Publications

Community-based hybrid nonprofits, defined as organizations that combine social services with organizing or advocacy, play a crucial role at the neighborhood level. Considering their nonconformity to conventional organizational forms, they face specific challenges and advantages in achieving their combined advocacy and service mission. Using neo-institutional theory to provide context to our data, this qualitative study of 18 nonprofits working in one neighborhood examines how hybrid nonprofits are categorized as well as processes for legitimacy for these organizations. We find that at the neighborhood level, hybrid nonprofits are identified as “grassroots” by both hybrids and non-hybrids alike and draw on this “grassroots” identity to achieve legitimacy. We examine the settings for this “grassroots” legitimacy and its challenges and conditions. Through cultivating a better understanding of community-based hybrid nonprofits, this study adds to the literature on how nonprofits provide services and organize at the neighborhood level.

None available.

Local-level, place-based scholarships – synonymous with “promise” scholarships – are a policy strategy to improve college completion in the United States by directing financial aid to students in a particular school, district, or geographical area. There are currently upwards of 90 place-based scholarship programs across the US, most of which share three broad goals: to increase postsecondary access by making college more affordable, to build a college-going culture, and to catalyse economic development by drawing middle- and upper-class families to an area and retaining existing residents. As place-based scholarships grow in popularity and more communities, especially ones seeking economic revitalisation, consider investing resources in their own scholarships, there is interest in what impact, if any, these programs have. This paper reviews the research on place-based scholarships, which demonstrates generally positive effects on district enrolment, postsecondary enrolment and persistence, and housing prices. While there is some evidence of improvement in teacher expectations and school climate, the scholarships have not been associated with fundamental changes inside schools. Although most programs have not been empirically studied, the 33 studies included in this review indicate that place-based scholarships have the potential to foster change within school districts and struggling cities and promote positive student outcomes.

This study examined the temporal relation between self-competence (academic, social, athletic, physical appearance, and close friend) and depressive symptoms in a large, diverse community sample of 636 adolescents. Surveys were administered to all 10th- and 11th-grade students at participating high schools at baseline (mean age = 16.10, SD = .71) and 1 year later. Girls reported higher levels of self-competence in close friendships and more depressive symptoms, whereas boys reported higher levels of self-competence in athletics and physical appearance. However, there were no gender differences in the associations between self-competence and depressive symptoms. Results from autoregressive, cross-lagged path analyses indicated that depressive symptoms predicted self-competence more consistently than self-competence predicted depressive symptoms during middle-late adolescence. Implications for prevention are discussed.

The call to promote social justice sets the social work profession in a political context. In an effort to enhance social workers’ preparedness to engage in political advocacy, this article calls on educators to integrate a broad theoretical understanding of power into social policy curricula. We suggest the use of a multidimensional conceptualization of power that emphasizes mechanisms of decision making, agenda control, and attitude formation. We then apply these mechanisms to demonstrate how two prominent features of contemporary politics—party polarization and racially biased attitudes—affect the ability of social workers to influence policy. Finally, we suggest content that social work educators can integrate to prepare future social workers to engage in strategic and effective social justice advocacy.

Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observation, this article examines how poor African American mothers in Houston, Texas, experience seeking help from the safety net, focusing on mothers’ perceptions and interpretation of the application process. Compared to welfare, seeking help from nonprofits and churches involved little formal surveillance and there was no punitive mechanism involved if mothers did not adhere to the minimal conditions required for participation. Mothers framed this as a preferable option to welfare, which they characterized as intrusive and punitive. However, the absence of formal surveillance practices in nonprofits did not mitigate the need to discern between the deserving and undeserving poor, nor did it ameliorate women’s sense of stigma around seeking help. Mothers were thus ambivalent about utilizing these resources. Further, it was mothers, not welfare caseworkers, who sometimes took on a surveilling role in these settings, scrutinizing themselves and other women and distancing themselves from those they deemed as undeserving. By taking up the same cultural logics of deservingness produced through welfare surveillance and applying them elsewhere, mothers were able to shore up their own sense of personhood and moral worthiness in an environment that threatened both. Yet, the strategies mothers used to distance themselves from others they cast as undeserving may unintentionally reproduce the notion that poor people must be scrutinized when seeking assistance. This logic reinforces the rationale for the surveillance mothers lament and resist in the welfare system.

