Social Work Commons^™

"Seen And Not Heard" Sociological Approaches To Childhood: Black Children, Agency And Implications For Child Welfare, Mekada Graham, Emily Bruce

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In this article, the authors consider the socio-historical conceptions of childhood in relation to Black children and their unique relationship with child welfare institutions. Against this background we apply models of childhood to issues of race and social agency and argue that these elements have been inadequately addressed in developmental models of childhood. Following these concerns, we present a social model of childhood and consider how these distinct and different ways of understanding children might be applied to child welfare practice. This child centered approach presents a unique opportunity to incorporate the differential positioning of Black children in the wider …

Child Care And Children With Special Needs: Challenges For Low Income Families [Report], Helen Ward Jd, Lisa A. Morris Phd, Erin E. Oldham Phd, Julie Atkins Ma, Angela Herrick, Patricia Morris

Children, Youth, & Families

Findings from this mixed methods study include:

• Parents of young children with special needs face significant challenges finding and keeping child care arrangements for their child.
• Parents report significant problems with the child care arrangements they have used for their child with special needs.
• There are significant programmatic and financial barriers to supporting parents of children with special needs so they can work, and balance work and family.
• The combination of all of these problems and the particular demands of caring for a child with special needs often result in employment problems and job instability.
• Families of children with special …

Health Care Poverty, Lisa Raiz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper introduces and describes health care poverty. Underinsurance and its consequences for access to health care are highlighted. Definitions of underinsurance and its prevalence are presented. Groups that experience disproportionate barriers to obtaining medical care are identified. Manifestations of underinsurance are explicated and their relationship to receipt of medical care, such as vaccinations and medications is discussed. A refraining of the health care debate is suggested with emphasis moving from uninsurance to access to health care.

Foster Parents' Reasons For Fostering And Foster Family Utilization, Kathryn Rhodes, Mary Ellen Cox, John G. Orme, Tanya Coakley

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Better utilization of foster families might be linked to parents' reasons for fostering. This study used data from the National Survey of Current and Former Foster Parents to examine relationships between reasons for fostering and types of services and length of service foster parents provide. Top reasons for fostering were child-centered. The least endorsed reasons were self-oriented. Those who fostered to help children with special problems were more likely to have a child placed, had more children, and had fostered more types of special needs children. Parents who fostered because their children were grown were more likely to have a …

Civic Responsibility And Patterns Of Voluntary Participation Around The World, Mary Alice Haddad

Mary Alice Haddad

This article seeks to explain why different types of volunteer organizations are prevalent in different countries. It hypothesizes that patterns of volunteer participation are a function of citizen attitudes toward governmental and individual responsibility for caring for society. Those countries (e.g., Japan)—where citizens think that governments should be responsible for dealing with social problems—will tend to have higher participation in embedded volunteer organizations, such as parent-teacher associations. Those countries (e.g., the United States)—where citizens think that individuals should take responsibility for dealing with social problems—will tend to have more participation in nonembedded, organizations, such as Greenpeace. These hypotheses are tested …

Economic Well-Being And Intimate Partner Violence: New Findings About The Informal Economy, Loretta Pyles

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between intimatep artnerv iolence (IPV) and women's participationin the informal economy (both legal and illegal) and their impact on economic well-being. This research was part of a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) study that was concerned with women's survival of childhood and adult abuse. For the 285 women that were in this sample, there were positive, medium correlations between IPV and various types of informal economic activity. Illegal informal economic activity, institutionalized informal economic activity, incarceration and physical abuse negatively impacted women's economic well-being.

Job Satisfaction Among Tanf Leavers, Jeff Scott

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Using means tests, ANOVA, contingency methods and polytomous logistic regression techniques, I analyze job satisfaction survey data provided by former welfare recipients in Illinois. Mean job satisfaction in the sample is high. Wages, work hours, professional status, having employer sponsored health care and being in good health have sign ficant positive effects on job satisfaction. Contrary to popular assumptions regarding welfare dependency, time on welfare positively affects post- TANF job satisfaction. I discuss implications of these findings in the context of policy debates regarding TANF reauthorization.

Altruism Or Self-Interest? Social Spending And The Life Course, Debra Street, Jeralynn Sittig Cossman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The primacy of self-interested individuals is often regarded as the appropriate basis for US social spending decisions. One thread of this argument has advanced age-based self-interest and politically powerful elderly to explain why Social Security and Medicare have thrived in a policy environment that has seen retrenchment in other programs. We argue that crude self-interest and individual programs considered in isolation are insufficient to understand social spending preferences. We use General Social Survey data to contrast conventional and critical explanations for understanding the role of age in preferences for social spending. Factor analyses demonstrate that social spending preferences cluster into …

Focal Point, Volume 20 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

This issue of Focal Point describes the need for, and provides examples of, new strategies for meeting the mental health needs of children and adolescents involved with the juvenile justice system.

Prevention At Work: Homelessness Prevention Initiative (Hpi) Interim Evaluation Report, January 2004 Through September 2005, Donna H. Friedman, Jennifer Raymond, Consuela Greene, John Mcgah, Elizabeth Brown, Julia Tripp, Helen Levine

Center for Social Policy Publications

This interim report summarizes what has been learned about the processes and outcomes of interventions by HPI grantees in the first 21 months of the initiative, from January 2004 through September 2005. To ground our findings, Section One begins with a discussion of the housing, economic, and policy contexts in the U.S. and the state that impact low-income households. This section focuses on the public and nonprofit sectors these households rely upon for help when their housing circumstances are precarious.

