in Chicago.
• The Final Report for the Title IV-E Child Welfare Waiver Demonstration Project Evaluation (Dr. Edward Cohen, P.I.) is now available at the CSSR website, at http://cssr.berkeley.edu/childwelfare/projectdetails.asp?name=waiver .
• Dr. Edward Cohen was invited to serve on a Technical Work Group convened to advise the National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center of Caliber, Inc., on their efforts to support grantees of the Children's Bureau "Improving Child Welfare Outcomes Through Systems of Care."

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Research In Focus: School Social Work Research

In this issue we highlight the work of Assistant Professor Susan Stone, whose expertise is in school social work practice and research. Professor Stone describes her research agenda on school based pscyho-social services. For more information please see http://socialwelfare.berkeley.edu/faculty/stone.htm.
 

Over the last twenty years, there has been resurgent interest in how public
schools can best provide for the non-academic (e.g. basic/concrete, health,
mental health, psycho-social) needs of students.  There is a common
perception that unmet needs of these types sharply constrain student
academic performance and pathways (National Research Council, 2004) and
that positive school functioning is a developmentally salient outcome for
children and youth (Eccles & Roeser, 1999).  This interest is also
reflected in the increasing presence and perceived promise of Comer Schools
(see Comer, 1980), school-based health centers (Brindis, et al., 2003),
school-based mental health centers (Adelman & Taylor, 1998; Weist, 1997),
"full-service," community schools (Dryfoos & Macguire, 2002; National
Research Council, 2004) and schools as primary prevention sites (Greenberg,
2004).

The empirical base supporting these programs has not kept pace with this
expansion  (National Research Council, 2004).  While there are some efforts
(e.g. school based prevention of substance abuse and conduct problems,
Comer programs) with an accumulating body of empirical support (see Cook et
al., 2000; Gottfredson & Wilson, 2003), little direct evidence supports the
efficacy of others.  In addition, the current literature is characterized
by disciplinary divides which obscure the fact that the school is
identified (albeit through slightly different mechanisms) as a critical
unit of attention.

I am currently working on a program of research which will shed
understanding on the extent to which and how school characteristics
(student composition, organizational attributes, and specific service
provision strategies related to non-academic needs) relate to child
psycho-social and academic outcomes.  At the same time, I hope to inform
the question of how to span the research-practice divide specifically
related to psycho-social service provision within public school settings. 
                                                                                        --Susan Stone, Ph.D.

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CSSR Website News           

• We have begun a process of re-designing the CSSR website. The objectives of the re-design are to simplify the site, improve the look and feel of the pages and access to content, and allow more flexibility for staff to update content. This process will not interfere with access to data or current content. We have begun reviewing potential vendors to assist in the design process. More about this in future announcements. Suggestions? Send your thoughts to Ed Cohen.

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CSSR Research Training Series

Our Spring 2005 Training Series will include the following presentations, all at Haviland Hall. (Download schedule at http://cssr.berkeley.edu/about/training/SW_research_training_spring05.pdf):

• "Extended Outpatient Commitment and Treatment Utilization" by Professor Steven P. Segal. This study conducted with psychiatric data from Australia documented the effects of extended outpatient commitment court orders on the use of hospital and outpatient care. Tuesday 2/15 at noon.
• "Writer's Workshop: Support for Writing and Publishing" by Dr. Edward Cohen. This workshop addresses various aspects of writing journal articles and papers in social welfare and the behavioral sciences, such as selecting topics, organizing the article sections, selecting appropriate journals, preparing the manuscript, and dealing with the response from reviewers. Thursday 3/3 at noon.
• "A Prospective Field Study of the Validity of the California Family Risk Assessment" by Dr. Will Johnson. Dr. Johnson will present the latest findings from his ongoing work on predicting risk for child abuse and neglect.  Tuesday 4/12 at noon.
• "Introduction to Hierarchical Linear Modeling--Applications to Social Welfare Research" by Asst. Professor Susan Stone. Dr. Stone will introduce the conceptual framework of HLM, an approach to modeling repeated measures in longitudinal research with data from multiple levels of observation. Wednesday, 4/27 at noon.

All School students, faculty and staff are invited as well as community guests.

Training ideas? Contact Ed Cohen with your suggestions.

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Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research

Are you a listserve recipient of the IASWR newsletter? IASWR is a consortium of five major social work organizations, established in 1993 to address the need for resources to conduct and make use of social work research. Here is a a statement extracted from the mission statement:

Send email to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.SC.EDU
Leave subject line blank and type in message area:
Subscribe iaswrlst then your firstname and lastname

Update: Prop 63--The Mental Health Services Act

In November Californians passed the Mental Health Service Act, which generates new tax revenue for county mental health departments to implement innovative services, preventive care, services for underserved children, adults and older adults, and training/recruitment programs for the mental health workforce. Counties are now submitting proposals for community planning grants. For the latest information on planning, policy, and funding, see the MHSA home page at http://www.dmh.cahwnet.gov/WhatsNew/mhsa/default.asp .

Quote quiz:

Who first said "...to err is human, to forgive divine." ?

(Answer in next newsletter.)

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Contact Us

We apologize for unintended omissions or inaccuracies. Please let us know of any!

Ed Cohen, Director  ecohen@berkeley.edu

Mia Reiser, Research Administrator mreiser@berkeley.edu

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