Social Work Commons^™

Access To Housing For Persons With Disabilities: Lessons Learned From Three Demonstration Projects, Cutler, Disability And Aging, Eileen Griffin Jd

Disability & Aging

The Quality Choices for Maine project was conducted from 2001-2004. This report focuses on Access to Services, one part of the three-year RCSC Quality Grant. The specific housing related goal was “to improve access to community housing for people with disabilities of all types.” Project activities were overseen by the Access to Services Technical Assistance Group and a variety of stakeholders. Read the activity summaries, lessons learned and recommendations on how to sustain the work.

An Exploration Of Self-Esteem And Racial Identity Among Children Placed In Transracial And Same-Race Foster Homes, Shanay Barrett-Hugan

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The number of children in foster care continues to grow. Unfortunately this increase in children is far greater than the number of foster families available. Children are being placed in homes in which the race of the foster parent is different from that of the foster child. Legislative policies have also been enacted to eliminate discrimination in foster care placement. This study is designed to explore the impact of transracial foster care on adolescent children’s racial identity and self-esteem. Three children ages 11-17, who were placed in transracial and same-race foster homes, were interviewed in order to explore whether children …

The Challenge Of An Aging Population, Nicole Cauvin, Elaine B. Davis

Sociology Faculty Publications

In chapter seven of Public Policy in Connecticut, Nicole X. Cauvin and Elaine B. Davis discuss the policy challenges associated with an aging or "graying" state population. Demographic data clearly demonstrate that Connecticut's population, similar to the population of other states, is becoming older. The authors propose innovative public policies designed to accommodate the long-term health care and social service needs of the state's elderly.

The Practice Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper

This paper lays out some of the basics of a language-based, person-centered, or agentic model of practice for nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy within the emerging domain of commons theory. Six principles are identified for the practice of commons. Two threats to the production of common goods - bureaucratization and colonization of the life world - are discussed and evaluated as limitations of the practice of commons.

Social Work And Human Rights: A Foundation For Policy And Practice. Elizabeth Reichert. Reviewed By Mel Gray., Mel Gray

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Elisabeth Reichert, Social Work and Human Rights: A Foundation for Policy and Practice. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. $49.50 hardcover, $24.50 papercover.

Legislative Casework: Where Policy And Practice Intersect, Larry Ortiz, Cindy Wirz, Kelli Semion, Ciro Rodriguez

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Legislative casework is an ongoing activity in many state and federal legislative offices. Although the activity carries the implication of being a social work activity, there is little evidence from the literature, or in the field, that social workers are more than marginally employed in these positions. Reasons for the lack of professionally educated social workers in this important area of practice and politics are not clear. This paper explores the field of practice known as legislative casework, its history and purpose, and presents generalist social work examples from a Congressional district office wherein which professional social workers are employed. …

Restorative Justice, Responsive Regulation, And Democratic Governance, Paul Adams

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Restorative justice has been a central tradition of justice in most, perhaps all societies prior to the emergence of the modern, central state power with its bureaucratic-professional systems and its emphasis on retribution, deterrence, and, sometimes, re- habilitation. Its revival as a new social movement in modern states offers a new paradigm for addressing the key questions in social work and social welfare of the relation of formal to informal systems of care and control, and of empowerment to coercion. Restorative justice may be defined in terms of process- one whereby all stakeholders come together to resolve how to deal …

Review Of From Immigration Controls To Welfare Controls. Steve Cohen, Beth Humphries, & Ed Mynott (Eds.). Reviewed By Miriam Potocky-Tripodi., Miriam Potocky-Tripodi

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Steve Cohen, Beth Humphries and Ed Mynott (Eds.), From Immigration Controls to Welfare Controls. New York: Routledge, 2002. $90.00 hardcover, $28.95 papercover.

Review Of Drug War Heresies: Learning From Other Vices, Times & Places. Robert J. Maccoun And Peter Reuter. Reviewed By Lorraine T. Midanik., Lorraine T. Midanik

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter, Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times & Places. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. $75.00 hardcover, $25.00 papercover.

Review Of Social Policy And Policymaking By The Branches Of Government And The Public-At-Large. Theodore J. Stein. Review By Diana M. Dinitto., Diana M. Dinitto

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Theodore J. Stein, Social Policy and Policymaking by the Branches of Government and the Public-at-Large. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. $49.50 hardcover.

