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Full-Text Articles in Community Psychology

Cultural And Structural Barriers Of Utilizing Mental Health Services In A School-Based Setting For Latinx Populations, Silvia Lozano, Bridgette Guadalupe Calderon May 2024

Cultural And Structural Barriers Of Utilizing Mental Health Services In A School-Based Setting For Latinx Populations, Silvia Lozano, Bridgette Guadalupe Calderon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This qualitative research study aimed to reduce mental health service disparities in Latinx communities and helps fill in the gap by addressing cultural and structural barriers to utilizing MHS in a school-based setting for Latinx youth. There is limited research regarding Latinx parents’ perspectives and the reservations they have on utilizing school-based mental health services (MHS) for their children. This study identified six important themes: cultural factors, trust and rapport, reservations, access and awareness, parental involvement and challenges, and school-based resources. Implications for school districts are that they can use these findings to increase early intervention mental behavioral health programs …


The Effects Of Poly-Strengths On Psychological Wellbeing Amongst Young Adults With Childhood Poly-Victimization, Nakisa Asefnia Jul 2023

The Effects Of Poly-Strengths On Psychological Wellbeing Amongst Young Adults With Childhood Poly-Victimization, Nakisa Asefnia

Theses and Dissertations

The field of trauma and victimization has undergone many evolutions in its efforts to conceptualize the impacts of victimization and more recently poly-victimization. Poly-victimization refers to the experiencing of multiple types of victimization over the lifespan. This has led to an ever-growing base of literature highlighting the many deleterious effects of these experiences on individuals’ wellbeing, and the factors which may make a person more vulnerable to victimization. However, a growing movement in the field aims to take a more strengths-based perspective that highlights the resilience of individuals, rather than risk factors, in the hopes of better understanding the factors …


An Intersectional Lens To Covid-19: Promoting Youth Well-Being In The Midst Of Social-Political Stressors, Magdalena S. Moskal Oct 2022

An Intersectional Lens To Covid-19: Promoting Youth Well-Being In The Midst Of Social-Political Stressors, Magdalena S. Moskal

Theses and Dissertations

Guided by interpretative phenomenological methodology and intersectionality theory, this thesis aims to uncover the mental health experiences of youth surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also seeks to situate these experiences with the subsequent stressors that young people face in the current social-political context (e.g., witnessing trauma in the media, uprisings to address racism and the resulting backlash, rhetoric of the 2020 presidential election). Furthermore, this thesis aims to give insight and voice how intersectionality shapes the COVID-19-related experiences of youth in South Carolina. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 23 participants aged 16-21 years old in South Carolina. …


Race, Racial Matching, And Cultural Understanding As Predictors Of Treatment Engagement In Youth Mental Health Services, Wendy Chu Apr 2022

Race, Racial Matching, And Cultural Understanding As Predictors Of Treatment Engagement In Youth Mental Health Services, Wendy Chu

Theses and Dissertations

Racially marginalized youth experience barriers that impact their ability to maximally benefit from mental health services; thus, efforts to identify strategies that support youth treatment engagement may address mental health and treatment disparities. This study examined the role of youth race, youth-therapist racial matching, and youthreported therapist cultural understanding on youth’s early treatment engagement in mental health services. The youth sample (n = 1159; Mage = 13.8 years, SD = 2.9; 52.1% female) comprised of 778 (67.1%) Latinx, 221 (19.1%) African American, 139 (12.0%) White, and 21 (1.8%) Asian American clients. The therapist sample (n = 126; Mage …


Targeting Youth’S Motivation To Change Substance Use Behaviors: Feasibility And Preliminary Outcomes From An Open Trial Of The Free Talk Program In A Short-Term Juvenile Detention Facility, Cassidy L. Tennity Jan 2020

Targeting Youth’S Motivation To Change Substance Use Behaviors: Feasibility And Preliminary Outcomes From An Open Trial Of The Free Talk Program In A Short-Term Juvenile Detention Facility, Cassidy L. Tennity

