Strengths Based Practice

In recent years, there has been considerable attention within the social work profession surrounding diverse personal, family, and community issues pertaining to sexuality, yet social workers typically receive very little training on sexuality. This article discusses several such issues before introducing a recently proposed positive sexuality framework, which was designed to help facilitate sexual diversity and resolve a wide range of sociosexual problems. The positive sexual-ity framework is comprised of eight interrelated dimensions and, while designed to address sexual issues specifically, overlaps with and complements social work generalist practice. Thus, social workers and helping professionals may find increased success in better understanding and addressing a wide variety of sociosexual problems and issues by utilizing a positive sexuality framework in conjunction with generalist practice.

claimed that 'there is a need for a comprehensive formulation of what critical social development practice should involve' (p. 48). This paper is an attempt to respond to this challenge. While relates the critical perspective to Marxist-oriented practice, I suggest that the strengths perspective gives the radical edge needed for developmental social work practice. The purpose of this paper is to show how social work might develop a 'development' praxis. Social workers have the knowledge and skills needed for empowering development practice and its values relating to social justice and human rights fit hand in glove with social development thinking. The main stumbling block, however, is whether social workers see this as a valid form of practice for themselves tied as they are to individualistic 'psychosocial' approaches within service-oriented contexts. Developmental social work requires them to get out of this box into the neighbourhood and local community and to begin talking to clients as partners who know the solutions to the challenges they encounter. Do social workers want to become facilitators of change or will they cling to their current practice? This question lies at the heart of finding a valid role for social work in social development.

Beginning with a critique of the resiliency literature, the authors suggest that girls' struggles at adolescence are, fundamentally, a response to loss of power and can best be understood within the relational and sociopolitical contexts of girls' lives. They introduce the notion of hardiness as an alternative to resilience and consider positive relationships with significant adults in girls' lives as potential hardiness zones, that is, spaces of real engagement and opportunities for girls to experience control, commitment, and challenge. Such hardiness zones move the focus from the individual girl to the network of relationships that create girls' social worlds and environments, allowing girls access to skills, relationships, and possibilities that enable them to experience power and meaning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Cultivating hardiness zones for adolescent girls: A reconceptualization of resilience in relationships with caring adults.. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232512634_Cultivating_hardiness_zones_for_adolescent_girls_A_reconceptualization_of_resilience_in_relationships_with_caring_adults [accessed Apr 20, 2015].

The author believes that social work and human services professionals can see great outcomes when they work with the inherent strengths of individuals, family groups and organisations. Whenever we assist people in their recovery and their empowerment, our commitment to build on these inherent strengths goes a long way. In all humility this is about a way of asking the client three simple but pertinent questions: 'What has worked for you before? What does not work for you? And what might work in the present situation for you?' These three questions will allow facilitators and clients to make important changes in the processes and goals of engagement that will see through a variety of changes; as workers we are often wonderstruck as, with every change, clients seem to blossom. People pick up their bits and pieces and reconstruct hope for the future. In this paper the author will describe this approach in social work and expand on its assumptions and its core elements.

This paper is an integration of paradox theory and the paradoxical lens into strengths regulation as an alternative way to enable optimal performance. Various conceptualizations around strengths, talents, and traits are discussed to provide a sound theoretical framework. The nature and characteristics of strengths, as well as its ‘dark side,’ are likewise elaborated to explain the use of various strengths regulations, their features and limitations. The central theme of the paper is its introduction of a novel approach called “paradoxical strengths regulation,” where an old concept such as paradox finds a new way of application to the science of positive psychology. The use of paradoxical strengths regulation can help advance positive psychology’s ultimate goal of contributing to optimal human functioning. 