BSW and MSW social work students are effected by interpersonal violence on campus, yet little is known about their experiences during schooling. This study explored rates of victimization and associated effects since institutional enrollment among a sample of 734 MSW, PhD and BSW social work students across a university system. Over 14% of participants reported sexual violence, 17% reported stalking, and 30% reported sexual harassment. Over 8% reported physical intimate partner violence (IPV) and 19.4% reported psychological IPV. Social work students did not significantly differ from non–social work students in rates of violence, though they reported a significantly greater fear of victimization than other students. Findings illustrate the need for trauma-informed classrooms and awareness of Title IX polices among social work educators.

Higher education is an important pathway to safety for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). Recent work documents tactics of school sabotage (behaviors aimed at sabotaging educational efforts) identified by school staff and IPV advocates. However, the perspectives of current students who are IPV survivors are unexplored. As part of a multiphasic study, 20 semi-structured qualitative interviews with community college students who reported current or recent IPV were conducted. Identified tactics included disrupting child care, emotional abuse tied to school, and using manipulation to limit access to campus or resources. Identified impacts include preventing focus, diminished academic achievement, emotional or mental health challenges, and instilling a desire to overcome.

Economic abuse (EA) comprises tactics of intimate partner violence (IPV) which undermine survivors’ economic self-sufficiency and self-efficacy. Evidence is strong that survivors of IPV who have accessed formal services have experienced a wide range of EA tactics. However, there remains a gap in our understanding of EA experiences for survivors who have not sought IPV services. Thus, this article presents the findings of qualitative interviews with a group of women attending community college (n = 20) who screened as having experienced intimate partner violence in their current or most recent relationship but who have never sought formal IPV services. Four themes emerged: (1) economic control, (2) economic exploitation, (3) economic manipulation, and (4) the economics of safety. The voices of these survivors highlight how EA is a critical issue for social workers in IPV service agencies, along with those who interact with IPV survivors in a range of other settings. Empowering social workers to identify the tactics and impacts of EA could lead interventions aimed at supporting survivors and begin undoing the economics of abuse.

This study sought to open the black box of services at rape crisis centers (RCCs), particularly related to counseling, to better understand what is available to survivors in urban and rural settings. Findings from a survey of directors and counselors in Texas RCCs reveal a number of strengths: supporting services for survivors of sexual assault and insights that can help to further advance the implementation of evidence-based trauma treatments in this sector. Although many areas of congruence were found between urban and rural settings, differences were noted that have implications for implementation of evidence-based trauma treatments.

Many children and youth with child protection services (CPS) involvement enter out-of-home care. The aims of this study were to examine rates of reentry and risk factors associated with reentry into out-of-home care among children and youth involved in the child protection (reported for abuse/neglect) and youth-in-conflict (reported for behavioral issues) programs. This study used administrative data from Colorado’s Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System, which contains information on all children and youth who enter Colorado’s CPS. Of the 14,461 children and youth in the child protection program and 2,353 children and youth in the youth-in-conflict program, 14.7% and 35.1%, respectively, reentered into out-of-home care. Families’ prior history of CPS involvement and current CPS case characteristics better explained reentry into out-of-home care than child and family demographic characteristics alone. Understanding risk factors associated with reentry into out-of-home care is critical to inform the prevention of child maltreatment recurrence and ensure the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and youth.

Objective: To identify the clustering of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that best characterize child welfare-involved children with known complex health concerns. Data source: Multi-informant data were obtained from Wave I of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW II). Study design: This study used a cross-sectional design and classification and regression tree (CART) analyses. Data collection: Data were collected from families with children, aged birth to 17, investigated for child maltreatment and their child protective services caseworkers, including demographic characteristics of the children, their histories of adversity, and a wide range of health concerns. Principal findings: Results indicate that for children between the ages of six and 17, experiences of physical abuse alone, as well as experiences of physical abuse combined with having a caregiver with mental illness, are most strongly associated with complex health concerns. For children aged 2-5 years, results suggest that caregiver mental illness is a key adverse experience associated with complex health concerns. Conclusions: Identifying specific combinations of ACEs may be a critical next step for child- and youth-serving agencies to allow providers to better calculate risk of health problems among children exposed to adversity.

