A Qualitative Evaluation of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Turkey: The Beneficiaries’ and Key Informants’ Perspectives

ABSTRACT

Since the 2001 economic crisis, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have been provided to poor families in Turkey to improve education and health outcomes of children. Under the framework of CCT programs, grants provide an incentive for poor households to use available basic social services. The aim of this study is to explore beneficiaries’ perspectives in relation to a CCT program in Turkey. The in-depth study design entailed semistructured qualitative interviews with beneficiary households and key informants. A total of 397 in-depth interviews were conducted. Analysis results suggest that the CCT program not only positively affected health and educational outcomes, but also contributed to the empowerment of women and improved the self-esteem and self-confidence of beneficiary children. Recommendations for future research are made including the need for an impact evaluation analysis that employs quantitative research methods designed to improve the provision and quality of the basic social services.     

The Mentoring FAN: A Promising Approach to Enhancing Attunement within the Mentoring System

ABSTRACT

Youth mentoring is a popular tool in positive youth development, with most programs utilizing a model through which youth and non-parental adults are “matched.” Using an adaptation of the Facilitating Attuned Interactions framework, this study sought to explore the effectiveness of the Mentoring FAN in enhancing interpersonal attunement among mentoring staff at two youth mentoring programs in the U.S. Upon completion of the Mentoring FAN training, quantitative (n = 28) and qualitative (n = 15) data were collected from program staff at both sites. Open-ended data from a subset of mentors (n = 27) was also gathered. Results revealed that mentoring staff experienced significant increases in empathy following the Mentoring FAN intervention. Participant interviews revealed increased attunement, increased listening ability, and increased collaboration in the supervisory relationship. Findings support the continued delivery and rigorous testing of Mentoring FAN training, with great promise for enhancing attunement across the mentoring system as a means of strengthening the relationships so critical to this intervention. The study also has important implications for the development of mentor support practices within mentoring organizations, as well as policies designed to meet the needs of youth served by mentoring programs in the U.S.     

Dialogic Pedagogy for Youth Participatory Action Research: Facilitation of an Intergroup Empowerment Program

This article describes the pedagogical and facilitation approach of a yearlong youth empowerment program that engaged a group of adolescents who were racially and socioeconomically diverse in participatory action research. Nine adolescents from inner-city neighborhoods and suburban communities across the metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, region completed a Photovoice project. As part of the project, the youth documented racial segregation to inform community-based advocacy efforts. Pedagogical principles from intergroup dialogues were used to help facilitate participants’ understanding of differences across race and socioeconomic status. The article outlines the four-stage curricular design used to organize group activities. Those stages are (1) group formation, (2) exploration of differences and commonalities, (3) discussion of controversial issues, and (4) action planning. This article illustrates how facilitation of a diverse group in participatory action research may require a dialogic approach that addresses cross-cultural differences and builds positive intergroup collaboration skills.     

In Their Own Words: Elements of Youth Empowerment in Spain

Abstract

The aim of the HEBE¹ project, developed jointly by four universities, is to analyze the spaces, moments and processes involved in the empowerment of young people in order to formulate socio-educational programmes that help them and improve their lives. The articulation of the project focuses on different lines of work and action, one of which is to identify and analyze the spaces in which the empowerment of youth occurs. This article delves into the elements involved in youth empowerment by using a questionnaire administered to young people from Catalonia between the ages of 19 and 25 (n?=?1067). This article presents the results obtained for these young people based on their level of empowerment and the elements that characterize them.     

Five-Year Follow-Up Study of the Qualitative Experiences of Youth in an Afterschool Arts Program in Low-Income Communities

ABSTRACT

Semistructured follow-up interviews were conducted with 32 Canadian youth ages 14 to 20 years old; 5 years prior, these youth had participated in a structured arts program. Given that little is known about the long-term effects of afterschool arts-based programs, interviews took a qualitative approach to delineate adolescents’ experiences with the program and their subsequent development. The findings from the qualitative interviews suggest that skill acquisition, positive staff-youth relationships, development of team building, positive peer relationships, a sense of belonging, and program flexibility were pertinent to sustained positive youth development 5 years following program completion. This article discusses the importance of follow-up studies and implications for future research and practice.     