Keywords: strengths, talents, traits, paradox, paradox theory, Golden Mean, dialecticism, paradoxical strengths regulation

In Staying Alive While Living the Life, Sue-Ann MacDonald and Benjamin Roebuck unpack the realities of living on the streets from the perspective of homeless youth. While much is written about at-risk youth, most literature on youth homelessness reduces their lives to flattened images with little room for the diverse, complex and individual nature of their experiences. Challenging the dominant youth-at-risk conversation by putting forward a framework of survival and resilience, MacDonald and Roebuck illustrate the ways that young people who experience homelessness demonstrate tremendous resilience when facing adversity, social exclusion and various forms of oppression.

Drawing on conversations with homeless youth, this book focuses both on the external constraints imposed on their lives as well as the ways young people understand their circumstances and their approaches to problem solving. The result is a nuanced analysis that puts human agency at its centre, allowing readers to explore the challenges young people face and the internal and external resources they draw upon when making decisions about their lives.

The Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (ACHPER)’s National Strategy (2014-2016) lists four strategic priorities, which includes; ‘to identify and promote broader ACHPER collaborations and partnerships’. The International Council for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, Sport and Dance (ICHPER-SD) shares vision and purpose with ACHPER and PENZ (Physical Education New Zealand), specifically with an international focus. Hence, ACHPER, PENZ and ICHPER-SD, working in collaboration, compliment and strengthen one another in promoting active and healthy living, as evidenced throughout history.
The umbrella international organisation ICHPER was first conceived in 1950, and officially founded in Rome, Italy in 1958. The theme of the first ICHPER world congress was ‘Child Health and the School’. There have since been 36 world congresses, 32 regional congresses and numerous forums, conferences and symposia. The ICHPER name was extended to include ‘Sport’ and ‘Dance’ (ICHPER-SD) in Yokohama, Japan in 1993. The latest congress, the 56th ICHPER-SD Anniversary World Congress & Exposition was recently held in Bahrain (December, 2014). ACHPER was formally known as Australian Physical Education
Association (APEA) and the name change was a direct result of the ICHPER-SD first and only world congress to be held in Oceania (Sydney, 1970). Some may remember the
ICHPER-SD (Oceania) first Regional congress, held in Wellington, NZ in 2006. The title of the 1970 Sydney world congress was 'New Endeavours in Physical Education, Health Education and Recreation', it was of international significance, the best attended conference in the history of APEA and a milestone for ‘Health, Physical Education and Recreation’ (Kirk & Macdonald, 1998). Proud ACHPER member and ICHPER-SD Vice-President
(representing Oceania region), Dr. Timothy Lynch, shares the strong history, direction and opportunity for working collaboratively with one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious international umbrella organisations.

Talent Liberation is a value adding people management philosophy. It is a new form of experiential learning, based on the natural order of things and offering great potential for impact and added value for organisations - be they corporate, public or non-for-profit - and a high return on investment. Instead of trying to fix weaknesses it focuses on capitalising on strengths.

It is a process of recognising, valuing, developing and using the unique talents of all existing employees in the delivery of the organisation’s objectives. This enhances their sense of job-fulfilment, increases the added value they contribute and strengthens the comparative advantage of the organisation as a whole. At the same time it reduces attrition, staff turnover and absenteeism, as well as staff frustration, disgruntlement and that vague but undermining incidence of passive “resistance”.

The Talent Liberation process consists of eight intuitive, logical steps, which also include leadership development, team building and change management. Talent Liberation ties in with Talent Management as a top priority for organisations worldwide, both allowing the organisation to make much more from its existing work force (this against the context of the current worldwide financial crunch and economic crisis), and to become an employer of choice by adopting an enlightened culture of talent.

Despite contemporary acceptance that children are active agents in their own socialization, that causality between parents and children is bidirectional, and that context matters, basic concepts used in socialization research continue to reflect an underlying mechanistic. In this chapter it is proposed that a dialectical relational systems conception of the transaction model provides direction for future advances in the study of dynamic parent-child socialization processes with an emphasis of intergenerational change, not only continuity. The chapter begins by exploring dialectics as a framework underlying an organismic-contextual metatheory for understanding the transactional model of human development. The chapter then outlines social relational theory as a framework for translating four assumptions of a dialectical ontology including agency, holism, contradiction, and synthesis to reformulate major transactional processes in parent-child relations and socialization. The chapter ends by considering implications for application and methodology informed by dialectics.

