Social Work Commons^™

Assessment Of Maine's Long-Term Care Needs Baseline Report: Demographics And Use Of Long Term Care Services In Maine, Stuart Bratesman Mpp, Julie T. Fralich Mba, Karen Mauney, Catherine Mcguire Bs, Louise Olsen, Jasper Ziller

Disability & Aging

In 2006, the Office of Elder Services requested the assistance of the Muskie School in developing an assessment of long term care service use in Maine. This report provides baseline information on the demographic characteristics, participant characteristics and service use trends for people accessing long term care services in this State.

For purposes of this report, we have excluded people with MR/DD. Long term care services do not include community support services for people with mental illness.

In this report, long term care services include:

• Nursing Facility Services
• Private Non-medical Institutions
• Consumer Directed Attendant Services
• Day Health Services
• Elder and …

Public And Private Sources Of Assistance For Low-Income Households, Chi-Fang Wu, Mary Keegan Eamon

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study examined the types and combinations of public and private assistance received by three types of low-income households, including those with children, without children, and elderly without children. Using data from the 1996 and 2001 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the results indicate that a large percentage of low-income households rely on public assistance, and receipt of private assistance is much less common. Approximately 7% of the sample use both types of assistance. The findings highlight differences in combinations of public and private assistance used by different household types. Wealsofound some significant differences in …

A Critique Of The Global Trafficking Discourse And U.S. Policy, Moshoula Capous Desyllas

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article examines the dominant discourse on trafficking in persons and the implementation of international and U.S. policy to address trafficking globally. Features of the United Nations Protocol and the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act demonstrate how trafficking frameworks currently in place contain underlying fears of migration and female sexuality. The implications of policy on the construction of third world women as "victims to be saved" through governments, National Government Organizations, feminists and the media will show how these misrespresentations only reinforce racism and dualistic simplifications of a complex issue. An emphasis is placed on the importance of women's agency …

"Creative Interpretation And Fluidity In A Rights Framework": The Intersection Of Domestic Violence And Human Rights In The United States, Karen Lynn Morgaine

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the manner in which leaders working in the domestic violence field in the US have or have not adopted a human rights framework and what impact this has had on domestic violence policy and intervention. Participants included leaders from national domestic violence and human rights organizations. These organizations are instrumental in developing policy and in framing the issues of domestic violence and human rights, many of which also work with specific racial and ethnic populations. Some of the primary research questions included: If the human rights discourse is being put to practical use within the US, how …

Financial Management: Social Agency, Social Enterprise And Social Economy, Roger A. Lohmann, Nancy Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

There has been a quiet revolution in financial management practice in social agencies in recent decades, symbolized by the transition from fund to enterprise accounting and increasing recognition of the ‘third sector’ of the social economy. The traditional voluntary agency model of donations has been joined by grants, performance contracts, ‘managed care’ and an array of other options, and traditional voluntary agency based and public agency practice now exist alongside corporate for profit service delivery and various forms of private practice. Social enterprise and entrepreneurship are a common theme in all this diversity, as social agencies must aggressively seek out …

Astroturf, Technology And The Future Of Community Mobilization: Implications For Nonprofit Theory, John Mcnutt, Katherine Boland

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Nonprofit Organizations advocate for the poor, the disenfranchised and the oppressed. This process is thought to build social capital and civil society, while engendering the development of social skills and deliberation. In recent years, scholars have observed that nonprofit advocacy organizations have moved from membership associations to professionalized policy change organizations. Virtual advocacy will move the process farther afield. Astroturf, the creation of synthetic advocacy efforts, continues this process further. All of this has troubling implications for nonprofit organizations and nonprofit theory. This paper describes the astroturf phenomenon, reviews pertinent nonprofit theory and speculates on the impact of astroturf for …

Community Development Corporations And Public Participation: Lessons From A Case Study In The Arkansas Delta, Valerie H. Hunt

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In this paper, I focus on the role of community development corporations (CDCs) in fostering public participation in the local political process. Using survey and interview data gathered from CDCs operating in the Mississippi Delta region of Arkansas, I show that the CDC is an important intermediary between the citizens and the local political arena. While, according to this study's findings, the CDCs' long-term goal is to develop a lasting sense of efficacy among CDC participants, leading to direct political participation by citizens, the nature of CDC funding does not fully support these efforts. As a result, these critical activities …

