Digital Commons Network^™

Asian American Social Workers: Exploring Relationships Among Factors Influencing Career Choices, Soon Min Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United States. One of the stereotypes associated with Asians is that they are more likely to choose careers in science, medicine, and engineering rather than social science, inclusive of social work, mass communication, or humanities (Leong & Serafica, 1995; Tang et al., 1999). This occupational stereotyping of Asians is not just a myth in that descriptive studies have shown that only a few Asians choose social work as a career (Lennon, 2005; NASW, 2006). Few studies exist on Asian Americans who do not choose Asian stereotypical career choices, …

Pathways To Drug Use Among Rural And Urban African American Adolescents: The Mediating And Moderating Effects Of Parent And Peer Influences, Trenette Clark

Theses and Dissertations

African American adolescents have traditionally engaged in drug use at disproportionately lower rates than youth of other ethnic groups. Nonetheless, African American youth and adults suffer disproportionately higher rates of drug-related consequences. This paradox is a health and social disparity that has been given fair attention but needs additional culturally intelligent theoretical and empirical explanations. Research that targets African American adolescent drug use has emerged but has failed to fully or moderately explain this paradox. The purpose of this study was to fill a gap in the literature by helping to explain the first part of the paradox, African American …

Pathways To Prison: Impact Of Vicitimization In The Lives Of Incarcerated Women, Dana Dehart

Faculty and Staff Publications

This study examined ways in which victimization may contribute to criminal involvement among incarcerated women. We conducted interviews with 60 women in a maximum securtiy prison to gather each woman's perspective on psychological, physical, and sexual victimization in her life. Qualitative analyses indicated ways that victimization related directly to women's crimes as well as influenced health, psychosocial functioning, or systemic involvement to create difficult situations with which the women struggled. Case histories are used to illustrate pervasive impacts of victimization, and role of multiple traumas and cumulative impact are discussed.

Dynamics Of Social Welfare Policy: Right Versus Left. Gardenia Harris, Bernard Ivan Tamas, And Nancy S. Lind, James Midgley

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book note for Gardenia Harris, Bernard Ivan Tamas and Nancy S. Lind, Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy: Right versus Left. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007. $80.00 hardcover; $39.95 papercover.

Supportive Housing: Implications For Its Efficacy As Intervention With Special Needs Low-Income African Americans, Carol S. Collard, Rufus Larkin

Faculty Articles

In this pilot study, the authors examine the efficacy of supportive housing, which combines affordable housing with social services, in helping low-income single mothers in substance abuse recovery with relapse prevention and acquiring life skills to improve their economic conditions. Study subjects were residents of Delowe Village Apartments, a supportive housing development in East Point, Georgia, who participated in Project GROW, an on-site program intended to help residents maintain sobriety and reduce their dependence on welfare. The authors hypothesize that the length of residency in supportive housing correlates to prolonged sobriety, improved functioning, and increased employment. Findings indicate a substantial …

The Untold Story Of Welfare Fraud, Richelle S. Swan, Linda L. Shaw, Sharon Cullity, Joni Halpern, Juliana Humphrey, Wendy M. Limbert, Mary Roche

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The experiences of women who have been charged with welfare fraud in the years following the passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act cast a shadow over the claim that welfare reform has been an unequivocal success. This article addresses this under-explored issue by considering the face of welfare fraud in San Diego, California after the change to federal welfare law. After a brief discussion of the socio-historical context of welfare fraud prosecution and a summary of the scholarly findings related to welfare fraud post-PRWORA, the aiticle details a new "poverty knowledge" about welfare fraud drawn …

Domestic Violence: Professionals’ Attitudes Toward Its Causes And Intervention, Hannah Katherine Mccreery

Masters Theses

Community organizations work with and provide services for perpetrators and victims of domestic violence on a daily basis. The individuals who work for these agencies have a direct impact on perpetrators and victims. This study investigated the attitudes and perceptions of domestic violence professionals to assess the differentiating effect of gender, occupation within the field, age, education level, and years of experience in the field. Findings revealed significant differences between genders and occupation groups, particularly in attitudes toward interventions and treatment practices and beliefs about the causes of domestic violence. Implications for future research and policy are reviewed.

