Navigating Psychosocial Challenges in Primary Care with an Integrated Behavioral Health Model

The DNA of Social Work as a Partner in Primary Health Care

“…In addition, several articles do not mention any specific ways of proximity (Towns & Schwartz, 2012), or only mention tasks where there is contact between the patient and social worker. These responsibilities include individual therapeutic work with patients, clinical tasks, counseling (Ashcroft, McMillan, Ambrose-Miller, McKee, & Brown, 2018;Berrett-Abebe, Donelan, Berkman, Auerbach, & Maramaldi, 2020;Dennelly, 2019;Rabovsky et al, 2017) or providing individual practical support (Ní Raghallaigh, Allen, Cunniffe, & Quin, 2013).…”

“…Despite the fact that fixed goals or plans are often mentioned, most articles stress the importance of flexibility within these models or fixed phases in the trajectory with patients or clients. Maintaining flexibility and creativity within phases or fixed programs is a key element to approach patients personally, to assess their psychosocial needs and develop collaborative treatment plans (Dennelly, 2019;Döbl et al, 2015;Reckrey et al, 2014). However, only a few studies (n = 4) clearly illustrate the process logic of social work in primary health care settings.…”

“…Some studies explicitly mentioned the term generalist (Firth et al, 2004;Mizrahi & Rizzo, 2008;Ní Raghallaigh et al, 2013), but most studies referred to the importance of a broad knowledge base (Ashcroft et al, 2018;Nicholas et al, 2019), taking into account all the nonmedical needs (Behrman et al, 2018;Reckrey et al, 2014;Rowe et al, 2017) and the interconnected health concerns, which requires a contextualization of the present health issues (Craig, Betancourt, & Muskat, 2015;Döbl et al, 2015). Dennelly (2019) states that it's the social worker "natural framework of treating the whole person in his or her environment within the healthcare arena" (Dennelly, 2019, p. 281). In summary, social workers adopt an integral view whereby they pay attention to persons' various life areas, such as their financial situation, education, housing and/or social relationships.…”

“…Social workers are committed to strengthening individuals and groups in order to regain control of their own lives. This aspect is demonstrated in various manners, such as providing different forms of individual counseling or therapy (Dennelly, 2019;Mizrahi & Rizzo, 2008), supporting people's self-determination (Döbl et al, 2015), enhancing the coping capacity of patients and families (Craig et al, 2015) and stimulate a change in their attitude (Saavedra et al, 2019). Secondly, working in a connecting way contains operating and setting up collaborations at a local level.…”

“…This can relate to the generalist nature of social work, as social workers are seen as "the right profession to support communities in addressing these wider health challenges" (Döbl et al, 2015, p. 127). Most articles therefore mention the engagement for searching community resources on behalf of patients (Ashcroft et al, 2018;Fraser et al, 2018;McGregor et al, 2018), the coordination and communication with these partners (Ashcroft et al, 2019;Dennelly, 2019;Keefe et al, 2009;Mizrahi & Rizzo, 2008;Reckrey et al, 2014;Rowe et al, 2017). According to Rose et al (2016), population-specific social work interventions facilitates the connections to community resources, helping patients to create sustainable social relationships in their communities.…”