Social Work Commons^™

Serving Youth In Santa Cruz County, Lorena Torres-Alvarez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The Community Action Board (CAB) of Santa Cruz County is an agency that serves low-income under-resourced community members in the county. Through their Youth Homeless Response Team (YHRT) Program, they serve youth ages 15-24 who are currently at-risk or facing homelessness. Too many unaccompanied youths in Santa Cruz County are suffering from homelessness and are in need to accessing services. The lack of motivational and support system, along with the unemployment increasing at alarming rates. Illustrating a dark and unsafe future. Some of the consequences include pushing youth to live on the street or inside cars and being in a …

Providing Resources For Probationers, Behavioral Health And Substance Abuse, Crystal Rangel

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

San Benito County Probation Department is daily targeted by defendants having an issue with drugs, violations, domestic violence, battery, drug court, Post Release Community Supervision. The main issue is that the defendants relapse into drugs, which can sometimes lead themselves to committing a violation of probation. Due to a certain level of stress, depression and bad influence defendants sometimes make a bad decision and drug relapse or commit a violation. Which them leads them to incarceration, loss of family support and sometimes death because of a drug overdose. A Referral Resource Handout was created from different resources available in the …

Youth Empowerment Summit (Yes), Laura Wright

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Community Solutions is a non-profit agency that serves ages 0-100 in Santa Clara and San Benito Counties. The Solutions to Violence Program operates out of Morgan Hill and houses the CSEC and Human Trafficking Division where the capstone project was developed.The “Chill Room” was created at Community Solutions as a part of the Youth Empowerment Summit (YES) Conference in response to the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) within Santa Clara County. The YES Conference was created to enhance collaboration among community based, county, & non-profit organizations to provide a safe space for CSEC youth to process trauma. The conference …

Incompetency To Stand Trial: An Informational Guide, Natalie Baur

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

At Monterey County Behavioral Health, we serve people with a variety of mental illnesses. They range from moderate to severe- whether it be schizophrenia or depression, we provide services that will help them deal with their symptoms. We strive to cultivate positive relationships in the community with our clients and contracted facilities. In this essay, I am going to talk about a certain population of who we serve: those who are found incompetent to stand trial and the toll it takes on them and their families. Moreover, I will be talking about the challenges and uncertainties that clients and their …

A Venue To Grow: Researching Professional Growth In The Collaborative Courts Of The Northern District Of California, Wyatt Lim-Tepper

Master's Projects and Capstones

This study examines the professional growth of collaborative court staff in the Northern District of California (NDCA). First, it sets forth a background that reviews the history of collaborative courts and details the development, purpose and structure, and current processes at the federal level. Second, the researcher describes the framework of the NDCA as an institution and further identifies the stakeholders who participate in the NDCA’s two collaborative courts: the Reentry Court and the Conviction Alternatives Program (CAP). Third, the study reviews the literature on professional growth in the legal field, education and academia, and public-health fields. Fourth, this paper …

Inpatient Addiction Medicine Consultation And Post-Hospital Substance Use Disorder Treatment Engagement: A Propensity-Matched Analysis, Honora Englander, Konrad Dobbertin, Bonnie K. Lind, Christina Nicolaidis, Peter Graven, Claire Dorfman, Todd Korthius

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

Hospitalizations due to medical and surgical complications of substance use disorder (SUD) are rising. Most hospitals lack systems to treat SUD, and most people with SUD do not engage in treatment after discharge.

Objective

Determine the effect of a hospital-based addiction medicine consult service, the Improving Addiction Care Team (IMPACT), on post-hospital SUD treatment engagement.

Design

Cohort study using multivariable analysis of Oregon Medicaid claims comparing IMPACT patients with propensity-matched controls.

Participants

18–64-year-old Oregon Medicaid beneficiaries with SUD, hospitalized at an Oregon hospital between July 1, 2015, and September 30, 2016. IMPACT patients (n = 208) were matched …

Experiences Of Parents And Caregivers Of Children With Disability On Community-Based Rehabilitation (Cbr) Services In Malaysia: A Qualitative Study, Haliza Hasan, Syed Mohamed Aljunid Syed Junid

Makara Journal of Health Research

Background: The rehabilitation program for disabled children is provided through community-based rehabilitation (CBR) services by an initiative of the Department of Social Welfare Malaysia. This long-term program needs commitment and compliance, which relates to the quality of services experienced by parents and caregivers. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of the parents and caregivers of disabled children on the CBR services. Methods: This qualitative study utilized in-depth interview sessions held from March to May 2015. Fifteen parents and caregivers who had disabled children participating in the CBR program were selected using a purposive …