Social Work Field Instructors' Perceptions Of On-Line Training, Denise E. Dedman

Dissertations

Social work has recently identified the field placement as the signature pedagogy of the profession, yet little has been done to identify the best means of training field instructors to supervise students in their field placements. This study addressed attitudes and perceptions of social work field instructors regarding on-line training in their roles. While previous studies of university social work program field placement directors had been conducted, there exist no broad studies of the field instructors' perceptions. Some earlier qualitative studies of field instructors identified time constraints as a significant issue in their willingness to continue accepting interns. This, along …

Review Of Working Mothers And The Welfare State: Religion And The Politics Of Work-Family Policies In Western Europe And The United States. Kimberly J. Morgan. Reviewed By Katherine Van Wormer., Katherine Van Wormer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Kimberly J. Morgan. Working Mothers and the Welfare State: Religion and the Politics of Working-Family Policies in Western Europe and the United States. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. $22.95 papercover.

Using Social Construction Theory As A Foundation For Macro-Level Interventions In Communities Impacted By Hiv And Addictions, David Allen Patterson, Robert H. Keefe

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Many professionals working with people living with HIV and alcohol and other drug addictions rely heavily on micro and mezzo-level interventions. The authors argue that although these approaches are effective for helping people living with some social problems they are too narrow for working effectively with HIV-positive and alcohol and other drug-addicted individuals. The authors use social construction theory to analyze the social problems of HIV/AIDS and addictions and make recommendations for macro-level interventions that may help curtail the dual problems of HIV and addictions.

Children With Incarcerated Parents : A Longitudinal Study Of The Effect Of Parental Incarceration On Adolescent Externalizing Behaviors, Jean Mollenkamp Kjellstrand

Dissertations and Theses

Over the past two decades, the number of imprisoned adults in the United States has quadrupled. Mirroring this trend is the rapidly increasing population of children with incarcerated parents. The initial findings of research on the effects of parental incarceration on children are disturbing, indicating a vulnerable group of children at risk for poor outcomes. Yet, research on these children remains limited. Several studies have focused on the description of these children, yet few have analyzed the relationship between parental incarceration and child outcomes in conjunction with other risk and protective factors. Understanding these relationships is crucial to the development …

Foster Youth And The "Aging Out" Age In Rhode Island, Kelsey Creeden

Social Work Theses

Foster care is a temporary placement of children and youth with others outside of their home due to child abuse or neglect. Since its 19th century origins, the foster care system has evolved to focus on three goals of providing safety, well-being, and permanency until the child leaves the system, either by reunification, adoption, or “aging out”. Because these youth often “age out” without a home, job, or support system, programs such as the Life Skills Program and the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative are working toward providing this population with skills that will assist them in successfully aging out …

Accessing Substance Abuse Treatment: Issues For Parents Involved With Child Welfare Services, Anna Rockhill, Beth L. Green, Linda Newton-Curtis

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The complex issues associated with barriers to treatment entry for parents who are involved with child welfare has not been well explored. Accessing timely treatment is now critical for these parents since the introduction of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, limiting the time until a permanency decision is made. Using a longitudinal, qualitative approach, substance-abusing parents from 15 families, their relevant family members, and service providers were interviewed approximately every 3 months over an 18-month period. The experiences of these parents add to our knowledge of the unique barriers this population faces, and expands our understanding of …

Examining Strain In A School Context, Daniel R. Lee, Jeffrey W. Cohen

Social Work & Criminal Justice Publications

General strain theory has accumulated a considerable amount of empirical support. Many of these assessments have tested the direct relationship that strain has on crime and delinquency. The research presented here examines the relationship between schools and delinquency within a general strain theory perspective. More specifically, this research examines how schools can not only act as a source of an individual's strain and subsequent delinquency but also be a source for mediating or coping with strain and minimizing delinquency. To test the relationship between schools and delinquency, data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS:88) are analyzed in a model …

An Introduction To Restorative Justice, King Davis

Social Work Community Forum 2008

The legal system assumes that the best way to achieve “justice” is through a regulated conflict.

