Public Participation: Moving Beyond the Four Walls of Therapy

Family therapists have an ethical responsibility for public participation, to work toward creating a better society. Serving the public interest and developing laws to promote the profession and the public good can be achieved through policy advocacy and political participation. Political and policy work are important but overlooked aspects of family therapy, which is significant given the consequences differing policies have for clients and the profession. This paper reports on results from a random, national survey of licensed family therapists’ (N = 174) advocacy actions. Findings indicate family therapists have overarching policy concerns yet lack proactive legislative and activist engagement. The exploration of therapists’ actions and beliefs presented in this paper, serves as a springboard for therapists’ movement into the public arena. Video abstract accessible by clicking here .     

On the Front Lines: The Voices and Experiences of Racialized Child Welfare Workers in Toronto,Canada

Drawing on focus group data highlighting the perceptions and experiences of racialized child protection workers in the Greater Toronto Area, this article explores the ways in which race operates in the Ontario child welfare system. Most study participants experienced the agencies in which they worked as White-normed environments characterized by systemic racial discrimination in promotion and advancement as well as ongoing instances of racial microaggression—common, everyday practices that denigrate people of color. Several participants spoke of having to contend with White-normed and middle-class-oriented policies, tools, and practices that often prevented them from meeting the unique needs of racialized service users. The article concludes with participants' recommendations for creating a more equitable child welfare system.     

Community Organizing and the Detroit Water Struggle: Report from the Front Lines

At this moment in history, both the need for macro social work approaches and interest in macro social practice among social workers are growing. One macro approach that is particularly well-suited to confronting current political and economic conditions is grassroots community organizing. Some authors have suggested that most successful efforts at community organizing are those which can link the lived experiences of grassroots community members to larger movements for social justice. The struggle for access to affordable water in Detroit is a prime example of such an effort. In 2014, indignation at the announcement that the city would be shutting off the water of all those who could not afford to pay their water bills, combined with resistance to the imposition of emergency management on the city, galvanized a movement that brought together a wide variety of community members, activists, and organizers. As a participant-observer in this struggle, I conducted videotaped interviews with 15 organizers and activists concerning their views on the successes and challenges they have witnessed and the crucial “next steps” for community activists in Detroit. This article reports on these interviews and examines the lessons for community organizers that emerged from them.     

Developmental Outcomes of Vulnerable Youth in the Child Welfare System

Abstract

Adolescent development of youth in foster care holds great interest for society. This article examines a random sample of 200 adolescents currently placed in foster care on developmental outcomes. Using face-to-face interviews, the present study found that a majority of foster youth have biological families experiencing multiple problems and experience many developmental difficulties. A large percentage of the sample youth experience mental illness, school failure, substance abuse, and other antisocial behaviors. This paper considers implications from the study findings for policy and interventions designed to foster better developmental outcomes among youth in the child welfare system.     

Attitudes of Muslim Americans toward Homosexuality and Marriage Equality: Moving Beyond Simply Understanding Christian Public Opinions

A number of studies have found a relationship between religious affiliation and attitudes toward LGBQ individuals. To date, however, research on religious attitudes has focused primarily on Christians. We expanded upon existing research by including two of the three largest U.S. religions previously overlooked—Islam and Judaism. We used data from the 2014 Religious Landscape Study, which provided a larger sample of Jewish (n = 475) and Muslim (n = 135) respondents than most public opinion surveys. We found that Muslim and Protestant participants were the least accepting of homosexuality and supportive of same-sex marriage compared with Roman Catholic and Jewish participants. Results also showed that fundamentalism and religiosity were significant predictors of attitudes toward homosexuality and same-sex marriage across all participants, regardless of denomination. Implications for future research and data collection efforts learned from this study are discussed.     

Financing Long-Term Care: Examining Decision Outcomes and Systemic Influences from the Perspective of Family Members

This study examined financing long-term care from a micro-level family perspective. Qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with 45 families coping with paying for an elder's long-term care provided insight into what decisions were made as well as what factors influenced those decisions. Family members articulate systemic factors within and outside of the family system influencing three decision making outcomes: (a) using and preserving private resources, (b) Medicaid estate planning and (c) deciding not to decide. Case examples and a discussion of the emerging framework provide insight for researchers working to inform long-term care issues and for educational focused practitioners.     

Exploring Use of Self: Moving Beyond Definitional Challenges

Use of self is a central concept throughout social work history and theory, yet no unified definition and little empirical research exist. Thus, a qualitative exploration was required. Three focus groups (n = 10) were conducted with experienced BSW educators. Participants defined use of self in the context of their students’ beginning social work practice. The findings suggest that use of self incorporates personal self qualities such as openness, self-reflectiveness, attunement to others, commitment, and emotional maturity, and results in professional capacities such as nurturing the social worker–client relationship, reflective practice, and practice wisdom. Use of self is the integration of theory and practice embodied in the social worker and enacted in the worker-client relationship.     

Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice: Examining the Unique Mental Health Needs of Girls

This study investigated the prevalence of mental health problems among girls who are involved in child welfare or juvenile justice systems. The sample consisted of 1,193 girls ranging in age from 4 to 18, the majority (82.3%, n = 982) of which were older than age 12. Differences based on race/ethnicity and developmental age groups were examined. Consistent with other research, this study found that the mental health needs of girls involved in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems are several times higher than in the general population. Intervention approaches must be developed that take into consideration differences in gender, age, and racial and ethnic group.     