Fogarty, W., Lovell, M., Langenberg, J. & Heron, M-J. 2018, Deficit Discourse and Strengths-based Approaches: Changing the Narrative of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Wellbeing, The Lowitja Institute, Melbourne.

This report explores strengths-based approaches
to shifting the deficit narrative in the Australian
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector.
Studies, including a companion report to this one
entitled Deficit Discourse and Indigenous Health:
How Narrative Framings of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander People are Reproduced in Policy,
have identified a prevalent ‘deficit discourse’
across Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health
policy and practice. ‘Discourse’, in this sense,
encompasses thought represented in written and
spoken communication and/or expressed through
policy and practices. The term draws attention
to the circulation of ideas, the processes by
which these ideas shape conceptual and material
realities, and the power inequalities that
contribute to and result from these processes.
‘Deficit discourse’ refers to discourse that
represents people or groups in terms of
deficiency – absence, lack or failure. It
particularly denotes discourse that narrowly
situates responsibility for problems with the
affected individuals or communities, overlooking
the larger socio-economic structures in which
they are embedded.

There is evidence that deficit discourse has an
impact on health itself — that it is a barrier to
improving health outcomes. For example, Halpern
(2015) argues that continual reporting of negative
stereotypes and prevalence rates actually
reinforces undesired behaviour. Accordingly,
there are growing calls for alternative ways to
think about and discuss Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander health and wellbeing.
Crucially, these should not be mistaken for calls to
deflate the realities of disadvantage in the socioeconomic
circumstances faced by Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Australians or to deny the
health conditions people experience. Discourses
of deficit occur when discussions and policy
aimed at alleviating disadvantage become so
mired in narratives of failure and inferiority
that those experiencing the disadvantage are
seen as the problem, and a reductionist and
essentialising vision of what is possible becomes
pervasive. Operating predominantly from a deficit
or ‘ill-based’ approach provides only one side
to a multi-faceted story, and inhibits alternative
solutions or opportunities that facilitate growth
and thriving.

This report is the second in a two-part series
examining deficit discourse, and responses to
it, in the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander health field. The first, Deficit Discourse
and Indigenous Health, draws on Critical
Discourse Analysis to explore the extent and
patterning of deficit discourse in the academic,
policy and grey literature in this area. This report
builds on Deficit Discourse and Indigenous
Health by reviewing and analysing a growing
body of work from Australia and overseas that
proposes ways to displace deficit discourse in
health, or that provides examples of attempts
to do so. The most widely accepted approaches
to achieving this come under the umbrella term
‘strengths-based’, which seek to move away from
the traditional problem-based paradigm and
offer a different language and set of solutions to
overcoming an issue. It is on these approaches
that we focus in this report.

This article takes an in-depth look at the strengths perspective, examining its philosophical roots, its core characteristics (according to its key proponents), and its limitations. It suggests that the strengths perspective is underpinned by a mix of Aristotelianism, humanistic individualism, and communitarianism. The article highlights the synergies between the strengths perspective and contemporary neoliberalism and suggests

The author believes that social work and human services professionals can see great outcomes when they work with the inherent strengths of individuals, family groups and organisations. Whenever we assist people in their recovery and their empowerment, our commitment to build on these inherent strengths goes a long way. In all humility this is about a way of asking the client three simple but pertinent questions: ‘What has worked for you before? What does not work for you? And what might work in the present situation for you?’ These three questions will allow facilitators and clients to make important changes in the processes and goals of engagement that will see through a variety of changes; as workers we are often wonderstruck as, with every change, clients seem to blossom. People pick up their bits and pieces and reconstruct hope for the future. In this paper the author will describe this approach in social work and expand on its assumptions and its core elements.

