Social Welfare Commons^™

Navigating Mental Wellness: A Peer-Led Journey Into Adult Services, Kristin G. Haberek

DSW Capstone Projects

Students with severe emotional disturbances (SED) occupy one of the most underserved intersections in American education and mental health care. As they age out of children’s services, they face abrupt service discontinuation, disrupted therapeutic relationships, and adult systems ill-equipped to meet their needs. These vulnerabilities, including heightened risks of crisis, hospitalization, homelessness, and justice involvement, constitute a central practice problem. This capstone addresses these transitions across three scholarly products: a systematic literature review, a theoretical concept paper, and a practical application paper, tracing a unified arc from diagnosing structural failures to proposing an evidence-informed, equity-oriented clinical response. Synthesizing key findings …

Balancing Act: Addressing Child Quantity-Quality Trade-Off In The Philippine Households With Educational And Health Social Programs, John Andrew A. Alsol, Marie Carroline Magante

Economics Department Faculty Publications

The child quantity-quality (CQQ) trade-off has been extensively studied in economic research since it was first introduced by Becker and Lewis in 1973. Studies have argued that the current economic circumstances and the presence of government aid in education and health determine the existence and extent of the CQQ trade-off. However, there is a dearth of empirically tested research on the possible decreasing effects of social programs on the CQQ trade-off. Using the 2019 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey, this paper seeks to determine the effect of education and health social programs on the CQQ trade-off in the Philippines. Probit models …

Adapting To Inflationary Pressures: Household Coping Strategies In Urban Egypt (2016– 2025), Mohamed Mohamed Ashraf Kamal

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade, Egypt has faced persistent economic challenges including repeated currency devaluations, high inflation rates, subsidy reforms such as the gradual reduction of food and energy subsidies, and the ripple effects of global crises that have significantly impacted household well-being, especially in urban areas. These pressures have eroded purchasing power and heightened food insecurity, especially among low- and middle-income families. Although substantial attention has been paid to macroeconomic indicators, there remains a critical gap in understanding how households adapt on a daily basis to manage financial stress and sustain their livelihoods. This inquiry is especially timely, as household …

Outpatient Fall Prevention In Ambulatory Adults 65 Years Old And Over, Dorothy L. Osborne-White

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects - Archive

Background: In the United States (U.S.), falls are the leading cause of injury among adults 65 and over, resulting in 36 million falls yearly (Moreland et al., 2020). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023), one in four older adults experiences a fall each year. Falls are the world's second most prominent cause of accidental deaths (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021). Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults (Moreland et al., 2020).

Methods: A quality improvement project that included a fall bundle was implemented in a primary clinic. A …

Is West Virginia A Haven For Disabled Workers? An Evolving Story, James V. Koch, Robert M. Mcnab

Economics Faculty Publications

With a particular focus on West Virginia, this study utilizes state-level monthly panel data over 13 years (2010-2022) to examine the determinants of the rates of application of individuals for Social Security Administration disabled worker income payments (SSDI) and the initial recommendations of those applications for approval by the states. Application rates are particularly sensitive to the educational attainment of state populations and approval rates to economic conditions. However, in contrast to media coverage and public perceptions, both the number of applications for SSDI and approval rates have been declining nationally and in West Virginia.

The Experiences Of Children On Sri Lanka's Tea Plantations: Labor And Sexual Exploitation, Violence, And Inadequate Education, Rathnayake Mudiyanselage Bandaranayake, Glenn M. Miles, Jarrett D. Davis, Madeline Stenersen, Anjum Umrani

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article explores the difficulties faced by children living in Sri Lanka’s tea plantation areas. Data from 150 children reveal high rates of poverty, violence, and school dropout. Children in tea plantation schools report bullying and stigma from teachers and students. Many children do not envision completing school due to inadequate resources, family income pressures, and the need to work. Children who drop out of school face abusive labor conditions and poor pay. Over 30% of all children report experiencing sexual abuse, often in their own homes. Those working face discrimination, physical abuse, and wage theft. Initiatives are needed to …

Systematic Barriers To Success: The Impact Of Redlining On Modern Educational Outcomes In Omaha Public Schools, Sarah Sedivy

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The systemic denial of mortgages, loans, and other financial services to specific neighborhoods on the basis of race, a practice known as redlining, has continued to have a disproportionately negative effect on communities of color since its inception in the 1930s. The contemporary impacts of redlining can be seen in ongoing disparities in household income, property values, generational wealth, and more. This paper uses a three-pronged approach to extensively examine the history, application, and implications of redlining, with an emphasis on how the practice affects modern educational outcomes in Omaha public schools. The paper analyzes statistical data from the Nebraska …

