Social Work Commons^™

First Jobs Academy Enhanced Management Training: Curriculum For Employers Of Child Welfare Involved Youth, Amy Beaulieu (Ed.) Mssw, Lcsw

Children, Youth, & Families

First Jobs Academy Enhanced Management Training prepares community employers to successfully hire and retain youth in the child welfare system. Training sessions are designed to help employers understand the strengths and struggles these youth bring to the world of work in order to increase opportunities for success.

The Enhanced Management Training program provides employers with basic information and context about working effectively with youth, specifically youth in the foster care system. In the First Jobs Academy model, employers are called “business mentors” to highlight their importance in providing youth with direct support, modeling, and encouragement at the worksite. Business mentors …

Failure Of Intimate Partner Violence Screening Among Patients With Substance Use Disorders, Esther K. Choo, Christina Nicolaidis, Robert H. Jenkinson, Jessi M. Cox, Kenneth J. Mcconnell

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objectives: This study examined the relationship between substance use disorder (SUD) and intimate partner violence screening (IPV) and management practices in the emergency department (ED). Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of adult ED patients presenting to an urban, tertiary care teaching hospital over a 4-month period. An automated electronic data abstraction process identified consecutive patients and retrieved visit characteristics, including results of three violence screening questions, demographic data, triage acuity, time of visit, and ICD-9 diagnosis codes. Data on management were collected using a standardized abstraction tool by two reviewers masked to the study question. Multivariate logistic regression …

Saving For Post-Secondary Education In American Indian Communities, Amy Locklear Hertel, Mary Elizabeth Jäger

Center for Social Development Research

Saving for Post-Secondary Education in American Indian Communities

How Young Adults With Mental Health Conditions Use The Internet To Access Mental Health Information And Support, L. Kris Gowen, Matthew Deschaine

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presentation that probes how young adults with significant mental health challenges use the internet, specifically as it relates to finding information and "self-diagnosis." The authors explore how youth with mental health challenges use the internet, and share the results of three Oregon focus groups. Also discussed is how online sources are evaluated, and barriers facing seekers of health information online.

Youth Savings In Developing Countries: Trends In Practice, Gaps In Knowledge, Jamie Zimmerman, Jamie M. Zimmerman, David Ansong, Shweta S. Banerjee, Ray Boshara, Gina Chowa, Rani Deshpande, Lissa Johnson, Rainier Masa, Kate Mckee, Margaret Miller, Margaret Sherraden, Michael Sherraden, Fred Ssewamala, Thierry Van Bastelaer, Jamie M. Zimmerman, Li Zou

Center for Social Development Research

Youth Savings in Developing Countries: Trends in Practice, Gaps in Knowledge

Perceived Impacts Of International Service On Volunteers: Interim Results From A Quasi-Experimental Study, Amanda Moore Mcbride, Benjamin J. Lough, Margaret Sherrard Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

There is growing interest in the potential of international service to foster international understanding between peoples and nations and to promote global citizenship and intercultural cooperation, and international service may be growing in prevalence worldwide. Despite the scale of international service, its impacts are not well understood. Although there is a growing body of descriptive evidence about the various models and intended outcomes of international service, the overwhelming majority of research is based on case and cross-sectional studies, which do not permit conclusions about the impacts of international service. This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study that assesses perceptions of …

Saving For Post-Secondary Education In American Indian Communities: A Geospatial And Quantitative Analysis, Amy Locklear Hertel, Mary Elizabeth Jäger

Center for Social Development Research

A college education is critical to achieving financial stability in the United States. Empirical evidence linking college completion to higher incomes supports this assertion (Bergman, 2006). Every child should have the opportunity to obtain a post-secondary education and achieve financial stability. However, little is known about the practices and behaviors of American Indians when it comes to saving for post-secondary education. This pilot study is the first in this regard. There are two objectives for this study. The first is to assess spatially NC 529 College Savings Plan (NC 529 Plan or Plan) awareness and ownership among American Indian participants …

Developing Brokered Community Transportation For Seniors And People With Disabilities, Jerry D. Marx, Christie Davis, Caitlyn Miftari, Anne Salamone, Wendy Weise

Social Work

Communities are exploring ways to increase transportation coordination to improve access for seniors. One such effort is a brokered transportation system in which one agency serves as the central point of contact for ride information or actually arranging transportation for clients of multiple programs by use of a combination of transportation services. A team of social work faculty and students from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Social Work Outreach Center, a center that provides service learning opportunities to students, collaborated with a local coalition to investigate the specific transportation needs of the region's senior citizens. A total of 641 …

Fathers And Child Welfare: Stories Of Men’S Everyday Life Experiences, Gary Cameron

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

This report explores the life experiences of fathers involved with child welfare services and acts as both a stand-alone document and a companion document to the research report on father’s service experiences with child welfare. This report is intended for multiple audiences including child welfare service providers, community organizations working with men, students and instructors interested in men’s issues, and fathers. A summary of all the men's stories that were analyzed for these two reports are captured in the Fathers and Child Welfare (Story Volume).