This article explores the congruence between poetry therapy and the strengths perspective of social work. It demonstrates the ways in which poetry therapy is consistent with the strengths perspective and discusses methods for its utilization in direct practice settings. Case examples are provided to help the practitioner learn how to utilize poetry therapy with clients from diverse backgrounds. As a tool in strengths-based practice, poetry and poetry therapy can help empower clients and help to focus practitioners on clients' capacities and resilencies. This article seeks to expand upon the growing literature of strengths-based social work, addressing how the theory can be applied to clinical practice situations. Table 1: Useful Resources for Poetry Therapy Zahner-Roloff, L. (1987). Social despair in adolescent boys: Poetic therapies and metaphoric diagnoses.

When it comes to the notion of resilience – the most basic definition of which is ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity; toughness’ – art therapy can give us ways of working with this important quality when we most need it and on an ongoing basis.

Throughout this practitioner-oriented paper, we provide a rationale, framework, and supporting materials to promote the development and implementation of personalized, contextualized, and holistic individualized education plans (IEPs) with a strength-based orientation. We believe that adopting strength-based IEP writing practices is vital to reconstructing students with disabilities as capable contributors to their inclusive classrooms. The use of strengths-based approaches is not necessarily new, however supporting individuals’ needs in a strength-based model has been largely overlooked in special education. Despite their growing application, inclusive pedagogical approaches are largely absent in the development of strength-based IEPs for students with disabilities. IEPs remain largely deficit-focused with only surface level attention given to documenting students’ strengths and abilities. When present levels academic performance statements and IEP goals are written in a deficit-oriented manner, special educators miss opportunities to see beyond the limitations and challenges that their students may face, and instead, overly focus on the shortcomings of the student. However, by adopting a strength-based approach, special educators can instead focus their attention on remediating these deficits by paying attention to the student as an individual and highlight their students’ many strengths and capabilities.

There is one account in the literature of the application of a solution focused approach to individual teaching development at university level (see . The solution focused approach is based on Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). The current paper elaborates on the existing account, further outlining and illustrating the techniques that make up the solution focused approach to academic development. The central tenets of SFBT-based academic development and the core components of solution focused work are articulated. Current research in this area is outlined.

A few months ago, a friend told me that the author Robert Greene had published a new book with the title "Mastery" 1 . I was immediately intrigued as this title resonated with my Maximizer 2 talent and with my passion for a strengths-based life. Robert Greene is perhaps not a scientists, but his insightful writings go very deep about such complex and diverse matters as power, seduction and warfare (three different books), and they are entertaining to read.

The ways in which youth resilience are understood, defined, and subsequently measured in health policy and practice influence health intervention, prevention, and promotion strategies. A scoping review compiled and synopsized empirical evidence of strength-based approaches to understanding and promoting resilience in youth.) five-stage framework for scoping reviews was followed to review studies published between 2000 and 2016 from PubMed Central, CINAHL Nursing, Proquest, PsychArticles, and ERIC. Two thousand six hundred five articles were identified: 28 met the selection criteria. Twelve authors developed their own definition of resilience by synthesizing the literature, 11 quoted definitions from other academics , and 5 did not define resilience. None consulted with youth. There is no universally agreed-upon definition. Approaches to youth resilience still tend to be deficit-based, determin-istic, and reductionist, focused on individual behaviors and motivations, and outcomes of behavioral problems and pathologies. Research, policy, and program development around youth well-being would benefit by including youth's voices. Social constructionism deals with how political economy (structure) and social action (agency) interact, and that the social world is created through the interaction of individuals, and their shared experiences of meaning and significance. Bordieu's notion of Bsymbolic power(Bourdieu 1989) alludes to how social classifications are formed and preserved at individual and institutional levels. However, symbolic power can become oppressive when a dominant group within a society uses it to marginalize and/or exclude other groups outside of the norm (Freire 2000). These groups will then experience a different set of stressors and health effects

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the difficulties within partnerships, the problems to be solved. The UN state that 'partnerships' are essential for implementation of the SDGs but also acknowledge that many barriers must be overcome. This is evidenced by the UN Economic and Social Council special event; '2015 Multi-Stakeholder partnerships: Making them work, for the Post 2015 Development Agenda'. There were many obstacles during the Health, Well-being and Physical Education (HW & PE) project and insights are shared for the benefit of stakeholders in a similar context.

