Archive for year: 2024

Social workers in administrative roles must be able to identify and analyze the external factors that affect the function of the human services organizations for which they work. Though you may apply leadership and management skills as you assume an administrative position, you may also be able to repurpose many of the assessment skills you use in clinical practice for macro social work. Just as you gather information about a client and develop strategies for treatment at a micro level, so too, at a macro level, you gather and analyze information about a situation or program and identify appropriate strategies that will support positive organizational functioning.

For this Discussion, you address the Phoenix House case study in the Social Work Case Studies: Concentration Year text.

Post an analysis of the supervisor’s role in the Phoenix House case study and identify leadership skills that might help the supervisor resolve the issue. Identify which aspect of this situation would be most challenging for you if you were the supervisor. Finally, explain how you would use leadership skills to proceed if you were the supervisor.

Support your post with specific references to the resources. Be sure to provide full APA citations for your references.

The Phoenix House Case Study:

I am the senior social worker at a program called Phoenix House. Phoenix House is an after-school program supporting at-risk middle school youth. It is funded in part by local school districts. Students are generally referred to Phoenix House by school administrators or parents.

I supervise a staff of four full-time social workers and two social work interns from a local university. Staff responsibilities generally include helping students with homework, individual and group counseling, field trips, and recreational games and activities.

Students are usually referred to Phoenix House when school administrators feel that the student is on the cusp of expulsion or long-term suspension from their school, usually due to disciplinary issues. Parents of students may also enroll their children in the Phoenix House program if they feel it will be beneficial. Parents are made aware of Phoenix House and its services through PTA meetings and via school administrators when a disciplinary incident takes place. Although it is free of charge and funded primarily through school district funds, parents are discouraged from using Phoenix House as an after-school or extracurricular activity for their children.

The average clients of Phoenix House are boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 14. The clients possess a range of presenting issues, mostly relating to inappropriate behavior. Some of the clients have been involved with the juvenile justice system in some form or fashion. Almost all of the clients have been suspended from their school at one point or another. Common problems with clients at Phoenix House include fighting, bullying, stealing, and vandalizing.

The staff I supervise have quite a bit of experience working with juveniles with behavioral issues. Some of them have worked in juvenile detention facilities and others have worked at court-mandated youth programs.

We have recently accepted a new client named Daniel. Daniel is a 13-year-old, Caucasian male. Daniel was enrolled by his mother when he was suspended from his school after a marijuana cigarette was found in his book bag by school security staff. It was the first time Daniel had been suspended from his school and the first time a disciplinary report had been filed on him.

Sarah, one of the social workers, asked to speak to me concerning Daniel. Sarah had spoken to Jim, one of our social work interns, about Daniel and the appropriateness of his presence at Phoenix House. Jim is concerned that Daniel is not a “good fit” at Phoenix House because he does not seem to match up with the character and attitudes of the other clients. Sarah shares Jim’s concern and is also concerned that the other clients may be a harmful influence to Daniel.

Sarah is Daniel’s counselor, as well, and has gotten permission from Daniel to share some of his statements from their counseling sessions. The statements indicate Daniel has no idea how the marijuana cigarette got into his book bag and that Daniel suspects it was put there by another student as a joke or as a means to get rid of it during bag searches. Sarah, who has years of experience working with at-risk youth, indicates that she believes Daniel. Daniel has also gone on to state that his mother has a tendency to overreact, and this may be the reason why she enrolled him in the Phoenix Houseprogram instead of listening to his explanations.

In response to Jim and Sarah’s concerns, I contacted Daniel’s mother, Lisa. Lisa listened to my concerns but did not feel that it would be right to remove him from the Phoenix House program. She said that even if he had done nothing wrong, Daniel could learn a valuable lesson about consequences by being in the Phoenix House program. I attempted to explain to Lisa that this is not really the purpose of the program and also indicated that Phoenix House is not meant to be a typical after-school or extracurricular program. Lisa retorted that it is her right to enroll her son in the program, and in her opinion, the end result of Daniel being in the program will be positive in nature.

I have shared this conversation with the staff at our weekly meetings. The staff seem convinced that Daniel will not have a positive experience at Phoenix House and feel he is being picked on and bullied by the other clients despite their efforts to prevent it. Some staff members have also pointed out that this may be an ethical issue because they feel the situation violates the social work value of “do no harm”

Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen, S. M. (Eds.). (2014b). Social work case studies: Concentration year. Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing [Vital Source e-reader].

