Intergenerational Community Action and Youth Empowerment

Abstract

Empowerment theory can provide a useful framework for the design and evaluation of intergenerational community-building programs. Using an intervention research approach that draws heavily on empowerment theory, the author designed, facilitated, and evaluated an innovative model for intergenerational community engagement involving undergraduate students and older adult residents of an assisted living facility. This “Intergenerational Community Action Group” met at the assisted living facility throughout a school year to engage in group-building activities, to discuss and choose an issue of concern to them in the community, and to plan and implement an action project to address the issue. This article discusses the use of empowerment theory in intergenerational community action and similar programs, and reviews the empowerment outcomes for youth participants in the Intergenerational Community Action Group.     

Exploring community stress and empowerment among stakeholders and youth in an urban community

ABSTRACT

Community-level stress, such as pervasive substance abuse and violence, can yield negative health and mental heath outcomes for youth from disadvantaged communities. Community empowerment is a process whereby community members work together to increase control in their community. This qualitative inquiry analyzed in-depth interviews with adult stakeholders (n = 17) as well as focus group interviews with token youth (n = 85) to explore perceptions of community stress and empowerment in one disadvantaged locale. Each of the 102 total participants helped interrogate the research questions: What does it mean to live in a stressed community? How might youth and adults perceive themselves capable of impacting a stressed community’s quality of life? Emergent themes, which include a nod to the utility of coalition building, are explored. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are also discussed.     

“If Rainbows Were Everywhere”: Nonmetropolitan SGM Youth Identify Factors That Make Communities Supportive

ABSTRACT

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth in nonmetropolitan communities face marginalization due to their SGM identities. Community support may mitigate the negative outcomes associated with marginalization. Using the strengths perspective, this study investigated the factors SGM youth identify as making their communities supportive. Interviews were conducted with SGM youth to explore their perceptions of their community, community climate, and the factors that contribute to making communities supportive to SGM youth. Findings revealed four supportive community factors: supportive people, SGM visibility, SGM resources and education, and SGM-inclusive policies. Implications include creating SGM resources and providing professional training on SGM issues.     

Community Partnerships

Abstract

Community challenges force human service agencies to collaborate in providing services. Such collaborations require practitioners to have skills not found in mainstream social work curricula. This paper explores how a new MSW program evolved through dialog with community leaders and resulted in a curriculum with a sole concentration of community partnerships.     

The Community Development for Healthy Children Initiative

Abstract

An increasing interest in positive youth development has led to the creation and expansion of programs and initiatives related to youth involvement and engagement. This article focuses on the Community Development for Healthy Children initiative, which envisions making Kansas the best state in the nation in which to raise a child. The initiative includes three primary strategies: A multi-media campaign; technical assistance and support to local communities; and mini-grant opportunities. The paper provides examples of activities from across the state that promote youth involvement. Outcomes across four areas are examined, and the benefits and challenges of this initiative are also discussed.     

Youth-Adult Partnership in Community Organizing

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of a campaign developed around sexuality education policy by a national youth-focused organization, Advocates for Youth, and its network of youth activists. The paper provides an overview of the national sexuality education debate and the specific strategies youth and adults use in partnership to advocate for a comprehensive approach to the education. The case study of the My Voice Counts!Campaign provides insight into the creation and evolution of a youth-adult partnership approach to community organizing, beginning with an online activism campaign and resulting in local youth-led projects to improve sex education policies and curricula. Following an analysis of the Campaign's accomplishments, the paper lays out recommendations for action and research to demonstrate the positive effects of this form of community practice.     

Voices from the Community

Summary

When community members are allowed to participate in the planning and implementation process of a program, they are empowering themselves and their community. The CHAMP Family Program uses a collaborative programming approach with a focus on building the capacities of community members to deliver a family-based HIV prevention program. The CHAMP Program has a Collaborative Board that oversees all aspects of the research project. Using an empowerment framework, this article explores Community Board members' perspectives on their experience in working on CHAMP. Recommendations to researchers in the form of ten key ingredients for community collaboration are presented. The key points primarily focus on building trust with the community, recognizing community strengths, developing skills, building intragroup relations, and involving the community as partners from the beginning to the end.     