This chapter investigates a successful teacher education programme in the UK, awarded 'Outstanding' by England's Offi ce for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills. Furthermore, the success of the programme was explicitly contributed by established partnerships with nearby schools. This course, at the time, was not offered within Australia. This study offered valuable insight into a successful primary teacher education programme/course, illustrated good practice, and subsequently, offered possible improvements to the preparation of pre-service primary teachers in Gippsland, Australia.

The main thesis of this essay is that the decision whether to allow an at-risk child and his or her kin the benefit of the doubt when we evaluate their prospective functioning may be a covertly value-laden one, and that the decision-makers may be wrongly portrayed as critically skeptical and realistic. The essay explores the implications of a willingness to entrust oneself, even momentarily, to the hopes of children at risk and their kin.

Het Grafisch Lyceum te Utrecht. wil graag dé topvakschool van Nederland worden en heeft breed ingezet om de kwaliteit van haar onderwijs en docenten te verbeteren. Guido Romeijn docent en onderzoeker aan de Mbo-opleiding Interactieve Vormgeving aan het Grafisch Lyceum te Utrecht, heeft samen met docenten en studenten van zijn school collectief praktijk onderzoek gedaan naar de best practices binnen zijn opleiding om antwoord te vinden op de vraag:

Wat kan de organisatie van het GLU leren van de succesfactoren uit best practice lessen?

Hiervoor heeft de onderzoeker gebruik gemaakt van een metafoor. Hij vergelijkt het proces in de les namelijk met het complexe proces van kernfusie. Pas als de factoren die van invloed zijn op de les werkelijk in dienst staan van de les kan er volgens hem fusie tot stand komen en kunnen flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999), best practices en goed onderwijs ontstaan.

Het onderzoek is methodisch uitgewerkt met een theoretische kader dat vertrekt vanuit de positieve psychologie:
Hierin wordt gesteld dat de onderwijskwaliteit voor een belangrijke mate van binnenuit de docent komt. De intrinsieke kwaliteiten van de docent liggen namelijk voor een belangrijk gedeelte vast in de krachten en deugden (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Daarnaast bepalen talenten, ervaringen en vakmanschap in belangrijke mate het beroepsgerichte handelen, waarin docenten in hun element (Robinson & Aronica, 2009) kunnen zijn. De mate waarin docenten in staat worden gesteld om zelf meester en eigenaar kunnen zijn van hun vak bepaalt in belangrijke mate de intrinsieke motivatie of drive van docenten (Pink, 2010).
Binnen het Ui-model van Korthagen & Vasalos (2007) wordt vervolgens aangetoond dat factoren die wrijving opleveren bij docenten in de uitvoering van de les naar buiten toe toenemen en zich vooral bevinden in de georganiseerde en gefaciliteerde omgeving waarin de docent met zijn les functioneert.
Binnen het Activiteitensysteemmodel van Engeström (Akkerman, 2012) wordt aangetoond wordt dat een school op diverse niveaus daadwerkelijk wat kan doen aan de onderwijskwaliteit door de factoren die de les beïnvloeden te bestuderen en van de uitkomsten te leren.
Appreciative Inquiry oftewel waarderend onderzoek doen naar deze factoren is een belangrijke sleutel tot innovatie, door open te staan voor wat er werkt binnen de school en innovatie van binnenuit te laten komen (Masselink et al., 2008).

