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Despite significant advancements in science and technology, religion continues to influence human lives. The twentieth-century perspectives from social sciences, influenced by the secular hypothesis, mainly highlight the negative influence of religion on human progress and practically ignore its influential and positive impact on various fields of knowledge/disciplines. In this paper, we have examined literature from politics, economics, and psychology to understand religion’s impact on these disciplines and vice versa. We find that religion’s contribution to human society in the 20th and 21st centuries has been mostly positive, especially in education, healthcare, social justice, economic growth, ethics, and initiatives for eradicating inequality and injustice. For instance, religion provides effective coping measures and strategies when humans face uncertainties and catastrophes and facilitate comfort, confidence, and emotional wellness. Further, we realised that (i) the contemporary research literature in social sciences generally highlights the interaction between religion and various fields of knowledge in a unidirectional way —i.e., religion influencing disciplines and not how disciplines influence religion, and (ii) that it fails to reveal a more complex multidirectional and circular relationship between religion and social sciences. This paper proposes ways to bring together social scientists and religious scholars to facilitate the much-needed discussion on the multidirectional relationship between religion and social sciences, thereby paving the way toward the well-being of individuals and social transformation. © 2022 Journal of Dharma: Dharmaram Journal of Religions and Philosophies (DVK, Bangalore),.

Lebanon is a diverse and dynamic nation of six million people that has experienced considerable disruption for the last two decades. The Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, resulted in the displacement of 1.1 million Syrians to Lebanon. Today, Lebanon is the country with the largest per capita number of refugees in the world. In addition, the country experienced a social, economic, and political crisis in 2019 that destabilized the entire society-circumstances that were further complicated by COVID-19 pandemic. With all of the competing calamities in Lebanon, there has been limited scientific investigation into substance use and the risk of HIV infection among the country's population. To address this gap in knowledge, a qualitative rapid situational assessment (RSA) of substance use and risk of HIV infection in and around Beirut, the nation's capital, was conducted. The goal of this analysis is to describe the demographics and drug use patterns of this population, explore their HIV knowledge and risks, and build knowledge about their perceptions of and access to substance use treatment and other social services.

The origin of the term “social work” has long been misattributed to the 1907 work of economist Simon Patten. While Patten’s contribution to social work is important, though mostly forgotten, the term had been used long before regarding the work of nuns and settlement workers. Quoting archival and historical findings, this article traces the origin, evolution, and widespread use of the term “social work.” The words of the early founders of social work are utilized to tell the story of how the work of persons doing “the social work” of the church or settlement evolved into the name of the profession. These shifts in terminology in social work’s early history have influenced the subsequent direction of the field up to the present day. © 2022, Western Michigan University. All rights reserved.

Experienced senior living leaders (SLLs) report the impact of spirituality and religious practice on SLL role adaptation and continuation. The sample included 18 SLLs in 18 skilled care settings representing public, non-profit, and for-profit types of incorporation, with oversampling of for-profit facilities. The average years of SLL experience was 24 years. In-depth interviews were examined through a thematic analysis approach using Excel software. Seventy-eight percent described how a higher power, religious beliefs, and faith practices were associated with their role. Their narratives revealed three major themes: Frame (calling and pre-dispositional spiritual beliefs and religious practices), Role Performance (how spirituality informed SLL administrative practice), and Benefits (perceived rewards of adherence to spiritual beliefs and practices). Further analysis of the three themes produced codes that added greater specification for each theme. Implications provided for normalizing the spirituality and work-life intersect and infusing ethical integration of spirituality and work-life in SLL educational programs.

Posttraumatic growth (PTG) refers to a positive psychological change that occurs following a seismic and highly challenging life circumstance. An individual who experiences PTG reports posttrauma development that surpasses their baseline level of pretrauma function in various domains. The present systematic review of the current literature aimed to explore factors related to the development of PTG in children and adolescents exposed to trauma. Included studies investigated a range of factors that impact PTG development in youth from five countries: the United States, Israel, China, Japan, and Norway. Studies addressed multiple types of traumatic experiences, including medical trauma, war- and terror-related trauma, and environmental trauma. Findings suggested that factors that impact the development of PTG include the presence of posttraumatic stress symptoms, specifically intrusiveness, and cognitive factors, such as the use of positive reappraisal and deliberate rumination. Many factors demonstrated inconsistencies across studies, such as the impact of age, gender, social support, and parent factors. The findings from this systematic research study encourage the notion that certain clinical intervention strategies, such as deliberate rumination, positive reappraisal coping strategies, and trauma-informed group therapy, may facilitate growth in trauma survivors. Future research should test if these intervention strategies directly impact growth and whether there is an evidence-based form of intervention that can assist clinicians in taking a growth- and strengths-based perspective after trauma.

