THE PSYCHOSOCIAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF PRESCRIBING PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATION TO ADOLOCENTS
Jerry Floersch, Ph.D., LISW - Associate Professor of Social Work at Case Western Reserve University
Friday April 4, 2008
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Crawford Hall - Room 9
Inamori Center
Case Western Reserve University
Insert Joe White text here!
The Friday Lunch is a brown-bag event open to all. Cookies and some beverages are provided
The remainder of this e-mail reports what we know about the schedule for the
rest of the semester. We will be sending out announcements each week. If you
would prefer not to receive the announcements, please inform Dr. Andrew Lucker,
Associate Director of the Center for Policy Studies, by e-mail (andrew.lucker@case.edu).
About Our Guest
Dr. Floersch brings almost 20 years of experience in mental health services practice and administration to his research and teaching at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. He joined the MSASS faculty in 1998. In his research, Dr. Floersch utilizes ethnographic and historical-sociological research methods to study case managers at work in the field. He is the author of several articles and his first book, entitled Meds, Money, and Manners was published by Columbia University Press in 2002. In his book, Meds, Money, and Manners, Dr. Floersch makes a provocative inquiry into the undocumented oral narratives of case managers. His research has found that case managers utilize two important forms of knowledge in their practice, disciplinary (or book) knowledge and situated (or practical) knowledge. Case managers learn disciplinary knowledge in college classrooms and training workshops. Disciplinary knowledge focuses on how to help persons with mental illness develop daily living skills, monitor medication, and manage money, among others. Case managers are not formally taught situated knowledge. Instead, they invent it in difficult situations as a way to understand the psychological capacity of clients who are trying to become self-sufficient. In short, Dr. Floersch explains, case managers are inventing and recovering clinical knowledge because the social work curriculum and management training often suppress that knowledge. "We must reintroduce clinical skills into the training of case managers," he says. "Politicians and the public want persons with mental illness to be self-monitoring good citizens but this is impossible without some kind of self-awareness, which can be learned from a case manager who knows how to clinically structure a helping relationship." In his current research on youth psychotropic treatment, he extends his research of adult medication treatment to understanding how adolescents and young adults experience psychiatric medications in their daily lifes.
Friday Lunch and Other Public Affairs Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
April 11: David Matthiesen, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, will lead a discussion on “Energy and Alternative Energy Policy in Ohio.”
April 18: Megan Whalen Turner fiction writer for young adults and author of, Instead Of Three Wishes, The Thief, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia; Anne Ursu is the author of the novels Spilling Clarence and The Disapparation of James, Joe White Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Chair, Department if Political Science, Case Western Reserve University, will discuss, "Moral Dilemmas in Politics and Fiction."
The Friday Lunch discussions are held on the lower (ground) level of
Crawford Hall. Visitors with mobility issues may find it easiest to take advantage of special arrangements we have made. On most Fridays, a few parking spaces in the V.I.P. lot in between Crawford Hall and Amasa Stone Chapel are held for participants in the lunch discussion.
Visitors then can avoid walking up the hill to the first floor of Crawford by entering the building on the ground level, through the garage area under the building. The further door on the left in that garage will be left unlocked during the period before the Friday lunch. On occasion, parking will be unavailable because of other university events.
For more information about these and other Center for Policy Studies programs,
please see http://policy.case.edu.