De onderzoekers zijn middels bestudering van bestaande documenten (lesevaluaties, studenten interviews) en diverse brainstorm bijeenkomsten gekomen tot een lijst van 94 factoren die de les beïnvloeden, verdeeld over 6 hoofdgroepen (docent, student, inhoud, sfeer, tijd, omgeving). Op de vraag in de vragenlijst aan studenten en docenten: Welke factoren waren bepalend voor deze best practice? zijn uit de antwoorden alle best practices, best practice docenten en succesfactoren van de opleiding in kaart gebracht.

Op basis van generieke (opleidingsniveau) en specifieke interpretaties (docent- en lesniveau) op de uitkomsten van vragenlijst, is een aantal best practice docenten geïnterviewd om te kunnen leren van hun inzichten op de (succes)factoren. Aan de hand van de persoonlijke reflecties en uitspraken die de geïnterviewde docenten hebben gedaan op de factoren die uit de vragenlijsten naar voren kwamen valt op te maken dat de factoren te onderscheiden zijn in twee gemeenschappelijke eigenschappen waarop de organisatie van het GLU kan leren en kan sturen:

1. Factoren die niet zijn te veranderen
Dit zijn factoren die zijn gelegen in de kern van de docent, die van primair belang lijken om op te sturen, zoals: de krachten en deugden, de betrokkenheid, de identiteit en de overtuigingen van docenten. Daarnaast lijkt het er op dat ook talenten, levens- en praktijkervaringen een belangrijke rol spelen. Dit is van belang voor de intrinsieke motivatie en drive van docenten.

2. Factoren die zijn te veranderen
Veranderbare factoren zijn voor docenten onderwijsteams en de organisatie belangrijke stuurmiddelen. Deze factoren zijn gelegen in de docent, die middels de les, waarbinnen de inhoud en de studenten een belangrijke rol spelen, de kwaliteit van het onderwijs bepaald. Enerzijds zijn er factoren die de docent en misschien ook wel de organisatie, kunnen leren of adapteren. Anderzijds zijn er factoren die vooral te maken hebben met tijds- en omgevingsfactoren die de organisatie vanuit school- en/of teamniveau kan faciliteren of organiseren.

a) Factoren die zijn te adapteren en/of aan te leren
Deze factoren zijn vooral gelegen binnen de werkwijzen, de handelingen of het gedrag van docenten.

Werkwijzen gelegen in:
doel, structuur, inhoud, werkvorm en opbouw van de les
de juiste mix van kennis, vaardigheden, theorie, fun en uitdagingen zodanig dat het ruimte laat voor de eigenheid van de student.
het opstarten en in beweging zetten van de les: visuele voorbeelden en instructie
het meten van de opbrengst

Handelingen of gedrag gelegen in:
de voorbereiding en instructie bij van het opstarten van de les
de feedback: oriënterend, activerend optreden, rondlopen, in beweging blijven
proactief handelen: ingrijpen, anticiperen
de ruimte die studenten wordt geboden voor eigen invulling, tempo en verantwoordelijkheid, het uitgaan van voorkennis en leerbehoefte
het nastreven van een doel: kennis, theorie, vaardigheden, resultaat en de opbrengst van de les
het zoeken naar eigen uitdagingen binnen de les: vers houden van kennis en vaardigheden

b) Factoren die zijn te faciliteren
Dit zijn factoren die zijn gelegen in de omgeving van de les, zoals: lokaal, ICT en apparatuur.

c) Factoren die zijn te organiseren
Dit zijn factoren die zijn gelegen in de organisatie rond de les, zoals: de activiteiten van de lessen in relatie tot het lokaal, in relatie tot elkaar, het rooster en de tijd.

De thematisering van de factoren binnen de resultaten van de interviews heeft er toe geleid dat de eigenschappen die van de best practice factoren kunnen worden benoemd, nu kunnen worden herleid op welke belanghebbenden uit de organisatie ze betrekking hebben. Aldus kan de school op alle niveaus van haar organisatie de onderwijskwaliteit aansturen.

