Homelessness and Mental Disorder: Policy Considerations

Abstract

‘Photovoice’ is a photographic method that is used for several purposes (e.g. storytelling, building awareness, enhancing personal discovery), including conducting community-based participatory research (CBPR). Since its creation, photovoice has been used as a method for implementing health-related CBPR projects with people experiencing homelessness. As such, this article presents an overview of seven peer-reviewed publications regarding photovoice projects that were conducted with participants who are homeless. The goal of the review is to provide health professionals with a practical summary of the lessons learned from each photovoice project's methods and findings. Based on the literature, the review's major suggestion is that health professionals should plan and implement future projects according to the fundamental aspects of photovoice (e.g. empowerment of participants to document their community, facilitation of group discussions of photos, concerted efforts to reach policymakers).     

The art of resilience: photo-stories of inspiration and strength among people with HIV/AIDS

Using the visual arts to aid healing is a common therapy for people with critical illness, yet the use of art to improve the lives of people with HIV is under-utilised. Eight male and 20 female participants living with HIV in urban areas of the Midwest, United States, participated in three group photovoice photo-sharing and discussion sessions, post-project individual interviews and a community photo exhibit. We used a grounded theory approach to analyse interview data and identified three key themes: (1) health and wellness, (2) fear and stigma and (3) restoring a threatened identity. Participants identified how taking photos, reflecting on and sharing them in focus groups helped them express themselves while living with and coping with HIV. Offering photography as form of expression is a way to foster strength and, consequently, improve the lives of people living with HIV. Our participants benefitted from the process of telling their story with images. They were able to express positive aspects of their lives which could be a healthy form of catharsis in and of itself. Future research should continue to investigate how participants in participatory approaches like photovoice actually do benefit from the research. Although we focused this analysis on resilience, photovoice is flexible and participants’ responses to it are varied. Additional outcomes such as impact on mental and physical health are worthy of additional exploration.     

Relationships and the Research Process: Participatory Action Research and Social Work

Social science research methods are experiencing a paradigm shift in that participatory research methods, in many cases relegated to second-class status, are gaining credibility as valid and legitimate ways to engage in scholarly and solid research. In social work, participatory research is one more way social workers can engage with participants as partners in the process of generating knowledge and transforming society. This article discusses a particular type of participatory research called Participatory Action Research (PAR). PAR is explained and an example of how PAR has been used is offered. This article offers a discussion of how PAR is consistent with the core values of social work, especially those values of partnership, relationship, and social change. Finally, the article offers social work researchers a framework for engaging in liberatory research.     

The use of photovoice with people with intellectual disabilities: reflections,challenges and opportunities

Photovoice is part of the growing use of participatory research approaches with people with intellectual disabilities. In this paper we explore the process, opportunities and challenges associated with the use of photovoice with people with intellectual disabilities, illustrated through a research project entitled ‘This Is Me’. Photovoice requires researchers to share power and control in the research process and to tolerate uncertainty. Large investments in time and money are also required. These challenges, however, are outweighed by the benefits of the use of photovoice with people with intellectual disabilities. Photovoice creates a space where people with intellectual disabilities can meaningfully participate and exert control in the research process, and as such is an empowering experience. As a participatory research approach, photovoice is accessible and offers the opportunity for people with intellectual disabilities to develop new skills, confidence and experience inclusiveness in their own terms.     

Beginnings: participatory action research and adults with developmental disabilities

This paper discusses the emergence of Participatory Action Research (PAR), and its use with individuals with cognitive disabilities. A brief history of PAR is given, with a focus on its uses for empowerment and self-determination for persons with disabilities. Using literature-based standards for participatory, action and emancipatory research approaches, a 3-year research project with goals of increasing community participation by adults with developmental disabilities is described and evaluated. The "Transition into Community Life" project used an adapted form of the "Farmer-back-to-Farmer" PAR model (Rhoades & Booth, 1982), and the article discusses the successes and challenges of the model in a context quite different from how it was originally designed. The author describes lessons learned concerning the use of PAR with people with developmental disabilities. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the feasibility of PAR with individuals with cognitive challenges.     

Using Participatory Action Research to Access Social Work Voices: Acknowledging the Fit

This article presents Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a critical methodology that fills a gap in health research, and describes the importance of using PAR with a group of social workers about their conceptualizations of health. While social work practice, knowledge and contributions extend beyond the traditional positivist framework that dominates health research, the profession’s unique understanding of health is frequently subsumed within work contexts that are dominated by bio-physiological conceptualizations of health. PAR provides a means of engaging the knowledge of social workers, which, in turn, helps in the pursuit of wide-reaching social justice and change.     