Before the Welfare State: Public Health and Social Policy

Les changements apportés en matière de politique sociale de 1880 à 1920 ont joué un rôle déterminant dans l'établissement et la nature de l'État-providence. La santé publique était au premier rang de cette evolution. L'État a commencéà pénétrer dans les foyers par de nouveaux moyens, comme les programmes de visite à domicile lancés durant cette période. Dans notre étude, nous décrivons ces nouveaux programmes dans le contexte d'une transformation plus globale des politiques sociales, qui a amené l'État à assumer de nouvelles res-ponsabilités dans le domaine de la natalité.
Social policy developments in the period 1880–1920 played a crucial role in shaping the foundations of the welfare state. Public health was at the forefront of these developments, introducing new home visiting programmes that brought the state into the household in new ways. This paper sets these new programmes in the context of a broader transition in social policy in which the state began to assume new responsibilities in the reproduction of the population.     

Impact of Intensive Case Management on Child Welfare System Involvement for Substance-Dependent Parenting Women on Public Assistance

This study examined the impact of intensive case management (ICM) on decreasing child welfare system involvement in a sample of substance-dependent parenting women who participated in a welfare demonstration study comparing ICM to usual screen-and-refer models employed in welfare settings. Previous research established the effectiveness of ICM in both increasing engagement in substance abuse treatment and in promoting abstinence, and the current study tested whether ICM had downstream impacts on child welfare outcomes not directly targeted by the intervention. The sample included 302 mothers recruited from welfare offices and their 888 minor children. Child welfare outcomes were available from administrative records for four years following study entry and included incident reports and out-of-home child placements. An initial positive effect of ICM was found on child placements, but its impact lessened over time and was likely due to the increased contact with case managers that occurred early in the study. Overall, minimal benefits of ICM were found, suggesting that while ICM was effective in the areas of treatment engagement and abstinence, there were no downstream benefits for child welfare outcomes. Implications of findings in terms of increased need for cross-system collaboration are discussed.     

Beyond bifurcation: Examining the conventions of organic agriculture in New Zealand

The last 10 years have witnessed numerous attempts to evaluate the merits of new theoretical approaches – ranging from Actor Network Theory to ‘post-structural’ Political Economy and inhabiting a ‘post-Political Economy’ theoretical space – to the explanation of global agricultural change. This article examines Convention Theory (CT) as one such alternative approach, assessing its potential in the context of ongoing change within commercial organic agriculture in New Zealand. More specifically, CT is used to expose the insufficiency of recent ideas of conventionalisation and bifurcation, both reflecting more traditional Political Economic approaches, as explanatory concepts for the emerging condition of the New Zealand organic sector. In this paper, the concept of worlds of justification as developed in CT is utilised to address the emerging complexity of organic production. While farmers supplying a more diversified domestic market can be distinguished from those supplying export markets, an exclusive focus on such distinctions ignores the influential role of extra-economic factors on the viability of organic production systems. Thus, in addition to what are classified as market and industrial worlds in CT, the paper addresses aspects of civic, green, domestic, inspired and renown worlds. Producers' selections of organic certification organisations are used to demonstrate the interaction of these worlds in the development of the organic sector in New Zealand. The article concludes with the imperative to move ‘beyond bifurcation’ and acknowledge the greater complexity of negotiated outcomes that might be achieved from a CT perspective than from existing political economy-derived models like conventionalisation and bifurcation.     

Empirical Studies of Child Welfare Training Effectiveness: Methods and Outcomes

Although public child welfare agencies, as well as contracted private providers, conduct extensive amounts of training, the evaluation evidence for effectiveness of training interventions is sparse. This article provides a critical review of published reports of the child welfare training evaluation literature. When we conducted a search of the literature published since 1990, 14 articles met the criteria for inclusion. These articles are reviewed according to: training audience, training duration, research design, sample size, outcome measures, and reported results. Our conclusions identify strengths and weaknesses in evaluation approaches to date and suggest strategies for enhancing the evidence base of this core intervention in child welfare.     

Bureaucracy Redux: Management Reformism and the Welfare State

Bureaucratic discretion is a fundamental feature of social provision,one that presents enduring difficulties for management. In general,management reform has taken two, divergent paths. One, utilizingthe familiar public bureaucratic model, seeks to control discretionthrough hierarchical command structures and standardization.The other, utilizing decentralization and privatization, regulatesand relocates discretion, using incentive structures associatedwith market or quasi-market institutions. However, it may bethat discretion will prove to be as problematic for the newpublic management (NPM) as it was for the old. This articleoffers a critical political history of management reformism,reviewing efforts to reorganize the public welfare provisionby applying new public management models to old public bureaucracyproblems. It considers the dynamics of bureaucratic discretionand reform not only as a problem of public management but aspart of the contested politics of social policymaking.     

大学生公益参与过程研究

大学生在公益领域中发挥的作用越来越突出。受生命历程理论的启示,大学生公益参与过程从纵向视角可视为公益之路,包括结识与初始发展、深化与成长、延续与退出三个发展阶段。对17名大学生的案例研究,发现,重视大学生公益参与的阶段性特征,可以更好地引导他们参与公益服务。