Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effectiveness Of An Interactive Multimedia Psychoeducational Approach To Improve Financial Competence In At-Risk Youth: A Pilot Study, Bradley Klontz, Caesar Pacifici, Lee White, Carol Nelson

Journal of Financial Therapy

In recent years, a growing number of initiatives have been aimed at increasing financial literacy among youth in America. However, these efforts have tended to target mainstream populations, and failing to adequately address the backgrounds, learning, and psychological needs of at-risk youth. This study piloted a curriculum on money management that presented a basic set of financial skills via story situations and characters that are meaningful to at-risk youth using a dynamic interactive multimedia online delivery to heighten youths’ interest to learn. The approach also helped at-risk youth gain insight into their money beliefs and psychological barriers to success, integrating …

Perspectives Of Employed People Experiencing Homelessness Of Self And Being Homeless: Challenging Socially Constructed Perceptions And Stereotypes, Micheal L. Shier, Marion E. Jones, John R. Graham

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In a study that sought to identify the multiple factors resulting in homelessness from the perspective of 65 individuals in Calgary, Alberta, Canada who were both employed and homeless, we found that participants' perceptions of being homeless emerged as a major theme which impacts their entry to and exit from homelessness. Four sub-themes related to these perceptions were identified: (1) perceptions of self and situation; (2) impact of being homeless on self-reflection; (3) aspects of hope to consider; and (4) perspectives on having a permanent residence. Analytically, these findings help challenge present stereotypes about homelessness and usefully inform social service …

Liminal Living At An Extended Stay Hotel: Feeling "Stuck" In A Housing Solution, Terri Wingate-Lewinson, June Gary Hopps, Patricia Reeves

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

As a result of unaffordable housing, many of America's working poor are forced to seek shelter in hotels to avoid homelessness. The concept of liminality has been used in discussions of place to describe the subjective experience of feeling in-between two states of being. Research is scant on the liminal experiences of low-income hotel residents, who are culturally invisible in society. This paper draws from data qualitatively collected via semi-structured interviews from ten low-income residents living in an extended-stay hotel. Descriptions of these residential experiences are presented along with recommendations for social workers practicing with families in this liminal situation.

Leadership As Legacy, Elias Sussan

New England Journal of Public Policy

I joined the House of Grace twenty-three years ago when I was looking for a job as a social worker and, very soon after, I found myself taking part in important and fulfilling social and community work, in an ever-renewing and developing institute — a house that is a home for people in distress. I chose social work and not one of the professions because I had a strong desire and a need to do something for the community: to work with prisoners, women survivors of violence, the homeless — with underprivileged and disadvantaged people. In my childhood and youth, …

The President's Emergency Plan For Aids Relief (Pepfar): A Social Work Ethical Analysis And Recommendations, Robert J. Barney, Stephan L. Buckingham, Judith M. Friedrich, Lisa M. Johnson, Michael A. Robinson, Bibhuti K. Sar

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is the most recent international social program instituted by the U.S. Government to combat HIV/AIDS. Since its inception in 2003, this foreign policy initiative has dedicated $63 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in foreign countries. Despite PEPFAR's many accomplishments, it continues to promote controversial prevention strategies. This paper analyzes these prevention strategies, utilizing social work values as described in the NASW Code of Ethics. Policy, practice, and research implications are discussed.

Voices Of Women In Rural India: Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, And Education, Joanne Riebschleger Ph.D., Lmsw, Brittany Fila Basw

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Women self-help group participants in rural northern India described living with social and economic challenges, including persistent poverty and discrimination. Self-help group participants, teachers, administrators, and parents discussed rural education. Stakeholders talked with a social work student serving an intensive internship in a grassroots non-governmental organization. A grounded theory approach guided data collection, coding, and analysis. Self-help group participant data themes included the empowerment of women and development of entrepreneurship. Education stakeholders revealed a need for increased access to education, especially for girls and young women. Therefore, recommendations centered on “3 E’s” – empowerment, entrepreneurship, and education. American and Indian …

Social Policy And Constructivism: Using Constructivist Learning Theory In Teaching Social Work Students Research Skills, Linda Sizemore, Brad Marcum

The Southeastern Librarian

Principles of constructivist learning theory were used in developing a process-oriented approach to research skills instruction as applied to real world social problems and social policy responses. Building upon past experiences in establishing collaborative relationships with social work faculty, the theories of constructivism, Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process, and collaborative learning were incorporated into the framework of efforts to provide library instruction at important developmental phases, also known as “zones of intervention”, in student coursework involving three successive social work classes. This article will attempt to describe the above concepts and articulate how these concepts were employed in efforts to improve …

Negotiating 'Professional Agency': Social Work And Decision-Making Within The Ontario Child Welfare System, Henry Parada, Lisa Barnoff, Brienne Coleman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article explores how social work as a discipline has helped to negotiate professional agency in decision-making within the restructured child protection system. The narratives of child protection workers affirm that a restrictive climate does exist in child protection agencies and that it indeed shapes the way they make their decisions. This study uses institutional ethnography as the methodology for exploring the decision-making practices of child protection workers. Three forms of data collection were used: experience as data, documentation reviews and in-depth interviews.

