Social Work Commons^™

Determinants Of Hiv-Risk Sexual Behaviors Among Zambian Adolescents: The Role Of Gendered Power, Sherinah K. Saasa, Orion Mowbray

Faculty Publications

Sub-Saharan African adolescents account for a disproportionate share of the global HIV infection rates with adolescent females carrying the heavy burden. Vulnerability to negative sexual health outcomes have been attributed to varying life contexts and power differentials influencing adolescent sexual behaviors. Using social dominance theory and the four bases of gendered power, this study examines the relationship between gender based power and adolescent HIV-risk sexual behavior. Data was derived from the 2013‐14 Zambia Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS). We utilize gender stratified multivariate logistic regression to determine whether the four bases of gendered power are predictive of condom use and multiple …

Integrating Youth Participation And Ecosocial Work: New Possibilities To Advance Environmental And Social Justice, Tania Schusler, Amy Krings, Melissa Hernández

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

This article reveals possibilities to expand the role of youth within ecosocial work practice. The Where I Stand Youth Summit held in Chicago, Illinois, provided a safe space for young people to reflect upon their understanding of, and roles within, social and environmental justice movements. Drawing upon critical youth empowerment theory and participant observation, we note that youth shared experiences of oppression across unique social identities, while displaying authentic communication, acceptance, and desire for solidarity. Re-defining what knowledge matters, along with intention and self-restoration, also emerged as critical to building young people’s agency and power to effect social change.

Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Child Welfare Workers, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

Other QIC-WD Products

There is growing evidence to suggest that child welfare workers are experiencing high levels of secondary traumatic stress (STS) as a result of exposure to traumatized clients in crisis (e.g., Barbee, et al, 2018). The Quality Improvement Center on Workforce Development (QIC-WD) surveyed 1,113 front line child welfare workers in 13 jurisdictions between November, 2017 and March, 2018 using the Bride (2007) Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale as part of a comprehensive workforce needs assessment. An average of 54% of participants reported clinical levels of STS. When these elevated numbers are compared to the original Bride research of social workers, they …

Work Experiences Of Rural Social Workers In The United States, Jayme E. Walters, Aubrey E. Jones, Aaron R. Brown

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Rural social workers face unique challenges and opportunities as they seek to address the needs of rural Americans. Using social media, rural social workers in the U.S. were recruited to describe their characteristics and explore factors related to their job satisfaction, burnout, and organizational commitment. Analyses included univariate descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, and multiple regression. The sample (N = 192) represented 146 counties in 36 states. Participants tended to be White, female, MSW-degreed direct-service providers. Participants were moderately satisfied with their organizational environments and workloads. Age, being Black, and working in settings other than child welfare were most strongly related …

Hope, Courage, And Resilience In The Lives Of Transgender Women Of Color, Nadine Ruff, Amy B. Smoyer, Jean Breny

The Qualitative Report

There is a lack of qualitative and strengths-based knowledge about the lived experience of transgender women of color in the US. To address this research gap, a Photovoice project was undertaken with five transgender women living in a small urban area. Thematic analysis of the participants’ discussion of their photographs identified three major themes: hope, courage, and resilience. Analysis suggests a framework for understanding these women’s lived experiences and the psychosocial tools that they use to negotiate their daily lives and persevere in the face of interpersonal and structural oppression.

Upstream Predictors Of The Need For Developmental Education Among First-Year Community College Students, Mathew C. Uretsky, Stacey L. Shipe, Angela K. Henneberger

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective/Research Question. How do student- and school-level factors measured in the final year of high school contribute to the odds of a student being assessed to need remediation in Math during the students’ first community college enrollment? Methods. The present study draws on five years of linked secondary and post-secondary administrative records and includes the academic records for 18,814 students attending 228 high schools across 24 jurisdictions in Maryland. We used a series of multilevel models (MLM) to address the research question. Results. Using MLM, we identified both student and school-level factors, drawn from the final year of high school, …

The Importance Of Macro Practice Emphasis In Social Work Education, Nafees Alam

Social Work Faculty Publications

Social work education programs across the United States continue to contend with the economic pressures of developing curricula that are financially viable in a highly competitive academic market. Fund allocation to create and develop macro programs depends on funders and donors having a close and consistent association with the institution’s environment, processes and practices. Marketing is at the forefront of organizational and institutional success. Thus, recruiting and graduating students specifically for and from the macro concentration would make for mutually beneficial relationships between students looking to maximize their career potential and programs looking to maximize their enrollment and outreach.

