Social Work Commons^™

Minority Stress Theory: An Examination Of Factors Surrounding Sexual Risk Behavior Among Gay And Bisexual Men Who Use Club Drugs, Michael P. Dentato, Perry N. Halkitis, John Orwat

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

Background: Few studies have examined the impact of minority stress theory (MST) upon sexual risk behavior among gay and bisexual men using club drugs. Similar studies have focused on ethnic minorities and women; however, gay and bisexual men demonstrate greater likelihood for risk behaviors leading to HIV/AIDS. Objective: This study examines sexual risk behavior from the perspective of minority stress theory upon substance-using gay and bisexual men and their partners. Methods: Multivariable logistic regression analysis examined minority stress associations with participant sexual risk behaviors, drug use, and partner type, controlling for demographics. Results: 396 gay and 54 bisexual respondents, ages …

Legal Services Assessment For Trafficked Children- Cook County, Illinois Case Study, Katherine Kaufka Walts Jd, Linda Rio Reichmann Jd, Catherine Lee Ma

Center for the Human Rights of Children

Child trafficking is one of the most disturbing human rights abuses of our time, involving cases of boys and girls exploited for labor and/or commercial sexual services. These children may suffer physical, sexual, and emotional violence at the hands of traffickers, who can be pimps, employers, and even family members. Trafficking schemes may involve various forms of force, fraud, and coercion, which can be physical and/or psychological in nature. Current research indicates that legal services are a critical component of a comprehensive service delivery model for victims of human trafficking and a realization of human rights. However, little to no …

The Promise Of An Accumulation Of Care: Disadvantaged African-American Youths’ Perspectives About What Makes An After School Program Meaningful, Jeffrey J. Bulanda, Katherine Tyson Mccrea

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

African-American youth growing up in dangerous, deprived homes and communities are at great risk of developing impaired relationship capabilities, which disadvantages them further in the workplace and in their personal lives. While after-school programs have well-documented positive effects, researchers have called for better understanding of improving youths' engagement in services and their constructive relationship skills. Here, we report on a project using participatory action methods to engage poverty-level African-American youth in developing a leadership development program they would find most meaningful. Stand Up Help Out (SUHO) gave youth three layers of caregiving experience: receiving care from instructors, giving and receiving …

Organizing For Environmental Justice: From Bridges To Taro Patches, Amy Krings, Michael S. Spencer, Kelcie Jimenez

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

¿Déjalo Descansar? The Parental Bereavement Experience Of Mexican Migrant Mothers, Illeana Gomez

Dissertations

"Déjalo descansar, no le llores" - "Let them rest, don't cry for them" is an expression Mexican mothers often hear after the death of a child. While accepted as a culturally polite means of expressing condolence, the phrase nonetheless can have a detrimental effect on the parental bereavement experience of these mothers. Through the use of focus groups, 22 Mexican migrant mothers were interviewed to better understand the role that imperatives such as "Déjalo descansar" and other prescribed beliefs, rituals, and customs play in their bereavement experience. From the five focus groups conducted in this qualitative study, participants reported that …

Preserving The Bond: Child Welfare Professionals' Perspectives On The Opportunities And Challenges Of Parent-Child Visitation, Lina M. Munoz

Dissertations

The foster care system was designed to be a temporary placement for children when their parents are unable or unwilling to provide proper care and supervision. A permanency plan must be established for all children in care, stating clear goals for a permanent living arrangement to facilitate the child's reunification with his/her family. The current Illinois Child Welfare Practice Model promotes a family-centered, trauma-informed, and strength-based practice approach when providing child welfare services to families in foster care with the caseworker serving as the primary vehicle for facilitating change.