Advancing scientific knowledge through participatory action research

This paper aims to demonstrate the value of participatory action research (PAR) for advancing scientific knowledge as well as for solving practical problems. The article supports the argument through brief summaries of three PAR cases in industry: Norwegian shipping, Xerox Corporation, and the FAGOR group of the Mondragón cooperatives. While noting the practical gains achieved through PAR, the author concentrates particularly on the advances in substantive knowledge and theory that would have been unlikely to emerge out of more orthodox sociological research. The author suggests finally that wider use of participatory action research can have a stimulating effect upon the future development of sociology.     

The design of a contextualized responsive evaluation framework for fishery management in Benin

The main question addressed by this article is how to adapt the responsive evaluation (RE) approach to an intervention context characterized by repetition of ineffective interventions, ambiguous intervention action theories among stakeholders, and high complexity. The context is Grand-Popo, a fishing municipality located on Benin's southwest Atlantic coast. The fishery management interventionists and the fishing communities in the municipality all espoused concern for the sustainable improvement of fishing actors' livelihood conditions, but differed about the reasons for this livelihood impairment, and about what should be done, when, where, and by whom. Given this ambiguity, we identified RE as a promising action research approach to facilitate dialogue and mutual learning, and consequently to improve stakeholders' ability to resolve problems. However, this approach seems to have some shortcomings in the Grand-Popo context, regarding the repetitive ineffectiveness of interventions, high complexity, and uncertainty. Therefore, based on our empirical study, we add three dimensions to the existing RE framework: historical analysis to deal with routine interventions, exploration and discussion of incongruities of action theories to trigger double-loop learning, and system analysis to deal with complexity and uncertainty. This article does not intend to address the implications or impact of this adapted RE framework. Instead, we suggest some criteria and indicators for evaluating whether the proposed amended RE approach has assisted in resolving the fishery problems in Grand-Popo after the approach has been applied.     

Participatory action research (PAR) with children and youth: An integrative review of methodology and PAR outcomes for participants,organizations, and communities

Due to an increasing emphasis on children's rights, children's participation in studies about social issues has become a trend. The research community has been liberally utilizing the concept of participatory action research (PAR). Thus, oversimplification of children's involvement and misinterpretation of their voices has become a concern for many scholars. This review is an attempt to support the critical conversation about PAR, especially in regard to (1) its methodological features, as well as (2) outcomes of genuine children's participation in PAR for children and youth themselves, social service organizations, and communities. Forty-five articles were selected and coded for analysis in accordance with integrative review methodology. PAR with children and youth showed evidence of positive outcomes for children, organizations, and communities. However, PAR with children and youth still faces the challenges of involving very young participants, providing meaningful participation opportunities and addressing power differences between children and adults in diverse cultural contexts. Discussion of methodological challenges and review of critical outcomes of the PAR approach is provided.     

Applying marketing management and communication management theories to increase client retention in the short-term insurance industry

Businesses must retain their clients to remain profitable. The academic field of marketing management considers customer relationship management (CRM) as most appropriate to achieve this, while communication management focuses instead on public relations (PR). The purpose of this research was to analyse theories in these two disciplines and derive an integrated theoretical framework of CRM and PR client retention. The framework was then tested through in-depth interviews with short-term insurance clients and short-term insurance providers (brokers and direct insurers) in South Africa to gain perspectives from both sides. The importance of some fundamental elements found in literature were affirmed, two elements’ importance were questioned and it was established that three inconsistencies existed between what providers regard as essential to retain clients and what clients regard necessary for them to stay in a relationship with an insurance provider. This may explain the many unsuccessful client retention efforts of South African brokers and direct insurers. Six new CRM and/or PR elements, not found in literature, are presented in the article for exploration in future research. In order to assist client retention in the very competitive short-term insurance industry, results were applied to the core tenets of Niemann's (2005) SA model for the implementation of strategic integrated communication (IC). Finally, the authors present an integrated approach to client retention strategies in the South African short-term insurance industry, incorporating both marketing and communication theories.     