Forging Flourishing Futures: An Ethnographic Analysis Of The Construction Of Dreams For Internally Displaced Cameroonian Youth, Alexandra Harakas

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Young people are thermometers and essential actors in the future-oriented process of national development. In Cameroon, youth are affected by constraints which can hinder these processes and aims–economic stagnancy, inequality of resources, ethnic nepotism and rampant government corruption. Additionally, thousands of youth are internally displaced (IDPs) by violent conflicts: particularly the Anglophone crisis in the South West and North West regions. This study seeks to understand young people’s experiences in this context. Through twenty interviews with IDPs in Yaoundé ages 18 to 30, the study sheds light on the following questions: How do young IDPs conceive the flourishing for themselves …

Of Boys And Men: Why The Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, And What To Do About It, Richard Reeves

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Boys and men are struggling. Profound economic and social changes of recent decades have many losing ground in the classroom, the workplace, and in the family. While the lives of women have changed, the lives of many men have remained the same or even deteriorated. Our attitudes, our institutions, and our laws have failed to keep up. Conservative and progressive politicians, mired in their own ideological warfare, fail to provide thoughtful solutions.

The father of three sons, a journalist, and a Brookings Institution scholar, Richard V. Reeves has spent twenty-five years worrying about boys both at home and work. His …

Youth Mental Health In The Mountain West, Kristian Thymianos, Olivia K. Cheche, Kelliann Beavers, Katie M. Gilbertson, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Health

This fact sheet explores youth mental health metrics of Mountain West states from the Hopeful Futures Campaign’s 2022 report, America’s School Mental Health Report Card. This study provides state snapshots on school mental health policies and workforce availability for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah are considered here.

The State Of Mental Health In The Mountain West, Olivia K. Cheche, Kristian Thymianos, Katie M. Gilbertson, Kelliann Beavers, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Health

This fact sheet explores mental health rankings of Mountain West states from Mental Health America’s (MHA) 2022 report, The State of Mental Health in America. This study offers a snapshot of U.S. mental health based on data across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. MHA is the nation’s leading community based mental health nonprofit, founded in 1909, and “dedicated to addressing the needs of those living with mental illness and promoting the overall mental health of all.” This report is a companion to MHA’s interactive data available through its website.

Collateral Damage: How Expanding Public Charge Policy Influences Adult Esl Enrollment, Allison M. Eckert

Master's Theses

This study used statistical analysis of enrollment records for ESL programs at community colleges throughout California from 2015-2019 to determine whether adult immigrants’ participation in public ESL programs was reduced under President Donald Trump. Immigrant families’ lesser use of public education services and means-tested federal benefits has been widely documented in the wake of Trump’s expansion of the public charge rule, which counted immigrants’ use of a wider array of public benefits against their case for residency in the United States than had any previous iteration of the rule. Failing the public charge test can block an immigrant’s entry into …

Comparative Analysis Of State Policies For Former Foster Youth, Erin A. Watkins

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This research is a comparative analysis of state policies aiding former foster youth in their transition into adulthood. This research looks at policies in the areas of housing, education, and employment. The objective of this research is to see what state policies are effective in aiding their former foster youth in their transition into adulthood. Effectiveness is evaluated by the National Youth in Transition Database data and Annie E. Casey Foundation data, looking specifically at rates of homelessness, rates of enrollment or attendance in school, and rates of part-time or full-time employment. Results found that the three states analyzed (Illinois, …

Addressing Urban Income Inequality Through Education: A Case Study In Atlanta, Garrett Bronn

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

For decades, the income inequality gap between the rich and poor has continued to expand dramatically, with criticism of existing education systems often at the heart of the issue. Large urban cities are commonly at the forefront of the issue, given the plethora of teacher strikes in recent years. Events such as the 11-day Chicago teacher’s strike in October of 2019 that idled academics and college prep for 350,000 students, have highlighted many current education issues (Hauck, 2019). With underfunded and poorly equipped middle and high schools, students in poor and minority neighborhoods in cities are less prepared academically, ill …