Dear Fellow Mama, Ingrid Slikkers

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

The Practice Of Self-Care Strategies Among Master Of Social Work Students, Gracie Romero

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study examined the different types of self-care strategies that Master of Social Work students practice. This study used the National Alliance on Mental Illness Self-Care Inventory, a survey which asks participants about commonly used methods of self-care. Engaging in self-care can bring better understanding and insights on how to prevent the signs of stress while also increasing an individual’s ability to regulate their emotional needs. All MSW students at the California university were invited to participate in the study. The surveys were administered via Qualtrics online survey software to the 68 part-time and o-time MSW students who agreed to …

Using Behavior Economic Nudges To Facilitate Client Follow-Through In Financial Coaching, Charlene Hurst

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While benevolence-based programs have been a large part of meeting immediate financial needs of the poor, they lack the relational aspect needed to facilitate long-term behavior change. Recently many social service organizations have adopted financial coaching as a promising replacement for benevolence programming. The field of coaching has dealt with its own challenges. Most coaching practitioners surveyed in 2016 and 2019 acknowledged lack of client follow-through as their number one challenge. Behavior economics offered nudges as a solution. Nudges are cues placed within the physical environment to prod clients toward behavior change. A quantitative field study was conducted to evaluate …

A Longitudinal Examination Of African American Adolescent Females Detained For Status Offense, Dexter R. Voisin

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction: Behaviors like truancy, running away, curfew violation, and alcohol possession fall under the status offense category and can have serious consequences for adolescents. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency and Prevention Act prohibited detaining status offenders. We explored the degree to which African American adolescent girls were being detained for status offenses and the connections to their behavioral health risks and re-confinement. Methods: 188 African American girls (aged 13–17), recruited from detention facilities, were surveyed at baseline and 3-month follow-ups. Logistic regression models estimated the likelihood of longitudinal re-confinement, controlling for sexual and behavioral health risk factors. Results: One third …

Organizational Capacity Of Nonprofit Organizations In Rural Areas Of The United States: A Scoping Review, Jayme E. Walters

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Rural America is facing a plethora of problems related to poverty, crime, health, and education. Nonprofit organizations serve a vital role in rural communities by providing services and advocacy to residents. Yet, it is unknown if rural nonprofits have the means to effectively address the complex issues before them. This study examines the results of scoping review which characterizes the state of empirical knowledge regarding the organizational capacity of rural nonprofits in the United States. Fifteen articles from the past decade uncovered challenges and strengths related to organizational capacity, though more research is necessary to inform funders and educators.

Measuring Gender Equity At Ud Among Faculty, Staff, And Leadership, Mary Mcloughlin, Josh Segalewitz

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

The purpose of this report card is to be transparent around the representation of women across the UD workforce and in leadership roles.

Our goal is to annually evaluate progress toward increasing institutional diversity and promoting equity for women-identified staff and faculty. In doing so, the report identifies areas where progress is being made and areas where more work is needed.

Impact Of In-Depth Storyline On Children’S Math Skills In Adaptive E-Book, Shelbie Weightman

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

The percentage of homes tablet computers and children under age 8 has increased from 8 percent in 2011 to 78 percent in 2017 (Zippert, et al.).

E-books for literacy have been shown to be beneficial for young children, but less is known about math-focused e-books.

Parent-child interaction about math story problems, even just once a week, showed improved math achievement in the child by the end of the school year. The benefits of occasional math-related interactions are especially apparent for children whose parents are anxious about math. Providing a math app that allows math-anxious parents to more easily engage in …

Cross Validation Of The Environmental Attitudes Inventory: Plans To Assess Attitudinal Changes In Workers At A Shelter Farm In A Food Desert, Amanda Barry, Alea Albright

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Within the context of an ongoing participatory community action research project that implements behavioral activation in homeless shelters, an urban farm was implemented. Behavioral activation provides opportunities to engage in productive activities that yield response-contingent reinforcement, which increases productive behavior and leads to improvements in a sense of mastery, quality of life, mood, and cognition.

The project represents a collaboration between Dr. Roger N. Reeb (Professor of Psychology) and St. Vincent de Paul. Among our many community partners, we developed a collaboration with the Ohio State University Agricultural Extension of Montgomery County in 2017 to establish an urban farm on …

Gender Differences In Rates Of Anhedonia And The Effect Of Menstrual Cycles In University Students, Arianna Rueda

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Anhedonia is the lack of experiencing pleasure from pleasurable experiences (D'haenen, 1996) and is associated with the reward pathway in the brain (Langvik et al., 2016). Anhedonia can be further broken down into physical or social (Martino et al., 2018).

• Physical anhedonia is the absence of pleasure from eating, drinking, or physical touch.
• Social anhedonia is a lack of pleasure derived from social experiences.

