Social Work Commons^™

The Impact Of Paternal Involvement And United States Stay Length On Latino Youth's Depressive Symptoms, Christine Marie Bishop, Sara Makki Alamdari

Faculty Publications

Latino youth in the United States are more at-risk for depression than youth of other ethnic backgrounds. This manuscript assesses the impacts of sex, age, United States stay length, and whether or not Latino children of immigrants’ fathers live with them on the youth’s depressive symptoms. For this purpose, data of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study was used. Using multiple regression analysis, the relationships among the aforementioned factors were examined among 1305 immigrant youth who were born in Latin America and Caribbean countries. The results of the study indicated that being male, living with one’s father and longer stay …

Divergent Caregiver And Youth Perspectives Regarding Behavioral Health Needs And Psychosocial Functioning: An Exploratory Study, Isaac Karikari, Betty Walton, Christine Marie Bishop

Faculty Publications

Background. To promote effectiveness in behavioral health treatment, the system of care framework and wraparound model accentuate inclusion of family and youth as important stakeholders, not just as consumers. This has challenged conventional practices; and youth and caregivers' perspectives have become integral to treatment planning and service delivery. This study explored caregivers and youth's perspectives of behavioral health needs and psychosocial functioning. Methods. This exploratory study utilized data collected in a Midwestern, suburban county as part of the national Child and Family Study of youth with complex behavioral health needs enrolled in the Child Mental Health Wraparound initiative. The sample …

Evaluating Neighborhood, Social, And Genetic Influences On Precursors Of Alcohol Use Risk Behavior In African American Adolescents, Kimberly S. Compton, Peter Barr, Katherine J. Karriker-Jaffe, Cristina Bares, Fazil Aliev, Brian Mustanski, Danielle Dick, Karen G. Chartier

Social Work Publications

Background: Using a socioecological framework, we examined neighborhood and social stressors in concert with genetic risk for alcohol dependence in relation to externalizing behaviors, important precursors to alcohol-related problems.

Methods: We used data from African American adolescents and their caregivers in the Gene, Environment, and Neighborhood Initiative, a subsample of the Mobile Youth and Poverty Study. Participants for the current analyses included 112 adolescents who reported ever having at least one full drink of alcohol. Empirical Bayes scores were used to estimate neighborhood-level violence and transitions. Multivariate models tested main effects and then interactions of family stressors, discrimination, …

Retention Of Child Welfare Caseworkers: The Wisdom Of Supervisors, Austin G. Griffiths, Patricia Desrosiers, Jay Gabbard, David Royse, Kristine Piescher

Social Work Faculty Publications

Child welfare supervisors have a unique vantage point, leading local service delivery efforts while representing a larger organizational bureaucracy. They also play a key role in workforce stability, as high caseworker turnover remains a real problem that affects clients, communities, and agency budgets. Using a qualitative thematic content analysis to analyze data collected from a sample of public child welfare supervisors in a southern state (n=117), findings from this study provide suggestions for systematically addressing workforce turnover through the unique perspective of the child welfare supervisor. Supervisors made recommendations to improve agency infrastructure, organizational climate, and organizational culture as areas …

"We Were Queens": Historical Loss Among Native Hawaiians: Exploring Historical Trauma-Informed Suicide Prevention, Antonia Rose Garriga Alvarez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Native Hawaiian people, and especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, māhū and/or queer (LGBTQM) Native Hawaiians, face health and mental health disparities that are disproportionate when compared with other racial/ethnic minorities in Hawai`i, and when compared to the United States as a whole. Native Hawaiians have the highest mortality rates for numerous biomedical diseases, including higher rates of substance abuse, diabetes, and even asthma, of any ethnic group in the state of Hawai`i (Andrade et al., 2006; Liu & Alameda, 2011). Suicide rates, in particular, have been rising since Hawai`i began collecting data in 1908 (Else & Andrade, 2008), and continue …

Locked Out And Locked Up: Assessing The Relationship Between Housing Instability And Recidivism For People With Criminal Drug Records Using A General Strain Theory Framework, Mark Paul Plassmeyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

More than 32.5 million Americans have been arrested for drug offenses since 1996 contributing to the fact that currently nearly as many Americans have a criminal record as a college degree. After an arrest for a drug offense, often regardless of whether one is convicted, people are subject to civil penalties known as collateral sanctions. These sanctions include restrictions on access to subsidized housing, financial benefits, student loans, employment, and important aspects of civic life such as voting or holding office.