• “Social Work Supervision, Leadership, and Administration: The Phoenix House” (pp. 82–84)

 

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Week 7 Pillars of Society Matrix

Complete the “Pillars of Society Matrix” worksheet.

Part 1: Matrix

Instructions: Complete the matrix below. Each cell/cube of the matrix needs to have a three- to five-sentence response.

Pillars	What have you read about how the economy impacts each ofsociety’s pillars today? (Use your textbook and other academic readings.)	What have you observed about how the economy impacts each ofsociety’s pillars today? (Draw upon your own personal experience.)	How does your community impact the pillars?	How has technology impacted each ofthe pillars?
Politics
Marriage and Family
Religion
Education

 

Part 2: Summary

Instructions: Write a 100-150-word summary of your matrix. Cite one to two resources you used to complete the matrix. 

 

Use your assigned Readings and the GCU Library for research support.

While GCU style format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected and in-text citations and references should be presented using GCU documentation guidelines, which can be found in the GCU Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.

You are not required to submit this assignment to Turnitin.

 

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Upon hearing the stories of sometimes horrific atrocities clients or client families have experienced, you as a social worker may find yourself confronting existential questions such as Why? For example, Why do horrible events happen to good people? Why do people abuse their children?

Trying to make sense of such trauma is not easy, and you may seek answers to these existential questions your whole life. And yet, there are opportunities for growth despite trauma for both clients and social workers. This is known as post-traumatic growth, where a renewed sense purpose or a more profound outlook on life is the by-product.

In this Discussion, you work to seek meaning from the trauma your clients experience and the subsequent healing you help your clients achieve in your social work practice.

To prepare:

• Read about trauma-informed social work, and read this article listed in the Learning Resources: Vis, J.-A., & Boynton, H. M. (2008). Spirituality and transcendent meaning making: possibilities for enhancing posttraumatic growth. Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work, 27(1/2): 69–86. http://dx.doi.org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1080/15426430802113814

Assignment:

• In 1 sentence, identify an existential question with which you have grappled in relation to a client who has been traumatized.
  • Reflect on an existential question that might arise in working with the client in the case study you have selected throughout the course. The Case of Jake Levy- Attached.
• In 3 to 4 brief sentences, describe where there is potential for growth for the client as a result of the trauma.
• In 3 to 4 brief sentences, explain where there is potential for growth for you, the social worker, as a result of listening to the client’s stories and bearing witness to their trauma.
• Describe any challenges you may experience between the meaning you hold based on your personal beliefs and working within the client’s potentially different belief framework

 

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APA FORMAT

 

 

Assume that you are a consultant hired by this organization to study it and provide recommendations about your findings. Evaluate the organization you have chosen to study throughout this course.

Submit the Key Assignment draft for grading and instructor feedback. The Key Assignment draft assignment should cover the concepts introduced in Weeks 1 through 4.

Assume that you are a consultant hired by this organization to study it and provide recommendations about your findings. The final paper will include specific actions to be taken by the managers, supervisors, and leaders as they address challenges in the organization.

In your Key Assignment draft, include the following:

• Provide 250–350 words briefly summarizing general information about the organization (industry, size, public vs. private, etc.).
• Describe at least 1 significant issue or challenge that this organization is currently facing as it relates to the topics covered each week.
• Identify how you would take action to correct these issues. Be sure to include the following in your answer:
  • Description of current management challenges and the current functions, roles, and skills
  • Descriptions of supervisory challenges (which may include, but are not limited to, motivation and performance evaluation)
  • Leadership styles currently in use at the organization you are studying and the leadership theories that will be used in the solution
  • Communication challenges and the solution to these challenges (interpersonal, group, team, and organizational)
  • A minimum of 5 peer-reviewed scholarly references

Also, be sure to include an analysis of your organization’s challenges with and efforts to:

• Address stress and the work–life balance
• Improve problem solving and decision making throughout the organization
• Deal with change and resistance to change

 

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This final exam is comprised of eight worksheets covering various key topics of the Harvard fully online eLearning course on Quantitative Methods.

Complete the exam as if you were submitting this workbook to a lay person not familiar with quantitative methods such that they could easily understand your arguments, graphs, mathematical evidence and conclusions.

