Moving Forward: A National Focus on Social Work Research

To highlight this expanded contribution, in June 2002, the National Institute of Mental Health convened a workgroup of researchers to present findings from current social work research in mental health and to discuss future research directions consistent with NIMH research priorities. Moving Forward: Building on Social Work Contributions to Mental Health Research gathered presenters through a competitive, peer-reviewed process which resulted in a wide-range of research perspectives and design. The meeting was organized around:

• Click here to read abstracts of presentations at the NIMH Symposium: Moving Forward: Building On Social Work Contributions to Mental Health Research

  Improving Care for the Most Needy
• Health Disparities
• Psychiatric Disorders among Women on Welfare
• Mental Disorders in Childhood
• Services for persons with Severe Mental Illness
• Depression in Non-Specialty Sectors of Care
• Motherhood and Mental Illness
• Service Needs of Delinquent Adolescents

The meeting included social work mental health researchers, NIMH staff, NIH staff interested in social work research contributions, and representatives of key social work organizations (NASW, IASWR , SSWR, CSWE). Denise Juliano-Bult, MSW, chief, Systems Research Branch, Division of Services and Intervention Research at NIMH and convener of the meeting, summarized the conclusions and recommendations as follows:

• Intervention Development - Current research should move toward development of model interventions as well as addressing the organizational and structural barriers to their implementation.
• Systems Coordination - Better communication and coordination of services is needed between mental health systems and various other non-specialty service systems such as child welfare, adult and juvenile justice, foster care, substance abuse, public assistance, Indian health, homelessness, aging, and veterans services.
• Engagement of Clients - Development of effective outreach and transitions services to individuals and families are essential, given the challenges of working with those who are severely ill, resistant to or suspicious of treatment, multi-system users, and persons with special sociocultural or gender concerns.
• Measurement Issues - New approaches to research design and measurement are needed to address target populations involved in multiple service systems, to address the client-clinician dynamic (what occurs in the treatment process), and to address practice setting variation.
• Professional Collaboration - Social Worker researchers and clinicians should partner more effectively with researchers from other disciplines in order to advance knowledge on community mental health.

To read abstracts of the Moving Forward presentations and to see references related to their published research, click here. It should be noted that while these abstracts are representative of the range of social work research inquiry and theory testing, they are but a small measure of the inquiry and theory testing in mental health oriented research conducted by social workers.

For more information, refer to NASW journals, available online at www.naswpressonline.org

 

National Institute of Mental Health. (1991). Building Social Work Knowledge for Effective Services and Policies . Washington , DC : Author.