Children investigated for maltreatment are particularly vulnerable to experiencing multiple adversities. Few studies have examined the extent to which experiences of adversity and different types of maltreatment co-occur in this most vulnerable population of children. Understanding the complex nature of childhood adversity may inform the enhanced tailoring of practices to better meet the needs of maltreated children. Using cross-sectional data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II (N =5870), this study employed latent class analysis to identify subgroups of children who had experienced multiple forms of maltreatment and associated adversities among four developmental stages: birth to 23 months (infants), 2–5 (preschool age), 6–10 (school age), and 11–18 years-old (adolescents). Three latent classes were identified for infants, preschool-aged children, and adolescents, and four latent classes were identified for school-aged children. Among infants, the groups were characterized by experiences of (1) physical neglect/emotional abuse/caregiver treated violently, (2) physical neglect/household dysfunction, and (3) caregiver divorce. For preschool-aged children, the groups included (1) physical neglect/emotional abuse/caregiver treated violently, (2) physical neglect/household dysfunction, and (3) emotional abuse. Children in the school-age group clustered based on experiencing (1) physical neglect/emotional neglect and abuse/caregiver treated violently, (2) physical neglect/household dysfunction, (3) emotional abuse, and (4) emotional abuse/caregiver divorce. Finally, adolescents were grouped based on (1) physical neglect/emotional abuse/household dysfunction, (2) physical abuse/emotional abuse/household dysfunction, and (3) emotional abuse/caregiver divorce. The results indicate distinct classes of adversity experienced among children investigated for child maltreatment, with both stability across developmental periods and unique age-related vulnerabilities. Implications for practice and future research are discussed. 

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) contribute to public health concerns, as they have been linked to chronic diseases in adulthood. From the seminal ACEs study in the mid-1990s (Felitti et al., 1998) to today, the Centers for Disease Control (2016) reports well over 50 studies that link ACEs to adult health conditions such as cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and mental illness. This preponderance of evidence has prompted widespread attention to the possibility that preventing and successfully treating ACE-associated traumatic stress would greatly reduce our country’s incidence of chronic disease and the associated public health burden and cost (Danese et al., 2009). To illustrate, one study suggests that child abuse and neglect alone costs the United States $124 billion annually, with individual lifetime costs that are higher than or equal to the economic burden of diabetes and stroke (Fang, Brown, Florence, & Mercy, 2012). That child maltreatment is just one category of 10 total ACEs suggests that the total financial impact of ACEs in the United States is likely much greater and that some populations, such as children involved in child welfare, may be disproportionately affected by the negative effects of adverse childhood experiences.

Objective: Research has shown that young adults at clinical high risk (CHR) for developing psychosis have difficulties seeking, accessing, and staying engaged with mental health services. The present study explored perspectives on engagement with mental health services among young adults at CHR. Method: In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 participants at CHR, ages 18-30, from an Eastern U.S. state. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyzed qualitative data. Results: Six major categories emerged from the data reflecting participants’ perspectives of engagement with services. Contextual factors such as social, community, and online networks mattered to young adults, and individual factors such as level of awareness, stigma, emotions, and environmental factors emerged as critical. These factors suggested a conceptual model of service utilization among young adults at clinical high risk for developing psychosis that builds upon and extends existing conceptual frameworks of service use among young adults. Conclusion and Implications for Practice: A conceptual model of service utilization among young adults at CHR emerged from that data that can inform interventions aimed at improving engagement in services and reduce the amount of time young adults at CHR remain untreated for emerging psychological problems. Furthermore, this study highlights the unique contribution of mental health service use messages received from online networks and a possible relationship between hierarchical stigma and service use.

Aim: Research has shown that young adults at clinical high risk (CHR) for developing psychosis have the capability to recognize that they have a problem and initiate mental health services, yet there is a paucity of theoretically based research examining this decision-making process. This is critical to study because there are high rates of underutilization of mental health services among these young people. The following study explored the decision-making process among young adults at CHR in order to understand mental health services utilization at a CHR clinic. Methods: Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 30 young adults at CHR between the ages of 18 and 30, from an Eastern city in the United States. The study applied the unified theory of behaviour (UTB), a decision-making framework for health behaviour, to examine service use. Content analysis with multiple coders was used. Results: The most salient constructs discussed when participants envisioned seeking services at the clinic included attitudes or beliefs about help-seeking, social image beliefs and emotional reactions towards seeking services. Differences in UTB responses emerged depending on whether participants were engaged in clinical services and research at the time of the interview or just taking part in research follow-ups. Conclusion: When designing future interventions to increase service utilization among young adults at CHR, programs can address health beliefs such as how services at the clinic can improve symptoms, stigma and difficult emotions such as fear and shame about seeking services, and particularly among young people who are more ambivalent about seeking clinical services.