Unheard Warriors: Creating An Effective Child Welfare Workforce, Yina Cordero

Community Engagement Student Work

As child abuse and neglect cases continue to increase in the United States, child welfare workers continue to experience challenges that have made it increasingly difficult to adequately care for the children and families in the child welfare system. Unfortunately, this has led to increased turnover rates among child welfare workers. Policy surrounding the child welfare workforce have pushed for changes that do not appropriately address issues such as the lack of education, training, and unsafe organizational environment that child welfare workers experience daily. An extensive overview of the current state of the child welfare workforce, has demonstrated a need …

A Lesson In Learning: Improving Learning Outcomes In India Via Pedagogical Innovation, Rhea Handa

Scripps Senior Theses

When delivered well, education is key to addressing a host of individual and societal ills, from poverty and disease to crime and poor voter engagement. India has demonstrated considerable progress in improving various aspects of its primary education system, including infrastructure and buildings, teacher-student ratios, and school enrollment. However, student learning outcomes remain consistently low across the country. A review of the literature surrounding learning outcomes has highlighted gaps in school instruction and has shown the dire need for innovations in pedagogy and curriculum to improve student learning. This paper assesses the long-term impact of one such pedagogy, called Teaching …

No Child Left Behind: Barriers For Youth Aging Out Of Foster Care, Wanda D. Davidson, Alphonso Underwood

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This presentation will explore the effects of foster care on the attainment of education for youth aging out of foster. There are studies that suggest that older youth and youth of color, are particularly vulnerable to systemic issues which may hinder educational success. The presentation will review research that seek to identify specific barriers to educational success and the role of children services, social workers, teachers and the department of education.

The Chinese Housing Registration System (Hukou): Bridge Or Wall?, Andrew Kryshak

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In 1958 the Chinese government created the hukou housing registration system to control the migration of Chinese citizens from rural to urban areas. A person’s hukou has major implications on their lives; it controls food rations, medical benefits, quality of education, as well as movement within the country. I look to answer the question of whether the hukou can be seen as a bridge with which individuals achieve socially, or is it better seen as a wall that prevents social advancement. This has been a question that researchers have been looking into for many years but there has been no …

Meyer, Pierce, And The History Of The Entire Human Race: Barbarism, Social Progress, And (The Fall And Rise Of) Parental Rights, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Long before the Supreme Court’s seminal parenting cases took a due process Lochnerian turn, American courts had been working to fashion family law doctrine on the premise that parents are only entrusted with custody of the child, and then only as long as they meet their fiduciary duty to take proper care of the child. With its progressive, anti-patriarchal orientation, this jurisprudence was in part a creature of its time, reflecting the evolutionary biases of the emerging fields of sociology, anthropology, and legal ethnohistory. In short, the courts embraced the new, “scientific” view that social “progress” entails the decline and, …

Pelaksanaan Program Children Educational Support Dalam Mengurangi Prevalensi Anak Jalanan Oleh Yayasan Indonesian Street Children Organisation (Isco) : Studi Deskriptif Di Sanggar (Isco) Kelurahan Kebun Melati, Tanah Abang, Wirda Amalia, Dwi Amalia Chandra Sekar

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

This article discusses about the implementation of children educational support in reducing prevelance of street children by ISCO Foundation. Motivated by many poor children vulnerable to be street cause the difficulty of access to educational services. This research used a qualitative approach. Collecting data using observation and interview with 9 informant. The study results show that implementation of program has already ran fairly well characterized by reduced child beneficieris who took the streets due to provision of assistance in formal and non-formal education. This made the fulfillment of poor children needs to get an education from early age so the …

Bootstrap Blues, Hannah M. Frantz

SURGE

Meet David*. In mid-January, he came to the small town Iowa elementary school where I work. David has attended more schools in the two years since he started school than I have in my lifetime. In fact, the school he just moved from only has four days of attendance listed on his record. David moves so often because he’s homeless. His situation is not what we may stereotypically think of as “homeless”—you wouldn’t see him on the streets or even in soup kitchens. Instead, David stays with his mother, and they couch surf from one home to another from week …

Media Portrayal Of Individuals In The Lower Class And Its Effects On Attributions Of Educational Hardships, Krista A. Burke

Communication Studies

This study investigated how media portrayals of individuals in the lower class affect people’s beliefs about educational hardships in lower socioeconomic areas. Specifically, this study looked at the attributions of these hardships to determine if media consumption had an effect on the internality of attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would be related to an increased tendency toward internal attributions. It was hypothesized that increased media consumption would lead to lower support for policy changes regarding education. A survey was distributed to assess media consumption habits and attitudes toward educational hardships in the lower class. Correlation results yielded …

Worn Down And Worn Out, Irene Carney, Thomas J. Shields

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Exposure to early adversity, particularly dire poverty, can powerfully shape the life course of a young person. As a city and region, we continually choose whether we’ll commit ourselves to an alternative course.

