"A Guide to Best Practice in Special Education, Health and Social Care" explores and explains the changes in governmental policies across the education, health and social care services, and what they mean for young individuals, parents and professionals. In a period of significant change, many practitioners need to understand the…

Clinical physiologists in Sweden are physicians (the majority with a PhD degree) with thorough training in system physiology and pathophysiology. They investigate patients in a functional approach and are engaged in basic and applied physiology teaching and research. In 1954, clinical physiology was founded as an independent academic and clinical…

Sees health care decision making posing variety of complex issues for individuals, families, and providers. Describes Health Decisions Community Council (HDCC), community-based bioethics committee established to offer noninstitutional forum for discussion of health care dilemmas. Notes that social work skills and values for autonomy and…

This document, the third of three volumes in the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment's "Adolescent Health" series, contains chapters 15 through 19, which address issues in the delivery of health and related services to adolescents. Chapter 15 reviews research on the shortcomings of the mainstream primary health care system with…

The state of the psychotherapy termination literature to date might best be characterized as inconclusive. Despite decades of studies, almost no predictors of premature termination have emerged consistently. An examination of this literature reveals a number of recurrent methodological-analytical problems that likely have contributed substantially…

The document presents a Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) special report on dental care for the handicapped. The nature and extent of the problem of providing dental services to the handicapped population is examined. The handicapped population is defined and their oral health status reviewed. Factors contributing to the poor oral…

Notes that Managed Care, in health and mental health services, is latest building block presented as necessary for development of organized human services system. Identifies health maintenance organizations (HMOs) as fastest growing element in such systems. Attempts to collate latest information as to how mental health and substance abuse care is…

Provides overview of basic knowledge and skills needed for mental health counselors to function effectively as employees or providers for managed care organizations. Skills include orientation to brief targeted psychotherapy; familiarity with mental health and substance abuse disorders; experience in working in crisis situations; an understanding…

Notes that process of discharge planning is often impeded by disagreements among family members who must readjust roles and relationships in the face of crisis of illness. Discusses sources of family disagreements related to discharge planning, identifies implications for social work practice, and uses family systems perspective to articulate…

To increase access to health care, each community must address minority clients' specific cultural mores, which often conflict with those of the health care provider. Three sources of such cultural conflict are (1) language; (2) folk beliefs; and (3) time orientation. (BJV)

Asserts that cognitive skills that develop during adolescence are crucial to successful contraceptive practice and that practitioners must understand special developmental setting in which adolescent sexual growth and experimentation occur in order to impact contraceptive use. Demonstrates how health and medical providers can work together to…

High infant and maternal mortality, poverty, isolation, a shortage of health professionals, inadequate health care facilities, and difficult geographic access to care are some of the health-related problems that plague Black rural southerners. (GC)

Shared decision making about placement and medical interventions can be empowering to older persons, relieve burdens on older person and family, and facilitate better surrogate decision making later. Potential dangers of shared process include coercion, conflicts of interest, and disagreements between family members. New legal concepts could help…

Provides overview of case management, its history, and contemporary models. Examines challenges that case management poses for social work profession: covering up issue that health and human services delivery system is nonsystem; maintaining client-centered perspective in cost-obsessed environment; dealing with quality control; coping with…

This document, the second of three volumes in the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment's "Adolescent Health" series, provides background information on aspects of adolescents' lives and examines the effectiveness of prevention and treatment interventions. Chapter 1, an introduction to this two-part document, provides a summary…