EDITORIAL i EDITORIAL William H. Barton The year 2008 is nearing its end. If nothing else, the year has been a wild roller- coaster ride. Considering the global economic woes, continuing armed conflicts, energy and climate crises, and the United State’s historic presidential election, the future certainly presents social work with both challenges and opportunities. As I assume the editorship of Advances in Social Work, I invite you to share your innovative efforts towards promoting knowledge that can improve social work practice, education and research by submitting your work to our journal. Our new, all-online format encourages timely review of manuscripts and free, open access to all new and archived issues. The current issue continues the journal’s history of presenting articles addressing a wide range of issues and employing diverse methods. It begins with several articles relevant to social work education. In “A Multiparadigmatic Approach to Judeo-Christian Religion in Social Work Education,” Jon E. Singletary presents a carefully constructed framework for integrating sociological paradigms of knowledge and practice to incorporate content on religion and spirituality in social work education. In “The Generalist Model: Where do the Micro and Macro Converge,” Shari E. Miller, Carolyn J. Tice and Diane M. Harnek Hall present data suggesting that, despite efforts by many schools of social work to incorporate content on macro practice, undergraduate social work students feel less prepared to practice with larger system sizes. They offer recommendations for classroom techniques and greater emphasis on macro learning assignments in field in addition to curricular changes. In the third article, “Online Practice Course Development with Action Research: A Case Example,” Khadija Khaja, Phillip Ouellette, Carenlee Barkdull and Joanne Yaffe tackle this sometimes controversial issue through a qualitative analysis of student and instructor responses to a pilot attempt to offer portions of an MSW practice course online. Student feedback was mixed, and the instructors faced a sizeable learning curve, but the authors conclude that the approach holds promise. Scott E. Wilks uses quantitative survey methods to explore “Resilience amid Academic Stress: The Moderating Impact of Social Support among Social Work Students.” The results demonstrated that social support, particularly from peers, positively influenced resilience in the presence of academic stress. The next three articles present research related to practice with youths with serious emotional disturbances, Latinos living with HIV/AIDS and neighborhood-based community initiatives, respectively. Nathaniel J. Williams and Michael Sherr present findings from a “Longitudinal Evaluation of Outcomes for Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbance during Two Years of Children’s Psychosocial Rehabilitation.” They evaluated the Children’s Psychosocial Rehabilitation treatment model using a 24-month retrospective panel design of 49 youths, with outcome data from seven administrations of the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS; Hodges, 2000). They ii found a statistically and clinically significant improvement in outcomes between intake and 16 months. Although the rate of change decreased during the last eight months of the study, significant improvements were observed during treatment, especially during the first year. In “Social Work Practice with Latinos Living with HIV/AIDS,” Diana Rowan, Rich Furman, April Jones and Kevin Edwards discuss a qualitative case study of a support group for Latinos infected or affected by HIV. They ground their study in values specifically relevant for practice with Latinos, and argue that translating such values into skills is essential in providing culturally competent services in this context. Next, Daniel Brisson and Susan Roll describe “An Adult Education Model of Resident Participation.” Following a review of the literature on Comprehensive Community Initiatives, they present a stage model for developing true participation of residents in community change efforts, and apply that model to reflect upon their experience working with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Making Connections initiative in one city. In this issue’s concluding article, Jeong Woong Cheon makes a case for the “Convergence of a Strengths Perspective and Youth Development: Toward Youth Promotion Practice.” He argues that social work is particularly well-suited to champion youth promotion practice as an antidote to the prevailing problem-focused, deficit-based interventions found in a variety of contexts involving children and youth. Those of you who may be familiar with some of my own writings will notice a certain kinship here (see Barton & Butts, 2008). I will end my inaugural editorial with an hypothesis: no one reads the editorial in an issue of an online journal. When opening a printed copy of a journal, your eyes are confronted with the editorial and you will likely at least skim through it. In the online format, you’d have to take the initiative to click on the link to the editorial. I suspect that you would be much more likely to simply go directly to the links to the articles themselves. So, if you actually are reading this, you can disprove my hypothesis by sending me an email at wbarton@iupui.edu. Feel free to provide feedback about the journal’s format or contents. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the many years of hard work my colleagues and editorial predecessors, Jim Daley and Barry Cournoyer, devoted to building Advances in Social Work into a well-respected journal in our field. I hope the new online format helps to extend its reach. Welcome aboard. It will be an interesting journey. References Barton, W. H., & Butts, J. A. (2008). Building on strength: Positive youth development in juvenile justice programs. Chicago: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. Available from: http://www.chapinhall.org/article_abstract.aspx?ar=1471. Hodges, K. (2000). The Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (2nd Rev.). Ypsilanti: Eastern Michigan University. mailto:wbarton@iupui.edu http://www.chapinhall.org/article_abstract.aspx?ar=1471