Social Welfare Commons^™

Project Inspire, Daphney R. Portis

Inspire Brochures

Project Inspire is USA Health’s semester-long injury prevention program that offers education, exposure and mentorship to justice-involved youth. Since 2017, this collaboration between USA Health and James T. Strickland Youth Center has engaged justice-involved teens with the five-pillar curriculum, which includes: traumainformed care training and confidence building, educational and professional development, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and intensive mentorship. The goal is to reduce the rates of violence by equipping and empowering youth to overcome obstacles and barriers they may face in order to build a brighter future. There are currently three sites with more opening across several states.

Nh Ece Data Collection Efforts Running Inventory, Jess Carson, Evan England, Tyrus Parker

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

The NH ECE Research Consortium maintains an inventory of current and complete NH ECE-relevant data collection efforts. Included are surveys, interviews, focus groups, needs assessments, and other ways people in the field collect information. The inventory strengthens public access for data users, improves awareness and coordination among researchers, and minimizes duplication.

Fall 2026 Nh Ece Research Consortium Newsletter, Evan England, Jess Carson, Harshita Sarup

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

The Fall 2026 NH ECE Research Consortium Newsletter provides updates concerning NH's Market Rate Survey and Narrow Cost Analysis. Also find the latest research publications, Consortium resources, upcoming events, opportunities, and more.

Nh Ece Research Consortium Member List, Evan England, Jess Carson

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

NH ECE Research Consortium membership is open to individuals and organizations with relevant expertise that aligns with the purpose of the Consortium, including the advancement of knowledge to support early care and education in NH. Check out the current Consortium members in this graphic!

A Trauma-Informed And Collaborative Approach To Safe And Sustained Family Reunification, Alissa M. Cummins

Master of Arts in Human Services

Family reunification involves more than returning a child to the care of their biological family; it requires the sustained promotion of child safety, stability, and family well-being. This literature review examined how trauma-informed and collaborative approaches support safe, stable, and lasting reunification within the child welfare system. The review explored adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and developmental, psychological, family, and socioeconomic risk factors associated with child welfare involvement and permanency outcomes, as well as protective factors such as supportive relationships, caregiver well-being, resilience, and access to services and resources. Analysis of the literature identified three interconnected principles essential to successful reunification: …

A Mediterranean Puzzle: Paternity Leave Divergence In Italy And Spain, Ricardo Camacho

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

In 2019, the European Union (EU) adopted legislation establishing the right to paternity leave for fathers and second parents, advancing the equitable distribution of caregiving responsibilities and gender equality in labor markets. This paper examines why Italy and Spain—two Southern European Member States with shared historical, cultural, and religious legacies—have diverged significantly in their paternity leave entitlements: Spain offers nineteen weeks of full-paid paternity leave, while Italy provides just two. This paper finds that Spain’s more expansive paternity leave policy reflects higher levels of descriptive representation, effective interest group dynamics, and positive policy framing, with institutional design and cultural norms …

Slow Violence In French Polynesia: Where The Cold War Got Hot, Gillian G. Maynard

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

Between 1966 and 1996, France conducted a series of atmospheric and underground nuclear tests on the atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa, exposing Polynesian communities to radioactive fallout. The paper seeks to illustrate how France’s nuclear testing program in French Polynesia produced gendered and slow forms of violence extending long after the cessation of testing. Combining environmental history, feminist political ecology, and the analysis of declassified government documents, the paper traces how radioactive contamination entered food systems, damaged reef geology, and generated intergenerational health burdens. The paper additionally examines the gendered impacts of radiation exposure, arguing that Polynesian women experienced a …

Center For Social Policy In Practice Generative Artificial Intelligence Use Policy, Evan England, Jess Carson, Rachel Filippone, Tyrus Parker, Harshita Sarup

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

The Center for Social Policy in Practice (SPiP) team at the University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy has a shared, core commitment to the principle that at no time will generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools replace the critical judgement, professional training, ethical grounding, and community responsibility that underpin the Center’s purpose. This document describes the purpose and key principles of SPiP's generative AI use policy.