This study explored how this child welfare practice model is reflected …

Organizational Constraints And Supports For Psychosocial Care Of Ethiopian Children At Risk: The Case Of Services In Addis Ababa, Daniel Hailu

Dissertations

The dissertation describes from an institutional perspective psychosocial support services being provided to orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. Despite the presence of sufficient but fragmented legal, policy and strategic framework, Ethiopia's social protection landscape has suffered from a historic dearth of interventions that address psychosocial risks and vulnerabilities. Over the past decade and half, however, psychosocial support services to OVC have been slowly defused into the Ethiopian society as elements of programming for care and support to the population. Consequently, there currently exists diversity in the types of psychosocial risks and vulnerabilities that interventions prioritize …

Psychotherapist Understanding Of Genital Self-Mutilation Amongst Male To Female Transsexuals, Michael Robert Kenney

Dissertations

Self-mutilation of the genitals is a complex phenomenon that can provoke strong countertransference reactions amongst mental health clinician. Transsexuals who engage in self-inflicted mutilation of the genitals face a potentially increased risk of alienation from healthcare providers due to marginalization and lack of understanding by treating clinicians. Frequently, assumptions are made regarding the motivation for the behavior that fails to take into account the complex interplay between contributing psychological, social, and environmental forces.

This qualitative study explored the experience of four psychotherapists who had encountered the behavior in their work with transsexual clients in order to gain a more accurate …

Identity Negotiation Of Young Arab Muslim Women Attending College In The United States And France, Danielle Dunand Zimmerman

Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how young Arab Muslim women attending college, in the United States and France, negotiate their identity vis-à-vis multiple contexts of citizenship in secular state, gender, religion, culture, and race. Sixteen interviews were conducted, eight in Paris and eight in Chicago. Using the theoretical frameworks of social identity, cultural studies, and critical race feminism, this study approached identity negotiation in terms of integration and differentiation from others; influence of dominant culture and attempt to redefine identity; gender and specificity of the experience of women of color as well as interrelation of multiple …

Latino Academic Achievement: Impact Of Individual, Family, School, Community And Immigration Factors, Jessica Catharine Martone

Dissertations

The dissertation increases our understanding of the influence of multiple social systems on the academic achievement of Latino students. More specifically, this study examines the influence and dynamic interaction of individual, family, school, community, and immigration factors on the academic achievement of Latino students through a secondary data analysis of the ELS: 2002 dataset utilizing hierarchical linear modeling. Academic achievement is measured with a dichotomous variable: high achieving and low achieving. "High achieving" students are those that have an on-time transition to higher education and "low achieving" students are those that have a delayed or no transition to higher education. …

Acculturative Stress And Coping Strategies Used By Asian Indians Living In The United States: A Quantitative And Qualitative Inquiry, Ritu V. Thaker

Dissertations

The present research addressed acculturative stress experiences and coping strategies used by Asian Indians residing in the United States. The organizing research question was "What are the acculturative stress experiences and coping strategies used by first generation Asian Indians living in the United States?" The research question was explored through fourteen hypotheses.

A mixed method approach was employed. For the first phase, 54 first-generation Asian Indians were recruited from four sites using a purposive convenience sampling method, the SAFE-R standardized questionnaire was used to measure acculturative stress, the COPE scale to measure coping strategies, and a culturally grounded Socio-Demographic Information …

Interventions That Help The Helpers: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Interventions Targeting Compassion Fatigue, Secondary Traumatic Stress And Vicarious Traumatization In Mental Health Workers, Melissa Lynn Bercier

Dissertations

Compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress and vicarious traumatization have received widespread attention in the literature due to an increased awareness of negative effects mental health workers experience when working with people who have been traumatized. Mental health workers become more vulnerable to significant stress when they work with trauma victims, which can lead to many negative consequences that can affect their own health as well as their treatment of their clients. While there is much that we are learning about the causes and outcomes of mental health workers' exposure to their clients' trauma, there has been less focus on effectiveness …

Liberian Refugee Women's Personal Narratives On The Effects Of War On Motherhood, Florence Wanjiru Kimondo

Dissertations

One major effect of displacement by war and subsequently living in a refugee

camp is the disruption of the social, cultural, economic and legal institutions of

communities; this affects parenting and a child's development. Few research studies

address the effects of war, political upheaval, and displacement on parenting, specifically

the experience of motherhood and the cultural socialization process of children. Yet, most

research points at the undeniable connection between social and cognitive competence

and the social and physical context, with changes in these contexts influencing the

competencies parents' inculcate in their children. Furthermore,

there is sparse literature focusing specifically on …

Remembering The Cultural Trauma Legacies Of Slavery: African American Young Adult Perceptions On Racism, Ethnic Identity, And Racial Socialization, Kimya Pearl Barden