New Hope For Women Newsletter (Spring 2008), New Hope For Women Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Victim And Offender Correlates Of Elder Abuse And Mistreatment: Research For Future Prevention, Howard M. Henderson

Howard M Henderson

Elder abuse is a crime that is often misunderstood, under detected, and improperly processed. While definitions of this abuse are clear within most states, the knowledge that most elder abuse occurs at the hands of those the victim most trusts–their friends and family–is seldom understood by the public. Further, many professionals lack the training to effectively assess and detect elder abuse. Most underlying indicators of such abuse have specific correlates based on both victim and offender characteristics. Persons in various human service professions must be trained on those characteristics and the dynamics that tend to enable an abusive relationship to …

Alternatives For Youth’S Advocacy Program:Reducing Minority Youth Incarceration Placements In Cleveland, Ohio, Christopher A. Mallett, Linda Julian

Social Work Faculty Publications

Detaining and incarcerating juvenile delinquents is ineffective and costly juvenile justice policy. These placements, indicative of the “tough on crime” approach, become problematic for many of these youths who do not have the advantage of legal counsel because they waive this right. In addition, a majority of these youths have a mental health or special education disability that does not get addressed in correctional facilities. Alternatives for Youth's Advocacy Program (AFY) in Cleveland, Ohio (Cuyahoga County) is addressing these issues using a holistic approach that includes the provision of civil legal representation to assist youths in accessing disability services and …

Motivational Interviewing: Does It Increase Clients’ Retention In Intensive Outpatient Treatment?, David A. Patterson Silver Wolf (Adelv Unegv Waya) Phd

Brown School Faculty Publications

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a clinical technique that has received considerable attention in the addictions arena over the past decade. In the present pilot study, the impact of providing up to five MI sessions during the first two weeks of intensive outpatient treatment (IOP), relative to the treatment as usual was addressed. The participants were 106 IOP patients, and a post-test design was utilized. Results showed that adding MI sessions during the first two weeks of IOP did not increase the number of days in treatment nor was there an increase in treatment completion. It is possible that the MI …

Social Impact: Perspectives With Melissa Jonson-Reid And Brett Drake: Changing The Role Of Child Welfare, Betsy Rogers, Geoff Story

Social Impact

"A public health approach would help move child welfare from assessing and preventing an action to thinking about how to support healthy families..."

Social Impact, Edward F. Lawler, Tonya E. Edmonds, Enola K. Proctor, Ellen Rostand, Julie Kennedy, Jessica Martin, Toky Branding + Design, Donna Boyd, A.J. Boyd

Social Impact

From the Dean: Remember the Past. Imagine the Future. Celebrate Today.;

Perspectives: Temperature Rising: Health Care Reform is Back;

Bookshelf: From Incentives to Intuition: What Faculty and Staff are Reading.;

Perspectives with Melissa Jonson-Reid & Brett Drake: Changing the Role of Child Welfare; Perspectives: SEED for Oklahoma Kids.;

Interview: Q&A with Julian Le Grand;

Connecting Individual Health with Public Health: New interdisciplinary approaches are needed to solve today's health care challenges. The solution lies at the nexus of social work, public health, and medicine.;

The Green Dream: The social work profession has been slow to engage the issue of environmental …

An Examination Of Female Youth Gangs, Tiffiney Y. Barfield-Cottledge, Myrna Cintron, Jonathan Sorensen

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice

Cohen's subculture of delinquency theory (1955) posits that male youth gangs exist largely as the result of the status frustration experienced by rejected adolescents in their search for middle class acceptance. Cohen concluded that social and structural factors, particularly neighborhood and school environments, impacted youth gang prevalence. While many studies related to the existence of youth gangs have been conducted, few have focused specifically on female youth gangs. In the current study, an examination of female youth gangs was conducted using self-report data gathered for the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1997-2001). Contrary to arguments that gendered-specific criminological theories are …

Assessment Practices In Residential Treatment Facilities For Juvenile Offenders, Liz Marciniak, Diane T. Marsh

