Social Work Commons^™

The Experiences Of Older Youth In And Aged Out Of Foster Care During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Material And Financial Well-Being By Foster Care Status, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, Ethnicity, And Race, Johanna K. P. Greeson, John Gyourko, Sara Jaffee, Sarah Wasch

Department of Social Work - Faculty Scholarship

As a marginalized, under-resourced population, older youth with foster care experience are acutely vulnerable to the economic and social harms wrought by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study summarizes findings from an online survey deployed in April 2020 to learn about the experiences of current and former foster youth (ages 18 to 23) during one month of the COVID-19 crisis. Using purposive sampling and a cross-sectional design, the survey yielded a final analysis sample of 281 respondents from 32 states and 192 cities or districts. Findings underscore the pervasive negative impacts of COVID-19 on respondents’ housing/living situations, food security, employment, …

Service User Involvement In Social Work Education: Enhancing Student Learning About Intimate Partner Violence, Rebecca Jury

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Men who use intimate partner violence (IPV) are often excluded from service user involvement approaches, including those provided in social work education. This article outlines Australian research in which men who use IPV developed a learning resource, the resource was shown to social work students and student feedback sought through pre- and post-test questionnaires and group discussion. Students reported increased knowledge regarding interpersonal violence, greater awareness of the skills required to engage service users who use IPV and willingness to work alongside service users who are involuntary and/or have multiple issues in future social work placements and practice. The findings …

Finding Aid For The Katye L. Patridge Collection (Mum00137)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

Papers of Katye L. Patridge document her career as a home demonstration agent in the agricultural extension service of Mississippi and Virginia (1924 to 1930) as well as her higher education at Tulane University School of Social Work and a career in social work in the 1930s and 1940s that included employment in Mississippi by the Works Progress Administration, the National Youth Administration, and the State Board of Public Welfare.

Social Workers’ Perceptions On Partnering With Police To Address Violent Police Encounters Towards African Americans, Adrian Springfield

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research documents the pervasiveness of violent police encounters towards African Americans in the United States and importance of a multidisciplinary approach between social workers and police to prevent police violence. However, little is known about social workers perceptions and experiences on partnering with police to address violent police encounters towards African Americans. Informed by Tuckman’s group formation theory and Bell’s critical race theory, the purpose of this generic qualitative inquiry study was to explore social workers in the United States perceptions and experiences on partnering with police to address violent police encounters toward African Americans. Using semistructured interviews, data was …

The Perspectives Of Former Csec On The Recruitment Process Through Online Platforms, Shawnte Beacham-Houston

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is the sexual exploitation of children for financial gain and is a billion-dollar industry. The sexual exploitation of children is a serious form of sexual abuse and a violation of their human rights. Previous research has explored sex trafficking victimization but not pathways to sexual exploitation. Current research does not explain how online activities and specific internet platforms are involved in CSEC recruitment and entry into the commercial sex trade industry. In this study, the way in which social media platforms are used to recruit children into the sex trade industry was addressed. The …

Mental Health-Medical Crisis Team Impact On First Responder Outcomes On Persons With Mental Illness, Mary Josephine Lakey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Persons with mental illness (PMIs) are 16 times more likely to experience harm when interacting with police than individuals without mental illness. This inequity has recently become prominent in American discourse due to the ubiquitous use of cell phones and social media, where videos of incidents between police and PMIs circulate. In this generic qualitative research, members of a collaborative mental health and emergency medical service professionals (EMSPs) team in an urban area were interviewed to assess the team members’ perceptions of the impact of the program on frequency of adverse outcomes during interactions with PMIs. The theoretical framework for …

How Being Aware Of Military Culture Influences Social Work Practice With Female Military Personnel, John Raymond Gonzalez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Active-duty women in the military seek help through the Family Advocacy Program (FAP) on military bases from social workers with a master’s degree in social work (MSW) who are hired by the federal government or by firms that contract with social workers to serve military personnel. Most of those social workers have no military background per se, which brings into question how being aware of the military culture might influence their practice with female military personnel. Grounded in self-awareness theory, which places focus on one's awareness relative to one's culture and environment at any time, the purpose of this action …

School Social Workers’ Perceptions Of Compassion Fatigue Syndrome, Gloria I. Collazo Cartagena

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

School social workers face domestic violence, trauma, social violence, and mental and emotional health problems in their work context. Indeed, compassion fatigue results from professionals’ continuous exposure to these problems. This study explored school social work professionals’ perceptions of compassion fatigue. For this, the following questions were explored:the perception of school social workers working for the Puerto Rico Department of Education about compassion fatigue.

Development Of A Capacity Building Program To Promote Trauma-Informed Services, Juan Miguel Medina

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Wichita County, Texas experienced decreased academic performances of elementary level children in 24 out of 45 communities. Higher numbers of traumatic experiences increase a child's risk of not meeting developmental benchmarks. The purpose of this capstone project is to support the development of a trauma-informed capacity-building program. Ungar's resiliency theory was used to understand the factors related to building resilience in children to prevent trauma. Using action research, the researcher explored how developing program content may improve an agency's system readiness to deliver effective trauma-informed care. Data were collected from a focus group with local social workers. Content analysis was …

Child Welfare Workers’ Development Of Cultural Competency For Clients In Poverty, Rachel Armstead

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Children of families living in poverty are at a higher risk of being victims of child maltreatment than children of families not living in poverty. Many families involved in the child welfare system live in poverty and have low socioeconomic status. The National Association of Social Workers requires all social workers to have a level of cultural awareness, knowledge, and skill to engage clients from diverse cultures. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore child welfare workers’ understanding of cultural competence and their implementation of culturally sensitive practices as they engage clients living in poverty. Bacote’s cultural competence …

