Social Work Commons^™

Foster Youth In The Mountain West, Zachary Billot, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Sofia Takhtadjian, Joshua Padilla, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This fact sheet examines population trends for foster youth and their experiences with foster care in the Mountain West region. The data are sourced from the report “State-level Data for Understanding Child Welfare in the United States” which cites the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) for fiscal year (FY) 2020 and the “State-by State Data” report by the Casey Family Programs from FY 2020. This fact sheet highlights the number of foster youth in the Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) and their demographic composition.

Covid-19 Behind Bars In The Mountain West, Dielle T. Telada, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Criminal Justice

Due to overcrowding, inadequate healthcare, systemic neglect, and violence in U.S. carceral (i.e. jails or prisons) and immigration detention centers, these facilities are a hot spot for the spread of COVID-19. In March 2020, the UCLA Law “Covid Behind Bars Data Project” began tracking official agency websites for self-reported data of COVID-19 across prisons, jails, and other detention facilities in the U.S. The number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and tests performed from 50 state correctional agencies, the District of Columbia’s Department of Corrections, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and several county jail systems …

Youth Mental Health In The Mountain West, Kristian Thymianos, Olivia K. Cheche, Kelliann Beavers, Katie M. Gilbertson, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Health

This fact sheet explores youth mental health metrics of Mountain West states from the Hopeful Futures Campaign’s 2022 report, America’s School Mental Health Report Card. This study provides state snapshots on school mental health policies and workforce availability for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah are considered here.

Homelessness In The Mountain West, Yanneli Llamas, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This Fact Sheet provides data on homelessness in the five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. This information is adapted from the original U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness data, as reported in the Psy.D. Programs’ article, “The Places with the Most (and Least) Homelessness in America."

Becoming "Smart" About Relationship Building: Foster Care Youth And The Use Of Technology, Ramona Denby Brinson, Efren Gomez, Keith A. Alford

Lincy Institute Reports and Briefs

Key Findings:

Youth participants reported satisfaction with services and positive feelings about the smartphone.

The youth participants felt that the smartphone gave them a “voice” and control over the people with whom they wanted to talk.

Certain phone restrictions developed by project leadership were unenforceable.

Youth had certain expectations about the phone and its use but when the phone did not work or was “locked” (e.g., for data overuse) it created friction between the youth and their service provider.

Service-providers report that the phones help to create a sense of normalcy for the youth. Youth “were able to be normal …

Evaluation Of Mentoring In Southern Nevada, Andrew Merz, Glen Leavitt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition (SNRPC) is charged with the issuance of grants and funding to groups who provide and run mentoring programs in Southern Nevada (which is primarily composed of Clark County.) The SNRPC desires to streamline and regiment this process, as currently it is operated with minimal oversight and regulation. We designed a survey to ascertain what mentoring groups in Clark County consider to be central to mentoring; both within and without their own programs. It is our desire that the SNRPC be able to administer the newly created survey to groups who receive and groups who …

Culture, Language And Gendered Violence In Southern Nevada, Kelly Campbell-Kiser, Kathleen J. Bergquist

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)

Nevada is increasingly becoming culturally ethnically and linguistically diverse with approximately 25.1% of Nevadans estimated in 2006 to 2008 by the U.S. Census Bureau to be non-white, 27.3% speaking a language other than English at home, (compared to 19.6% nationally), ad 24.9% of Hispanic or Latino origin (compared to 15.1% nationally)

Service providers nationally struggle with providing culturally and linguistically relevant services to meet the needs of shifting demographics. Southern Nevada similarly struggles with decreasing resources and increasing needs in all sectors, to include service provisions for women who are at-risk of gendered violence. Linguistic and cultural barriers have been …

An Assessment Of Child Welfare: The Value Of Training And Family Engagement, Kelly L. Scherado

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)

Child maltreatment in the United States continues to be one of the nation’s most serious social problems. Child welfare practice is intended to ensure the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and families. One of the ways child welfare systems can achieve positive outcomes for vulnerable children is to utilize the most current best practices in training, focused on family engagement and strengths-based empowerment. To this end, child welfare training programs that are family centered, culturally competent, and focused on preventing out of home placements, should be implemented nationwide to better prepare child welfare agencies to meet the needs of …

A Comparative Assessment Of The Status, Structure And Process Utilized By Nevada's Family Support And Preservation Consortia To Achieve Collaboration, Marlys A. Morton

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper presents a framework for understanding inter-organizational collaboration and describes and analyzes how collaboration was used as a method to build new service networks, the characteristics of the consortia, and the status of the collaborative processes.

Although the literature on inter-organizational collaboration in the human services is increasing, little is known about how regional consortia view the process of working together towards a common purpose. The results reported in this paper are intended to help fill that gap.

The findings reported in this study are based on a survey process using a standardized questionnaire to study the collaborative status. …

Four Commentaries: How We Can Better Protect Children From Abuse And Neglect, Leroy H. Pelton

Social Work Faculty Publications

The fundamental structure of the public child welfare system is that of a coercive apparatus wrapped in a helping orientation. Agencies ostensibly having the mission to help are mandated to ask whether parents can be blamed for their child welfare problems, and these agencies have the power to remove children from their homes. Thus, the public child welfare agency has a dual-role structure: On one hand, the agency attempts to engage in prevention and support, and to promote family preservation; on the other hand, it also has the task of investigating complaints against parents and removing children from them. This …