Due to recent recidivism rates - over 75% for people exiting prison with a drug record - researchers and …

Working Together To Achieve Safe And Timely Reunification: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Interprofessional Collaboration In The Child Welfare System, Jon D. Phillips

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Various professionals play a role in ensuring that foster children achieve safe and timely reunification, including child protective services caseworkers, guardians ad litem, mental health therapists and substance abuse counselors. Guided by ecological systems and relational coordination theories, this mixed methods dissertation explored how communication and joint decision-making between these professionals - two key components of interprofessional collaboration (IPC) - affects the safe and timely reunification of foster children

The quantitative phase involved analysis of administrative data collected from one urban county in a mountain region state. Logistic regressions were run to test if caseworker communication and joint decision-making with …

Disrupting Adultism: Practices That Enable Or Constrain Intergroup Contact Between Youth And Adults, Heather K. Kennedy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: The systematic subordination of young people who have little access to goods, resources, and power to make decisions is called adultism (Dejong & Love, 2015). Adultism has three components: attitudinal, institutional, and internalized. Attitudinal adultism, which is the focus of this dissertation, relates to adult's negative attitudes and beliefs regarding young people. Adultism intersects with other forms of oppression in after-school programs and likely impacts outcomes. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is an orientation to knowledge production in which youth are positioned as experts in their own lives and work collectively with adults to identify an issue, collect data, …

Evaluation Of A Sexual Health Training For Child Welfare Workers, Katie Massey Comsb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Elevated rates of early pregnancy and parenting among youth in foster care (YFC) are well documented. Training child welfare workers to provide sexual health information and resources is stated throughout the extant literature as a pressing need in efforts to prevent unintended pregnancy among YFC. However, few child welfare agencies offer such training to their workers, and little is known about the extent to which conversations about sexual and reproductive health already occur between child welfare workers and youth. Thus, this study aimed to: a) assess baseline attitudes, knowledge, and communication among child welfare workers regarding sexual health of …

Self-Determination Theory As A Framework For Understanding Needs Of Youth At-Risk: Perspectives Of Social Service Professionals And The Youth Themselves, Tania Nagpaul, Jinwen Chen

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

While there is evidence from the self-determination perspective for the positive impact of self-determination interventions on at-risk youth's transition outcomes, no research to date, has attempted to understand youth needs from both social service provider and youth client perspectives in the same study. The present study sought to generate a nuanced understanding of youth needs. For this purpose, the study was conducted in two phases. In phase1, twenty-one social service professionals (case workers, social workers, counsellors, program supervisors) were interviewed to get an understanding of their perception of youth needs and how they are being met. In phase 2, 45 …

A Queer Ethic Of Conflict And The Challenge Of Friendship. Review Of Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, And The Duty Of Repair, David S. Byers

Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Syllabus And Lecture Slides For A Revised Social Work Practice Course On Diagnosing With The Dsm-5 Using Case Studies And Active Learning Techniques To Enhance Student Engagement., James D. Simon

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

Syllabus and lecture slides for a revised social work practice course on diagnosing with the DSM-5 using case studies and active learning techniques to enhance student engagement.

The following syllabus and lecture slides were completed as part of the Newer Faculty Learning Center (NFLC) grant to increase the use of high-impact content and pedagogy among new faculty. The syllabus and lectures slides provide an example of how to embed case studies, an evidence-based teaching (EBT) strategy (Herreid, 2011), into a social work foundation practice course on diagnosing with the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). This particular EBT was implemented primarily …

2019 Evaluation Report For Omaha Girls Rock–A Youth Empowerment Organization, Dawne Frain, Jessica Groeneweg, Jeanette Harder

