Insoo Kim Berg, MSW (1934–2007), along with her husband, Steve de Shazer, was a primary developer of solution-focused brief therapy. She was a prolific author as well as a gifted clinician who traveled around the world inspiring and training professionals in this unique model.
101-120 of 1,146 Results
Article
Berg, Insoo Kim
Teri Pichot
Article
Berry, Margaret
Kenneth S. Carpenter
Margaret Berry (1915–2002) was Executive Director of the National Conference on Social Welfare from 1972 to 1979. She was actively involved in developing group work activities on an international basis.
Article
Best Practices
Edward J. Mullen, Jennifer L. Bellamy, and Sarah E. Bledsoe
This entry describes best practices as these are used in social work. The term best practices originated in the organizational management literature in the context of performance measurement and quality improvement where best practices are defined as the preferred technique or approach for achieving a valued outcome. Identification of best practices requires measurement, benchmarking, and identification of processes that result in better outcomes. The identification of best practices requires that organizations put in place quality data collection systems, quality improvement processes, and methods for analyzing and benchmarking pooled provider data. Through this process, organizational learning and organizational performance can be improved.
Article
Best Practices for Supporting Transgender Youth in Schools
Patrick Mulkern, August Wei, and Maggi Price
Transgender youth are those whose genders do not align with their sex assigned at birth. Transgender youth are increasingly visible and frequently encounter discrimination and a lack of understanding from others, especially at school. As a result, they experience profound mental health challenges, with one in five transgender youth attempting suicide. However, such youth who are adequately supported do not experience serious mental health difficulties. Accordingly, promoting school support for transgender youth is critical. While school staff know how to help youth generally, many want more guidance on how to help transgender youth. However, few resources provide clear and actionable best practices for school staff to help transgender youth.
Best practices for supporting transgender youth in schools include verbal, behavioral, and visual skills that all school staff can use. Research shows that when these practices are used, transgender youth experience fewer mental health challenges, feel more connected to their school community, and do better academically.
There are at least 20 best practices for supporting transgender youth in schools supported by empirical and practice-based literature; they span four categories: (a) language to use and avoid, (b) coming out at school, (c) creating a supportive school environment, and (d) preventing and intervening in bullying. Examples include sharing pronouns, advocating for, and sharing the location of gender-inclusive facilities, and intervening in gender-based bullying. School staff—including school social workers—can and should use this set of easy-to-implement, research-informed best practices to improve transgender youths’ mental health.
Article
Bethune, Mary McLeod
Wilma Peebles-Wilkins
Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) was a teacher committed to the education and development of Black women. Her role as president of the National Association of Colored Women led to the founding of the National Council of Negro Women in 1935.
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Beveridge, Lord William
James Midgley
Lord William Beveridge (1879–1963) was one of the founders of the British welfare state. His report of 1942 formed the basis for the Labour Government's social policies between 1945 and 1950 and fostered the creation of Britain's national health services.
Article
Bierdeman-Fike, Jane Elizabeth
Sadye L. M. Logan
Jane Elizabeth Bierdeman-Fike (1922–2012) was a state and national leader in developing forensic social work practice and was committed to providing best practices to an oppressed population of patients with mental illness who were residents in psychiatric institutions.
Article
Bioethics
Larry W. Foster
Bioethics and biomedical ethics are defined. Common bioethical concepts, exemplary moral values, fundamental ethical principles, general ethical theories, and approaches to moral reasoning are reviewed. The scope of topics and issues, the nature of practice situations in bioethics, and social work roles on organizational bodies that monitor and respond to bioethical issues are summarized, as are trends in bioethics. Practice contexts, from beginning to end of life, are highlighted with biopsychosocial facts, ethical questions and issues, and implications for social work—a profession uniquely positioned in giving bioethics a social context.
Article
Bisexuality
Laura S. Abrams
This entry explores past and present social-scientific lenses concerning bisexuality. The author traces the rise of a bisexual movement in the 1970s to present times. The entry concludes by addressing social work's limited contributions to understanding bisexuality and proposes trends and directions for future practice and research with diverse groups of bisexuals.
Article
Black Americans: Practice Interventions
Sharon E. Moore
Black people number about 46.8 million or 14% of the U.S. population. Throughout U.S. history, regardless of social class, Black people have had to remain cognizant of their race. The COVID-19 pandemic and police shootings of unarmed Black people have revealed that American racism toward Blacks is as virulent today as it has always been. Because of purposeful structural inequality, Black people in America suffer disproportionately in every sector of human activity. They are still facing social issues such as racism, substance abuse, mass incarceration, poverty, police brutality and police murder, infant mortality that is twice as high as among whites, residential segregation, racial profiling, and discrimination. And yet the strengths of the Black community have allowed it to thrive amid these arduous circumstances.