Enhancing the Efficacy and Empowerment of Older Adults Through Group Formation

ABSTRACT

Research suggests that efficacy and empowerment are necessary for social engagement and that a sense of efficacy and empowerment exerts positive influences on older adults. However, little is known about how individual efficacy and empowerment are affected by group efficacy and empowerment in later life. To assess the impact of group involvement on the individual, the authors conducted a follow-up study with members of an art guild for older adults. Qualitative data were collected in 1997 and 2001 to ascertain the members' perceptions of group goals and accomplishments, membership benefits, the effect on the community, societal views about older adults, and the impact of group activities on the individual. The results clearly indicated that collective efficacy and empowerment through social engagement were beneficial to members as individuals and as a group, and contributed to well-being through a general sense of accomplishment and pride.     

Our Stories–Our Journey: An Empowerment Group Approach for Justice-Involved Women using Pecha-Kucha

ABSTRACT

This article presents Our Stories–Our Journey, a group-work intervention with justice-involved women. This narrative-based intervention helps members to develop insight into self-identity and to restructure narratives via mutual aid. Through a group-work intervention using empowerment and narrative theories with pecha-kucha (the word for chit-chat or chatter, in Japanese), incarcerated women work to create empowering stories that will support them in constructing new narratives. Considering the traumatic pathways to prison for women and the oppressive correctional environments, models of innovative programs that are strength based and empowering are needed that will guide the social work profession to work effectively with justice-involved populations.     

Hip Hop,empowerment, and clinical practice for homeless adults with severe mental illness

This article focuses on the use of a music and empowerment-based group as a vehicle for engagement, and therapeutic, and social-emotional benefits with homeless adults coping with severe mental illness in a shelter setting. The authors present a conceptual framework that includes case illustrations to capture the group process. The group was guided by the MUZUZE Hip Hop and empowerment framework, which is meant to facilitate well-being as evidenced by indicators of social-emotional learning and empowerment-based positive youth development. The authors found that the use of Hip Hop helped foster well-being via pathways of individual and community empowerment. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Women's Empowerment or Disempowerment through Microfinance: Evidence from Bangladesh

Women's empowerment has been one of the declared goals of Bangladesh's national development program, and microfinance is playing a leading role in bringing about the realization of this program. Since one of the intended goals of microfinance is to empower women, this concept paper attempts to investigate the success rate — does microfinance truly empower or is it a case of disempowering through “empowerment”? The effectiveness of microfinance today has been a debatable subject in the economic and social work realms, in which it is considered a viable tool for women's empowerment. Although there are scores of studies that demonstrate that microfinance has a significant impact on livelihood and improves the living standards of women by reducing poverty, this paper contests those claims.     

Caring for the Child Welfare Client: Am I Good Enough?

ABSTRACT

Given the demographics of youth served by the child welfare system, culturally responsive approaches are critical to effective social work practice and desperately needed. Like many adolescents who grow up in the child welfare system, Paul, a White adolescent male in foster care, was beset by a lack of adequate environmental resources and multiple stressors and had little hope or motivation to work on improving his situation. This article highlights the author's “use of self” as an African American male therapist who worked with Paul, using a Winnicottian and caring framework. Because child welfare workers are often overburdened by the demands of work, including large caseloads and clients with few to no resources, they find it difficult to consistently provide empathic and caring behaviors for their clients. The author highlights his therapeutic work and struggles with Paul and offers cultural insights and Winnicottian strategies when working with adolescents in the child welfare system who are ultimately in need of permanency and stability.     

Lessons Learned From the Supporting Father Involvement Study: A Cross-Cultural Preventive Intervention for Low-Income Families With Young Children

ABSTRACT

Despite the proliferation of fatherhood programs designed to promote paternal involvement and positive family outcomes, evaluations of these programs are scarce. The Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) study is a randomized clinical trial comprised of 289 low-income Spanish- and English-speaking families living in California. The evaluation design reflects a partnership stance that promotes empowerment of staff and social service agencies. This article examines lessons learned from the program's first 3 years (2002–2004) from the perspectives of both evaluators and program staff. The lessons cover a broad range of areas, including communication procedures, training, staffing, recruitment/retention, clinical needs, intervention content and process, and maintaining cultural sensitivity.     

Social Empathy: A Model Built on Empathy,Contextual Understanding,and Social Responsibility That Promotes Social Justice

ABSTRACT

A model of social empathy is described where social empathy is defined as the ability to more deeply understand people by perceiving or experiencing their life situations and as a result gain insight into structural inequalities and disparities. The three components of the model—individual empathy, contextual understanding, and social responsibility—are explored and explained. Social empathy provides a framework for more effective social policies that address disparities and support social and economic justice for all people. Social workers are well positioned to enhance social empathy, and application and suggestions for further enhancement and research are provided.     

