Social Work

[Episode 100] Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about private practice. My guest, Dr. Julie Hanks, LCSW is the founder and executive director of Wasatch Family Therapy. She is a columnist at HealthyWay.com, Answers.com, and PsychCentral where she writes about private practice. She seems to be on speed dial for national media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, Market Watch, HuffingtonPost Live, and magazines like Cosmopolitan, Health, Health and dozens of others. Dr. Hanks has developed a 6-week e-course called Rock the Media School which is designed to help health and mental health practitioners build their online presence through media interviews, blogging, and building an engaged social media following. Get details at RockTheMediaSchool.com. She is the author of the 2016 book, The Assertiveness Guide for Women: How to Communicate Your Needs, Set Healthy Boundaries, and Transform Your Relationships.

[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.

[Episode 86] Hey there podcast listeners. Today's social work podcast is about addressing suicide risk in schools. When we think about suicidal youth, we tend to think about hospitals and emergency rooms, or outpatient therapy. When we think about schools we think about standardized testing, or unfortunately the increasingly common mass shooting. But schools are an ideal place to address suicide risk in schools. That's why I was so excited to talk with two of the leading experts on youth suicide in schools. Jim Mazza, Ph.D. and Dave Miller, Ph.D. 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.

[Episode 78] Today's episode is on social work ethics. Every social worker knows that our profession has, at its foundation, a Code of Ethics (NASW, 1996/2008) that informs our decisions. Most social workers know what is right and wrong. The greatest ethical challenges arise when there is no clear answer – in other words, there may be no clear right or wrong, or the worker may have to choose between the lesser of two evils. In other words, it’s an ethical dilemma.

[Episode 72] Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast explores the question of what makes psychodynamic theory a valuable approach for working with vulnerable and oppressed populations.

Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is on the process of 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. In order to get some insight into the Process of Evidence-Based Practice, I spoke with one of social work's leading experts on the topic, Dr. Danielle Parrish, assistant professor with the University of Houston, Graduate College of Social Work. In today's interview, Danielle and I talked about the difference between the process of evidence-based practice and evidence-based practices, also known as empirically-supported treatments. We talked 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.

[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.

[Episode 54] Today's Social Work 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.

[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.

In today's podcast, the third of four on pathological gambling, Jody Bechtold, LCSW, NCGC, PC talks about two concepts that are central to understanding the thinking of the pathological gambler: Illusions of Control and Chance vs. Skill.