Reports

Purpose of Evaluation
Omaha Girls Rock invited Support and Training for the Evaluation of Programs (STEPs) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha to assess processes and outcomes for the 2019 Girls Rock summer camp program. STEPs evaluators endeavored to discover the degree to which Girls Rock achieved program outcomes of growth mindset, confidence, skill development, teamwork, and future focus for participants in their 2019 summer camp. STEPs evaluators accomplished this by 1) observing and recording behaviors during a full day of camp programming, 2) analyzing camper survey data and demographics provided by Girls Rock, and 3) conducting post-camp phone …

Heart Faculty: Jacelyn Lim, Ishan Singh

Social Space

Meet Jacelyn Lim, 46, Deputy Executive Director of the Autism Resource Centre,1 a Singapore-based NPO that serves children and adults with autism spectrum disorder. Through advocacy and provision of services spanning education, employment and training, it hopes to empower individuals with ASD to lead meaningful and independent lives. ARC also manages The Art Faculty,2 whosemerchandise features the works of artists with special needs. For every product you purchase at TAF, differently-abled artists receive royalties and learn the value of work and financial independence. ISHAN SINGH catches up with Jacelyn to find out more about what she does and how art …

The Beat Goes On: Arthur Choo, Ishan Singh

Social Space

Meet Arthur Choo, 31, artiste and founder of BEAT’ABOX Group, a cajon school in Singapore.Besides performing and conducting workshops for companies and schools, Arthur and his team hope to make the cajon (pronounced “kah-hone”, a wooden box played like a drum) the bridge between society and marginalised groups, including at-risk youth, senior citizens and people with disabilities. There are no barriers to taking up this art form at BEAT’ABOX—there are cajons specially designed for the hearing-impaired (they light up when struck), smaller-sized cajons that can fit into the laps of the wheelchair- bound, and so on. ISHAN SINGH speaks to …

"How Do I Look?": The Fashion Industry Needs A Makeover, Trang Chu Minh

Social Space

Despite the rise of socially responsible businesses and conscious shoppers, the fashion industry seems to be falling behind. It is common to read reports of clothing brands whose ethics and manufacturing practices are called into question—some even accused of slavery in their supply chains. But errant retailers aside, one still wonders: given the seasonal nature of what’s “on trend” and the prevalence of “fast fashion”, can this industry ever break out of the cycle of overproduction and overconsumption?

Review Of Broke And Patriotic: Why Poor Americans Love Their Country, Peter A. Kindle

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Review of Broke and Patriotic: Why Poor Americans Love Their Country

Rural Community Development As A Teaching Environment For Cross-Professional Training In Macro Social Work And Community And Regional Planning, Elizabeth Shay, Maureen Macnamara

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

A rural community development project combined faculty and students from two courses (community and regional planning, and social work practice in groups, communities, and organizations) housed in different colleges (Arts and Sciences, and Health Sciences, respectively) at a medium-sized public university in a small Appalachian community. The project required students from two different courses to cooperate on data collection, and collaborate on analysis and recommendations, in an exploratory effort at cross-professional training focusing on social work and community development in a rural region.

School Social Workers: Important Assets In Rural Areas, Dana C. Branson

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

As the American educational system continues to evolve and take on more social service responsibilities for students, their families, and the community, the need for school social workers has intensified. However, the demand considerably exceeds developed positions for school social workers. The increase in awareness of childhood trauma, toxic stress, poverty, and potential to spill over into the classroom places schools in a position where they need to be responsive to students’ multi-faceted needs. This conceptual article will discuss the overwhelming need for school social workers, barriers to obtaining school social workers, and the benefits school social workers can bring.

A Review Of Literature: Identifying Barriers To Academic Success Among Students With Disabilities Attending College In Rural Regions, Kaycee Lynn Bills

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

College students who have disabilities are an oppressed population that faces many challenges related to accessibility barriers in higher education located in rural environments. The number of adults with disabilities attending college has been steadily increasing over the past decade. As the number of college students with disabilities continues to rise, it is essential for researchers to identify the barriers education attainment barriers they face in rural college settings. This study is a systematic review of literature that analyze past studies in order identify the challenges students with disabilities face in higher education settings located in rural regions. It also …