Does Context Matter In Determining Psychological Abuse? Effects Of Pattern, Harm, Relationship, And Norms, Dana D. Dehart, Diane R. Follingstad, Alice M. Fields

Faculty and Staff Publications

This study explored contextual influences in determining whether psychologically aggressive actions constitute abuse. One hundred and thirty-one undergraduates completed measures of key experiences, attitudes, and traits, and rated abusiveness of behaviors in a series of vignettes. Vignettes varied contexts in which behaviors occurred, including whether the behavior was a pattern, whether there was harm to the recipient, characteristics of the initiator-recipient relationship, and whether behavior was normative. Results showed no effects for participants' gender, past experiences with psychological aggression, and traits or attitudes. Findings indicated that behaviors were rated as more abusive when harm to recipient was evident. Findings regarding …

Supporting Transition-Aged Youth: One State's Efforts, L. Kris Gowen

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Young adults need specialized services as they age out of children’s mental health care and into adult services. Starting in 1997, Connecticut began to address this need by creating a Young Adult Services (YAS) program, designed to assist those over 18 who had moderate to severe symptoms of mental illness. YAS provides comprehensive service delivery that includes clinical, residential, case management, vocational, and social rehabilitation supports. Major principles that guide the YAS program include: (1) services must be comprehensive and integrated—focusing on one issue without supporting a young adult in other aspects of his or her life is ineffective; (2) …

Focal Point, Volume 24, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

The articles included in this inaugural issue of the "new" Focal Point address "Transitions to Adulthood" from the perspectives of researchers, youth, family, and professionals. [This is the first issue of Focal Point as published by the Research and Training Center for Pathways to Positive Futures; previous issues had been published under the preceding RTC for Family Support and Children's Mental Health.]

Counselor Attitudes Toward The Harm Reduction Approach In Substance Abuse Treatment, Nicole Marie Kyser

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

In the United States, the preferred method for treating alcohol and drug addictions is the abstinence based approach. While most American mental health professionals use this approach, studies over time have demonstrated that relapse rates remain high. In Europe, the harm reduction approach, in which the primary goal is to decrease the harms associated with substance use, is beginning to be implemented as an additional approach to abstinence. Although the outcomes of the harm reduction approach are not yet clear, countries that utilize harm reduction have seen a decrease in crime, wages lost, and hospitalizations due to alcohol and drug …

Edwin E. Witte, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Edwin E. Witte was a Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin and Chairman of the Committee on Economic Security, which oversaw the drafting of the original Social Security Act. Witte is generally acknowledged as the principal author of the Social Security legislation as it went to Congress. In later years, he consulted on the National Labor Relations Act and continued to teach and supervise Ph.D. students.

The Vital Role Of Social Workers In Community Partnerships: The Alliance For Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender And Questioning Youth, Michael P. Dentato, Shelley L. Craig, Mark S. Smith

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

The account of The Alliance for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (GLBTQ) Youth formation offers a model for developing com- munity-based partnerships. Based in a major urban area, this university-community collaboration was spearheaded by social workers who were responsible for its original conceptualization, for generating community support, and for eventual staffing, administration, direct service provision, and program evaluation design. This article presents the strategic development and evolution of this community- based service partnership, highlighting the roles of schools of social work, academics, and social work students in concert with community funders, practitioners and youth, in responding to the needs …

Seoul Hope Plus Savings Accounts: Asset-Building Program For Low-Income Households In Seoul, Mihyun Kim, Jisung Kwon, Sunwook Chung, Hyunmira Hong, Yunju Nam, Youngmi Kim, Eunlye Lee

Center for Social Development Research

Seoul Hope Plus Savings Accounts: Asset-Building Program for Low-Income Households in Seoul

The Basics Of Progressive 529s, Center For Social Development

Center for Social Development Research

The Basics of Progressive 529s

Experiences With Infant Mortality As Reported By Middle Class Black Women In Their Own Words, Lisa Paisley-Cleveland

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Black Middle-Class Women and Pregnancy Loss: A Qualitative Inquiry is the first qualitative research case study of its kind on Black Infant Mortality (BIM) to focus on a target group of black American-born middle-class professional married women who have all lived through the experience of infant loss. This target group allows Lisa Paisley-Cleveland to examine the BIM phenomenon outside the poverty paradigm and issues attached to teenage pregnancy, as well as to explore contributing factors attached to the persistent black and white disparity in infant mortality rates, which according to CDC’s January 2013 report are 12.40 and 5.35 respectively.

This …

When Nurture Becomes Nature: Ethnocentrism In Studies Of Human Development, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This commentary will extend the territory claimed in the target article by identifying several other areas in the social sciences where findings from the WEIRD population have been over-generalized. An argument is made that the root problem is the ethnocentrism of scholars, textbook authors, and social commentators, which leads them to take their own cultural values as the norm.

An Examination Of Caregiving Dyads: Community Dwelling Chronically Ill Older Adults And Their Caregivers, Jessica E. Haxton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increases in life expectancy among older adults raise important concerns about the availability of resources for an aging population living with chronic and debilitating illnesses. Living longer is complicated by the fact that many elders prefer to reside in their homes until medical or other conditions require an alternative living arrangement. The strong desire to remain at home expressed by older persons in the United States has in turn created an increased demand on informal caregiving. Consequently, adult children often bear the burden of providing care to their aging parents. In view of this demand it is critical that research …