Life Satisfaction And Healthcare Utilization Among Immigrants To The United States, Merritt Christian Rachel Harrelson

LSU Master's Theses

Previous research suggests a relationship between life satisfaction and healthcare utilization or HCU (Habibov & Afandi, 2016; Kim, Park, Sun, Smith, & Peterson, 2014). However, no study was found that examined this relationship among elderly American immigrants. The purpose of this study was to determine whether life satisfaction is linked to HCU for this population. The researcher of the current study applied binary logistic regression to data taken from the Health and Retirement Survey to determine whether changes in life satisfaction could be linked to variance in HCU across seven domains, including hospitalization, overnight nursing home stays, doctors visits, dentist …

Scaling-Up Child And Youth Mental Health Services: Assessing Coverage Of A County-Wide Initiative, Cole Douglas Hooley

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Over 7 million children and youth have a diagnosable mental illness any given year. There are evidence-based treatments (EBTs) to effectively treat these conditions, but these EBTs reach a very small percentage of their target population with treatment rates between 1-3%.1 We know very little about what influences these coverage rates. Beginning in 2009, the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department (LACDMH) began an ambitious agenda to scale-up the provision of EBTs in child/youth mental health care. The present study seeks to contribute to the scale-up literature by examining three questions based on LACDMH’s initiative: 1) To what extent have …

Trajectories And Patterns Of Wealth In Later Life: Implications For Physical, Mental, And Cognitive Health, Yu-Chih Chen

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to contribute to our understanding of the longitudinal link between wealth and health in later life. Prior research on the wealth-health relationship has focused on general households, with little consideration for older adults. Further, several gaps are identified in the literature. For example, studies often utilize a shorter window of observation and treat wealth as a static measure without considering the trajectory and the heterogeneity of wealth over time. In addition, prior studies often explore the impact of wealth on a single aspect of health, ignoring the “codependent” nature of health at older ages. Further, the impacts …

Caseworker Turnover In Foster Care Services: Problem Or Symptom? A System Dynamics Approach, Marian Joan Stahlschmidt

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Problem: Child welfare (CW) caseworkers perform a crucial role in our society--ensuring the safety, permanency, and well-being of one of our most vulnerable populations, victims of child maltreatment. Yet, since its inception in the early 20th century, CW, including foster care services, has been plagued by high turnover rates that have been associated with delayed permanency and recurrent maltreatment. This dissertation aimed to develop a dynamic hypothesis about the system structure that produces turnover in foster care services, to create a formal system dynamics simulation model representing the problem, to develop an intervention to reduce the problem, and to test …

No Money In Social Work - Negotiating Compensation For Social Workers, Nafees Alam

Social Work Faculty Publications

The compensatory legitimacy of social work is closely tied to the societal legitimacy of the profession. Much like the trajectory of the nursing profession of old, social workers carry the burden of negotiating and advocating on behalf of themselves in achieving optimal compensation, indicative of their professional and academic accord. Accessing and interpreting organizational financials, being aware of potential dead-end promotions and alternatives to higher compensation and formulating strategies in negotiating compensation, practicing self-advocacy, are of utmost importance in this endeavor. The coalition of social workers across the nation can band together to achieve fair and just compensation for all …

Collective Survival Strategies And Anti-Colonial Practice In Ecosocial Work, Finn Mclafferty Bell, Mary Kate Dennis, Amy Krings

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

Oppressed communities have long used strategies of caring for and protecting each other to ensure their collective survival. We argue for ecosocial workers to critically interrogate how agency, history, and culture structure environmental problems and our responses to them, by developing a resilience-based framework, collective survival strategies (CSS). CSS consider power, culture and history and build upon the strengths of oppressed communities facing global environmental changes. We challenge the dominant narrative of climate change as a “new” problem and connect it to colonization. We discuss implications by examining a social work program explicitly built on Indigenous knowledges and anti-colonial practice.

Who Will Help Children? Building Brain Regimes, William F. Tate Iv

Center for Social Development Research

“Why can’t we organize public–private partnerships to protect and to nurture the brains of our children?”

In this Perspective, William Tate IV makes the case for constructing brain regimes—public–private partnerships designed to nurture and support the healthy development of children. Illuminating the ways in which communities and schools shape individual outcomes in Missouri, he offers seven evidence-based recommendations for fostering brain development and positive outcomes.