Crawling Out Of Poverty: Recollections From Women Who Succeeded Against The Odds, Crystale M. Marsh

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A multiple-case-qualitative approach was used to examine the lives of women who overcame lives of poverty. Participants were chosen from a pool of students in the Midwestern portion of the United States who previously participated in the Educational Talent Search program, a division of Upward Bound, that assists low income and at-risk students in attending college. Numerous themes were obtained from the data; however, the overarching theme for this study included the process of change. Specifically, the women spoke about the decisions they made to overcome poverty and thus begin referring to themselves as "successful." In order to provide further …

Focal Point, Volume 21 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Evidence–based programs produce positive outcomes for consumers, providers, and the greater public. However, not all evidence–based programs have been proven to work with diverse groups. This issue of Focal Point features programs that have been developed specifically to meet the needs of underserved youth such as immigrants, rural or homeless youth, and those from racial or sexual minority groups.

Introduction: Globalization, Social Justice, And Social Welfare, Frederick Fritz Macdonald, James Midgley

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Although the literature on globalization has increased exponentially over the last decade, the term is still poorly defined and its many facets and complexities are under-appreciated. A major problem is the way the effects of globalization on social welfare have been reduced to simplistic, rhetorical statements that either condemn all aspects of globalization or uncritically extol its benefits. In reality, however, globalization has complex and paradoxical consequences for human well-being. For example, international trade is widely viewed by many progressive observers as being exploitative and unequal and many are appropriately critical of the way neo-liberal writers wax lyrical about its …

Color-Blind Individualism, Intercountry Adoption And Public Policy, Pamela Anne Quiroz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A prevailing ideology of color-blindness has resulted in privatizing the discourse on adoption. Color-blind individualism, the adoption arena's version of color-blind discourse, argues that race should not matter in adoption; racism can be eradicated through transracial adoption; and individual rights should be exercised without interference of the state. As privatization has increasingly dominated our world and disparities between countries have grown, so too has intercountry adoption. This paper examines the colonial aspects of intercountry adoption and implications for conceptualizing global human rights from our current emphasis on individual rights, as the real issue continues to be which children are desired …

Toward Global Welfare State Convergence?: Family Policy And Health Care In Sweden, Canada And The United States, Gregg M. Olsen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Accounts of the welfare state and the dynamics governing its development have been pivotal and highly contentious in the social policy literature over the past few decades. Since the 1980s, research has suggested that, as a result of domestic pressures and strains and/or the impact of globalization, welfare states were declining in tandem. However, most of these studies were quantitativefocusing upon 18 or more advanced capitalist nations and, in their search to uncover broad cross-national trends, utilized narrow welfare state indicators. This study investigates the extent to which the social democratic welfare state in Sweden, the social liberal welfare state …

Globalization, Welfare Reform And The Social Economy: Developing An Alternative Approach To Analyzing Social Welfare Systems In The Post-Industrial Era, Vanna Gonzales

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Our understanding of the relationship between globalization and contemporary social welfare systems is heavily influenced by three conventional approaches to studying welfare reform: the political economy, moral economy, and mixed economy approaches. In addition to analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each of these approaches, a central aim of this article is to introduce the social economy approach as an emergent alternative. Drawing from a growing body of work on institutional innovation within the European third sector, I argue that the social economy approach makes a valuable contribution to understanding the role of welfare networks in reconfiguring globalizations' impact on …

Perspectives On Globalization, Social Justice And Welfare, James Midgley

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Although the social science literature on globalization has proliferated, social policy and social work scholars have not adequately debated the consequences of globalization for social welfare and social justice. Drawing on different social science interpretations of globalization, four major perspectives that offer different analytical and normative insights into globalization are identified and their implications for social welfare and social justice are briefly examined. The implications of these perspectives for social policy and social work scholarship are also considered.

