Social media and gang violence: Interview with Desmond Patton, Ph.D.

[Episode 116] Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about social media and gang violence. It is about 8 million tweets, cyberbanging, and using social media to get a 360-degree view of someone’s life. It is about the amazing research of Dr. Desmond Patton.

Dr. Patton's research uses qualitative and computational data collection methods to examine how and why gang violence, trauma, grief, and identity are expressed on social media and the real world impact they have on well-being for low-income youth of color.

Desmond and I spoke in January of 2017. He unpacked the complex relationship between gang banging and cyberbanging – a term he and his colleagues coined back in 2013. We also talked about how social workers can think about the relationship between social media and youth. Desmond encourages us to think of the online world as a new social environment that social workers need to understand. He questions existing agency policies that prohibit social workers from interacting with clients on social media and asks if those are empirically-sound policies. And one of the things that I love the most about Desmond’s work is that he combines the rich understanding that comes from qualitative research and the cutting edge insights that can come from analyzing big data.

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Engaging People At Risk for Suicide: Interview with Dana Alonzo, Ph.D.

[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 on how to improve engagement in treatment for anyone, regardless of suicide risk.



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If you’re feeling suicidal, please talk to somebody. You can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255; the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860; or the Trevor Project at 866-488- 7386. Text “START” to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. If you don’t like the phone, consider using the Lifeline Crisis Chat at www.crisischat.org.

The Challenges and Rewards of Collaborative Community-Based Research for Social Change: Interview with Corey Shdaimah and Sanford Schram

[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, authors of Change Research: A Case Study on Collaborative Methods for Social Workers and Advocates published in 2011 by Columbia University Press.

In today’s Social Work Podcast, Corey and Sandy distinguish between Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and talk 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.

Coming Out, Coming Home: Interview with Michael C. LaSala, Ph.D.

[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. (http://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

The Wisdom To Know the Difference: Interview with Eileen Flanagan

Eileen Flanagan

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 that have transformed the lives of hundreds of millions of people. And it is only 25 words and three lines long.

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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.

And now, on to Episode 61 of the Social Work Podcast: The Wisdom To Know the Difference: an Interview with Eileen Flanagan.

Making Meaning out of Medication: Interview with Kia J. Bentley, Ph.D.

[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 (see references below). 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. 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.

Psychopharmacotherapy and Social Work: Interview with Kia J. Bentley, Ph.D.

[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 (see references below). 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. The second interview focuses on 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 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.