Describing an Early Social Work Intervention Program for Families after Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

ABSTRACT

A necessary step to evaluating practice is the accurate specification of social work interventions. Interventions delivered to 27 families with a relative with traumatic brain injury (TBI) admitted to a specialist inpatient brain injury rehabilitation service were coded (655 hr of social work services). The most frequent interventions were counseling, education, and case management. Services addressed person-oriented (65%; e.g., adjustment to hospital, adjustment to disability, family conflict) and environment-oriented (35%; e.g., transport, accommodation, finance, legal, and immigration) issues. This is the first description of a family intervention program after TBI delivered in an inpatient setting and lays the groundwork for future evaluation.

KEYWORDS:

• Caregiver
• case management
• counselors
• evidence-based practice
• family
• intervention
• psychosocial
• social work
• traumatic brain injury

Notes on contributors

Grahame Simpson, PhD, leads the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Research Group at the Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research in Liverpool, Syd-ney, Australia. He has academic appointments with the School of Human Ser-vices and Social Work, Griffith University, and the John Walsh Centre for Rehabilitation Research, University of Sydney. He also has a clinical position as social worker and clinical specialist at the Liverpool Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit. He has 30 years of experience as a practitioner and clinical researcher in the field of traumatic brain injury. He is recognized internationally for his work in conducting epidemiological, clinical, psycho-metric, intervention, and translation-based research in suicide prevention, positive sexual adjustment, the community-based management of challenging behaviors, and family resilience in the field of traumatic brain injury. He is Co-Editor of Brain Impairment, the official journal of the Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment, and sits on the editorial boards for the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation and Australian Social Work. He is convenor of the National Research Committee for the Australian Association of Social Work and cofounding convenor of the International Network of Social Workers in Acquired Brain Injury.

Daniella Pfeiffer has 10 years of clinical experience as a social worker specializing in brain injury rehabilitation. She has a bachelorߣs of arts and social work and completed a masterߣs of couple and family therapy in 2007. In 2011, she took up a role at the Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) and currently works as a Senior Project Officer delivering education and training to allied health professionals across NSW Health.

Shay Keogh received her bachelor of social work (Hon.) from the University of Queensland. She has worked for the past 17 years in a range of health-related social work fields including brain injury rehabilitation and aged care. She is currently employed as a social worker with Queensland Health working in Caboolture & Kilcoy Hospitals.

Brigitte Lane, MAppSc (Neuro), DCP/MSc, received her Doctorate of Clinical Psychology from the University of Sydney. She has contributed to research in brain injury rehabilitation whilst at Liverpool Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit, and more recently in eating disorders. She has worked in community and hospital settings for general mental health in New Zealand and Sydney.