Akkerman, S. (2012). Yrjö Engestrom, Activity Theory. In M. Ruijters & R.J. Simons. Canon van het leren. (p.p. 51-76), Deventer: Kluwer.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). Flow: Psychologie van de optimale ervaring. Amsterdam: Boom.
Korthagen, F., Vasalos, A. (2007). Kwaliteit van binnenuit als sleutel voor professionele ontwikkeling. VELON-Tijdschrift, 28(1), 17-23.
Masselink, R., van den Nieuwenhof, R., de Jong, J.C. & van Iren, A. (2008). Waarderend organiseren. Appreciative Inquiry. Co-creatie van duurzame verandering. Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel: Gelling Publishing.
Peterson, C., Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pink, Daniel H. (2010). Drive – The Surprising Truth about what motivates us. New York: Penguin Group
Robinson, K. & Aronica, L. (2009). The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. London: Penguin Group

Research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth has predominantly operated within a risk framework, highlighting the risks youth face in their homes, schools, and communities and how these risks are associated with disparate mental health outcomes. This research has been important in establishing the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ youth and the need for interventions to reduce stigma and victimization and promote well-being. However, a predominant focus on risk fails to account for the strengths and resilience of LGBTQ+ youth and positions them as “at-risk” rather than as resilient. This chapter describes a study aiming to redress this gap in the literature by assessing the types of strengths LGBTQ+ young adults identify with and the association between their identified strengths and mental health.

The research paper Community in School – School in Community, explores the practice of developing community within the context of a primary school. The paper argues the importance of both intentional practice and the sociality of community, as necessary components of the collective practice of developing community in school. The practices of intentionality and sociality are described and shaped individually to form a synthesis and shape of collective practice within the context of school.
Community in School – School in Community provides a new way to identify community as an integral ingredient within the complex recipe of schooling in Australia. The dominant deficit based paradigm within the Western systems and institutions is challenged, and a way of working in solidarity with the people, whilst negotiating these systems is explored.
If communities are going to flourish and have voice within the shrinking spaces between market and state, the collective practice of developing community provides a way forward for people to be active members within a shared community of difference.

Douglas Flemons and Leonard M. Gralnik’s Relational Suicide Assessment (2013) offers a thoughtful and thoroughly systemic way of assessing a client’s risk of lethality, and features a tonereflective of the empathic, collaborative style it advocates. The authors’ approach to this topic puts forward the foundations and principles of relational suicide assessment (RSA) and describes its application in therapeutic practice for the purpose of determining safety risk and identifying ways to promote safety in couples and families. Influenced by solutions-oriented therapy, the authors see assessing lethality as part of an overall collaborative conversation between therapist and client where possibility-focused language can enter in, facilitating the identification of sources of hope and potential resources, in addition to risk factors. In sum, Relational Suicide Assessment is a valuable, comprehensive resource for all marriage and family therapists, as well as mental health professionals, and would be appropriate for graduate student audiences and beginning clinicians in training.

This article, written more than 25 years ago,  is part one of a two-part series on human deerelopment and adversity. The author presents a
conceptual framework combining deiselopmental psychopathology and its associated concepts of resilience, protective factors,
and risk factors with social work's ecoloflcal, phenomenolo,pcal, and strengths-based approach. Separately, each
framework has its strengths and weaknesses. Together, these frameworks protide a comprehensie'e and detailed view of
human deedopment that has m a p implications for practice, programs, and policy. Part two presents the results of research
demonstrating how the integrated framework elucidates developmental processes under adverse conditions. This
research identified three models of human development under adverse conditions: the model of the wounded well, the social-
deficits model, and the social-assets model