Educators’ Perception Of Their Psychosocial Support Of Elementary Students In Gabon, Africa, Michel Ikamba

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Although educators internationally have often provided care to vulnerable students who struggle to meet the needs of nutrition, health, protection, and access to essential social services, no formal social systems exist in Gabon to aid educators who work with these students. In the absence of relevant local research and drawing on Dewey’s theory of progressive education as a conceptual model, this basic qualitative study asked about educators’ perceptions in limited resource elementary schools in Gabon of the social needs and strategies employed with students who demonstrated signs of disengagement and alienation. Qualitative data collection included semi-structured recorded interviews with 12 …

Social Workers’ Role In School Discipline Of Black Male Students, Teresa L. Cooper

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

School administrators enforce various forms of school discipline, including office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions, as strategies to maintain safe learning environments for students and staff. Over four decades of research indicate Black male students experience more consequences and receive tougher school discipline than their peers of other races. School discipline potentially causes adverse outcomes for students. Schools employ social workers to support behavior and academic needs of students. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore lived experiences of school social workers in their role in school discipline of Black male students. The theoretical framework used for this study …

Intersectional Invisibility Of Black Lgbtqia+ Client Strategies For Bias And Discrimination Prevention, Dr. Tonya Y. Griffith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Abstract Those who identify as members of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities have been victims of bias and prejudicial attitudes. Because LGBTQIA+ people embody all cultures, races, religious convictions, and socioeconomic statuses, this creates additional barriers for some community members who identify as both Black and LGBTQIA+. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore social workers’ perceptions of intersectional invisibility when working with Black LGBTQIA+ clients and the strategies that social workers identify as beneficial in averting discrimination and bias when working with this community. Implicit bias theory and intersectionality theory …

The Program To Reduce Implicit Bias In Carroll Hospital Center Using The Implicit Association Test, Katherine E. Traynor

Capstone Showcase

Natural brain processes make all individuals susceptible to unconscious bias; however, stressful, fearful, or anger-evoking situations as well as the negative influence of media and social surroundings increase the risk of holding obstructive bias, and there is a greater risk of being negatively impacted by this phenomenon when belonging to a minority population (Rose & Flores, 2020). As a result, high rates of infant mortality (10.2 deaths per 1,000 live births for the Non-Hispanic Black population compared to 4.1 in the White population) and cardiovascular related diseases (190.0 cases per 1,000 in the Non-Hispanic Black population compared to 161.3 in …

Learning About Others In Multiculturalist Social Service's Curriculum In Finland: Transnational Feminism, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, And Politics Of Othering In The Curriculum, Jenni Lampinen

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Social work education aims to train competent professionals to answer the needs of changing populations and society. Education includes theoretical and practical components that offer the frames for social work at different levels of society; personal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural. Primarily, multicultural social work focuses on working with populations with diverse ethnic, cultural, and racial identities that often differ from the majority population. Multicultural social work can be seen as a bridge between minority communities and society. This research was implemented using discourse analysis to examine the social services program’s curriculum of one University of Applied Sciences in the Helsinki …

Beyond The Covid-19 Pandemic: The Importance Of Social Determinants Of Health In Educating Healthcare Leaders, Tashuna Albritton, Miguel Muñoz-Laboy, Umadevi Yokeeswaran, Marlene Camacho-Rivera

Publications and Research

As scholars of color and educators in the health professions, we are compelled to advocate for the inclusion of the study of health disparities and social determinants of health (SDOH) throughout higher education to understand, analyze, and effectively respond to healthcare access disparities, including COVID-19 disparities, in Black and Latinx communities across the United States. In addition to our identities and lived experiences, healthcare access disparities and their root causes are woven throughout the courses that we teach in the departments of social medicine, social work, and social and behavioral sciences.

Working With Others In The Mentoring Relationship System, Thomas E. Keller

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

A mentoring relationship typically doesn’t operate in isolation. Even youth who want or need additional support from a mentor are bound to have many other important people in their lives, such as parents and other caregivers, siblings, teachers, and peers. Consequently, a mentor already may have or may need to establish relationships with other people in the mentee’s network of support. Because these other individuals, and a mentor’s interactions with them, have the potential to enhance or detract from the mentoring experience, they are all important parts of the “mentoring relationship system.”

This chapter outlines important considerations for how to …

Intervention Development To Improve Foster Youth Mental Health By Targeting Coping Self-Efficacy And Help-Seeking, Jennifer Blakeslee, Brianne H. Kothari, Rebecca Miller

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study articulates the iterative development of an intervention called Strengthening Youth Networks and Coping (SYNC), which is designed to target coping self-efficacy and help-seeking intentions and behaviors among youth in foster care. The overarching goal is to design an intervention that will be a feasible and acceptable enhancement to existing child welfare services, and that will address modifiable determinants among adolescents involved in child welfare system that are related to elevated risk for mental health challenges, limited support network capacity, and service disengagement after exiting foster care. In this paper, we describe our initial needs assessment, explain how we …

Volume 49, Issue 4 (2022)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

No abstract provided.

Non-Physician’S Challenges In Sexual And Reproductive Health Care Provision For Women Of Reproductive Age With Cancer: A Scoping Review Of Barriers And Facilitators, Qi Chen, Emma Carpenter, Kari White

Publications and Research

Purpose: The American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice guidelines recommend that non-physicians such as nurses, social workers, psychologists should be prepared to discuss fertility and sexual concerns with patients. However, literature showed that the utilization rate of sexual and reproductive care for women with cancer remained low. We conducted a scoping review to describe non-physicians’ roles, barriers and facilitators providing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care to women of reproductive age with cancer.

Methods: We searched six databases for articles that met the following criteria: 1) English-language; 2) original research; 3) non-physician providers; 4) women with cancer under …