Mapping Coastal Community-Based Tourism Empowerment: Public Policy And Sustainable Development On Bangka Island, Putra Pratama Saputra, Hadiyanto Abdul Rachim, Arie Surya Gutama, Moch. Zaenal Hakim

Jurnal Wacana Politik

This study analyzes the conceptualization and practice of community-based tourism empowerment on Bangka Island, serving as a strategic approach to promote sustainable and inclusive coastal tourism. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach, data were gathered through interviews with nine key informants, observations, and policy document analysis. Findings reveal that these empowerment initiatives significantly strengthen individual and institutional capacities, enhance community participation in tourism planning, and drive economic diversification from extractive industries to sustainable tourism. Furthermore, this approach facilitates economic transformation through the development of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and coastal ecotourism, concurrently reinforcing environmental conservation and cultural preservation. However, …

Refereed Research - Indispensable Yet Not Fully Legitimate: Street Markets As Invisible Subsistence Infrastructure, Raji Srinivasan, Maria C. Merino

Subsistence Marketplaces

Street markets are key provisioning systems across the Global South, supplying fresh food, employment, and retail access absent formal infrastructure. Yet despite street markets’ functional indispensability to millions of low-income consumers, their legitimacy is chronically contested, affirmed by vendors and communities yet challenged by planners, developers, and state authorities who apply formal-economy criteria in evaluating them. We theorize this as a legitimacy paradox and ask what structural mechanisms sustain it? Using composite vignettes grounded in fieldwork, we theorize three mechanisms. First, visibility without recognition: street markets are hyper-visible yet excluded from cognitive templates of legitimate, formal retail. Second, asymmetric essentiality: …

Metro Monitor 2026: Las Vegas And Reno, Nevada, Kevin Yang, Lara Karaalp, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents economic growth performance indicators in the Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV and Reno, NV metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), using data provided by the Brookings Institution’s Metro Monitor 2023  and 2026. The Metro Monitor explores five indicators of economic performance over ten year periods: the 2023 report provides data measuring the period from 2011 to 2021, while the 2026 report provides data measuring the period from 2014 to 2024. The Metro Monitor reports data on growth, prosperity, economic inclusion, racial inclusion, and geographic inclusion across 196 MSAs in the U.S.

Child Care Deserts In Mountain West Congressional Districts, 2024, Cason Noll, Yash Kalla, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents data on child care deserts across 28 congressional districts in the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah as of 2024. The percentage of young children residing in a child care desert and the urban, suburban, or rural designation of each congressional district are included. The Center for American Progress (CAP) report, ‘America’s Child Care Crisis Leaves Many Families Without Access to Licensed Care,’ includes data on all 435 U.S. congressional districts.

Without A Map: A Lived Experience Study Of The Paths People Create Through Homelessness, Kathleen P. Conte, Susan Avila, Desiree' J. Duboise, Carlton Bone, Marisa A. Zapata, Transformational Research For Equity And Experience In Shelter (Trees) Committee

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative Publications and Presentations

The Pathways to Housing Study examines how people experience and navigate homelessness and the systems intended to help them move toward stable housing. Conducted in Multnomah County, Oregon, the study used a participatory mixed-methods design co-led with the TREES lived experience committee. The first phase was reported in April 2026 included surveys with 541 people with current or recent experience of homelessness. The second phase, reported here, used in-depth interviews and journey mapping with 29 participants to explore how pathways through homelessness unfold over time and across service systems.

Findings demonstrate that homelessness pathways are rarely linear. Participants described entering …

From Today's Prices To Tomorrow's Investments: A Guide For Child Care Providers On Why The Market Rate Survey & Narrow Cost Analysis Matter, Jess Carson

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

No abstract provided.

Utahns' Views On Data Centers - Statewide Sample Descriptive Report, Jessica Schad, Gina Gilson, Stacia Ryder, Elizabeth Long-Meek, Alexandrea Sherman

Utah People and Environment Poll (UPEP)

As data center development accelerates in the western U.S, there are growing concerns about impacts to land, water, and air. This is especially true in rural communities, where development is rapidly increasing and communities have fewer resources. Broadly, data centers increasingly face vocal opposition from siting communities, who are concerned about water use, energy demand, and air quality. However, the impacts of data centers are highly context specific and localized, depending on regional energy availability, cooling technologies, and, increasingly, state-specific regulations.

