Sustainable Social Work: An Environmental Justice Framework for Social Work Education

Environmental degradation is not experienced by all populations equally; hazardous and toxic waste sites, resource contamination (e.g., exposure to pesticides), air pollution, and numerous other forms of environmental degradation disproportionately affect low income and minority communities. The communities most affected by environmental injustices are often the same communities where social workers are entrenched in service provision at the individual, family, and community level. In this article, we use a global social work paradigm to describe practical ways in which environmental justice content can be infused in the training and education of social workers across contexts in order to prepare professionals with the skills to respond to ever-increasing global environmental degradation. We discuss ways for social work educators to integrate and frame environmental concerns and their consequences for vulnerable populations using existing social work models and perspectives to improve the social work profession's ability to respond to environmental injustices. There are significant social work implications; social workers need to adapt and respond to contexts that shape our practice, including environmental concerns that impact the vulnerable and oppressed populations that we serve.     

Eroding patriarchy: the co-evolution of women's rights and emancipative values

Some scholars find that top-down improvements in women's rights increase societies' value of gender equality at the grassroots, creating pressure for more adoption and enforcement. Others claim that the extension of women's rights is strongly dependent on value change at the grassroots, operating largely as a bottom-up process. We find that top-down and bottom-up dynamics are mutually reinforcing, creating a co-evolutionary dynamic in women's empowerment. We evaluate the rights/values dynamic with data on as many countries as possible, trace their changes over the longest time span available, and analyze their reciprocal relationship in both directions of impact. This is the first analysis that is at the same time (1) comparative across a diverse, global set of nations; (2) dynamic in looking at change in rights and values over time; (3) bidirectional in analyzing the interplay in both directions of impact; and, (4) controlled for relevant ‘third’ changes.     

Comments on how child protective services investigators decide to substantiate mothers for failure-to-protect in sexual abuse cases

This commentary discusses the decisions of child protective service (CPS) investigators to substantiate mothers for failure to- protect (FTP) in child sexual abuse cases. Four areas are identified in which the scientific literature remains inadequate to fully inform child maltreatment researchers, CPS practitioners and child welfare policymakers on models and outcomes for FTP substantiation decisions. Attention is called to the need for more information about how differences in statutory definitions, common guidelines, and professional education and training influence FTP substantiation decisions. Current gaps in the knowledge base on FTP and nonoffending caregivers are highlighted. doi:10.1300/J070v15n04_05.     

Increasing the usability of cognitive processing therapy for survivors of child sexual abuse

There is an ongoing need for empirically based treatments for child sexual abuse (CSA) that are time-efficient and cost-effective. This article describes a modification of cognitive processing therapy for child sexual abuse (CPT-SA) that increases the therapy's usability by reducing the number of individual therapy sessions required. The modifications are based on the developing literature on stage-based approaches to the treatment of CSA and incorporate dialectical behavior therapy skills training into the treatment protocol. Initial pilot data (N = 6) on modified CPT-SA suggests the therapy may be effective for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.     

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 risk of partner aggression research: impact of laboratory couples conflict protocols on participants

The impact of male-to-female intimate partner violence (IPV) research on participants is unknown. A measure of impact was given to participants in an IPV study to assess systematically the impact of completing questionnaires, engaging in conflict conversations, and being interviewed individually about anger escalation and de-escalation during the conversations. Participants completed a six-question, Likert-scaled impact measure. Both male and female participants rated the impact of the study as helpful to them personally and to their relationships. Female participants rated different segments of the study as more helpful to themselves and their relationships, while male participants did not find any segment of the study to have a different impact than other segments.     

Parent-child interaction therapy: application of an empirically supported treatment to maltreated children in foster care

One of the more serious problems faced by child welfare services involves the management of children with serious behavioral and mental health problems. Aggressive and defiant foster children are more likely to have multiple foster care placements, require extraordinary social services resources, and have poor short- and long-term mental health outcomes. Interventions that work with challenging foster children and enhance foster parents' skills in managing problem behaviors are necessary. This article presents the successful results of a single case study examining the application of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) with an aggressive young boy and his foster-adoptive parent. PCIT is a dyadic intervention that has been identified as an empirically supported treatment for abused children and for children with different types of behavioral disruption. The application of PCIT to assist foster parents is a promising direction for child welfare services.     

Integrating the older/special needs adoptive child into the family

This qualitative, grounded theory study investigated 11 families who reported having successfully integrated into their family unit at least one older/special needs adoptee. The theory that emerged through the constant comparative methodology consisted of two categories (Decision to Adopt and Adjustment) and a core category (Developing a Sense of Family). The two categories and core category comprised a process that was informed by the Family Narrative Paradigm and culminated in the successful integration of the child or children into the existing family unit. Parental perceptions that appeared to facilitate this process included: (a) finding strengths in the children overlooked by previous caregivers, (b) viewing behavior in context, (c) reframing negative behavior, and (d) attributing improvement in behavior to parenting efforts.     

Comparing Iraq to Vietnam: Recognition, Recall, and the Nature of Cohort Effects

Cross-section samples in five states were asked in December2004 and July 2005 whether the Iraq war is more like the VietnamWar or more like World War II. The Vietnam analogy was chosendisproportionately by those who were alive during that war,though the choice was not limited to exposure to the Vietnamperiod during what have been called the "critical years" ofadolescence and early adulthood. The distinction between twoforms of remembering, recall and recognition, helps situatethe results with regard to past research on cohort effects oncollective memory. Evidence is also presented against interpretingthe present effect as related to the biological and social correlatesof aging. Other results are included on the relations of analogychoice to partisan identification, gender, education, race,and region.