Section Two describes the households served by HPI grantees and their varied circumstances. Section Three offers detail on the prevention …

Review Of From Welfare To Workfare: The Unintended Consequences Of Liberal Reform 1945-1965. Jennifer Mittelstadt. Reviewed By Margaret Sharrard Sherraden., Margaret Sherrard Sherraden

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Jennifer Mittelstadt. From Welfare to Workfare: The Unintended Consequences of Liberal Reform, 1945-1965. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. $49.95 hardback, $19.95 paperback.

When Policy Meets Practice: The Untested Effects Of Permanency Reforms In Child Welfare, Amy D'Andrade, Jill Duerr Berrick

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (P.L. 105-89; ASFA) passed into federal law in 1997. ASFA emphasized child protection over family preservation, and introduced reforms intended to increase the likelihood and the speed with which children in the child welfare system attain a permanent home. This article details two provisions of the law, concurrent planning and reunification exception, and explores challenges in their implementation. These provisions have the potential to shift the nature of how child welfare services are delivered, and which families zill receive them. An examination of implementation in the state of California suggests there is a need …

When Policy Meets Practice: The Untested Effects Of Permanency Reforms In Child Welfare, Amy D’Andrade, J Berrick

Faculty Publications

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (P.L. 105-89; ASFA) passed into federal law in 1997. ASFA emphasized child protection over family preservation, and introduced reforms intended to increase the likelihood and the speed with which children in the child welfare system attain a permanent home. This article details two provisions of the law, concurrent planning and reunification exception, and explores challenges in their implementation. These provisions have the potential to shift the nature of how child welfare services are delivered, and which families will receive them. An examination of implementation in the state of California suggests there is a need …

Review Of Home Ownership And Social Inequality In Comparative Perspective. Karen Kurtz And Hans-Peter Blossfeld (Eds.). Reviewed By James Lee., James Lee

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Karin Kurtz and Hans-Peter Blossfeld (Eds), Home Ownership and Social Inequality in Comparative Perspective. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004. $70.00 hardcover.

The Social And Economic Impact Of Sanctions And Time Limits On Recipients Of Temporary Assistance To Needy Families, Taryn Lindhorst, Ronald J. Mancoske

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A central feature of the reforms enacted through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (welfare reform) has been the adoption of strategies to involuntarily remove Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients from the welfare rolls, including increased use of sanctions and time limits on welfare receipt. Drawing on data from a three year panel study of women who had been receiving welfare in a state which adopted stringent sanctioning and time limit policies, we investigate predictors of recipients' TANF status after implementation of welfare reform, and identify differences in post-reform material resources, hardships and quality of life …

The Effect Of Parental Work History And Public Assistance Use On The Transition To Adulthood, Stephanie Cosner Berzin, Allison C. De Marco, Terry V. Shaw, George J. Unick, Sean R. Hogan

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

No abstract provided.

The Earned Income Tax Credit: A Study Of Eligible Participants Vs. Non-Participants, Richard K. Caputo

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this study (N = 1,504) showed that about half the EITC eligible tax filers in 2001 did not file EITC tax returns and that differences between EITC tax filers and non-EITC tax filers varied by birth place, Food Stamp program participation, marital status, race, residence, sex, socioeconomic history, and worker classification. Findings suggested that the EITC is well targeted in the sense that economically marginalized groups are likely to participate and that increased outreach efforts are also needed to ensure greater participation among tax filers eligible for the EITC but who …

Welfare To Web To Work: Internet Job Searching Among Former Welfare Clients In Florida, Steve Mcdonald, Robert E. Crew Jr.

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study provides the first empirical test of whether searching for jobs on the Internet can help people gain access to high quality jobs. Using new data from former welfare clients in Florida, we present results from a multivariate regression analysis of Internet job searching on wages and on a number of job benefits. On average, Internet job searchers receive better jobs than people who conducted more traditional job searches, net of numerous control variables. These findings suggest that welfare recipients have a great deal to gain from searching for their jobs on the Internet.

Review Of The Future Of The Welfare State: Crisis Myths And Crisis Realities. Francis G. Castels. Reviewed By Charles Guzetta., Charles Guzetta

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Francis G. Castles, The Future of the Welfare State: Crisis Myths and Crisis Realities. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. $99.0 hardcover, $35.00 papercover.

Focal Point, Volume 20 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

This issue of Focal Point discusses how social support can be harnessed to improve children's mental health. Articles in this issue define and recommend various methods of establishing and improving social support among families, mentors, and peers. Types of support examined include family–to–family support, wraparound, peer support, and natural support.

Parents As Navigators: How Caregivers Of Children With Mental Health Difficulties Find Supports In The Workplace, Eileen M. Brennan, Marlene Penn, Katherine J. Huffstutter, Jennifer R. Bradley, Julie M. Rosenzweig

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presentation given at the 19th Annual Research Conference: A System of Care for Children's Mental Health: Expanding the Research Base, Tampa, FL, February 2006.