Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Reproductive Freedom For All: A Policy Brief, Noa J. Cook

The Downtown Review

Reproductive freedom in the United States has been a source of controversy throughout history and current legislation places these rights under attack. Divided into three parts, this policy brief seeks to address the lack of accessible reproductive healthcare for women, with special attention to economic, racial, and ethnic disparities. Part 1 includes a historical overview of abortion access and significant legislation in the U.S., describes the present status of the problem, and the populations affected. In Part 2, the pros and cons of current policies such as the federal contraceptive guarantee of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Hyde Amendment, and …

"We Had To Rely On Each Other": Voices Of Latinx Foster Youth With Experiences In Care With Siblings, Isabella B. Ginsberg

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Relationships between members of sibling groups have been found to impact well-being for children who enter foster care (Herrick & Piccus, 2005). Being placed in stranger foster care is often challenging and can be traumatic with children reporting confusion, worry, and loss of identity and sense of belonging (Herrick & Piccus, 2005, Unrau et al, 2008). While there is some research that explores the experiences of siblings groups in foster care and others separately that examines Latinx children in foster care, there is very little information that looks into the potentially unique experiences of Latinx individuals who were in care …

Trauma Informed Practices In Education And Social Justice: Towards A Critical Orientation, Mark Boylan

International Journal of School Social Work

Increasingly, educational practitioners committed to social justice embrace trauma-informed practices and those who advocate for and enact trauma-informed practices are committed to social justice. However, connecting social justice to trauma-informed practice requires greater conceptual clarity than is currently found, given the malleable meanings of both 'trauma informed' and 'social justice'. Further, the complex relationship between these educational aims is under-examined. To address these issues, an analytical framework is developed that brings together a model of forms of trauma-informed practice in education with orientations to social justice. This draws on models of social justice developed in social work and teaching, and …

"I Now Feel More Comfortable Advocating For People:" Student Reflections On Service Learning, Elissa Thomann Mitchell, Erin E. Gilles

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

To provide meaningful experiential learning activities for students outside of the classroom, many social work programs are including service learning as a curricular component. Indeed, research shows that service learning is a widespread practice in higher education across academic majors. This study uses qualitative data from from 34 students in two sections of a master’s-level social work course to explore student experiences with service learning. Major themes from the students’ data are presented here. Students reported both liking and being challenged by the freedom to tailor their own experiences, described developing new skills, reported being able to apply course content/learn …

"When They See Someone Who Is Poor, They Step On Them": The Social Determinants Of Health Among Survivors Of Sex Trafficking In Cambodia, James P. Havey, Glenn M. Miles, Lim Vanntheary, Nhanh Channtha, Hanni Stoklosa

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Social determinants of health (SDH) are defined as the non-medical yet health-affecting conditions of a person’s life. They include such considerations as working conditions, discrimination, and access to health services. The aim of this study was to explore the SDH impacting those who have survived sex trafficking in Cambodia. This study employed a mixed methods, secondary analysis, focusing on 52 survivors of sex trafficking in the Butterfly Longitudinal Research Project from 2010 through 2019. Participants described myriad social determinants of health, including: gender, age, relationship status (marriage), ethnicity, national identification documentation (statelessness), social class, formal education, vocational training, occupation, and …

The Role Of Civil Society In Contributing To The Formulation Of Public Policies: The Kuwaiti Experience In Addressing The Issue Of Violence Against Women As A Model, Malak Al-Rasheed

Journal of the Faculty of Arts (JFA)

Public policymaking is a dynamic process and is the product of the interaction of many governmental and non-governmental actors, and the civil society is a key player in it. In this study, the relationship between the state (government and parliament) and civil society organizations in Kuwait in developing policies to protect women from violence was analyzed using the AALEP (2019) analytical theoretical framework. A descriptive critical method was used to define the study’s concepts of civil society and its roles in the policy-making and decision-making process, plus analytical methods to track the stages of civil society’s involvement in the issues …

How Social Workers Count: Numbers And Social Issues Came To Be, Michael A. Lewis

Numeracy

Lewis, Michael Anthony. 2019. Social Workers Count: Numbers and Social Issues (New York: Oxford University Press) 224 pp. ISBN 978-0190467135.

This essay introduces Social Workers Count: Numbers and Social Issues by Michael Anthony Lewis. Inspired by the seminal work of Bennett and Briggs, Lewis shares how he came to write a math book for social workers to meet new demands as the field has developed to include more quantitative concepts. The result is a book that may be of interest to many in the quantitative reasoning movement in the social sciences and beyond.

Reconceptionalizing The Knowledge Base Of Social Work: The Imperative For Critical Theories And Perspectives In Social Work Education, Kristie L. Seelman, Elizabeth L. Beck, Shane R. Brady, Karimah Dillard, William Lane

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

As the U.S. continues to grapple with the need for a racial reckoning, and with a growth of progressive voices and movements—especially those lead by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color—now is an important time to re-examine social work’s knowledge base. Students, researchers, and practitioners need the tools to challenge hegemony, inequity, injustice, and White supremacy from a structural position. Critical theory is an important tool for such work, yet it is not well integrated into social work textbooks, and many students still have limited exposure to it. In this paper, we explore critical theory’s roots and evolution and discuss …

Understanding How Recipients Of Means-Tested Government Assistance Make The Decision To Vote Or Not To Vote And How Social Workers Can Make A Difference?, Adelaide Sandler

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

When voter turnout of any one particular demographic or social group is significantly less than that of other groups, members of that group lose their power to protect their basic economic and social rights. Low voter turnout among recipients of means-tested government assistance is especially problematic because election outcomes impact the benefits on which they depend. This article presents results from a qualitative study to understand how recipients of means-tested government assistance decide to vote or not to vote. Four themes emerged related to the patterns of voting behaviors and described as: dedicated voter, voter, nonvoter, and dedicated nonvoter. Each …