Globalization, Immigration And The Welfare State: A Cross-National Comparison, Qingwen Xu

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Over the past decades, the forces of globalization have helped created a huge wave of immigration. The relationship between globalization and immigration has been intensely examined in the last decade with a focus not only on whether and how much globalization has caused international immigration but also how to promote and sustain a just global system for the growing number of immigrants. This study selects three developed countries with different welfare state philosophies and traditions-Australia, Sweden and the United States-and compares how they cope with the growing number of immigrants and their various needs. This paper reflects thinking about states' …

Program Evaluation Report For: Nevada Child Seekers, Nori Evans, Raymond Keeler, Lisa Pletz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A program evaluation of the Nevada Child Seekers (NCS) organization was conducted from October 2006 through April 2007. The evaluation consisted of a qualitative assessment of the organization's volunteer recruitment and retention program. The evaluation was conducted by performing a series of interviews of staff and by conducting a web-based survey of available volunteers. Information gathered from the interviews and surveys was compared with benchmarking data from multiple scholarly and community sources.

Debra L. Delaet On Understanding Human Rights: An Exercise Book By Elisabeth Reichert. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications, 2006. 271pp., Debra L. Delaet

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Understanding Human Rights: An Exercise Book by Elisabeth Reichert. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2006. 271pp.

Upaya Meningkatkan Kualitas Derajat Kesehatan Lingkungan Melalui Perubahan Perilaku Kesehatan, Wiriasto Herry Septiadi

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

The change sanitation behaviour is one efford to increase the healthy quality of the environment. The hygiene disposal excreta is one activities to develop quality for healthy environment. Disposal excreta have relatation with human behaviour/habits. The bad sanitation behavior and unsaniter condition from sanitation services could make environment polution. Based on that condition, one efford to enhance the quality of the environment is by changing sanitation behaviour.

Peran Pesantren Dalam Penghapusan Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan, Bunda Sri Sugiri

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Pesantren is one of educational institution which base on religion. Program Interagency Network for Prevention of Violence against Women (VAW) is an innovation to increase the function of Pesantren as a service institution for woman violence victim. The main focus of this program is designing a center of Perlindungan bagi Wanita (Puspita), a women's crises center base on Pesantren. Pesantren set as a center of advocating for woman, because Pesantren has a very strategist task in doing various change in society. However we realized that Pesantren has no distribution yet and also in effort for preventing violation on woman, especially …

Pendidikan Seksualitas Untuk Anak Melalui Pemasaran Sosial Sebagai Salah Satu Upaya Pencegahan Child Sexual Abuse, Sari Viciawati

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Children empowerment through sex education can prevent children from sexual abuse. Sex education absolutely can be more efective for children if it is given earlier by parents. The problem is their parents often do not know what the importance of sex education. Although parents know that sex education is important, they do not want to do it because they still feel embarrassed. To fulfill the needs of parents to deliver knowledge about sex education is one of the effort to prevent child sexual abuse, a seminar had been held in this action research. After joining the seminar, there were many …

Penindasan (Bullying) Di Sekolah, Dwi Amalia Chandra Sekar

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

The aim of this article is to give some information and attempt to raise awareness about behavior problem among children in or around the school in terms of abuse or intimidation (bullying). School as intitution, gives knowlege and skill to develop positive self-potential for students cannot be completedly reached. For the children who became the victim, schools are no longer can give them feeling secure and hapiness. School bullying occured long time, but there is only small attention from school, parents, communities, because they considered it as a normal behavior dan become tradition in school. Bullying can bring fear and …

Controlling The Levers Of Power: How Advocacy Organizations Affect The Regulation Writing Process, Richard Hoefer, Kristin Ferguson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The Federal regulation-writing process is vital to understanding how laws are translated into policy. This paper re-examines data on human services interest groups active in lobbying the executive branch to determine what factors influence their effectiveness. Building on findings from Hoefer (2000), structural equation modeling is used to re-analyze the original regression model of interest group effectiveness (IGE) on a sample of 127 Washington D.C.-based interest groups. Results indicate that some of the previous findings are not supported and an alternative model is proposed. A group's position, context and access to information and policymakers emerge as significant determinants of IGE. …