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice

Given the high prevalence of mental disorders among juvenile offenders, as well as the link between untreated disorders and delinquent behavior, there is a critical need for standardized, cost-effective, and clinically effective procedures to identify youth with mental health problems. Surveys were sent to staff in juvenile residential facilities throughout Pennsylvania to examine statewide assessment practices, including the background and training of staff, the standard intake procedures used in these facilities, and the role of assessment in treatment planning. Although results provide evidence of some common statewide assess-ment practices, there was significant variability in the use of specific procedures. Suggestions …

Bullying: An Adult Perspective From Educators Who Work Predominately With African American Students, Rebecca A. Robles-Piña, Anthony Harris, Rachel Porias

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice

A survey of 31 teachers and counselors who work predominantly with African American students about bullying revealed these findings: Analyses by individual questions indicated that participants (a) disagreed that bullies and victims were of any particular ethnic group, (b) were unsure about whether gender impacted bullying and whether bullying had decreased (c) agreed that pairing loners with other students was a good intervention and that victims tended to be students with special needs, and (d) strongly agreed that bullies have feelings of power and control. Analyses by categories and demographic characteristics indicated no statistically significant differences for gender and job …

Television Violence Prevention Versus Juvenile Violence Prevention: Any Connections In Parental Control?, Sharlette Kellum

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice

Animated features, like children's cartoons, are considered by some to be the most violent shows on televi-sion, with approximately 25 to 50 acts of violence per hour (Dietz and Strasburger, 1991). Cartoons, unlike other shows that portray violence, present instances of violence to children in an "acceptable" way, which teaches children from zero to 17 years of age that hurting people is tolerable. Television violence has been linked to juvenile aggression, which has been linked to juvenile violence. In researching several studies, the author found that many of the preventions mentioned in the television violence studies were also mentioned in …

The History Of Defining Youth: Current Implications For Identifying And Treating Delinquent Youth, Robin M. Hartinger-Saunders

SW Publications

This article presents a historical overview of how legally and socially constructed definitions of childhood and youth have, and continue to, shape the identification, treatment and research surrounding delinquent youth. Even though we age biologically along a continuum, formal social systems, most notably the courts and our system of rights, are based on specific chronological age parameters which impose a rigid element to something that is otherwise fluid. This often results in subjective decision making regarding sanctions and treatment options among family and criminal court systems as well as other professionals who work closely with delinquent youth. This article highlights …

Understanding Indigenous Canadian Traditional Health And Healing, (Gus) Louis Paul Hill

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative research study is situated within an Indigenous research methodology. The goal of the research was to develop an in-depth understanding of traditional healing from the perspectives of practitioners of traditional healing. It was important to explore the experiences of practitioners of traditional healing because there continues to be a lack of literature on this subject, as well as a significant lack of understanding and awareness about traditional healing and Indigenous Canadian people in mainstream society. The theoretical underpinnings of this research are holism and the four aspects of the self, visually represented in the Anishnaabe medicine wheel.

In-depth …

Late Diagnosis Of Autism Among African American Children, Lysette Nana Etti, Kathleen Patrice Holsey

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to raise awareness and to analyze the process of diagnosing African American children with autism and identify variables that correlate with late diagnosis.

The Life Experiences Of Women Ex-Offenders Of Domestic Violence, Hope Hermosillo Mora

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine the life experiences of women ex-offenders in treatment programs for domestic violence. This study provided this population the opportunity to tell their stories, their perspectives about domestic violence, their concerns, and their perceived needs, if any. The study aimed to understand women's subjective experiences with domestic violence, the various forms it took, and the content to which it was expressed. Overall, the findings from this study indicated that women did not perceive mutual violence as symmetrical; the violence perpetrated by the participants towards their spouse or partner was less severe than the …

The Denial Of Emergency Protection: Factors Associated With Court Decision Making, Carol E. Jordan, Adam J. Pritchard, Pamela Wilcox, Danielle Duckett-Pritchard

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

Despite the importance of civil orders of protection as a legal resource for victims of intimate partner violence, research is limited in this area, and most studies focus on the process following a court’s initial issuance of an emergency order. The purpose of this study is to address a major gap in the literature by examining cases where victims of intimate partner violence are denied access to temporary orders of protection. The study sample included a review of 2,205 petitions that had been denied by a Kentucky court during the 2003 fiscal year. The study offers important insights into the …