Please show all of your work.  It is not enough to simply get right answers on this Exam or to just explain the mathematical process in a text box; you must show your work to demonstrate that YOU know how to arrive at correct answers using Excel calculations, functions, and/or appropriate utility.  If a utility is used, the specific utility must be pasted to the respective worksheet.

 

There is a deadline for the submission of this exam.  You are responsible for submitting this completed workbook to your coach before the deadline.  Use  Lastname.Firstname.FinalExam as the file name of your document.

Q-1a.  You run a call center and are concerned about customer support service levels on the Help Desk.  You want to know how many calls per day are handled by your help desk staff.  You collect the data at left over a 75-day period.  Use appropriate descriptive statistics to make sense of this data.  Use an appropriate graph also.  Explain  your findings so that your non-quantitative partner will understand them.  (5 pts.)

Can demographic information be  helpful in predicting sales at sporting goods stores?  The data at left are monthly sales totals from a random sample of 33 stores in a large chain of nationwide sporting goods stores.  All stores in the franchise, and thus within the sample, are approximately the same size and carry the same merchandise.  The county, or in some cases counties, in which the store draws the majority of its customers is referred to here as the customer base.  For each of the 33 set are:

Sales ——Latest one month sales total (dollars)

 

Income —Median family income of customer base (dollars)

Age ——–Median age of customer base (years)

HS ———-Percentage of customer base with a high school diploma

College —Percentage of customer base with a college diploma

Growth —Annual population growth rate of customer base over the past 10 years.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Q-2a. Construct a scatter plot, using sales as the dependent variable and median family income as the independent variable.  Discuss the scatter plot. (5 pts.)

 

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-2b.  Assuming a linear relationship, use the least-squares method to compute the regression coefficients b0and b1 and state the regression equation. (5 pts.)

 

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-2c.  Interpret the meaning of the Y-intercept, b0, and the slope, b1, in this problem. (5 pts.)

 

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-2d.  Compute the coefficient of determination r2, and interpret its meaning.  (5 pts.)

 

______________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-2e.  Construct a 95% confidence interval estimate of the population slope and interpret its meaning. ( 5 pts.)

 

 

Q-3a.   A sample of students from an introductory psychology class were polled regarding the number of hours they spent studying for the last exam.   All students anonymously submitted the number of hours on a 3 by 5 card. There were 24 individuals in the one section of the course polled. The data was used to make inferences regarding the other students taking the course.  Construct a 95% confidence interval  estimate .  Explain your findings so that your non-quantitave partner will understand them.   Their data is  below: (5 pts.)

 

 

 

20         18           7.5         11           10           3.5             7.5           18            19           2.5          9             14

 

9         14          14.5        17           22           4.5           10.5           15              5           8.5          8             20

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-3b.  A sample of Alzheimer’s patients are tested to assess the amount of time (in minutes)  in stage IV sleep. It has been hypothesized that individuals sufferering from Alzheimer’s Disease may spend less time per night in the deeper stages of sleep.  The number of minutes spent is Stage IV sleep is recorded for thirty patients (refer to sample data below of stage IV sleep over a 24 hour period).  Compute a 95 percent confidence interval for this data. What does this information tell you about a particular individual’s (an Alzheimer’s patient) stage IV sleep?   Explain your findings so that your non-quantitative partner will understand them.  (5 pts.)

 

Stage IV Sleep in Minutes

 

28.5     37.4     18.5     53.2     61.3     18.75     33.9     27.1     73.0     53.4     66.0     20.5     51.7     57.25     35.6

 

 

 

33.4     25.1     65.3     55.0     35.0     19.25     81.5     44.1     28.7     36.5     32.2     47.3     41.7     39.75     18.3

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-3c.  A large retail corportation plans to sample sales receipts of its meat department to estimate the average size (in dollars) of a customer purchase.  Previous analysis suggest that the standard deviation of the purchase amount is approximately  $50.72.  In order to calculate a 95% confidence interval of the total width less than $6.50, how many sales receipts should the corportion include in the sample?  Explain your findings so that your non-quantitative partner will understand them.  (5 pts.)