Research has shown that how people think about their health (or illnesses) shapes their help-seeking behavior. In this mixed-methods study, we employed a simultaneous concurrent design to explore the perceptions of mental illness among an understudied population: marginalized young adults. Participants were 60 young adults (ages 18-25) who had experienced mood disorders and used multiple public systems of care during their childhoods. Semistructured interviews were conducted to understand participants’ illness and treatment experiences during the transition to adulthood. A team of analysts used constant comparison to develop a codebook of the qualitative themes, and quantitative data were examined using SAS 9.3. Findings suggest that some theoretical categories identified in past illness-perceptions frameworks are salient to marginalized young adults (e.g., identity, management – or control – of symptoms), but both the developmental transition to adulthood and experiences with public systems of care add nuanced variations to illness and treatment perceptions. Our study demonstrates that young adults possess a set of beliefs and emotions about their mental health and help-seeking options that need to be better understood to improve engagement and quality of mental health care for this population. Implications for practice, research, and policy are discussed.

First-generation college students are those whose parents have not completed a four-year college degree. The current study addressed the lack of research on first-generation college students’ alcohol use by comparing the binge drinking trajectories of first-generation and continuing-generation students over their first three semesters. The dynamic influence of peer and parental social norms on students’ binge drinking frequencies were also examined.1342 college students (n = 225 first-generation) at one private University completed online surveys. Group differences were examined at Time 1, and latent growth-curve models tested the association between first-generation status and social norms (peer descriptive, peer injunctive, parental injunctive) on binge drinking trajectories. Overall, binge drinking frequency tended to decline over the first three semesters of college. After controlling for demographics, substance-free dormitory residence, parental alcohol problems and norms, first-generation status was associated with steeper declines in binge drinking frequency. During the first semester, the association between parental injunctive norms and binge drinking frequency was stronger for first-generation students than for continuing-generation students; this influence declined over time for first-generation students. The influence of peer descriptive norms on binge drinking increased for continuing-generation students; while this influence remained stable over time for first-generation students. First-generation student status appears to be protective against binge drinking. Substance-free dormitory residence, and perceived parental and peer norms likely play a role in first-generation students’ tendency to engage in binge drinking less often over the first year of college.

Although victimization is a known contributor to the development of substance use disorders, no research has simultaneously examined how characteristics of victimization experienced over time, such as the type of abuse, the presence of poly-victimization, closeness to perpetrator(s), life threat or fear, and negative social reactions to disclosing victimization, cluster into profiles that predict substance use disorders. The aim of the current study is to assess how profiles of victimization and trauma characteristics are associated with substance use disorders and assess potential gender differences. Participants were 20,092 adolescents entering substance use treatment. We used latent class and multi-group latent class analysis to extract classes of victimization and associated characteristics. Emergent classes were used to predicted substance use disorder status at treatment intake. Five classes were extracted: poly-victimization + high harmful trauma characteristics, sexual abuse + negative social reaction and perceived life threat, emotional abuse + trusted perpetrator, physical abuse and low all. Similar classes were found for the multi-group model. In both the overall and female-specific models, the poly-victimization + high harmful trauma characteristics class was more severe than all other classes in terms of opioid use disorder, tobacco use disorder, and dual diagnosis. Other class differences were found across gender. Adolescents entering treatment can be distinguished by their profiles of victimization experiences and associated characteristics, and these profiles evidence different associations with substance use disorder diagnoses. Results point to a need for more nuanced assessment of victimization experiences and gender-specific interventions.

Workfare, the conditioning of public assistance on work, was first institutionalized into US policy via refugee resettlement policy, thus arguably laying the groundwork for the 1996 welfare reforms. Refugee scholars have examined how implementing agents respond to the mandates of workfare as well as other delimitations of policy structures, but the ensuing influence on refugees is less examined. Drawing from 40 interviews and four focus groups with organizational leaders and worker-volunteers of a refugee community as a case study, this article examines how self-sufficiency as a resettlement policy goal manifests at the end of the policy line. We argue that diminution of self-sufficiency into job placement reflects a work-first, time-limited focus, while deindividualization conveys neglect for individual circumstances. We also argue that the implementation of self-sufficiency as a policy goal, even as it is diminished and deindividualized, manifests with valuation, denoting how acts of implementation carry value-laden expressions that idealize the refugee-worker.