Social Work Practice in the Military

Carlton Munson, James G Daley

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317789918
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Medicine
• Categoría: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

Social Work Practice in the Military provides military social workers, military scholars, and civilian social workers with an overview of diverse practice settings as well as the history and future of military social work practice to give you an understanding of the military persona as an ethnic identity. This unique book provides in-depth coverage of issues such as family violence, substance abuse, medical social work, combat settings, ethical dilemmas, managed care's impact on the military, and much more. Social Work Practice in the Military is an essential guide for anyone working with military clients, families of military personnel, or near a military installation. This valuable book contains input from top current and past leaders within the ranks of military social workers to bring you a wide spectrum of firsthand ideas and input to help you better assist your military clients.Social Work Practice in the Military will help you better understand the diversity of social work practice within the military and the many unique situations a military social worker must face. This informative book will provide you with specific ways of improving the lives of your military clients and their families, such as:

• understanding how the most rapidly expanding arena of practice, family advocacy, which includes a broad array of family violence prevention and intervention services, can help military clients
• learning how TRICARE, the military managed health care program, impacts military families and social workers in order to provide your clients with the best care while working within the limited budget of a managed care program
• analyzing the historical discussions of the changing view of substance abuse treatment within the military and how you can best provide effective, multilevel services to your clients
• examining the extensive involvement of military social workers in a myriad of medical social work programs serving patients and families to help you offer the best patient care in situations involving domestic violence and drug abuse
• discovering essential skills for military social workers, such as, effective involvement in combat or deployed situations

Through Social Work Practice in the Military, you will better understand the importance of your many roles as clinician, advocate, policymaker, resource liaison, and organizational consultant and learn how to successfully accomplish every one of these roles. Containing insight into the future directions of practice, this valuable book will help you effectively assist military clients and their families with the various challenges they face.

Part I:

Historical Contexts of Practice

Chapter 1

History of Army Social Work

Jesse Harris

The Civilian Connection with the Army

Any consideration of the history of Army social work must include a discussion of the impact of wars on soldiers and their families. It must also consider the crucial role of the Red Cross and the corps of civilian professional social work organizations that helped to shape what is now Army social work.

Before there were uniformed social workers there were Red Cross social workers. The value of psychiatric social workers to the Army was made known during World War I, as a result of a demonstration project by the Red Cross with the cooperation of the division of neurology and psychiatry of the surgeon general’s office.

This project was conducted at the special hospital for neuroses at the U.S. Army General Hospital #30 at Plattsburgh, New York. The first social worker was available for duty on September 1, 1918. The success of the work at Plattsburgh led the Red Cross to increase the number of psychiatric social workers at that hospital from one to three. Later they would assign not only psychiatric but also medical social workers to all hospitals.

American Red Cross social workers continued to work in appropriate Army Hospitals between the two world wars and continued during World War II. Between 1942 and 1945 about 1,000 American Red Cross psychiatric social workers were assigned to named general and regional hospitals, in the United States and overseas (National Association of Social Workers, 1965, p. 15). The Army relied upon the Red Cross throughout two wars.

It was not until June 1945 that an Army social work program was incorporated into the office of the surgeon general. The psychiatric social work branch was established. A full-time position of social work consultant also was created to head that branch. Much of the credit for these events goes to the close coordination of two major professional organizations. The Wartime Committee on Personnel of the American Association of Social Workers (which represented over 14,000 practicing social workers and the forty-two recognized schools of graduate social work) (Anderson, 1944).

Another major organization was the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. This organization interacted with the Surgeon General on social work’s behalf during World War I. Finally, there was Elizabeth H. Ross, who, at that time, was the civilian consultant to Brigadier General William Menninger, Chief of the Neuropsychiatry Consultants Division (Ross, 1951).

The Enlisted Social Work Contributions

By February 1942, not long after the United States entered World War II, six enlisted men who were professionally qualified psychiatric social workers were assigned to the newly formed Mental Hygiene Consultation Service at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. This event was the first time that military personnel who were professionally trained social workers were assigned and utilized as psychiatric social workers in a military unit. Myron J. Rockmore, Frank T. Grieving, and Henry Maas were among the first group. They would go on to make significant contributions both in the military and in the civilian sector. All who served in an enlisted status were not trained social workers. By their own initiative many had moved into a working relationship with individual psychiatrists in various Army units and learned their skills at the job site. It should be noted that no official distinction was made between professional and nonprofessional personnel even though a large percentage had advanced degrees or were exceptionally well qualified.

On October 18, 1943, the War Department published the Military Occupational Specialty 263 for Psychiatric Social Work Technicians. The military psychiatric social worker (SSN #263) was defined as follows:

Under supervision of a psychiatrist, performs psychiatric casework to facilitate diagnoses and treatment of soldiers requiring psychiatrist guidance.

Administers psychiatric intake interviews, and writes case histories emphasizing the factors pertinent to psychiatric diagnoses.

Carries out mental-hygiene prescriptions and records progress to formulate a complete case history.

May obtain additional information on soldier’s home environment through Red Cross or other agencies to facilitate in possible discharge planning.

