The legal rights of LGBT youth in state custody: what child welfare and juvenile justice professionals need to know

Youth in state custody, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, have federal and state constitutional and statutory rights. These rights guarantee a young person safety in their placement as well as freedom from deprivation of their liberty interest. Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth have these rights violated on a regular basis. Many cases in both the child welfare and juvenile justice contexts have resulted in extensive and time-consuming consent decrees as well as sizable damages awards. Knowledge of a youth's legal rights can help providers avoid legal liability while creating a safer and healthier environment for LGBT youth. This article provides a general overview of the successful federal legal claims that youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems have made, discussion of the rights generated as a result, particle application of these rights to the experiences of LGBT youth with hypothetical scenarios, a focus on specific rights that emanate from certain state laws, and a focus on specific concerns of transgender youth.     

Sexual abuse histories of youth in child welfare residential treatment centers: analysis of the Odyssey Project population

This multi-site examination of sexual abuse histories of youth in residential treatment centers asked, for the sample as a whole and by youth's gender: (a) How many perpetrators did each youth have? (b) What was the gender of the perpetrator? (c) What proportion of youth was abused by family members? (d) What proportion of youth was abused in a child welfare setting? And, (e) what proportion of sexually abused youth were also victims of physical abuse and/or neglect? Results revealed that males were more likely to have one perpetrator, a female perpetrator, and to have been abused in a child welfare setting and less likely be abused by a family member. Implications for refining programs and practices are discussed.     

The Merry-Go-Round of Meetings: Embracing Meetings in a Swedish Youth Care Project

Modern society has been called “a society of organizations,” and meetings are considered indispensable. However, a recurring cultural theme in contemporary working life is complaints about excessive and time-consuming meetings. The present article analyzes a contrasting case concerning a Swedish youth care project that employed a set of “coordinators” to maintain close contact with young people and their parents. Over time, these coordinators adopted an exceedingly administrative approach in which meetings with other professionals became more and more central. This article explores how an expanding meeting culture with strong social commitments can be generated from within interorganizational contexts, such as “projects,” and successfully competes with other concerns. Thus, the administrative orientation represents an example of the type of social interaction process that Simmel discerned as Eigendynamik or autonomous processes of social interaction.     

Mental health and behavioral problems of youth in the child welfare system: residential treatment centers compared to therapeutic foster care in the Odyssey Project population

This is the first multisite, prospective study of behavioral and mental health disorders of youth in residential treatment centers (RTC) and therapeutic foster care (TFC), and the first study to compare the two. This study addressed two questions in a sample of 22 agencies in 13 states: (1) how prevalent were emotional and behavioral disorders in the youth admitted to RTCs and TFC?, and (2) were the youth in RTCs significantly more likely to be disturbed than youth served in TFCs? Data were drawn from the Time 1 phase of the longitudinal national "Odyssey Project" developed by the Child Welfare League of America (1995). Measures included an extensive child and family characteristics form (CFC) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The results revealed extremely high levels of behavioral and mental health disorders in the sample as a whole, well above the norms for a non-child welfare population. The prevalence of disorder in the RTC population was substantially greater than in the TFC population.     

Building Bridges into the Community: Social Capital in a Volunteering Project for Care Leavers

Volunteering to address poor life outcomes often experienced by care leavers is emphasised in UK policy. Although volunteering is credited with the ability to generate social capital, there is limited research on the impact of volunteering on the social capital of care leavers. This article re‐examines data from an evaluation of a volunteering project for care leavers. It explores in what ways young people's participation in the project constitutes social capital. The findings support the importance of regular face‐to‐face contact and co‐production for young people to become creators of their own social capital.     

Rates and correlates of recurrent psychiatric crisis episodes among children and adolescents in state custody

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of and factors associated with recurrent psychiatric crisis episodes among children and adolescents in state custody. A total of 1362 children ages 3 to 16 years who were in custody of the child welfare agency and underwent a psychiatric crisis screening and services for the first time between 2001 and 2003 were followed for the same observation period of 24 months. Logistic regression was used to determine the clinical and non-clinical factors associated with a return to psychiatric crisis screening and services. Overall, 44.6% of the sample had another psychiatric crisis episode in the following two years. Nearly two thirds of those who returned did so within 6 months of their first crisis episode. A greater likelihood of recidivism was associated with severity of psychiatric illness, being female, white, in residential care placement, and having placement instability. Recurrent psychiatric crises appear to be predictable using readily available variables, which can inform interventions designed to reduce repeat episodes.     

