The meaning of "strengths" for strengths-based mental health practice in Hong Kong Chinese culture: A qualitative exploratory study.

Recovery-oriented, strengths-based intervention engages service users' strengths and resources to support their recovery process. This model was developed in an American context and has been applied in Hong Kong. It is important to formulate an understanding of strengths better fit to Hong Kong Chinese.

Spiritual assessment in mental health recovery.

Mental health recovery-oriented and strengths model proponents recognize spirituality to be a key aspect of the recovery process. In order to incorporate spirituality in practice, practitioners need to know how to conduct spiritual assessment effectively. Although implicit and explicit spiritual assessment approaches have been identified as useful frameworks for conducting spiritual assessment, there is a gap in knowledge about what constitutes effective approaches and questions for addressing spirituality in the lives of people with psychiatric disabilities.

Supporting the well-being of people with mobility disabilities through social work practice.

The purpose of this insight generating study was to explore the viewpoints of people with mobility disabilities (PWMD) about ways for social workers to promote their well-being through social work practice. A qualitative participant action style methodology encouraged PWMDto voice their concerns and recommendations. Eighteen PWMD were interviewed, including nine consumers and nine social workers.

Spiritual assessment in aging: a framework for clinicians.

Older adults may benefit from clinical conversations about the role of spirituality in their lives, but social workers and other helping professionals often do not have an understanding of where to proceed beyond initial questions of whether spirituality and/or religion are important and if so, what religious preference is held. Much has been written about definitions of spirituality and religion, but the literature has not yet provided a clear focus on ways to assess whether these are integrated positively or negatively in the lives of older adults. This article identifies eleven domains in spirituality that might be assessed.

Empowerment as a dynamically developing concept for practice: lessons learned from organizational ethnography.

This article describes the process of developing an empowerment approach in a comprehensive child development program that defined its mission as empowerment of families living in poverty. This description is derived from a seven-year organizational ethnographic research project that included data from participant observation, agency documents, individual interviews of staff and family participants, and focus group interviews with staff. Findings concerning empowerment are presented in two areas: (1) resolution of contrasts and dichotomies related to the nature of services, understanding staff roles, and working with the federal government; and (2) lessons learned forprogram effectiveness.