Previous research has looked at gender differences in anhedonia with conflicting results.

• One measure of anhedonic subtype of depression found a relation with positive affect and gender differences more than other measures of anhedonia (Langvik et …

Body Language "Says" More About Whether A Person Is Lying, Emily Scheiwiller, Shelbie Weightman

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

The wording of a question can bias someone's perception of another person (Questionnaire design; Ulatwski, 2013).

• Direct Questions
• Indirect Questions
• Social Awareness

Social Awareness Inventory (SAI) assesses individual differences in social awareness of emotion demonstrated by others (Sheldon, 1996).

Hypothesis 1:Indirect questioning as compared to direct questioning when evaluating an interviewee's dishonest responses will produce more accurate determinations of dishonesty that correspond with research-supported correlates of dishonesty.

Hypothesis 2: Questions designed to detect observer bias related to dishonest behaviors, compared to those related to interviewee verbal and nonverbal characteristics, as well as the observer’s expectations of interviewee behaviors will …

Liar Liar: Gender Differences In Deception Detection, Jake Avendano, Kelly Boris, Faith Plummer

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

The present study explores the relationship between social awareness, type of questioning, gender effects, and deception detection. Following are important definitions of concepts and tools used in this research:

• We can bias someone's perception of another person by the way a question is worded (Questionnaire design; Ulatwski, 2013).
• Direct Question: An explicit measure of deception detection. Direct questions focus on personality characteristics associated with deception (DePaulo, 2018).
• Indirect Question: Lie detection does not access implicit knowledge but focuses the perceiver on more useful cues. Indirect questions focus on biases, and verbal and body language (Street & Richardson, 2015).
• Deception Detection …

Associations Between Decision Making And Hedonic Responses To Odor, Madison E. Degnan

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Olfaction, or the sense of smell, is facilitated by specialized sensory cells, called olfactory sensory neurons, which are directly connected directly to the brain.

The limbic system is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus.

The limbic circuitry supports a variety of functions, including emotion, behavior, motivation, long-term memory, and olfaction.

The olfaction bulb is connected to the amygdala and the hippocampus.

The anterior limbic and related structures including the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala are involved in emotion, reward valuation, and reward-related decision-making (but not memory), with the value representations transmitted to the anterior cingulate …

Halloween, Superstition, And Black Cat Bias, Brianna Gavin

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Black Cat Bias (BCB): “Cats with black coats are viewed more negatively, adopted less often, and euthanized more often than lighter colored cats” (Jones & Hart, in press)

Shelter records of 2170 cats showed black cats stay in shelter about one month longer than non-black cats (Kubesova, Voslarova, Cecerek, & Vucinic, 2017)

Length of stay in shelter positively correlated with risk of contracting URI (Dinnage, Scarlett, & Richards, 2009) and coronavirus (Pedersen, Sato, Foley, & Poland, 2004)

Jones and Hart (in press) found black cats were perceived as more aggressive and less friendly than non-black cats

Jones and Hart (in …

Stress Reduction After Visiting Cats In A Cat Café, Nicole L. Beasley

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Research has attempted to induce stress and has been unsuccessful at demonstrating the efficacy of stress reduction. This may indicate that animal interaction is more beneficial when reducing longer-term stress rather than short-term stress, like what has been studied in the past. Additionally, animals may be more effective at reducing life stress as opposed to artificially produced stress.

Past research has limited the time participants may spend interacting with the study animals. The current study will allow participants to spend as much time as necessary with the café cats.

The present study will record a physiological marker of stress and …

Support From Inside Out: Exploring Whether Various Social Supports Assist In Reducing Prison Rule Violations, Sarah Renee Lazzari

Dissertations and Theses

Scholars argue that prison rule violations are a way to assess whether individuals are engaging in prosocial behaviors. Individuals who engage in prosocial behaviors, during periods of incarceration, are less likely to engage in behaviors that result in official rule violations. Decreasing rule violations is one way to work towards a safer prison environment, while also preparing individuals for release. The current study uses cross-sectional data form the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Facilities, in order to examine whether multiple types of prisons programs, which will be framed as various types of social supports, influence the frequency …

Attrition And Psychotherapy, Jesse Barrington Homan

Dissertations and Theses

Attrition in psychotherapy, also known as dropout, is a problem that affects clients who terminate, their families, therapists, mental health systems, and the overall community. Research on attrition is vast. However, the majority of this research has been done post hoc, relied on quantitative methods, and looked primarily at client demographic variables as the predictors of attrition. This has resulted in inconsistent findings, offers little to no useful information about attrition, and appears to blame clients for failed therapy. There has been little research on attrition from the perspective of clients who terminate. This study was designed to answer the …

The Effect Of Therapy Dogs And Meditation On Student Stress, Nicole L. Beasley

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Students experience many stressors throughout the semester. Student stress may arise from various facets of academic life (e.g. academics, financial, and relationship) (Dusselier et al., 2005). Most students report chronic stress (Pierceall & Keim, 2007).