Futures Festivals

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a special events strategy for mobilizing community residents of all ages to take part in a community visioning process. Through locally initiated special eventscalled “Futures Festivals”-community residents come together to share their concerns and hopes for their community. Planning for these events is driven by a collaborative process involving representatives of local community organizations and agencies. The rationale for this intergenerational model is twofold; people of different age groups often have limited opportunities to communicate with one another, and the viewpoints of youth and seniors are frequently overlooked in the community planning process. This paper profiles two Futures Festival events and other preliminary organizing taking place in western Pennsylvania communities during the summer of 2002. Findings suggest that Futures Festivals can be effective tools for broadening the circle of community residents and other stakeholders engaged in critical dialogue about community issues.     

Examining Missing Person Police Reports to Identify the Service Needs of Runaway Youth and Their Families

Abstract

This study examined situational and demographic characteristics in a sample of 47 children missing person police reports obtained from a law enforcement agency to identify the service needs of runaway youth and their families. Results show that runaways represented the only category of missing children contained in the data. The present findings are consistent with national data which suggest that: a typical runaway youth is most likely engaging in acting out rebellious behavior; more girls than boys ran away; most were 14 or 15 years old and most had a prior history of running away. These results support the need for a comprehensive integration between social work research and practice and are used to provide recommendations for the service needs of runaway children and their families. Social work practice recommendations include: (1) community campaigns, (2) training, and (3) increased collaboration between law enforcement and child welfare agencies.     

Betrayed and Broken: A Study of the Experiences of Victims of Child Sexual Abuse in the Ga Community in Accra,Ghana

ABSTRACT

Child sexual abuse is increasingly becoming an issue of concern in most societies across the globe, including Ghana. This is a phenomenological study that sought to describe the lived experiences of victims of child sexual abuse in Ghana, using the Ga community as a case study. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to identify 17 sexually abused children in the Ga Community. Using the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), four main themes described the experiences of the victims: (a) forced sex (b) incest (c) joleying and (d) transactional sex. The findings illustrate the different circumstances in which children were sexually abused in the community studied. It also presents socio-cultural factors that normalizes the sexual abuse of children in the Ga Community. These findings underline the need for effective preventive programs and community interventions to protect children and support victims of child sexual abuse.     

Using Concept Mapping to Promote Community Building: The African American Initiative at Roseland

ABSTRACT

While many organizations recognize the value of community building, they often encounter difficulty in actualizing projects and developing tangible results. This article presents how a planning and evaluation method known as concept mapping was used to drive a community building effort by a large not-for-profit organization in Chicago around the issue of at-risk African American male youth. This work grew out of a grant related to the needs of African American families, called the African American Initiative, which was funded by the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. The article describes the first phase of the African American Initiative at Roseland, and lessons learned. Primarily, this study was able to generate a conceptual framework of problems facing African American male youth, which was used to revise previously defined outcomes and also create new ones. In addition, use of concept mapping to drive community building generated reflection on intended and unintended benefits. At the same time, challenges around this approach demonstrate the need for continued research.     

Food Landscapes: Cooking,Community Service and Art-Making with Teens

ABSTRACT

In this article, we describe Food Landscapes, an interdisciplinary program involving youth who live in an urban community identified as a food desert. Food Landscapes combined socially engaged art-making, cooking, community engagement, and community service to open dialogue with youth about food justice and equity, the meaning of community, and the formation of meaningful relationships between youth and community members who have disabilities. We describe the program and discuss the theory and model bases for the program and lessons learned during program implementation.     