Role of AKRSP on Gender Development: A Case Study in Pakistan

ABSTRACT

In Pakistan, nongovernmental agencies (NGOs) play an important role in program implementation. This study focuses on the contribution of one of these NGO social service programs that serves women in a rural area of Pakistan. To assess program satisfaction and effectiveness, 200 females were surveyed to measure their opinions and overall satisfaction with this particular NGO. The key findings of the study showed that the Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP) had a significant positive impact on the lives of these women through increasing social and decision-making skills while improving their income and living standards by providing employment opportunities and training. Future recommendations are made to continue to sponsor such programs that focus on a group-support for women while also providing supportive services that empower decision-making and economic standing.     

Relations of Parent–Youth Interactive Exchanges to Adolescent Socioemotional Development

This study examined the relations of parent–youth agreement and disagreement during a joint problem-solving task and multi-methodological indices of socioemotional outcomes in adolescents (mean age  =  13). One hundred and sixty-seven parents and their adolescent children participated. Each parent–youth pair played the interactive game 'Jenga', and their interactions were analyzed for frequency of elaborations (agreement during three or more conversational turns) and negotiations (disagreement during three or more conversational turns). Elaborations during parent–youth interactions were related to less negative classroom behavior, better self-regulation, and more task persistence in youth. Findings are discussed in light of the importance of parent–youth interaction and youth autonomy in adolescent socioemotional development.     

Friends in high places: A dyadic perspective on peer status as predictor of friendship quality and the mediating role of empathy and prosocial behavior

Friendships and peer status play important roles in the social landscape of adolescents and are related to developmental outcomes. Yet, how peer status is related to friendship quality and what role social skills play in this association remains unclear. In this study, we use Actor–Partner Interdependence (Mediation) Modeling (Ledermann, Macho, & Kenny, 2011 ) to investigate how two forms of peer status, preference and popularity, are related to positive and negative friendship quality in mid‐adolescence. Results show that adolescents who are friends with more preferred (i.e., likeable) and popular adolescents report higher friendship quality. These partner effects were partially mediated by adolescents’ own prosocial behavior and their friends’ empathy levels. Higher levels of empathy of one's friend and one's own lesser preference for equity explained why adolescents were more satisfied in a friendship with highly preferred (i.e., likeable) adolescents. Interestingly, empathy was not a mediator for the link between friendship quality and popularity. These findings promote a better understanding of the interplay between different levels of social complexity (i.e., individual, dyadic and peer group level) in adolescence.     

Social intelligence as moderator in the relation between narcissism and aggression in at-risk adolescents

This study examined the moderating role of social intelligence (SI) in the associations of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism (VN) with peer-reported overt and relational aggression (RA). The sample consisted of 286 adolescents aged 15 to 19 recruited from a residential program for youth who have dropped out of school. Results showed that whereas grandiose narcissism (GN) was related to both forms of aggression, VN was related to neither overt nor RA. However, SI moderated the relation between VN and both forms of aggression such that SI works as either a risk or protective factor for adolescents with higher levels of narcissism depending on the subdimensions of SI and aggression. The findings indicate that SI may play a role in how adolescent peers perceive the behavior of relatively narcissistic individuals.     

Culturally Competent Approaches for Counseling Urban Appalachian Clients: An Exploratory Case Study

ABSTRACT

The authors examine the application of a strengths-based empowerment approach to working with an urban Appalachian woman and her family. The purpose of this article is to start the research process by utilizing the lessons learned to assist health and human service practitioners. Key points are identified in developing awareness and intervention skills when working with clients who have an Appalachian cultural heritage. This case study utilizes a culturally competent framework for assessing and intervening with Appalachian clients that emphasizes the strengths and empowerment literature. As the foundation for further research, this case study provides a rationale for starting evidence-based practice incorporating a strengths-based empowerment theme. Case study research is limited by its focus on one individual within a specific span of time and cultural context; findings cannot always be generalized to a similar population. Suggestions for further research in this area are provided.     

Comparative Impacts of Alternatives to Adolescent Placement

The impacts of day treatment and family treatment as alternatives to adolescent placement are assessed in a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study. The development of the day treatment and family treatment programs greatly reduced the number of adolescent placements by a public county welfare agency. Substantial cost savings were associated with family treatment. Post-intervention delinquency rates, relative to pre-intervention rates, were lowest for adolescents initially served in out-of-home placement as opposed to alternatives. School performance among youth receiving all three types of service was poor and differences in school performance were small. Telephone follow-up interviewing suggested that parents of family treatment clients found services somewhat less helpful than did parents in the other programs.