Review Of Welfare And Employment In A United Europe. Giuseppe Bertola, Tito Boeri And Giuseppe Nicoleti (Eds.). Review By Martin Evans., Martin Evans

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Giuseppe Bertola, Tito Boeri and Giuseppe Nicoleti (Eds.), Welfare and Employment in a United Europe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2001. $32.95

Review Of Social Security And Medicare: Individual Vs. Collective Risk And Responsibility. Sheila Burke, Eric Kingson And Uwe Reinhart (Eds.). Review By Rick Hoefer, Rick Hoefer

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Sheila Burke, Eric Kingson and Uwe Reinhart (Eds.), Social Security and Medicare: Individual vs. Collective Risk and Responsibility. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press and National academy of Social Insurance, 2000. $20.95 papercover.

Public Voices And Public Policy: Changing The Societal Discourse On "Welfare", Vicki Lens

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Much of the public discourse on welfare reform is subjective and value laden, a composite of socially constructed stories and myths that support the dominant ideology. This article reports on a study that examines the language used by government officials, poverty experts, advocates and others to discuss welfare reform. Statements made about welfare reform were extracted from the Washington Post and the New York Times and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Dissecting the public language of welfare provides insight into how prevailing ideologies are communicated and reinforced, and how they can be changed.

Weg Von Der Armut Durch Soziokulturelle Integration : Bei Sozialhilfeabhängigkeit, Alter Und Behinderung, Jonas Strom, Matthias Szadrowsky, Isidor Wallimann

Books

A person who has to live alone is marginalized and impoverished socially and culturally. A person must be able to participate in society - through education, culture, through the inclusion in civil society organizations, family and politics. If this is achieved, it will result in the person having more opportunities to secure this social and material existence and will more slowly become financially dependent and would be dependent for a shorter period of time. This in turn means financial relief for the State. It also ensures that human rights are afforded and promotes personal development.Previous research has provided many answers …

Declarations Of Dependency: The Civic Republican Tradition In U.S. Poverty Policy. Alan F. Zundel

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book note for Alan E Zundel, Declarations of Dependency: The Civic Republican Tradition in U. S. Poverty Policy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000. $16.95 papercover.

The Historical Uniqueness Of The Clinton Welfare Reforms: A New Level Of Social Misery?, Larry Patriquin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This essay argues that the 1996 reforms to the American welfare state have no historical precedent. They are not a return to "the poorhouse era" and are radically distinct from Great Britain's new poor law of 1834, to which they are often compared. America is the first advanced capitalist country to jettison a significant element of its welfare state and, as such, is moving into waters that are uncharted and dangerous.

Hybrid Organizations And The Alignment Of Interests: The Case Of Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac, Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

This article explores the political influence of government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Using Congress's overhaul of the regulatory infrastructure for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a case study, the article presents two principal findings: (1) The characteristics that distinguish government-sponsored enterprises from traditional government agencies and private companies endow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with unique political resources; and (2) the alignment of interest groups around Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is subject to strategic manipulation by the GSEs. A triangular model of this alignment is proposed and employed to analyze the legislative outcome. The case has implications for students of …

Stress And Coping Experiences Of Women In Transition: From Welfare To Work, William Jesse Gill

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Welfare reform and the consequent emphasis on employment represent a stressful sequence of events in the lives of women who are already facing the chronic stressors associated with single parenting and poverty. The current study assessed the levels of distress, factors contributing to distress, and coping resources utilized among a sample of 60 mothers who were making the transition from welfare to work. Ninety percent of the women were single or separated, and 71 percent were African American. All were receiving public assistance from two neighboring social services agencies in Virginia.

Psychological distress was measured by the Brief Symptom Inventory …

Job Stability And Wage Progression Patterns Among Early Tanf Leavers, Steven G. Anderson, Anthony P. Halter, George Julnes, Richard Schuldt

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article reports on first-year employment experiences of a randomly selected sample of 213 Illinois TANF leavers. Aggregate employment levels were 70 percent at exit, and leavers typically generated earnings from a single full-time job. However, employment often was unstable, so that only about one-fourth of leavers had the same job both at exit and when interviewed 10-11 months later. Employment instability resulted from the marginal or temporary nature of many jobs, as well as employment barriers such as health problems and lack of day care. Average wage levels easily exceeded the minimum wage and grew during the first year …

Tanf Policy Implementation: The Invisible Barrier, Roberta Rehner Iversen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Barriers to participation in welfare-to-work programs are generally described in terms of human and social capital. Findings from case examination of four Philadelphia-areaw elfare-to-work programs under TANF suggest that theory about policy implementation is more applicable. Faulty policy logic, organizational and personnel incompetence, and inadequate coordination between and within funding, referral, program, and employer organizations regularly resulted in delayed program start-ups and strained program operations. Generally invisible and absent from research attention, these implementation delays and strains impeded program staff efforts and harmed TANF recipients. States' 24-month time limit policies are a critical target for advocacy efforts.