Researchers have documented that Latina women involved in the mental health system face a number of barriers to access to services and ongoing use of services. Latina women involved in the mental health system are often viewed as at-risk. This study challenges traditional pathological views of Latina women in the mental health system. This study uses a feminist analysis to examine mental health providers‘ perception of Latina women. It views Latina women as mental health system survivors and suggests that resilience and strength-based perspectives can transform the treatment of Latina women. Secondary data from twenty-two interviews with agency directors, psychiatrists, supervisors, therapists and others are analyzed using standpoint theory as a theoretical framework and a phenomenological analysis of the data. Using standpoint theory, this study also examines the positionality of the providers to determine if Latino providers have a greater understanding of Latina women than non-Latino providers. The findings show that two of the twenty-two providers viewed Latina women as resilient. The providers attributed a variety of factors, including culture of the provider, stigma, domestic violence/abuse, and resources as influencing Latina women‘s access to and ongoing use of services. This study also found that Latino providers had more to say about Latina women than non-Latino providers. This study is a part of a growing body of feminist research on resilience and strengths based perspectives in the mental health system. Ultimately, this study argues that Latina women mental health system survivors should be understood from resilience and strength- based perspectives with nuanced understandings of Latino culture which could greatly impact their treatment and recovery.

This chapter will: • help you understand why young children behave the way they do and explore alternative ways of thinking about behaviour in the classroom • determine what you can and cannot change • explore ways to promote a positive emotional environment for learning • outline strategies for teaching classroom behaviour • show how emotional literacy facilitates effective responses to challenges • identify unusual behaviours so you know when to ask for further advice • explore ways of working collaboratively with families • emphasis the importance of teacher wellbeing and ways to maintain this.

This article describes an interesting approach where the evaluators recognised the value of using local community knowledge and experience in evaluating a Government of India program for the development and empowerment of adolescent girls. The evaluators tried to integrate participatory and appreciative approaches and looked at the evaluation process through a gender and equity lens. The evaluators went beyond the mandate of evaluation and focused on building evaluation capacity by fostering ownership of the program among stakeholders and encouraging the community to be the active agents of change. Instead of traditional evaluation where evaluators are outsiders, we engaged the stakeholders in the evaluation. All the stakeholders, including the funding agency, a non-government organisation (NGO), the adolescent girls and the wider community were engaged in varying degrees—from defining the objectives, designing questions, data collection and data analysis in the context of their asp...

It is argued that a learning environment underpinned by a strengths-based collaborative approach between universities and schools offers extended pre-service teacher learning opportunities and subsequently enhanced preparation. The term “hybrid space” describes the ideal environment of shared partnership where knowledge is jointly created, and consequently, as too is collaborative egalitarianism between stakeholders. This study investigates a possible “hybrid space” course within Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) in the UK. While much literature discusses the advantages of the “hybrid space” ideal across education disciplines, high-quality research into PETE hybrid spaces is limited, if not non-existent. Hence, the particular course was chosen for data collection as it advocates intricate connections with schools in the local community. Furthermore, the course was awarded “Outstanding” by the national regulatory authority, England and Wales Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), one of the major reasons explicitly stated was for its community connections. A qualitative, interpretive study using a case study methodology was adopted to examine the successful primary PETE course. The findings offer insights into the ideal of hybrid spaces in PETE, which appear to benefit various stakeholders within communities. The study is significant as it assists teacher educators from around the world, challenged to rethink their connections between university courses and school field experiences through illustrating a highly successful example.

Teacher education physical education: In search of a hybrid space. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274715843_Teacher_education_physical_education_In_search_of_a_hybrid_space [accessed Apr 15, 2015].

Abstract As a growing movement in the larger field of mental health, positive psychology has much to offer the art therapy profession, which in turn is uniquely poised to contribute to the study of optimal functioning. This article discusses the relationship of positive psychology to art therapy and its capacity to mobilize client strengths, to induce experiences of flow and positive emotions, and to express life purpose and meaning as well as positive emotions. Suggested research and practical applications illuminate the potential of positive art therapy to move individuals, groups, and communities beyond solely the relief of suffering to a state of flourishing.