Decolonizing Sociology Through Collaboration,Co-Learning and Action: A Case for Participatory Action Research1

Despite important efforts by postcolonial scholars to “decolonize” sociology, this endeavor remains limited by the scaffolding of empirical research, or the institutionalized practices and beliefs embedded within data collection and researchers' relationship to research subjects. In its current form, this scaffolding excludes “subaltern” voices from critiquing and extending sociological theory, deriving benefits from the study, or informing social actions that stem from the research. This limits the field's understanding of the multi-faceted impacts of colonialism and retrenches inequalities between scholars and participants. Participatory Action Research (PAR) offers an alternative, decolonial infrastructure. PAR acknowledges the value of knowledge from the periphery and calls for (1) the participation of marginalized research populations in each step of the research process; (2) co-learning between researchers and participants; and (3) collaborative social action that centers the needs of marginalized research populations. Drawing on a case study of PAR in Rio de Janeiro, I demonstrate how PAR allows sociologists, in partnership with historically colonized groups, to decolonize sociology not only in theory, but in the concrete practices of empirical research.     

The bad and the ugly: ethical concerns in participatory photographic methods with children living and working on the streets of Lima,Peru

Visual methods are particularly well suited for getting at the ways in which children living and working on the street understand their socio-spatial environment, and can bridge gaps between researcher and researched. In this study, adolescents who live and work on the streets of Lima are asked to take photographs, documenting their lives and their socio-spatial environments. While participatory methods such as photovoice can bring children and adolescents into the research process and can provide significant benefits to research and its participants, the introduction of photographic methods with marginalised populations carries with it important ethical concerns. This article explores the various critiques of documentary photography, and ethical concerns that arise when using visual methods, including issues of exploitation and intrusion in research with adolescents living on the streets. It also examines the ways in which researchers must continuously reassess their methodological practices in order to protect the best interests of the participants involved.     

“You are a Besya”: Microaggressions Experienced by Trafficking Survivors Exploited in the Sex Trade

ABSTRACT

This article exposes the prevalence of microaggressions as experienced by female sex-trafficking survivors in their everyday lives. Using a case example from Nepal, this article investigates the under-researched experiences of microaggressions against trafficking survivors and their cumulative effects on their lives. A participatory action research (PAR) process was used with eight trafficking survivors to delineate and explore categories of microaggressive behaviors to them. The results of the study reveal the occurrence of microaggressive behaviors against sex-trafficking survivors, grounded in experiential evidence in personal narratives. Implications for social work education and practices are discussed.     

Applying Current Theory and Research in Career Exploration to Practice

This article provides a selected review of two lines of recent research on career exploration, with a specific focus on applications for counseling practice. The first line of research deals with identifying the antecedents of exploratory activity focusing on the role of internal factors in motivating self- and environmental exploration. The second line of research addresses the application of information processing biases to career exploration. The article describes relevant counseling interventions that are derived from recent theory and research and concludes with a summary of six goals to consider in designing career exploration interventions for individual and group counseling.     

Visual power: review of image-based methodologies and subsequent development/uses of the Fotofeedback Method™

Over the past 60 years, image-based methodologies such as photo elicitation, photolanguage, auto-photography, hermeneutic photography, digital storytelling, photovoice and participant authored audio-visual stories have been used by qualitative researchers to better cognise humanity. Each of these methodologies are deeply rooted in visual imagery and while they may share different levels of similarities, each was coined because no existing method fully met the needs of the researchers or participants. For this same reason, a new image-based methodology, the Fotofeedback Method? (FFM) has emerged. FFM is defined as a qualitative image-based methodology that combines participant-initiated photography with written narrative in response to a research/evaluation inquiry. This article presents an overview of FFM’s formation along with examples of its use and subsequent outcomes. The aforementioned image-based methodologies are reviewed including their definition, founder, year conceptualised, discipline and location of origin, brief history, impact of use, key point and their similarities/differences to the FFM. Also presented is a comparison chart of the methodologies covered in this paper as well as a timeline of photo-based research techniques in relation to the historical development of photography, computers and social media. Current statistics regarding the power of the visual to engage others are also incorporated.     

Close relationships research: a resource for couple and family therapists

This article describes the relatively new field of close relationships research, offering a representative list of topics studied by relationship researchers. Some of the common interests shared by both close relationships researchers and couple and family therapists are described, with the shared emphasis on relationships as an anchor for both fields. Some representative love theories are discussed, and Love Styles theory and research are presented in considerable detail. A clinical case example indicates how love styles research may be employed to advantage by couple therapists, and the utility of other close relationships theories and measures for therapy is briefly discussed.