The Las Vegas Promise Neighborhood Initiative: A Community-Based Approach To Improving Educational Opportunity & Achievement, Sonya D. Horsford, Carrie Sampson

Lincy Institute Reports and Briefs

Since the 1980s, the standards and accountability movement in U.S. education has focused heavily on reform at the classroom and school level, with insufficient regard for how social, political, and community contexts impact student learning and achievement (Berliner, 2006; Horsford, 2010; Noguera, 2003; Oakes, 1989; Wells et al., 2004). This emphasis on standardization and high-stakes testing has stigmatized, and in many instances, penalized low-income and historically underserved students and communities through the use of student subgroup and school designations. It also largely has ignored the research literature documenting the significant impact poverty, neighborhood context, and related out-of-school factors such as …

Conditional Spending After Nfib V. Sebelius: The Example Of Federal Education Law, Eloise Pasachoff

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court’s recent case addressing the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the Court concluded that the expansion of Medicaid in that Act was unconstitutionally coercive and therefore exceeded the scope of Congress’s authority under the Spending Clause. This was the first time that the Court treated coercion as an issue of more than mere theoretical possibility under the Spending Clause. In the wake of the Court’s decision, commentators have expressed either the concern or the hope that NFIB’s coercion analysis may lead to the undoing of much of the federal regulatory state, …

Ask What Your Country Can Do For You: Social Spending And Satisfaction With Democracy In Latin America, Kenneth Retzl

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Past research on social policy in Latin America has primarily focused on how each countries' policies were formed, the institutional framework that bred the policies, or the economic constraints that necessitated certain reforms. Little work has been done to examine the effects those policies have had on the populace. This thesis attempts to determine if there is a relationship between social spending and satisfaction with democracy. The research takes two forms. First I present case studies of Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The second is an ordered logit hierarchical linear model utilizing survey responses from the 2005 Latinobarometer survey. In total …

Changing The World From Classrooms To Communities: Designing And Disseminating A Service-Learning Curriculum For Teaching In A Formal Education Setting, Amanda English

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

To change the world is a growing desire among many of today’s student populations, portrayed increasingly across the spectrum of media, social trends and career pursuits. While the demand grows among students for community-oriented and socially-responsible opportunities, the offerings in educational institutions must respond to these emerging requests with new and innovative academic programs. This text emphasizes the role of the developing discipline of service-learning in channeling these energies and providing students with deep and meaningful academic experiences. Its content seeks to combat misconceptions of service-learning as simply an extra-curricular activity and provide tangible methods for incorporating its concepts into …

Economic Circumstances And Support For Universal Health Care, Daniel Cotter

Political Science Theses and Capstones

There have been many differing opinions over the new health care bill passed in 2010. My research is aimed at finding what factors play a role in forming an opinion on the new health care bill. Specifically looking at the economic and demographic circumstances of citizens of the United States and how it has affected their opinions on the health care bill. I use data gathered from the Pew Research Center and ran crosstabs on various different variables including opinions on the current economy, demographic characteristics, as well as opinions on the current health care plan. I anticipate finding that …

The Parent As (Mere) Educational Trustee: Whose Education Is It, Anyway?, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The purpose of this Article is two-fold. First, the Article argues that the parent’s right to educate his or her children is strictly circumscribed by the parent’s duty to ensure that children learn habits of critical reasoning and reflection. The law has long recognized that the state’s duty to educate children is superior to any parental right. Indeed, the “parentalist” position to the contrary rests on an inflation of rights that is, in fact, a radical departure from longstanding legal norms. Indeed, at common law the parent had “a sacred right” to the custody of his child, and the parent’s …

A Few Drops Of Oil Will Not Be Enough, Stephen James

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn provide a rich description of the various kinds of violence, deprivation, depredation and exploitation that women experience on a vast scale in the developing world. They write of sex trafficking, acid attacks, “bride burning,” enslavement, spousal beatings, unequal healthcare (something the USA still struggles with), insufficient food, gendered abortions and infant and maternal mortality. They are right to identify the education of women and girls as part of the solution to the widespread “gendercide.” However, their approach focuses too much on the capacity, indeed the virtue or heroism, of individual women. It does not take …