Health Promotion Project for University Students at a South African University: Results of a Pilot Survey

Globally, chronic diseases place a tremendous burden on health care systems all over the world. The increased prevalence of chronic diseases is mainly influenced by industrialization and decreased levels of physical activity. A cross-sectional qualitative and quantitative pilot survey, using a self-administered questionnaire and focus group discussions, was conducted with 73 students to assess the need for and feasibility of a health promotion program for university students at a rural South African university. The results of this survey suggest that there is a need for a health promotion program aimed at young adults who attend university.     

A Video Streaming Pilot Project: Applications in Social Work Training and Education

SUMMARY

Video streaming or Webcasting is a delivery technology that has potential for enhancing social work education and training. This delivery method moves participation in education and training beyond the barriers of distance and time. This paper discusses a pilot project that used this technology to make a videoconference available to social work colleagues across the country.     

Evaluation of a Seven State Criminal History Screening Pilot Program for Long-Term Care Workers

This article summarizes results from an evaluation of a federally sponsored criminal history screening (CHS) pilot program to improve screening for workers in long-term care settings. The evaluation addressed eight key issues specified through enabling legislation, including efficiency, costs, and outcomes of screening procedures. Of the 204,339 completed screenings, 3.7% were disqualified due to criminal history, and 18.8% were withdrawn prior to completion for reasons that may include relevant criminal history. Lessons learned from the pilot program experiences may inform a new national background check demonstration program.     

Continuity of Midwifery Care in England: A New Professional Project?

Over the last decade, an increasing amount of research has examined the relationship between gender and professionalization using female professional projects to illustrate how the generic notion of a profession has been a gendered one. This paper develops Witz's (1990) theory of professional strategies in female-dominated occupations particularly regarding midwives in Britain in the twentieth century and suggests that an important dimension that also needs to be critically examined in midwifery history is the interaction of gender and social class within midwifery. Furthermore it documents the traditional emphasis in midwifery on the single woman's career path. This historical analysis has resonance today as midwifery in Britain is undergoing a renaissance. The role of the midwife and the current organization of the maternity services are being reviewed with the intention of providing increased choice and control over the reproductive process for women and increased continuity of care with a midwife. These changes are viewed as midwives' new professional project and the implications for midwives and women discussed. The aim of this paper is to explore the explanatory power of these approaches to current developments in maternity care and by drawing historical parallels, consider the impact that this professionalizing strategy may have for those who are excluded from this process of ‘dual closure’. Furthermore, this paper asks whether this new way of working empowers midwives, women, both or neither?     

On the political economy of youth: a comment

This article is written as a brief comment on a recent discussion that has taken place in the pages of the Journal of Youth Studies on the question of youth, youth studies and political economy, in a series of articles by Côté [2014. “Towards a New Political Economy of Youth.” Journal of Youth Studies 17 (4): 527–543; Côté, J. 2016. “A New Political Economy of Youth Reprised: Rejoinder to France and Threadgold.” Journal of Youth Studies. doi:10.1080/13676261.2015.1136058] and France and Threadgold [2015. “Youth and Political Economy: Towards a Bourdieusian Approach.” Journal of Youth Studies. doi:10.1080/13676261.2015.1098779]. It argues for the value of embracing a broad understanding of the term political economy, and for the importance of increasing the attention paid to political economy in the field of youth studies. The comment draws on a simple review of articles published in the Journal of Youth Studies over a five-year period between 2011 and 2015 in order to clarify the different approaches that can be taken by youth studies researchers with respect to the question of political economy.     

Promoting youth purpose: a review of the literature

This article reviews the research literature on teaching and supporting purpose in adolescence and young adulthood. An extensive search revealed that most studies on youth purpose examine psychological correlates and neglect instructional and social supports. School is an effective context for fostering purpose, yet reported approaches for explicitly instructing for purpose are rare after the early 1990s, reflecting a trend away from a language of purpose as a discrete endeavor in education since at least the 1960s. Furthermore, research on the outcomes of early purpose instruction curricula is not present in empirical journal articles. Nevertheless, a concern for fostering youth purpose has not disappeared from education; rather, it is subsumed under approaches that foster more comprehensive positive student outcomes, such as character, civic engagement, and positive youth development. Key curricular approaches to these outcomes are therefore also reviewed and examined for insights into how purpose can be fostered.     