Dissertations

The purpose of this research investigation is to explore cultural trauma theory on African American young adult development. Cultural trauma theory asserts the adverse cross-cultural encounter, North American slavery, reproduces intergenerational psychosocial legacies for contemporary African Americans. Accordingly, cultural trauma theory is used to explore with African American young adults three "slave" legacies: ethnic identity formation, perceptions of racism, and racial socialization experiences. A qualitative case study approach is used for (N=26) participants enrolled in either college or a GED program. Each young adult participates in either an individual or focus group interview. To aid in data triangulation, older African …

The Presence Of Empathy In Male Completers Of A Partner Intervention Program, Katherine Dahlberg

Dissertations

There is an abundance of research which has explored the complex nature related to men who commit partner abuse including: causative factors, co-occurring variables, treatment efficacy, and attrition and recidivism rates. Although, all of these issues are relevant to understanding and eliminating the problem of partner violence, unexplored conditions still remain. For instance, the mystery surrounding an abusive man's level of remorse for his behavior; particularly, his capacity for empathy toward his victim and related insights to how his behavior has had an impact on his victim have been under-researched. Exploring the ways in which abusive men think and learn …

The Effects Of Acculturation, Health, Socioeconomic Status, And Perceived Respect On Older Adult Depression: Analysis Of Korean American Older Adults In Chicago, Kyungsoo Sim

Dissertations

This study explored the extent to which acculturation level, health condition and SES influence depressive symptoms mediated or moderated by perceived respect and current geographical background of 121 Korean-American older adults in the Chicago metropolitan and its suburban area.

A multi-method approach was imported to analyze self-collected quantitative survey data from two groups of 80 participants in Chicago and 41 in the suburbs, qualitative interview data from 4 focus groups, 2 in-depth interviews and GIS (Geographic Information Systems). In the survey, Suinn-Lew Asian Stress-Identity Acculturation Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale-30, Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue, Health Perception Questionnaire-36, 13-item questions …

The Effects Of An Experiential Learning And Mentorship Program Pairing Medical Students And Persons With Cognitive Impairment: A Qualitative Content Analysis, Darby J. Morhardt

Dissertations

The United States population is aging rapidly and with it a tremendous rise in the number of people with dementia. In the future, as now, physicians and other health care professionals will likely provide the majority of health care for older people and those with dementia. The non-geriatric trained workforce must have the attitudes, knowledge and skills needed to provide high quality care for this aging and increasingly cognitively impaired population. There is evidence that prevailing stigma regarding older adults can be modified with experiential opportunities early in students' career. Few of these programs are aimed at persons with dementia. …

"Keeping It Real": An Evaluation Audit Of Five Years Of Youth-Led Program Evaluation, Jeffrey J. Bulanda, Katie Szarzynski, Daria Silar, Katherine Tyson Mccrea

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

Youth are increasingly seen as competent in participating in research and program evaluation, two activities previously reserved for adults. This paper is a report of the findings from an evaluation audit of Stand Up! Help Out!, a participatory action after-school youth leadership development program for disadvantaged urban youth that utilized youth evaluations to develop a best practices service model. The youths’ feedback assisted providers in improving services so that youth engagement in the program was 99% (by comparison with national highs of 79%). Here, we describe an important aspect of the process of youth-led program evaluation leading to such high …

The Employment Hope Scale: Measuring An Empowerment Pathway To Employment Success, Philip Young P. Hong, Sangmi Choi

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter presents findings on revalidation of the Short Employment Hope Scale (EHS- 14) using a recently collected independent sample of 661 low-income jobseekers. This client- centered measure captures an aspect of multi-dimensional psychological self-sufficiency (SS) as a process-driven assessment tool. The original employment hope metric was constructed as a 24-item six-factor structure from its earlier conceptualization resulting from client focus group interviews.