Who Will Help Children? Building Regional Brain Regimes is based in part on “Beyond Education Triage: Building Brain Regimes in Metropolitan America,” Chapter 11 in Facing Segregation: Housing Policy Solutions for a Stronger Society …

The Impact Of Social Media On Self- Perception Among College Students, Ariana Galante, Nafees Alam

Social Work Faculty Publications

Background: Many today view the world through the lens of social media. Identity management on social media platforms elicit numerous disadvantages regarding individuals and how they perceive themselves relative to the outside world. It can be difficult to oppose the idea that social media triggers the detriment of mental well-being, potentially altering the perception of self. This study aims to bridge the existing gap in literature between social media and self-perception among college students. Methods: This quantitative study employed an 11-item questionnaire. The study was broken down into three crucial components. The first component produced affect-related statements about social media …

Proving Their Love: Violence And Gender Norms In Descriptions Of Relationships Among Rural Mexican Adolescents, Heidi Adams Rueda, Steven Hoffman, Kaitlin Grytza

Social Work Faculty Publications

Mexican youth from impoverished areas are at increased risk for experiencing relationship violence. Research in the United States has suggested that perpetration may be contextualized by culturally-influenced gender values, specifically performance of negative aspects of male masculinity (i.e., machismo) and its female counterpart (i.e., marianismo). This study utilized focus group methods to explore how middle school adolescents (N = 98) from a rural area of Central Mexico differentiate between healthy and unhealthy dating relationships.

We evoked a feminist developmental lens to interpret themes which centralized males as physical and sexual aggressors and to offer culturally-relevant program and practice recommendations.

Drug Use Behaviors: A Needs Assessment Of Treatment Providers, Rachel Lubischer, Jodi Gabel, Lynn Castrianno, Kristina Faimon, Dawne Frain, Jeanette Harder, Josie Schafer, Gaylene Armstrong

Reports

The goal of this needs assessment is to better understand individuals’ drug-use behaviors in Nebraska through the lens of treatment providers. The results of this study will aid the Drug Overdose Prevention (DOP) program in providing training and other resources to treatment centers, focusing prevention efforts, and informing the statewide crisis response plan and future studies. Ultimately, this study will support DOP’s efforts to reduce opioid-involved fatal and non-fatal overdoses in Nebraska.

Early Progression To Active Tuberculosis Is A Highly Heritable Trait Driven By 3q23 In Peruvians, Yang Luo, Sara Suliman, Samira Asagari, Tiffany Amariuta, Yuriy Baglaenko, Marta Martinez-Bonet, Kazuyoshi Ishigaki, Maria Gutierrez-Arcelus, Roger Calderon, Jerome Galea

Social Work Faculty Publications

Of the 1.8 billion people worldwide infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, 5–15% will develop active tuberculosis (TB). Approximately half will progress to active TB within the first 18 months after infection, presumably because they fail to mount an effective initial immune response. Here, in a genome-wide genetic study of early TB progression, we genotype 4002 active TB cases and their household contacts in Peru. We quantify genetic heritability h_g² of early TB progression to be 21.2% (standard error 0.08). This suggests TB progression has a strong genetic basis, and is comparable to traits with well-established genetic bases. We …

Depression Screening And Treatment Among Disparity Populations In Primary Care: A Retrospective Analysis Of Electronic Health Records Data, Afsaneh Rezaeizadeh

Social Work Theses - Archive

Depression is a common and costly chronic medical illness seen in health care settings, including primary care. Disparity populations in community settings are at risk for depression, but less likely to seek treatment for symptoms. This paper explores the screening, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up patterns of depression in nine community clinics throughout North Texas. A retrospective study design was used to analyze electronic health record data in 2017. A total of 11,803 patients visited nine community care clinics in 2017. PHQ-2 counts were collected to assess for screening rates, while PHQ-9 counts were collected to assess for follow-up rates in …

Intervention Response To The Trauma-Exposed, Female Juvenile Offender: A Review Of Effectiveness In Reducing Recidivism, Ashley M. Thomann

Social Work Theses - Archive

When analyzed by general factors of effectiveness (Lispsey, 2009) and concepts of gender-responsivity (Day, Zahn, & Tichavsky, 2015) that target the needs of female juvenile-justice involved youth, reviewed studies show the concomitant need to address trauma-based mental health concerns with attention to the quality of implementation and appropriateness of setting in which the intervention is effectuated. Findings show effective intervention for this population aims to target the youth's negative internal mechanisms related to trauma-subsequent psychosocial problems. These studies further suggest that trauma-sensitive modalities have the potential to mitigate further risk of problematic external behaviors. This position of this review is …