Article
Blackey, Eileen
Margaret Daniel
Eileen Blackey (1902–1979) was a social worker and consultant who helped establish schools of social work in Hawaii and at Hebrew University in Israel. She was Dean of the School of Social Work at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Article
Black Lives Matter
Mildred Delozia and Charles M. S. Birore
Black Lives Matter (BLM), which led to the Black Lives Matter movement (BLMM), has been described as a movement with a global following. The movement is aligned with the social work profession’s purpose and values. The social work profession is a human rights profession and has a history of involvement with movements, beginning with the settlement house movement in the late 19th century. The BLMM frames its narrative based on human rights and espouses an agenda that calls out injustice in all facets of social justice. Therefore, a central aim is to understand the BLMM from multiple perspectives. Definitions, theoretical perspectives, and types of social movements are presented, and then the framework of social movements is used to understand the BLMM. Finally, the BLMM is examined in relation to historical social movements, advocacy organizations, and criminal justice reform.
Article
Black Women and Maternal Death
Valire C. Copeland and Betty Braxter
The upward trend in the number of Black maternal deaths between 2005 and 2020 warrants an in-depth assessment of risk factors associated with the increased maternal mortality rate in the United States for this subgroup population. The risk factors are multifactorial and, in part, have been organized into several categories: demographics, social determinants of health (SDOH), medical conditions, and the quality-of-care interventions by health systems providers. In addition, the overall trends, causes, and solutions to decrease maternal mortality current rates reflect the social inequities in our society.
Black maternal deaths have been rising in recent years due to complex causes which stem from structural and systemic health inequities. In part, unvaccinated pregnant women were at greater risk of severe illness and hospitalization and even death if they were diagnosed with COVID-19. While Black Americans were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, the disparities in maternal mortality predate and extend beyond the pandemic. In part, and together, the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths include cardiovascular disease, other medical conditions and infections, cardiomyopathy, blood clots in the lung hypertensive disorders related to pregnancy, adverse pregnancy outcomes, racial bias of providers, and perceived racial discrimination from patients. In addition, an overview of nonmedical factors referred to as SDOH, which intersect with health status outcomes, will be discussed.
An overview of Black women’s maternal mortality and morbidity, factors contributing to poor maternal health status outcomes, and intervention strategies at the provider, health systems, and policy levels are provided. Social workers in health care systems function as health care providers and clinicians. Therefore, contributing medical and nonmedical issues are factors to consider for a holistic perspective during engagement, assessment, and intervention. The terms Black women and Black birthing persons are used interchangeably.
Article
Blindness and Visual Impairment
Adrienne Asch and Nancy R. Mudrick
Significant visual impairment affects ~8 million Americans, 1.8 million of whom are blind and must find nonvisual methods of performing life roles. Social workers should not assume that people with visual impairment or blindness are unable to work, have families, or engage in sports or travel, or that vision limitations are necessarily a part of every presenting problem. Key roles for social workers include assisting in access to services and training and advocacy to combat discrimination and exclusion.
Article
Bogardus, Emory
Frances Feldman and Haluk Soydan
Emory Bogardus (1882–1973) established the first Sociology Department in the West in 1915. His study on “social distance” is still used to examine cultural, ethnic, and religious attitudes. In 1920 he founded Alpha Kappa Delta, the sociology honor society.
Article
Bogo, Marion
Faye Mishna and Cheryl Regehr
Marion Bogo (1942–2021), Professor in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, was a preeminent Canadian scholar and world-renowned expert who transformed social work education and practice in Canada and across the globe. Over a 4-decade-long career, Bogo instituted major innovations in social work practice education including developing a holistic model of competence and cutting-edge simulation-based educational practices. Bogo had a profound influence on preparing generations of social workers and educators.
Article
Borderline Personality Disorder
Gloria Hegge
The historical development of the borderline concept is traced up through the development of the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Treatments for BPD during the 1970s and 1980s are discussed, including the object relations theories of Margaret Mahler and James Masterson, as well as trauma theory described by Judith Herman. Three evidence-based treatments (EBTs) that have emerged from the 1990s to the present time are described, as well as findings from brain imaging techniques and how new EBTs and neuroimaging have changed the view of this disorder.
Article
Böszörményi-Nagy, Ivan
Carole Zugazaga
Ivan Böszörményi-Nagy (1920–2007) was a Hungarian-American psychiatrist and one of the founders of the field of family therapy. He emigrated from Hungary to the United States in 1950.
Article
Brace, Charles Loring
Jean K. Quam
Charles Loring Brace (1826–1890) was a writer, minister, and social reformer. He worked with homeless children, initiating child welfare services, and was the founder and executive director of the Children's Aid Society of New York City.
Article
Brager, George
Stephen Holloway
George Brager (1922–2003) was a social work educator, administrator, and social activist who worked primarily in New York City. He developed innovative community programs which had national impact and was a founding director of Mobilization for Youth.