Bridging The Divide: The Casework Policy Link, Peggy Pittman-Munke

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The professional history of social work in the United States of America is entering its second century. From this vantage point, it is possible to draw on. the past to develop ideas that will work for the future. Contemporary social workers often view the profession as dichotomized between those who deal with individual issues through counseling and private practice and those who are concerned with social change through policy reform. Mary Richmond, pioneer in the professionalization of social casework, offers a tightly integrated model which demonstrates how social casework and social reform can serve to reinforce and support one another …

A Survey Of Teen Pregnancy With The Latino Community, Deborah C. Rodarte-Carrasco

Whittier Scholars Program

The purpose of this paper is to determine, by the use of a survey, if differences in personal, social and family behaviors can be detected within two groups of demographically similar Latina females; one group who became teen mothers and the other who did not, in an attempt to distinguish factors that will help parents and adolescents reduce teen pregnancy. Previous research has mostly focused on the reasons why certain groups have higher rates of teen pregnancy than others have, but only one study (Hanson and Ginsberg, 1989) was done in a similar manner as this study has been designed. …

A Comparative Assessment Of The Status, Structure And Process Utilized By Nevada's Family Support And Preservation Consortia To Achieve Collaboration, Marlys A. Morton

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper presents a framework for understanding inter-organizational collaboration and describes and analyzes how collaboration was used as a method to build new service networks, the characteristics of the consortia, and the status of the collaborative processes.

Although the literature on inter-organizational collaboration in the human services is increasing, little is known about how regional consortia view the process of working together towards a common purpose. The results reported in this paper are intended to help fill that gap.

The findings reported in this study are based on a survey process using a standardized questionnaire to study the collaborative status. …

Review Of Modern Housing For America: Policy Struggles In The New Deal Era. Gail Radford. Reviewed By Robert Leighninger, Louisiana State University., Robert Leighninger

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Gail Radford, Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. $ 45.00 hardcover, $ 17.95 papercover

Review Of Social Security In The 21st Century. Eric R. Kingson And James H. Schultz (Eds.). Reviewed By Howard Karger, University Of Houston., Howard Karger

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Eric R. Kingson and James H. Schulz (Eds.), Social Security in the 21st Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. $60.00 hardcover, $24.95 papercover.

Armut : Der Mensch Lebt Nicht Vom Brot Allein : Wege Zur Soziokulturellen Existenzsicherung, Isidor Wallimann, Susanne Schmid

Books

While the usual discussion about the poverty of the minimum financial security speaks, the authors ask what it could mean for to be living in a secure socio-cultural minimum. The fact is that poverty can be both "caused" by various forms of exclusion, as well as the socio-cultural exclusion promotes or "causes".

Four Commentaries: How We Can Better Protect Children From Abuse And Neglect, Leroy H. Pelton

Social Work Faculty Research

The fundamental structure of the public child welfare system is that of a coercive apparatus wrapped in a helping orientation. Agencies ostensibly having the mission to help are mandated to ask whether parents can be blamed for their child welfare problems, and these agencies have the power to remove children from their homes. Thus, the public child welfare agency has a dual-role structure: On one hand, the agency attempts to engage in prevention and support, and to promote family preservation; on the other hand, it also has the task of investigating complaints against parents and removing children from them. This …

Time Series Analysis Of The Implementation Of Child Support Enforcement Policies In Federal Region V States, Susan Gaffney, Sumati Dubey

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study examines the impact legislation, such as the Family Support Act of 1988, Child Support Recovery Act of 1992 and Ted Weiss Child Support Enforcement Act of 1992 had on child support enforcement in Federal Region V states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin). These pieces of legislation authorize coercive means to force noncustodial parents to meet their child support obligations. Child support is the money noncustodial parents are obligated to pay for the support of their children on a monthly basis. Child support laws have been enacted to increase the number of noncustodial parents located, paternities established, …

Entmündigung Und Emanzipation Durch Die Soziale Arbeit : Individuelle Und Strukturelle Aspekte, Stefan Eugster, Esteban Pineiro, Isidor Wallimann

Books

Entmündigung und Emanzipation durch die Soziale Arbeit explores the effects of different aspects of the social work profession. It specifically examines how social work can emancipate or incapacitate people.

Managed Care: The Questionable Triumph Of Financial Management, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Managed Care is a generic term for a broad and constantly changing mix of health insurance, assistance and payment programs which seek to retain quality and access while controlling the cost of physical and mental health services. The introduction of managed care fundamentally transforms the traditional “agency” relationships on which modern social work was built. Little research on its impact on social services is currently available. The managed care model, with its distinctive external patterns of accountability, raises serious questions about the continuing viability of the “social agency” model of practice to which social work has been committed for most …