Two Decades After Mcmartin: A Follow-Up Of 22 Convicted Day Care Employees, Mary Deyoung

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

It has been more that two decades since the notorious McMartin Preschool case created a day care ritual abuse master-narrative that recruited many social workers into becoming involved in case-finding, investigations, interviewing and advocacy. The purpose of this article is threefold: it introduces a sample of 22 day care employees who were convicted in day care ritual abuse cases; it updates their current legal status; and it discusses the relevance of these cases to social workers who currently are being recruited by today's new master narratives about extrafamilial sexual threats to children, whether from neighborhood pedophiles, child pornographers, parish priests …

Volume 14, Number 2 (Fall 2007), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

Abstracts only.

Debra L. Delaet On Understanding Human Rights: An Exercise Book By Elisabeth Reichert. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications, 2006. 271pp., Debra L. Delaet

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Understanding Human Rights: An Exercise Book by Elisabeth Reichert. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2006. 271pp.

The Use Of Critical Ethnography In Managed Mental Health Care Settings, Cassandra L. Bransford

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

How social workers in managed mental health care settings exercise their professional authority may have profound consequences for the provision of ethical and value-based services to vulnerable populations. Building upon Gidden's theory of structuration, this article describes the use of critical ethnography as a specific research methodology that may support social workers in the exercise of their authority. This article examines the historical roots of critical ethnography and provides a detailed examination of its underlying assumptions and research procedures. The article concludes with a case example of a critical ethnography conducted within a managed mental health care setting.

The Poet/Practitioner: A Paradigm For The Profession, Rich Furman, Carol L. Langer, Debra K. Anderson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article explores a new paradigm or model for the professional social worker: The poet/practitioner. The training and practice of the poet are congruent with many aspects of social work practice. An examination of the practice of the poet, and the congruence of these practices to social work, reveals a paradigm with the capacity to focus social workers on the essential values of our profession. This paradigm, which highlights the humanistic, creative, and socially conscience role of the social work practitioner, may be particularly important today given the medicalization of social problems and the conservitization of society.

The Sound Of Silence: Social Work, The Academy, And Iraq, Scott Harding

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Despite the imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq in 1990, the social work academy has ignored the impact of this global social policy promoted by the international community. Though evidence existed for more than 10 years that sanctions contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children and other vulnerable groups in Iraq, while also crippling the nation's health care and social infrastructure, the profession has remained silent. The implications of this case study suggest a need for greater engagement by social work researchers and the profession on global issues.

Families And The Republic, John Braithwaite

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Restorative and responsive justice can be a strategy of social work practice that builds democracy bottom-up by seeing families as building blocks of democracy and fonts of democratic sentiment. At the same time, because families are sites of the worst kinds of tyranny and the worst kinds of neglect, a rule of law is needed that imposes public human rights obligations on families. The republican ideal is that this rule of law that constrains people in families should come from the people. Restorative and responsive justice has a strategy for the justice of the people to bubble up into the …

Lisa Schechtman On Social Work And Human Rights: A Foundation For Policy And Practice By Elisabeth Reichert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 295pp., Lisa Schechtman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Social Work and Human Rights: A Foundation for Policy and Practice by Elisabeth Reichert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. 295pp.

Nadia Yakoob On Best Practices For Social Work With Refugees And Immigrants By Miriam Potocky-Tripodi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 538 Pp., Nadia Yakoob

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Best Practices for Social Work with Refugees and Immigrants by Miriam Potocky-Tripodi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. 538 pp.

Creative Marginality: Exploring The Links Between Conflict Resolution And Social Work, Jay Rothman, Randi Land Rothman, Mary Hope Schwoebel

Peace and Conflict Studies

The concept of creative marginality refers to the process through which researchers in academic fields move away from the mainstream and toward the margins of their fields and look toward the margins of other fields that may overlap with and fill in gaps in their fields. This interaction, occurring outside of disciplinary boundaries, promotes intellectual cross-fertilization, and it is often the site of innovation. This article examines the links and interactions between the academic disciplines and practices of social work and conflict resolution. The article describes the different theoretical frames and practical approaches of both social work and conflict resolution, …

Volume 8, Number 1 (May 2001), Peace And Conflict Studies

Peace and Conflict Studies

No abstract provided.