The EHS measure was initially validated using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), resulting in a 14-item two-factor structure with Factor 1 representing ‘psychological empowerment’ and Factor 2 representing ‘goal-oriented pathways’. In the following revalidation process using a …

“Where’S Beebee?”: The Orphan Crisis In Global Child Welfare From An Autoethnographic Perspective, Katherine Tyson Mccrea

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Empowering Counseling Program Description, Katherine Tyson Mccrea

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Developing A White Anti-Racism Identity: A Psycho-Educational Group Model, Kathryn Kristin Berg, Shirley Simon

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper describes and assesses a seven session psycho-educational group on anti-racism identity development for White European-American undergraduate students at a midwestern U.S. university. It is predicated on the premise that Whiteness can simultaneously privilege and harm White people, and that White students have the potential to become personally invested in the challenging of systematic racism. It is also based on the idea that a group structure presents an ideal format for addressing this topic. Peer support, a safe environment, and information are requisites for facilitating personal exploration of this sensitive subject. A group model for addressing this topic is …

Group Work And Technology: Embracing Our Future, Shirley Simon, Kathleen W. Stauber

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper provides an overview of the evolution of online technology – how the technological revolution of the computer, the Internet, and mass access to new communication devices has impacted our lives with a speed and universality that is unprecedented. It discusses the natural and understandable resistance of many skilled and renowned group workers towards the use of these new modalities. It addresses the numerous benefits that technology has to offer us, and the critical and timely need for group workers to make the conceptual shift to embrace these modalities. A case is made for group workers’ ability to take …

Group Work In Graduate Social Work Education: Where Are We Now?, Shirley Simon, Teresa Kilbane

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper presents the preliminary results of a national survey assessing the extent of group work offerings within masters level social work programs in the United States. The study replicates and expands upon a 1994 investigation by Birnbaum and Auerbach. Findings are compared with the earlier study to identify changes and trends in group work education.

Indicated Truancy Interventions: Effects On School Attendance Among Chronic Truant Students., Brandy R. Maynard, Katherine Tyson Mccrea, Terri D. Pigott, Michael S. Kelly

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

BACKGROUND
Truancy is a significant problem in the U.S. and in other countries around the world. Truancy has been linked to serious immediate and far-reaching consequences for youth, families, and schools and communities, leading researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to try to understand and to address the problem. Although numerous and significant steps have been taken at the local, state, and national levels to reduce truancy, the rates of truancy have at best remained stable or at worst been on the rise, depending on the indicator utilized to assess truancy rates.
The costs and impact of chronic truancy are significant, …

Connecting Students And Professional Associations: A Curricular Approach, Shirley Simon

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Validation Of The Employment Hope Scale: Measuring Psychological Self-Sufficiency Among Low-Income Jobseekers, Philip Young P. Hong, Joshua R. Polanin, Terri D. Pigott

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Employment Hope scale (EHS) was designed to measure the empowerment-based self-sufficiency (SS) outcome among low-income job-seeking clients. This measure captures the psychological SS dimension as opposed to the more commonly used economic SS in workforce development and employment support practice. The study validates the EHS and reports its psychometric properties. Method: An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted using an agency data from the Cara Program in Chicago, United States. The principal axis factor extraction process was employed to identify the factor structure. Results: EFA resulted in a 13-item two-factor structure with Factor 1 representing “Psychological Empowerment” and Factor …

The Minority Stress Perspective, Michael P. Dentato

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

The minority stress perspective adds significant insight into the critical application and evaluation of theory regarding the impact of homophobia and correlates of HIV risk among gay and bisexual men and other sexual minorities. Continued understanding of the role that stigma, prejudice, heteronormativity, rejection, and internalized homophobia play in fueling HIV and substance use among gay and bisexual men is also necessary.

Human Trafficking And Exploitation Of Children And Youth In The United States- Outcome Document, Katherine Kaufka Walts Jd

Center for the Human Rights of Children

The conference entitled, “Human Trafficking and Exploitation of Children and Youth in the United States,” was held at Loyola University Chicago on September 22-23, 2010, sponsored by the Center for the Human Rights of Children.

The purpose of the conference was to bring national, multi-sector and interdisciplinary experts and participants together to discuss the plight of children being trafficked to and within the United States. The goal of the conference was not only to present an overview of child trafficking in the United States, but also to provide an opportunity to initiate dialogue among a network of professionals and to …

Mothers' Perceptions Of Social Work Helpgiving Practices: Implications For The Role Of The School Social Worker, Kristina Lind

Dissertations

No abstract provided.