Over the last year, Utah policymakers have increased efforts to monitor data centers and mitigate their impacts. However, such …

Middle Class Affordability In The Mountain West, 2023, Kian Parikh, Krish Sharma, Mohit Pande, Kristian Thymianos, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents 2023 data on the share of middle-class households that can afford basic necessities in the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The Brookings Institution report, “In every corner of the country, the middle class struggles with affordability,” provides metropolitan-level estimates across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. This fact sheet focuses on middle class affordability data for the largest metro area in each Mountain West state and, where available, explores middle class affordability by race and ethnicity.

Nihilistic Violence Aesthetics In Public Online Communication, Heath Nicholas Landress

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Public online communication has increasingly included violence-related content that is meme-based, ironic, visually stylized, multimodal, and only partially ideological. This comprehensive literature review synthesized research on online extremism, extremist memes, toxic multimodal content, dehumanizing digital communication, nihilistic violent extremism, warning behaviors, platform affordances, and youth-facing online environments. The purpose was to clarify what the literature had established; identify where the scholarship remained fragmented; and map research domains relevant to social, behavioral, public safety, and human services scholarship. The review used a structured, comprehensive literature review strategy supported by integrative synthesis procedures. The final corpus contained 34 scholarly sources, including 32 …

Level Of Discrimination Experienced By Gender In Athletic Trainers And Professional Athletic Training Students, Emily Ghaussy, Seungyeon Kim, Jennifer Xu, Emily Madrak

Clinical Practice in Athletic Training

Context: Although women make up the majority of the athletic training field, gender-based discrimination continues to exist in the profession. Previous research exists; however, more current research on gender discrimination in the workplace is limited. This cross-sectional study examined level of perceived gender-based discrimination experienced by credentialed women athletic trainers and athletic training students in comparison to men athletic trainers and athletic training students. Four hundred forty-six cisgender men and women athletic trainers and athletic training students participated in our study. The median age was 28 years among cisgender women and 35 years among cisgender men.

Methods: Participants completed a …

Connecting Families Through Cash Transfers And An Enabling Environment In Colombia, Mexico, And The Philippines: A Qualitative Study, Johanna K P Greeson, John Gyourko, Sarah Wasch, Kristin Mallory, Lory Fehlig, Cesar Jácome, Nestor David Lara Yanes, Fátima Areli Ruiz Gutiérrez, Dennis Guamos, Adele R. Lehman

Faculty Scholarship

Nearly 700 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty, and almost half of the world’s population lives below the poverty line. Cash transfer programs are increasingly used to address poverty’s effects on family well-being, yet less is known about how families experience programs that combine cash transfers with peer-driven mutual aid. Children International’s (CI) Community Independence Initiative (CII) provides conditional cash transfers and promotes family-led goal setting, mutual support, and shared learning. This qualitative study explored how families in Colombia, Mexico, and the Philippines experienced CII and made meaning of its material and relational components. We conducted focus groups with …

Largest Generations In The Mountain West States, 2024, Anirudh Polagani, Kian Parikh, Mohit Pande, Sean Curry, Kristian Thymianos, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This fact sheet presents population data by generation and by state, identifying which generation represents the largest share of the population in Mountain West states. The data are derived from the Brookings Institution report, "Baby boomers are turning 80: A closer look at the generation that reshaped America," by William Frey. This fact sheet compares the 2024 population of each generation, from Pre-Baby Boom to Gen Alpha, to identify the largest generation in each of the five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

Can The Safety Net Support Families Through Childbirth?, Hyojeong Kim, Colleen Heflin, Taryn Morrissey

Center for Policy Research

Childbirth is a life event that often disrupts maternal employment and household earnings just as family expenses increase. In the United States, families do not have access to a national paid parental leave program and must rely on a patchwork of safety net programs that were not designed specifically to support households during pregnancy and the immediate postpartum period. This brief uses linked administrative data from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System (2016–2021) to describe changes in household earnings and social welfare benefits before and after childbirth among low-income mothers receiving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for …

Pol/His 3005: Social Welfare Policy In The United States, Oswaldo A. Mena Aguilar