American Identity And Attitudes Toward English Language Policy Initiatives, Carlos Garcia, Loretta E. Bass

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Relatively little is known about what individual-level factors drive Americans' attitudes toward offering services to immigrants. Using national-level data and logistic regressions, we examine what factors co-vary with whether respondents agree or disagree with specific policy initiatives regarding support for English language use for immigrants. We then examine what factors are related to whether respondents agree that tax money should be used to fund English classes for immigrant children and adults. We find that age, race, and general warmth toward undocumented immigrants predict English-only attitudes, and that marital status, education, and warmth toward undocumented immigrants predict attitudes toward the use …

Sex Panic And The Welfare State, Benjamin Shepard

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

2006 marked the tenth anniversary of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The 1996 law was the culmination of decades of erosion in backing for basic provisions of the U.S. social safety net. The following reviews the political campaign that undermined thefoundationfor this vital component of the New Deal/Great Society income supports. A series of panics diminished approval for the welfare state, leading to the 1996 "reform." Panic discourse increasingly accompanies policy debate. Examples of anti welfare, anti outsider panic discourses are explored.

Focal Point, Volume 21 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

This Focal Point issue focuses on child traumatic stress, particularly as experienced by children involved in the child welfare system. The causes and effects of traumatic stress are discussed, as are evidence-based treatments, and prevention strategies.

State Agency Promising Practices: Washington State’S Working-Age Adult Policy, Allison C. Hall, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

ThinkWork! Publications

Washington’s Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) has recently issued a new policy which went into full effect on July 1, 2006. This policy “designates employment supports as the primary method of furnishing state-financed day services to adult participants.” Emphasizing community employment as the primary service option, the policy further states that: “services for persons under the age of 62 that do not emphasize the pursuit or maintenance of employment in integrated settings can be authorized only by exception to policy” (WA DHSH, DDD, “County Services for Working Age Adults” Policy 4.11). Initially adopted in 2004, this policy does not eliminate …

Child Care And Children With Special Needs: Challenges For Low Income Families [Report], Helen Ward Jd, Lisa A. Morris Phd, Erin E. Oldham Phd, Julie Atkins Ma, Angela Herrick, Patricia Morris

Children, Youth, & Families

Findings from this mixed methods study include:

• Parents of young children with special needs face significant challenges finding and keeping child care arrangements for their child.
• Parents report significant problems with the child care arrangements they have used for their child with special needs.
• There are significant programmatic and financial barriers to supporting parents of children with special needs so they can work, and balance work and family.
• The combination of all of these problems and the particular demands of caring for a child with special needs often result in employment problems and job instability.
• Families of children with special …

Fairness Issues In Law And Mental Health: Directions For Future Social Work Research, Jose B. Ashford, Jane Holschuh

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Concepts from the procedural justice literature in social psychology are examined that offer useful guidance for social work researchers with interests in investigating informal adjudications, speciality treatment courts, and other areas of the administrative process previously neglected in mental health services research. These theoretical concepts are offered as an alternative to the therapeutic jurisprudence framework being adopted by some social workers in the field of law and mental health. The issues outlined in this paper also draw on the health services and psychotherapy literature to highlight issues involving process and procedure as social justice and their significance for advancing a …

Foster Parents' Reasons For Fostering And Foster Family Utilization, Kathryn Rhodes, Mary Ellen Cox, John G. Orme, Tanya Coakley

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Better utilization of foster families might be linked to parents' reasons for fostering. This study used data from the National Survey of Current and Former Foster Parents to examine relationships between reasons for fostering and types of services and length of service foster parents provide. Top reasons for fostering were child-centered. The least endorsed reasons were self-oriented. Those who fostered to help children with special problems were more likely to have a child placed, had more children, and had fostered more types of special needs children. Parents who fostered because their children were grown were more likely to have a …

Review Of The Rise And Fall Of Hmos: An American Health Care Revolution. Jan Gregoire Coombs. Reviewed By Lisa S. Patchner., Lisa S. Patchner

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Jan Gregoire Coombs, The Rise and Fall of HMOs: An American Health Care Revolution. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. $35.00 hardcover.