Must have knowledge of dynamics of personality structure and development, and cause of emotional maladjustments. (War, 1943)

Even though there was a need for men and women with social work skills, trained soldiers already on active duty could not expect to automatically be awarded the occupational specialty SSN #263, psychiatric social worker, even if they had social work training. The organization of a social work program in the Army during World War II was in a large measure due to continuing efforts of civilian social workers through the medium of various professional organizations. The American Association of Psychiatric Social Workers established its War Service Office and began to lay the groundwork for a more organized social work structure in the military establishment. In September 1943, in anticipation of the above War Department letter and at the height of World War II, Elizabeth H. Ross, while in the position of secretary of the War Service Office, sent a general memorandum to young men already on active duty. The memorandum stated that a private or noncommissioned man in the Army could apply for reclassification as a psychiatric social worker. Ironically, the memorandum also acknowledged that Army commissioned officers or any person in the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Seabees, or Women’s Army Corps could not apply to be a psychiatric social worker. Between 1942 and 1945, 711 enlisted men and WACs served in the role of psychiatric social workers. They were assigned to induction centers, named general and regional hospitals, station and evacuation hospitals, and combat divisions.

The Social Work Officer

Although social workers served honorably, the war would end before social work was recognized as a discipline of commissioned officers. Those social workers who did have commissions had obtained them through other branches of the service prior to serving as social workers.

Commissioned status for social workers within the Army was finally achieved in 1945, in part because of the continuing efforts of the Wartime Committee on Personnel of the American Association of Social Workers. Major Daniel E. O’Keefe assumed the position as the first Chief of the Army’s Psychiatric Social Work Branch on July 1, 1945. During the eight months before his separation from service in February 1946, he was only able to begin a centrally directed social work program. This limited impact was because, with demobilization, almost all trained army social workers were separated. Though a decision was made in June 1945 to grant the military occupational specialty for the professionally trained Psychiatric Social Work Officer (MOS 3506), the decision was not published until February 1946 (after the war was over). February 1946 was the same month that Major O’Keefe returned to civilian life, along with many officers who served during the war. But the creation of the new military occupational specialty assured the continuity of Army social work (Camp, 1951).

With the departure of O’Keefe, the position of Chief of the Psychiatric Social Work Branch was now vacant. However, the Psychiatric Social Work Branch continued with the support of General William Menninger, the Chief of the Neuropsychiatric Consultants division of the OTSG. The Surgeon General called upon Elizabeth H. Ross, who agreed to serve as the civilian Psychiatric Social Work Consultant until such time as a qualified uniformed officer could be recruited and appointed.

There was an urgency to rebuild professional social work in the Army. National advertising occurred with headlines such as “Army Medical Department Seeks Psychiatric Social Workers.” One such example is an article in the November 7, 1946, edition of the Douglas County Legionnaire, published in Omaha, Nebraska (Army Medical Department, 1946). The article described the need for psychiatric social workers who were officers or former officers to participate in teams with psychiatrists and clinical psychologists providing neuropsychiatric services. The qualifications for the social worker were at least one year of training in an accredited school of social work, a field placement, and one year of social case work experience in a health or welfare agency.

Ironically, the Douglas County Legionnaire article helped motivate Harry Adams and Elwood Camp to apply as Army social Workers. Camp had been the director and service officer of the Lincoln and Lancaster County Veterans Service Center (Adams, 1966). Ross served as consultant in a civilian capacity from February 4, 1946, until the appointment of Lieutenant Colonel Elwood W. Camp as the second military Chief of the Psychiatric Social Work Branch and Social Work Consultant to the Surgeon General (Morgan, 1961).

The rebuilding of the program would indeed become a monumental task. In addition to a major drive to encourage master’s degree social workers to join the service, the Army adopted the “case aide” plan. This plan is intriguing at this point in time because it proposed to train as paraprofessionals not only enlisted personnel but commissioned officers as well. This latter group was needed to provide leadership until an adequate number of professional social workers could be obtained. This program is discussed later in this chapter.

The Role of the Psychiatric Social Worker

The fact that psychiatric social work preceded medical social work in the Army can best be appreciated when one considers the events of World War I. In the thirty-three months from April 1, 1917, to December 31, 1919, 97,650 men with neuropsychiatric disorders were admitted to military hospitals (Freedman, 1944, p. 2). The figures reported for neuropsychiatric problems during the years 1942–1945 (World War II) were equally sobering. One million soldiers were admitted to Army hospitals for neuropsychiatric reasons. These casualties constituted 6 to 7 percent of all admissions. The more than 545,000 troops who were separated from the service for neuropsychiatric disorders accounted for 49 percent of all discharges for either physical or mental defects (Caldwell, 1948).

There was a significant difference in the approach used to deal with inductees of World War I and World War II. The selective service criteria used in the World War I resulted in far greater neuropsychiatric (NP) rejection rates than the criteria used for the 1,850,000 NP rejections for military service during World War II (Caldwell, 1948). Rock-more attributed the difference to the World War II concept of limited service based on differential diagnoses, which eventually supplanted the earlier criteria (Rockmore, 1960).

Another significant factor in the reduced number of psychiatric casualties was the introduction of the Mental Hygiene Units. The mission of a typical Mental Hygiene Unit in the early days of World War II was as follows:

a. Provide Mental Hygiene facilities to organizations and officers and to assist them with soldiers who present various forms of maladjustment, as inaptitude, unusual behavior, malingering (“goldbricking”) recalcitrant, alcoholism and others.

b. Institute such corrective measures as are considered appropriate by the director thereof, to reduce or eliminate the individual’s maladju...

Índice

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Editor
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Senior Editor’s Comments
• Preface
• Part I: Historical Contexts of Practice
• Part II: Practice Arenas
• Part III: Unique Issues of Military Social Work
• Part IV: Future Directions of Practice
• Index