Utilization of a time-limited holiday hotline by older adults.

Lonely older adults are frequently hesitant to reach out for help because they fear forced institutionalization or other loss of control over their lives. The utilization of a time-limited holiday hotline for outreach to lonely older persons is examined. There were 306 calls from aged persons. Grief and bereavement were the primary themes of these calls. Trained professionals and supervised students staffed the telephone bank and provided such services as responsive listening and community referrals.

Health care barriers and interventions for battered women.

Family violence is a major public health problem. Battered women present with multiple physical injuries in hospital emergency rooms, clinics, and personal physicians' offices. Yet, they are often not identified as battered and fail to receive appropriate treatment for the nonphysical effects of these events. Instead, only discrete physical injuries are identified. The authors explore the literature to identify barriers in recognizing and treating battered women. These barriers are viewed as a microcosm of the larger public health problem in which battered women fear identifying themselves and often are not recognized by public health professionals. Some barriers pertain to the victims themselves; others can be attributed to the attitudes of medical care providers in emergency rooms, clinics, and private physicians' offices. The many faceted needs of victims require a variety of interventions including medical models, criminal justice intervention systems, and social models for change. Some intervention strategies that are currently being employed in various programs in the United States are described.

The time-limited hot line.

Although long-term hot lines that focus on crisis intervention will undoubtedly dominate as an organizational model, time-limited approaches will be used with increasing frequency. The primary impetus behind their proliferation is the increasing visibility of the electronic media, particularly television, in investigating and reporting pressing health, mental health, and human services problems. As the mass media increasingly produces special reports, documentaries, and docudramas directed toward social problems and issues, local health and human services agencies will become increasingly motivated to provide a forum for public response. The time-limited issue- or problem-oriented hot line is the ideal vehicle for public response as well as for extending the human services network. This type of hot line also offers social workers a unique opportunity to share important mental health information through the media.