Open Educational Resources

The United States is one of the richest countries in the world, yet poverty, hardship, and inequality remain central features of American life. This course begins with that paradox. Why does a country with so much economic capacity tolerate so much poverty? Why does its welfare state protect some risks generously while treating other forms of need as individual failure? Why are benefits for the poor so visible, stigmatized, and administratively demanding, while benefits for the affluent are often hidden in the tax code, treated as private achievement, and politically protected? The course is organized around a sequence of questions. …

A Poetic Call For And A Reflection And Commentary On Clarity, Understanding, Hope, Courage, And Compassion, Carroy U. Ferguson

Psychology Faculty Publication Series

Finding a published poem I had written as a teenager, titled “The Heavens Weep.” this article uses that poem as the basis for a commentary that reflects on the state of the world today (2026),  As a commentary, the article uses the poetic and metaphoric words in the poem as a relevant "reality check" for what is still going on today.  In essence, the commentary is about a call for Clarity, Understanding, Hope, Courage, and Compassion, or what I call Archetypal Energies, Higher Vibrational Energies that operate deep within our individual and collective psyches to creatively urge us to "see" …

Coming Fall 2026: Complete The Market Rate Survey, Nh Department Of Health And Human Services

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

No abstract provided.

Ssw 701.50: Social Welfare Policy, Ian G. Williams

Open Educational Resources

This syllabus is an Open Educational Resources (OER) remixed version of SSW 701.50: Social Welfare Policy, which is taught at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. This version updated the content and integrated additional OER materials, as part of the Summer 2026 cohort of The Open Knowledge Fellowship at the Mina Rees Library. It is a Zero-Textbook (ZTC) cost course and integrates materials from a range of academic disciplines. Official course description is as follows:

"This foundation course furnishes you with the orienting knowledge and skills needed to examine social welfare policies and to understand their relevance …

Nh Ece Research Agenda, Jess Carson, Evan England, Rachel Filippone, Tyrus Parker, Harshita Sarup

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

The New Hampshire Early Care & Education (NH ECE) Research Consortium’s statewide research agenda identifies questions NH most needs answered to build, strengthen, and sustain its ECE system. The agenda is designed to help researchers, state leaders, funders, advocates, and community partners align work around shared priorities, avoid duplication, and make better use of high-quality evidence to guide policy, practice, and systems change. The Consortium will maintain this agenda as a living resource, updating it as the field’s needs and evidence base evolve. This agenda is meant to support coordinated action, not simply list possible research topics. Partners can use …

Market Rate Survey & Narrow Cost Analysis: 2026 Worksheet, Nh Department Of Health And Human Services

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

Child care providers in New Hampshire can use this worksheet to gather the information they will need to complete the 2026 Market Rate Survey and Narrow Cost Analysis. Not all questions may be relevant to each program. All questions should be answered with information current as of September 15, 2026.

Market Rate Survey & Narrow Cost Analysis: 2026 Data Collection Incentive Plan, Nh Department Of Health And Human Services

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

No abstract provided.

State Investments In Childcare In The Mountain West, 2026, Sophia Booth, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet presents data on state investments in childcare and preschool programs in the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. BabyCenter’s 2026 analysis, “These are the best and worst states for childcare,” includes state-level data on childcare accessibility, affordability, public investment, and overall childcare rankings for all 50 states. This fact sheet focuses on childcare spaces per child, income spent on childcare, and state investment per child.

Kinship Caregivers Feel More Satisfied With Services And Better Supported With A Kinship Navigator, Berenice R. Rushovich, Kristin Sepulveda Muñoz, Brittany Mihalec-Adkins, Brooke Derrick, Karin Malm

GrandFamilies: The Contemporary Journal of Research, Practice and Policy

Kinship caregivers caring for children often lack access to services and supports they need to stabilize their families. Other kinship navigator programs have been shown to improve child permanency, child safety, child wellbeing, and adult wellbeing. This study evaluated Kinnections, a kinship navigator program provided by Wayfinder Family Services, operating since 2007 in seven counties in Northern California. Using propensity score matching, 116 kinship caregivers receiving Kinnections services were matched with 116 kinship caregivers in neighboring counties with no kinship navigator services available. The matched sample showed strong baseline equivalence on key caregiver, child, and household factors. Findings showed …