Prevention of Targeted School Violence by Responding to Students' Psychosocial Crises: The NETWASS Program

The standardized, indicated school‐based prevention program “Networks Against School Shootings” combines a threat assessment approach with a general model of prevention of emergency situations in schools through early intervention in student psychosocial crises and training teachers to recognize warning signs of targeted school violence. An evaluation study in 98 German schools with 3,473 school staff participants (M_age = 46.2 years) used a quasi‐experimental comparison group design with three measurement points (pre, post, and 7 months followup) with schools randomly allocated to implementation conditions. The study found increases in teachers' expertise and evaluation skills, enhanced abilities to identify students experiencing a psychosocial crisis, and positive secondary effects (e.g., teacher–student interaction, feelings of safety).     

Applying Self‐Efficacy Theory to Counselor Training and Supervision: A Comparison of Two Approaches

Counseling self‐efficacy, an individual's perception of his or her competence to conduct counseling, is an important component of understanding how counselor trainees subjectively construct their counseling and training experiences and subsequently develop into competent counseling professionals. The author describes 2 approaches to using self‐efficacy theory to develop and implement counselor training and supervision interventions: the self‐efficacy enhancement approach and the self‐efficacy in context approach. Suggestions for tailoring counseling self‐efficacy assessment to the accompanying approach are included.     

“What do I Share?” Personal and Private Experiences in Educational Psychological Counselling

ABSTRACT

The aim of the study is to explore and develop knowledge about how educational psychological counsellors’ personal and private experiences appear in their counselling practice. We conducted four focus group interviews with twelve counsellors from Educational Psychological Counselling Service. Through Thematic Analysis four themes emerged. The first is that counsellors’ personal and private experiences functioned as a backdrop for their counselling practice. The second theme is the counsellors’ use of different types of stories. The third theme deals with how the counsellors were holding back relevant stories. Finally, the fourth theme comprises the purposes of counsellors’ self-disclosure. The conclusion is that personal experiences form a backdrop for counselling practice and are relevant for how a counsellor makes sense of and understands a situation or a problem. Self-disclosure is in some situations used explicitly in the counselling setting. On the other side the counsellors sometimes consciously hold their experiences back.     

Building a Path to College Success: Advocacy,Discovery and OER Adoption in Emerging Educational Models

ABSTRACT

In this case study we will examine the role of the library in Open Educational Resources through the lens of library value described in Megan Oakleaf's 2010 ACRL report. While librarians in our organization have traditionally not played a role in textbook adoptions, the campus academic goal to increase online, blended and competency-based models is a strategic direction that intersects with the library's strategic vision to increase its contribution to online learning. Further, we will describe the process of building a partnership around OER with the campus Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and articulate the impact of our combined services on faculty adoption of OER and student success.     

Meeting the Needs of Avid Book Readers: Access,Space, Concentration Support and Barrier Mitigation

Contemporary libraries perform multiple roles that greatly expand the scope of traditional service and resource provision. In order to determine how libraries can best meet the needs of avid book reading clientele, more needs to be known about their preferences of access and space, as well as barriers to their concentration and performance of sustained reading. Findings from the 2015 International Study of Avid Book Readers suggest that libraries should offer comfortable and quiet spaces conducive to reading for pleasure, that are responsive to the time, cost and concentration barriers that avid readers face, and not assume that avid readers will easily adapt to library environments with elevated noise levels.     

Selection practices for Web-based government publications in state depository library programs: Comparing active and passive approaches

This paper describes a comparative case study of the capture and selection practices used to populate electronic depositories of born-digital state government publications. The three case sites illustrate differences in collection building approaches, technological infrastructures, and statutory contexts. The findings reveal two basic modes of selection practices—active selection and passive selection, and three selection models based on the loci of selection control—library selection, liaison selection, and creator selection. Also, the findings suggest the power of defining and selecting government publications for state depositories is shifting from government agencies to state libraries in the active selection model. The authors argue for the need to attend to Web publications in non-traditional formats (e.g., an interactive HTML document) and to include common publications produced for lay citizens (e.g., brochures, fact sheets, FAQs, etc.) in the permanent collections in order to fully document government activities for the historical record.     

Community colleges maintain modest response rates to prospective student inquiry

None of the community colleges in this study responded with a text message, as requested in the prospective student’s inquiry. Only 1.38% (n = 3) of the institutions responded to the inquiry with a telephone call. This research realized a slightly higher rate of e-mail response within five working days; 54.98% (n = 116) as opposed to the 2009 results of 50.5% (n = 110) in Shadinger’s (2014) study. More community colleges (n = 12, 5.5%) also had e-mail addresses or information request forms (n = 182, 83.5%) than in the original study (n = 170, 78.0%). Nearly 100% of community college websites had social media links, even when an e-mail address or information request form was not available. In an expansion of previous statements about communication, Noel-Levitz (2014a) reported prospective students were “more likely to consider schools that use e-mail, text messages or social media to communicate” (p. 4). Concurrently, the underutilization of e-mail, social media, and cell phones will simply exacerbate communication and recruiting issues for community colleges.     

Nurse managers’ perceptions of barriers to the mentoring of early career nurses

ABSTRACT

Mentoring is a unique educative workplace relationship which holds the potential to support the skill, knowledge, social and emotional needs of both new and experienced staff members. As promotion of mentoring in the nursing workplace can improve workforce retention and cohesion, understanding of nurse managers’ perceptions of the barriers to the mentoring of early career researchers in hospitals can offer insights that enhance the efficacy of mentoring in these dynamic contexts. In-depth interviews with 20 nurse managers were conducted to identify these barriers, with interpersonal conflict, competing priorities for time and financial resources, and lack of training emerging as recurring themes raised by participants. We explore how these barriers can be mitigated to strengthen the contemporary mentoring quality and opportunity in acute care hospitals.     

Developing and Supporting Faculty Training for Online Social Work Education: The Columbia University School of Social Work Online Pedagogy Institute

ABSTRACT

With the growth of online and distance education in social work, faculty training and support need to be provided to ensure high-quality online social work education. A model for training social work educators in online teaching is outlined that focuses on pedagogy, technology, and social work values. Columbia University School of Social Work’s Online Campus provides a five-week Institute on Pedagogy and Technology for Online Courses for prospective social work instructors. The Institute provides a faculty training model that can be adopted in other social work programs, and seeks to model best practices in online education.