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Juvenile offenders who use substances are at an increased risk for multitude of negative outcomes, including substance use problems in adulthood and recidivism. Interventions that are effective in community settings or long-term juvenile justice settings may not be well suited for implementation in short-term juvenile detention facilities. Free Talk (FT; D’Amico, Chan Osilla, & Hunter, 2010) is a brief motivational intervention that targets motivation to change substance use. The current study aimed to determine whether youth participating in FT within a short-term juvenile detention center reported expected changes in motivation to change substance use. Additionally, we aimed to assess whether …


Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Peer Engagement And Knowledge (Peak): A Community-Based Group Intervention For Youth In Hawai‘I, Jennifer T. T. Ho May 2019

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Peer Engagement And Knowledge (Peak): A Community-Based Group Intervention For Youth In Hawai‘I, Jennifer T. T. Ho

Doctoral Dissertations

This study is a program evaluation with a mixed methods design that evaluated the effectiveness of Peer Engagement and Knowledge (PEAK), a six-week community-based group intervention that incorporates mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) to address multiple health behaviors for multiracial youth in Hilo, Hawai‘i. A total of 51 youth, ages 12-23 years old, participated in this study which included pre-/posttest analyses of health risk factors such as substance use and depression and health promoting factors such as resilience, self-esteem, and mindfulness. Responses from two subsets of participants, who engaged in a focus group (n = 11) and composed gratitude letters ( …


Assessing Readiness For A Physical Activity Intervention In Positive Youth Development Afterschool Programs, Brittany Skiles Cook Apr 2019

Assessing Readiness For A Physical Activity Intervention In Positive Youth Development Afterschool Programs, Brittany Skiles Cook

Theses and Dissertations

Physical inactivity has been identified as a primary health threat to youth, and existing afterschool programs (ASP) are a promising context for implementing physical activity (PA) interventions. However, few PA interventions have been effective and generalizability of programs has been poor. Assessing organizational readiness during the testing of a PA intervention can help inform generalizability and sustainability. The R=MC2 heuristic separates readiness into motivation, innovation-specific capacity, and general capacity, each of which are further divided into subcomponents. The current multiple-case study pilot tests the feasibility and effectiveness/efficacy of a readiness assessment tool based on R=MC2 developed for the Connect through …


Social Relationships In Young Offenders: Relevance To Peers, Poverty, And Psychological Adjustment, Victoria Sabo Jan 2017

Social Relationships In Young Offenders: Relevance To Peers, Poverty, And Psychological Adjustment, Victoria Sabo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The increasing influence of peers in adolescence is related to a developing array of skills, aspirations, attitudes, and behaviours. The nature and magnitude of this influence and the potential association of certain youth with deviant peers is among the most prominent risk factors in predicting youth crime. This becomes of greater concern for economically disadvantaged youth, whose neighbourhoods harbour greater susceptibility to negative peer influence. With social affiliations at the forefront of youth development and criminality, research efforts need to further characterize the nature, constitution, and influence of peers on adolescent offending. Two hundred and eighty-one Canadian youth were sampled …


The Association Of Gender, Age, And Coping With Internalizing Symptoms In Youth With Sickle Cell Disease, Laura Reinman Jan 2015

The Association Of Gender, Age, And Coping With Internalizing Symptoms In Youth With Sickle Cell Disease, Laura Reinman

Theses and Dissertations

Youth with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at an elevated risk for having internalizing symptoms. Prior studies have suggested unique age by gender patterns of internalizing symptoms may be present in this population, however this pattern has not been thoroughly examined and the mechanisms underlying this pattern are not known. We examined rates of depression and anxiety symptoms between males and females with SCD across childhood and into adolescence in a cross-sectional design. We also considered the potential role of coping styles and health related locus of control for SCD morbidity that could account for age or gender patterns for …