Cultivating youth voice through participation in a Foster youth advisory board: Perspectives of facilitators

This study explored the construct of youth voices in one state youth advisory board (YAB) from the perspective of program staff and child welfare liaisons and administrators (referred to as ‘facilitators’). Our aim was to understand how youth voice is defined and activated on a foster youth advisory board. In-depth interviews with 13 facilitators of a YAB in a Mid-western state were conducted between August 2013 and June 2014. These interviews were a part of a larger study that investigated what 33 current and former elected officers of a YAB learned from participation. Each interview lasted between 1 and 1/2 to 2 h. A grounded dimensional analysis was used to investigate facilitators' perceptions of the impact of participation on the development of advocacy for self and others. Findings indicated that the belief system of facilitators, provision of social support, opportunities to try new roles, and state agency leadership contributed to the cultivation of youth voice through two parallel processes: personalization and professionalization. Suggestions for practice and YAB development are made to enhance sustainability and decrease tokenization of foster youths' voices in child welfare systems.     

Voices of pacific youth: Video research as a tool for youth expression

Between 1994 and 1998, UNICEF administered a project to document on video tape the concerns and experience of young people living in the South Pacific Islands. Video was a valuable dual‐purpose medium for this project: it was useful both as a research tool and as a means to communicate sensitive issues across culturally defined borders between young and old. In this article I review the UNICEF produced videos as primary documents about the changing circumstances of youth who live in the Pacific societies. I also examine the challenges of trying to conduct investigations of this sort in cultural environments where young people are inhibited from expressing their views and feelings, and where adolescent perspectives are categorically devalued.     

Foster youth transitions to adulthood: a longitudinal view of youth leaving care

The well-being of youths who age out of the out-of-home care system in the U.S. has long been of great interest to child welfare practitioners and policymakers. In spite of this interest, however, very little is known about how these youths fare when they must make the transition to independence. The Foster Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study is tracking the experiences of 141 young adults who left care in Wisconsin in 1995 and 1996. This article describes these youths and their experiences in the first 12 to 18 months after leaving care. The findings suggest that the transition to independence is a difficult time for youth leaving the out-of-home care system.     

Psychotropic medication management for youth in state care: consent, oversight, and policy considerations

The use of psychotropic medications in youth with emotional disturbances in state custody is increasing and presents unique challenges concerning consent and oversight. We examine various means that state child welfare agencies use to provide consent for and oversight of psychotropic medications for children in state custody and describe benefits of a consent process that provides for expert consultation to the child welfare agency and prescribing clinicians, case-specific and systemic oversight of psychotropic medication use, and education for stakeholders.     

Positive youth development within a family leisure context: youth perspectives of family outcomes

Although a variety of recreation programs provide valuable settings for youth development and should continue, the home should be considered the first and perhaps the most essential context for positive youth development. Family leisure experiences are purposively or intentionally planned by invested adults (parents) to create and maintain meaningful relationships and provide supportive opportunities for their children to learn skills and develop behaviors that will not only strengthen current family life but ultimately contribute to their overall positive development. The article presents family leisure research from a youth perspective and sets out the implications of the role of home-based core types of leisure that families engage in.     

Spiritual development: a missing priority in youth development

Addressing the spiritual development of young people has the potential to strengthen youth work and its outcomes. Spiritual development matters because it is an intrinsic part of being human and because young people themselves view it as important. This article reviews the research that points to positive impacts of spiritual development for youth and notes that in an increasingly pluralistic society, everyone needs to build skills for negotiating religious and spiritual diversity. The authors propose that spiritual development involves, in part, the dynamic interplay of three dimensions: belonging and connecting, awareness and awakening, and a way of living. Three initial challenges and opportunities are emerging: empowering youth to explore core developmental issues, motivation and focus, and multisector engagement.     

Back to the future: mapping a historic turn in youth studies

Traditionally, the study of youth culture has been dominated by contemporary, sociological accounts of young people's leisure pursuits and identity-laden social practices. However, in recent years, it has become evident that there is an emergent scholarly interest in examining youth culture history. While many historians and sociologists situate the birth of youth culture as a post-WWII phenomenon, this essay contends that scholars from varying disciplines are expanding upon this popularly accepted timeline. Moreover, it is argued that there is now a historic turn in youth studies both in content and methodology. By providing an overview of what current youth history scholarship exists, and what methodologies enable such texts, this article advocates for further socio-historical work that foregrounds the longstanding, indelible influence and importance of young people's experiences within the tapestry of everyday cultural life.