Therapy dogs may lessen student stress. However, research on how therapy dogs reduce stress is mixed. Some research suggests therapy dogs only reduce psychological perception of stress while other research suggests physiological stress reduction.

Barker et al. (2016) measured stress with both psychological tests and physiological markers in students. Interacting with therapy dogs reduced the perceived stress but did not change the physiological markers of …

The Correlation Between Children's Executive Functioning And Their Academic Performance And Social Competence, Melissa Budisch, Erin Collins

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

We want to see if there is a positive association with Conscious Discipline, or Social-Emotional Learning, and improved EF skills in children.

Composure: The adult provides children with techniques, such as active calming, to regulate their emotions. (Brain Smart Start and Safe Place)

Adult Assertiveness: The adult is assertive, which provides the structure a child needs to be successful. We would argue that if an adult is assertive and give5 concrete instructions to the children, it can help them better understand self-control and how to effectively achieve a goal. (Visual Routines, Visual Daily Schedule, and Time Machine)

Choices: When a …

Sleep On It! Sleep Consolidation Produces Strong Delayed Memory Retrieval Much Like Immediate Retrieval, Gabriella Silone, Carolina Vázquez, Sarah Lawson, Victoria Karpuszka, Madeline Nash

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Research Question: Can sleep consolidation reduce the effects of an interruption during encoding, leading to improved accuracy on a delayed recognition task?

Consolidation: During sleep, memories acquired earlier are processed at a deeper level and strengthened by creating associations with previously-stored information (Rasch & Born, 2008). This process helps better integrate new information into existing long-term memory storage systems. Research indicates that the consolidation process can also prevent the effects of interference during memory retrieval (Robertson, 2012).

Present Study: The present study was designed to examine the effects of sleep consolidation after an interruption of encoding had …

Accessibility To Resources For Homeless Documented Immigrant Families: A Case Study, Antaniece P. Carter

Dissertations

This study seeks to explore the experience of a homeless documented immigrant family attempting to access school and community resources. Research has shown that due to disadvantages including but not limited to lack of economic mobility, employment access, lone parent families, and cultural background, some immigrant families may face challenges accessing services (Arnold, 2004). Difficulty accessing services then can inhibit adjustment and may lead to homelessness.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the issue of homelessness as experienced by immigrants within an urban community. A case study will highlight the experience of a homeless immigrant family, as defined …

Child Development Accounts At Scale: Sample State Legislation, Margaret M. Clancy, Michael Sherraden, Sondra G. Beverly

Center for Social Development Research

Statewide Child Development Accounts (CDAs) provide assets and encourage saving for postsecondary education through deposits into investment accounts. Several states have adopted CDA policies, some by legislation and others by administrative rule, all using their 529 plans as the financial platform. This Policy Summary is intended to inform states interested in enacting universal, automatic, statewide CDA legislation.

It presents select examples of legislative from state CDA policies in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Illinois, and California. Delivering CDAs at scale—to all newborns in families across the full socioeconomic and geographic (rural and urban) spectrum—and in a financially sustainable way requires a sound policy …

Statewide Child Development Accounts And Local Partnerships: A Scalable Model That Can Include All Families, Margaret M. Clancy, Michael Sherraden, Jim Huang, Sondra G. Beverly, Youngmi Kim

Center for Social Development Research

This brief presents a policy model for partnering statewide Child Development Accounts (CDAs) with other federal, state, city, and community services for financially vulnerable families. Statewide CDAs use 529 plans as the financial platform.

The brief first outlines the different strengths of local municipalities, social service organizations, and statewide CDAs, and then illustrates the benefits of a combined policy model. The model is designed to increase the positive impacts at scale and ensure that statewide CDAs complement but do not replace efforts by local organizations and governments. With partnerships formed and common challenges met, statewide CDAs, local municipalities and …

Greencap In The House: Resilience Tools To Unify The Black Community, Rick Held, Treasure Hightower, Stan Johnson, Ida Miles, John Floersh, Kaleeisha Huffine

Black Issues Conference

GreenCAP in the House: Resilience Tools to Unify the Black Community

This presentation describes how a small, scruffy youth development organization is leveraging its community outreach and engagement efforts around environmental literacy in the 'hood to build a coalition of inner city organizations aligned to identify and address a broad swath of community resilience issues.