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-3d.  A survey of 850 workers were asked how much they used the Internet at work.  578 said they used the internet within limits, and 255 said that they did not use the Internet within limits.  Construct a 95% confidence interval estimate for the proportion of all workers who did not use the Internet within limits.  Explain your findings so that your non-quantitative partner will understand them.  (5 pts.)

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-3e.  You are the designer for your company’s web site.  You have data to indicate that the mean download time for the homepage is 5.8 seconds and that the standard deviation of download time is 2.1 seconds.  If we assume that the download times are normally distributed, what percent of users will wait between 4 and 8 seconds for the homepage to download?  Explain your findings so that your non-quantitative partner will understand them.  (5 pts.)

 

 

Q-4a.  You are the manager of a popular retail store.  You want to determine whether the population mean  wait time for customer to

 

check-out has changed in the past month from its previous population mean value of 4.25 minutes.  From past experience, you

 

can assume that the population is normally distributed with a population standard deviation of 1.6 minutes.  You select a sample

 

of 43 customer’s wait time to check-out during a one hour period.  The sample mean is 4.75 minutes.  Determine whether there

 

is evidence at the 0.05 level of significance that the population mean wait time to check-out has changed in the past month from

 

its previous population mean value of 4.25 minutes.   Explain your findings utlizing information from the hypothesis test you

 

conduct.  (5 pts.)

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Q-4b.  You are the manager of a fast-food restaurant.  Based on a sample of two-hundred fifty drive-through orders, you discovered that

 

orders were filled correctly 86.5% of the time.  In an effort to improve the amount of orders filled correctly, you developed a new

 

process to fill orders.  After sampling two-hundred fifty orders under this new process, the results reviled that 225 orders were

 

filled correctly.  At the 0.01 level of significance, can you conclude that the new process population proportion of orders filled

 

correctly is higher than the proportion of orders filled under the old process?   Explain your findings utilizing information from the

 

test you conduct. (5 pts.)

 

Q-5a.  One of the important features of a camera is the battery life

 

as measured by the number of shots taken until the battery

 

needs to be recharged.  The data at left contain the battery

 

life of 27 subcompact cameras and 15 compact cameras.

 

Assuming that the population variances from both types of

 

digital cameras are equal, is there evidence of a difference

 

in the mean battery life between the two types of digital

 

cameras at the 95% confidence level?  (5 pts.)

 

A real estate Association in a suburban community would like to study the relationship between the size of a single-family house (as measured by number of rooms) and the selling price of the house (in thousands of dollars).  Two different neighborhoods are included in the study, one on the east side of the community (=0) and the other on the west side (=1).  A random sample of 20 houses was selected with the results given at left.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Q-6a.  State the multiple regression equation that predicts the selling price

 

based on the number of rooms in the neighborhood. (5 pts.)

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Q-6b.  Interpret the regression coefficients.  (5 pts.)

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Q-6c.  Predict the selling price for a house with 10 rooms that is located in a

 

East-side neighborhood.  Explain your findings so that your non-

 

quantitative partner will understand them.  (5 pts.)

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Q-6d.  Compute and interpret the adjusted r2.  (5 pts.)

 

Q-7a.  The management of a bank in the Caribbean was concerned about the potential loss that

 

might occur in the event of a hurricane.  The bank estimated that the loss from one of these

 

storms could be as much as $120 million including losses due to interrupted service and customer

 

relations.  One project the bank is considering is the installation of an emergency power generator

 

at its operations headquarters.  The cost of the emergency generator is $550,000, and if it is

 

installed no losses from this type of storm will be incurred.  However, if the generator is not

 

installed, there is a 10% chance that a power outage will occur during the next year.  If there is an

 

outage there is a 5% probability that the resulting losses will be very large or approximately $135

 

million in lost earnings.  Alternatively it is estimated that there is a 95% probability of only slight

 

losses of around $1.1 million.   Using decision tree analysis, determined whether the bank should

 

install  the new power generator.  (5 pts.)

 

An investor is to purchase one of three types of real estate.  The investor must decide among an apartment building, an office building, and a warehouse.  The future states of nature that will determine how much profit the investor will make are good economic conditions and poor economic conditions.  The profits that will result from each decision in the event of each state of nature are shown above.

 

_________________________________________________________________

 

Q-8a. Which investment has the highest EMV andwhat is the expected value of

 

perfect information in this problem ?  Explain your findings so that your non-

 

quantitative partner will understand them.  (5 pts.)

 

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