This study investigated the outcomes of a demonstration project that provided free medical coverage to former Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients who were holding jobs with limited or no health benefits. Data were collected on the Medicaid expenditures of 54 eligible participants and their dependents for up to two years before they exited welfare; the expenditures averaged 56 percent less for adults and 45 percent less for children than the respective AFDC averages for the county. Because only 22 percent of the eligible participants took advantage of the program, telephone interviews also were conducted with 24 people who did not participate in or dropped out of the health plan. The main reasons cited for not enrolling were a misunderstanding of the program, a claim that no notification of the program was received, and a lack of interest. These results and their policy implications are presented in the context of the Family Support Act's mandate that states extend medical assistance coverage to AFDC recipients whose cases are closed because of employment. © 1991 by the National Association of Social Workers, Inc.

School disciplinary policies and practices are essential features of life in U.S. schools. Conventional approaches to school discipline - including conduct codes and security methods, suspension, corporal punishment, and teachers' methods of managing student behaviors - rely primarily on deterrence, control, and punishment to maintain order. However, approximately 40 years of research, chiefly in education and psychology, has demonstrated that these policies and practices are often associated with and can contribute to increased disorder in schools and behavioral and academic problems among students. Furthermore, school discipline is sometimes administered prejudicially to those students who may be the most vulnerable. School social workers and all social workers working with children and youths can help schools adopt effective and nonpunitive disciplinary approaches. Key professional actions include advocacy for schoolchildren subject to unfair and overly punitive discipline; educating teachers and administrators about the potential harm associated with conventional disciplinary practices; educating school personnel about effective, nonpunitive approaches; and creating a public campaign to generate popular support for the reform of iatrogenic school disciplinary practices. © 2006 National Association of Social Workers.

Research has identified a relationship between school disciplinary actions and poor academic and psychosocial functioning of students subjected to them. The ways in which school discipline is a direct contributor to students' academic and psychosocial difficulty needs to be further established empirically. Several theories, based in existing research and theory in sociology of education and educational psychology, have been proposed to explain the school discipline - student dysfunction relationship. They generally suggest three pathways: disciplinary actions may contribute to students' psychological problems; student misbehavior may be encouraged through ineffective and unintentionally paradoxical learning experiences; and disciplinary practices may damage students' relationship with school. School social workers and others working with children who have been disciplined at school can use these research findings and theories as an assessment framework to guide their interventions.The awareness of the iatrogenic potential of school discipline and informed assessment can support a range of evidence-based alternatives to school discipline. © 2006 National Association of Social Workers.

This chapter reviews the most well-researched, evidence-based antibullying interventions: involvement of all the stakeholders in a school, prevention through life skills curricula, problem-solving approaches, and those that focus on rules and consequences. Two factors emerge with clarity: (1) the exact components of the program do not matter as much as the quality and thoroughness with which the interventions are implemented; and (2) given the potentially severe consequences of bullying, it is a moral imperative to continue to implement such programs and to formulate and revise the programs based on solid evidence. © 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

The premise ofthis chapter is that U.S. society will reject continued attempts to defend discrimination against lesbian and gay people in the name of “family values�? or “special rights�? or “preservation ofmorale�? or any other meaningless slogan. Such discrimination will be seen for what it really is: bigotry. However, social change is slow and discriminatory attitudes and behaviors will continue to be oppressive environmental and organizational influences on lesbian and gay social workers employed by human service agencies. This vestige of homophobia and heterosexism, therefore, must become the target of social work intervention (Appleby, 1995). © 1998 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper examines the factors surrounding the use of alcohol among Latino males. Prevention and treatment strategies for the provision of culturally competent treatment services are proposed, based on an analysis of the literature. © 1998 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Eating disorders disproportionately afflict women and they are one of the most lethal mental health conditions that practitioners in the field of social work and related mental health fields encounter. Equally alarming is the fact that Anorexia Nervosa is the deadliest of all eating disorders, yet, we are struggling to find an efficacious means of successfully intervening in the treatment and recovery maintenance of anorexia. Drawing from past empirical and theoretical literature, this study explored the potential that the mind body practice of yoga might hold as a complementary therapeutic tool for women struggling to recover from anorexia. The findings that emerged from the analysis of this study’s data indicate that yoga can play a curative role with this population. The findings also revealed that yoga’s primary efficacy resides in its potential to facilitate an experience of connected acceptance and feelings of empowerment in this population of women. © 2016, Western Michigan University. All rights reserved.