Assignment 4: Integration Journal B (12%)

Assignments

Note

Recommended due date is the end of Lesson 12.

Description

The integration journal assignments are located in each of the course lessons. The integration journal provides opportunities for you to explore and express your ideas, values, perspectives, and experience related to the new concepts or perspectives provided in the course material and readings. Therefore, it is recommended that you complete the integration journal activities and assignments when you complete each lesson. These journal entries will often assist you in completing other assignments.

The Integration Journal

Please access your journal in Blackboard Learn and ensure you know how to make entries. A tutorial is provided on the course Home Page. Your journal is confidential and cannot be viewed by other students in the course, although your Open Learning Faculty Member will be able to review it.

Write your journal using an academic format. When you incorporate ideas from the course readings, reference them using American Psychological Association (APA) style.

Integration Journal B: Lesson Activities and Assignments

The integration journal is made up of 6 components. Following is a list of the Integration Journal A topics for each lesson.

Journal	Lesson	Topic
5	7	Chronic disease model or population health model of treatment
6	8	The evidence basis of my practice
7	9	Prevention programs that work
8	10	Gender based stigma: Compounded shame for women
9	11	Advocating for de-stigmatizing care and the system of care
10	12	System of care: Moving professional collaboration forward

Following are the journal component activities located in the course modules:

Integration Journal #5: Chronic disease model or population health model of treatment

Decision makers have limited resources for treatment of people with substance use disorders. Both the Aria and McLellan (2012) and the Cunningham and McCambridge (2011) articles argue that the perspectives on treatment etiology should match the treatment options. If you were asked to present an argument to decision makers regarding your perspectives on allocating resources, what would be your argument?

Write 500–600 words providing an abstract of your argument and recommendation. Be sure to include APA referencing (just from the two articles in Activity 1) to support your argument as well as the countervailing one. Also, include a linkage between etiology and treatment.

Integration Journal #6: The evidence basis of my practice

This lesson provided a lot of insight into the contemporary research and literature on the effectiveness of a range of treatment interventions on substance use disorders, as well as on the ineffectiveness of other commonly known interventions. As a reflexive practitioner interested in evidence-based practice, this journal entry is about synthesizing your practice interventions into an evidence-based framework.

Write 500 – 600 words that succinctly identify the practices that you currently do, and support those practices by the evidence provided in the readings of this lesson (use APA referencing where applicable). As a reflexive practitioner, new learning continues to inform our practice. Include some reflection on the practices that you are likely to reduce, or eliminate, and the ones you intend to strengthen. Note: Depending on your current area of practice or interest, it is very acceptable to focus on either the pharmacotherapy aspects or the psychosocial (behavioural) interventions, or interventions with youth. If you are not currently in practice, reflect on your existing professional and knowledge base as a way to prepare yourself for evidence-based practice.

Integration Journal #7: Prevention programs that work.

In this lesson, you had a lot of material to digest. From your readings, write 500–600 words summarizing the key features required for a workable prevention program. Think of this exercise as providing a summary to a School Board that currently does not have a substantial prevention program. You have been asked to present the key findings of evidence-based prevention programs to assist the Board in their decision making process about the implementation of a prevention program.

Integration Journal #8: Gender based stigma: Compounded shame for women.

Unfortunately, stigma is inextricably intertwined with substance use in society in general. However, some populations experience compounded stigma due to their age, gender, or race. The result for women is reduced access to services and options for treatment. In this integration journal, utilizing the readings from this lesson write 500–600 words describing and discussing the issue of gender-based stigma in the substance use field.

Integration Journal #9: Advocating for de-stigmatizing care and the system of care

Advocacy is a cornerstone of substance use work, whether at the micro, mezzo, or macro levels. From the readings in this lesson, identify some key strategies that you could put into practice (or would hope to put into practice) to advocate for reducing stigma. Your strategies should include those that relate to self and the therapeutic relationship with clients at the agency or system of care level, and at the structural or general societal level. Write 500–600 words describing these strategies and your evidence-based rationale for their inclusion.

Integration Journal #10: System of care—Moving professional collaboration forward

Interprofessional collaboration within a robust and broad system of care would seem to have a good potential for translating evidence-based knowledge into practice resulting in positive outcomes for the substance use and substance use disorder population. However, in practice, this kind of collaboration is challenging for a number of reasons. In this integration journal, write 500–600 words identifying an example of when you have experienced interprofessional collaboration to be effective for providing positive service user outcomes. Complete the journal entry by identifying individual practices that you would like to strengthen, and areas that you would like to advocate for strengthening within the system of care to coalesce interprofessional collaboration in your agency/community or region. If you are not currently practicing, refer to other experiences you have had.

Criteria for Assessment

Marking Rubric (for each entry)

Exemplary 100%	Excellent 85%	Very Good 75%	Satisfactory 60%	Unsatisfactory 40%
Shows exemplary understanding of the lesson content. Shows a high level of integration of the reading material. Goes beyond analysis to show new meaning and conceptualizations. Shows linkage to other lessons and a developmental response. Written extremely well with APA referencing and no grammatical errors.	Shows a high level of understanding of the lesson content. Shows very good integration of the reading material. Response is analytical and can connect different ideas for a coherent response. Can link the ideas in this reflection to other core concepts from the course. Written very well with APA referencing. Very readable with minor errors.	Shows some understanding of the lesson content but may be missing one or more central elements. Response is primarily descriptive or personal reflection but doesn’t show linkage to other core concepts from the course. The written response may be weak either in readability, APA referencing, or grammatically.	A superficial response that doesn’t provide clarity of understanding of the major concepts. May be mostly personal reflection, rather than an integration of personal awareness and theoretical knowledge.	Response isn’t linked to the integration question or shows little awareness or understanding of the social welfare concepts in this module.