Exploring Community Levels of Lead (Pb) and Youth Violence

An emergent body of literature has documented a relationship between the lead (Pb) pollution (a structural form of violence) and crime (including interpersonal forms of violence) at the aggregate level. This study contributes to the lead and crime literature by exploring the relationship between lead and youth violence at the community level. To explore this association, data on lead, concentrated disadvantage, residential mobility, racial and ethnic heterogeneity, percentage divorced, and youth violence were obtained across the city of Chicago’s Community Areas (n?=?77). Results from hot spot analyses, Ordinary Least Squares regressions, and a Geographically Weighted Regression suggest that not only do lead and youth violence appear to concentrate in the same communities, but increases in community lead level are associated with corresponding increases in youth violence 10 years after exposure. This study concludes with a discussion of theoretical and policy implications.     

Challenges and Dilemmas in Community Development

Abstract

When community development begins in low-income communities, involving residents in revitalization activities frequently falters. The community is often excluded from development decisions and may feel betrayed as its input is ignored. This paper presents the dilemmas that arose when a Community Development Corporation (CDC) began building two units of affordable housing and received 80 applications. Suggestions for addressing the dilemmas and the implications for community practice rely on integrating grassroots community organizing throughout the development process while engaging in an ethnically sensitive, empowerment-oriented approach using coalitions and interagency collaboration.     

War Traumas and Community Violence

SUMMARY

This cross-sectional survey study examined the relationship between exposure to war traumas and community violence and academic, behavioral, and psychological well-being among Khmer refugee adolescents. The 144 adolescents studied were exposed to high rates of violence. One third had symptoms indicative of PTSD and two thirds had symptoms indicative of clinical depression. The number of violent events they were exposed to significantly predicted their level of PTSD, personal risk behaviors, and GPA, but not their level of depression or behavior problems reported at school. Perceived social support made a difference in the lives of these youth and predicted better outcomes. The implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Identifying Essential Techniques for Social Work Community Practice

Abstract

Community practice techniques have been neglected by social work educators and authors, reflecting a lack of fit with real world practice needs. Community practice is defined as including community organizing, community development, and social planning. To sharpen the debate, the authors identify five techniques that are helpful, if not essential for community practice: (1) Force Field Analysis; (2) Program Evaluation Review Technique; (3) Nominal Group Technique; (4) Delphi; and (5) Q-Sort. It is anticipated that this proposal could spark a dialogue leading ultimately to a universally accepted set of community practice techniques in social work curricula.     

Community college field placement internships: supervisors’ perspectives and recommendations

ABSTRACT

Community College human services students represent the future social service workforce. The defining feature of their training is 250 h supervised field placement internship. Despite burgeoning research describing best practices for supervision of Bachelors of social work (BSW) and Masters of social work (MSW), there is no research aimed at supervision for community college students, leaving a gap in our understanding of best practices for supporting community college students’ pedagogy and sustaining partnerships with agencies. This exploratory study offers recommendations for best practices supported by our discovery of the benefits, challenges, and strategies involved with offering community college student internships in New York City human services agencies. We analyzed data from semi-structured interviews with 30 field supervisors through qualitative content analysis. Community college students and agencies both benefit substantially from the field placement, however agencies identified significant social and structural challenges specific to working with community college students that require interventions for both field supervisors and students alike. Suggested interventions aimed at improving supervisor training, procedures for focusing goals of supervision sessions, assisting students in meeting their academic and social needs, as well as supporting supervisors’ professional goals to promote best practices are proposed.     

Local–global linkages: Challenges in organizing functional communities for ecosocial justice

ABSTRACT

Communities face “glocalized” ecosocial problems. Functional Community Organization bridges local problems with globalized issues, organizes community, and meets need. Models describe glocal linkages and their outcomes, but little is known of processes and challenges in organizing. This article qualitatively explores ecosocial organizing challenges in a Community Technology Center in a US city, which organized around e-waste and digital inequality. Findings indicate that Functional Communities may face challenges in organizing aims due to complexities in balancing need while concurrently addressing global problems and issues in structure, funding, and process. This may be mitigated through communication, focus, self-awareness, and reflexivity.