Overview
Group papers, as defined in the syllabus, involve creating a single document incorporating your group members’ work and answering the questions for that topic.
This paper should:
- Be approximately two (2) single-spaced pages
- Include all group members’ names
- Include citations for any articles you use
The paper is due by midnight on Friday, April 16th.
This paper involves two possibilities; your group should choose one and focus on it. Both project types should focus on resettled refugees, asylum-seekers, or some other immigrant population who may have experienced heightened levels of trauma. You should envision research or treatment as occurring within the United States.
As always, you should plan to cite at least one academic article, although it’s likely that you’ll need more than one. (Use Google Scholar, PsycINFO, or any of the databases through the Bard library.)
Research study
Design a research study that explicitly defines a problem that you would want to ask a question about relating to the specific populations of interest (above). Your paper should:
- State a research question and a hypothesis that specifically identifies the predicted quantitative (or qualitative) likelihood, with citations to demonstrate the background for asking this question and expecting this possible outcome—how would you know if your hypothesis is correct?
- Define the target population and who would be carrying out the study.
- Define the measurement(s) that you would make—[how] would you assess traumatic stress responses? Would you use any measures that have been published or used before?
- Explicitly state some of the problems that you would face in conducting this research. What could you do to try to address those problems?
The bulk of your paper should focus on the first and final points.
Intervention design
Develop a treatment or social work program for the specific populations of interest (above). Your paper should:
- State what kind of treatment or social work program would be used. What unique characteristics would make it work with this population? This would be a good section to provide some citations. Note that “CBT” alone is not an appropriate response here. Instead, you should either choose multiple interventions or identify specific behaviors/symptoms/responses that you would like to target, and suggest plausible interventions.
- Define the target population and who would be providing the treatment.
- What specific mental health conditions would be targeted by this treatment? Why those?
- How would you know if the intervention was successful? How would you know if it had a clinically-significant effect on the individuals involved?
- Explicitly state some of the problems that might come up in providing a treatment or social work program for this population. What sort of suggestions would you have for overcoming these problems?
The bulk of your paper should focus on the first and final points.