Continuing Education Course Catalog

This workshop is part one of a four-part series on social justice oriented approaches to offering private behavioral health services in a private practice setting. This section outlines the basic knowledge foundation social workers need to prepare to offer private outpatient behavioral health services. While we encourage participants to complete all four parts, you may also select those that best fit your needs and schedule.

This series will provide a foundational understanding of private and public behavioral health services so that participants are able to identify the skills needed to deliver outpatient services as a clinician with a social justice orientation. With increased access to behavioral health services through policies such as Health Care Parity and the Affordable Care Act, more community members with mild to moderate need for behavioral health services are seeking care and there is a greater need for non-public behavioral health care providers who deliver culturally-responsive and socially-just services.

This workshop is part two of a four-part series on social justice oriented approaches to offering private behavioral health services in a private practice setting. This section focuses on skills for outpatient behavioral health services. While we encourage participants to complete all four parts, you may also select those that best fit your needs and schedule.

This course will provide a foundational understanding of private and public behavioral health services so that participants are able to identify the skills needed to deliver outpatient services as a clinician with a social justice orientation. With increased access to behavioral health services through policies such as Health Care Parity and the Affordable Care Act, more community members with mild to moderate need for behavioral health services are seeking care and there is a greater need for non-public behavioral health care providers who deliver culturally-responsive and socially-just services.

This workshop is part three of a four-part series on social justice oriented approaches to offering private behavioral health services in a private practice setting. This section focuses on practice strategies. While we encourage participants to complete all four parts, you may also select those that best fit your needs and schedule.

This series will provide a foundational understanding of private and public behavioral health services so that participants are able to identify the skills needed to deliver outpatient services as a clinician with a social justice orientation. With increased access to behavioral health services through policies such as Health Care Parity and the Affordable Care Act, more community members with mild to moderate need for behavioral health services are seeking care and there is a greater need for non-public behavioral health care providers who deliver culturally-responsive and socially-just services.

This workshop is part four of a four-part series on social justice oriented approaches to offering private behavioral health services in a private practice setting. This section focuses on business strategies. While we encourage participants to complete all four parts, you may also select those that best fit your needs and schedule.

This series will provide a foundational understanding of private and public behavioral health services so that participants are able to identify the skills needed to deliver outpatient services as a clinician with a social justice orientation. With increased access to behavioral health services through policies such as Health Care Parity and the Affordable Care Act, more community members with mild to moderate need for behavioral health services are seeking care and there is a greater need for non-public behavioral health care providers who deliver culturally-responsive and socially-just services.

Part 1: This program area will welcome participants to the MMR CE program and introduce mixed methods research to them. Research ethics and values are important for the responsible conduct of research and so in the components of this program area, participants will learn about the nature of research ethics as it pertains to macro social work and other applied professions. We will begin with a history of research ethics with topics ranging from the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont Report, to the U.S. Public Health Service syphilis study carried out in Tuskegee, Alabama. Next, we will briefly cover theoretical frameworks and the advantages of using theory for mixed methods research and practice in social work. Participants will be challenged to view the research process through a culturally sensitive lens. Finally, participants will have an opportunity to think about the implications for how the research we conduct with underserved and underrepresented groups influences what we learn from these groups.

Part 2: This program area will cover the basics for how to design a mixed methods research study. We will begin by discussing how to develop research questions, then we will cover mixed methods language and notation, and then we will discuss choosing a mixed methods design. The research question is one of the most important aspects of any research project. It influences subsequent aspects of the project. In this program area, participants will be guided through how to develop a research question based on their phenomenon of interest. This is important because researchers make decisions about whether they will use qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods after finalizing their research question. Communicating research designs throughout various stages of the planning, implementation, evaluation, and reporting of the project will also be covered. Then, this program area will cover transformative mixed methods, which are germane to the social justice lens of the social work profession.

Part 3: This program area will cover collecting data in mixed methods research. We will begin by discussing how to decide on the data collection needed to address certain research questions. Next, participants will be guided through how sampling plans are developed and recruitment strategies are made. Then, various qualitative and quantitative data collection methods will be discussed and presented in the context of their contribution to a mixed methods study. For example, qualitative data can access a phenomenon more directly than what is possible with formal, questionnaire-based measurements in part because pre-established questions are sometimes insensitive to important local cultural norms and idioms. Qualitative data, in focusing on natural language, deepen our understanding of the clients condition, clinician attribution of symptoms, and other treatment processes otherwise inaccessible to scientific analysis. This type of data is particularly useful in characterizing areas where formal measurement tools are lacking, inappropriate, unreliable, or incomplete. For social workers and other applied professionals, the human voice can be one of the most valuable insights into learning and improving the outcomes of clients. Therefore, it is important to incorporate and properly use qualitative research in our work. In this program area, participants will learn effective and efficient ways to collect and analyze qualitative data using one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and observation data collection methods. Existing records will also be discussed. Quantitative data (e.g., statistics) can sometimes be intimidating for social workers and other applied professionals. In this program area, participants will deepen their understanding of the ways in which quantitative data is collected.

Part 4: This program area will cover data analysis techniques for mixed methods studies. First, we will discuss how to prepare qualitative and quantitative data for analysis, and then we will describe various ways to code and analyze qualitative data, as well as the most appropriate statistical techniques for quantitative data. Qualitative approaches promise to bridge the explanatory gap that exists between aggregated outcomes and actual events in the local situation. On the other hand, quantitative approaches promise the opportunity for true experimental designs as well as replication of study methods and generalization of findings. We will also cover secondary analysis, and how to use existing statistics to address research questions. Since the purpose of statistics is to convey meaning about how certain variables (e.g., the independent and dependent) do or do not (and to what level) relate to each other, this program area will provide participants with a user-friendly way of incorporating statistics into their work. Though descriptive and inferential statistics will be covered, it is important for participants to note that advanced statistical methods (e.g., structural equation modeling, hierarchical linear modeling) will not be covered. This program area will cover how to take the interpretation of mixed methods research a step further by preparing reports from mixed methods research studies. During this program area, we will also cover ways to comprehensively represent large and small qualitative datasets involving multiple cases both for inductive exploration and for more deductive examination of theoretically interesting relationships among data concepts and other variables. Communicating the research process is probably the most important step in any research project. In this program area, participants will learn about writing research reports, manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals, research briefs, and longer reports. Visual displays of mixed methods research results will also be discussed. The program will also cover the benefits and challenges of different ways of disseminating mixed methods research findings. Participants will be encouraged to consider how the factors that influence the dissemination of research findings influence how they approach their research. As social workers and applied professionals, we should not take information for granted based on its popularity or reputation. In this program area, participants will learn how to apply critical appraisal skills in the search for evidence and during professional judgment and decision-making. Participants will also develop and strengthen skills and knowledge related to the identification of quality research. Participants will be encouraged to consider the concrete ways in which their own work reflects rigor and quality. The program will also briefly address using mixed methods in program evaluation and across disciplines.

Asynchronous = Pre-recorded lectures: The pre-recorded lectures support the live sessions for the Mixed Methods Certificate. The recordings focus on content relevant to designing and implementing a mixed methods research approach in social work. The recordings involve participants in learning about core concepts and applications.

It is understandable that individuals struggling with substance abuse problems are often highly ambivalent about engaging and committing to treatment and recovery, especially upon initial contact with a helping professional. The skills of engagement and enhancement of client motivation are thus critical for anyone seeking to effectively assist substance-involved populations. Additional understanding of and ability to appropriately assess individuals according to whole-person frameworks is also important. This set of learning session will focus on these foundational knowledge and skill areas, as well as touching on broad, well-established treatment approaches for successfully addressing addictive disorders.

Successful treatment of addictive disorders typically includes various elements and processes that the effective practitioner needs to not only know about, but also to know how best to invoke those treatment elements in a manner that will be the best fit for each individual service recipient. Additionally, there are time-tested, evidence-based therapies with proven positive outcomes that practitioners would benefit from knowing about, either for direct provision or for the purposes of informing referrals. This set of sessions will focus on these learning targets, as well as equipping participants with the professional ethics knowledge and perspectives necessary for working with substance-involved populations.

As behavioral healthcare service delivery has become increasingly concerned with effective treatment for co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, integrated care models, and dual-diagnosis-informed interventions have emerged and become well- established. The more recent acknowledgement of the importance of further integration with physical healthcare treatment services is also highly pertinent to successful and sustainable treatment of substance-involved populations. This set of learning sessions will focus on addictions treatment with individuals having complex and comorbid circumstances and conditions, including mental health, physical health, criminal justice, and trauma issues.