Sí, Yo Puedo Curricula and Police Departments: Educating Immigrant Latinas

ABSTRACT

Immigrant Latinas experiencing incidences of interpersonal violence require services from police departments. In a mixed-methods study using a culturally specific curriculum, Si, Yo Puedo, designed to foster self-esteem and provide education on interpersonal violence and healthy relationships, two groups (n = 14) were conducted in 2015 at a precinct in a midwestern state. This group-format curriculum is a 2-hour, topic-specific educational program, conducted in Spanish, offered in 11 weeks. Participants reported an increase in self-esteem and knowledge of interpersonal violence after completing the program. Findings implicate this curriculum as a suitable service tool for police departments working with immigrant Latinas.     

The high cost of neglecting children: The need for a preventive policy agenda

Millions of children in the United States suffer from poor care and inadequate services due to neglectful national social policy. More than 13 million children live in poverty and its negative consequences, at great individual and social cost. This paper outlines the need to seriously advocate for a preventive policy approach to child welfare and presents a blueprint for individual and collective political action. The cost-effectiveness and social benefits of preventive policies are demonstrated. Social workers understand the value of prevention in working with children and families, and are needed to advocate on the policy-making level for a preventive policy agenda.     

A Quantitative Procedure for Classifying the Content of Theory/Research Works*

Classifying styles of scientific thought is a necessary prelude to many further projects in the analysis of theory and in the sociology of sociology. Numerical techniques such as those presented here can supplement less formal insights. To illustrate I have classified twenty-five works (representing a diversity of well known theory approaches) by the presence or absence of forty-two traits (drawn from ideas about the logic-of-science). The procedures detailed here group these familiar works into “sensible” types based on social structure, social perceptions and positivistic methods. The classification also exposes underlying dimensions of individual versus group-based observations and theory-building versus theory-confirmation strategies. Having demonstrated the system can produce sensible results with familiar works, I can use it to identify atypical works, to compare social groups of theorists with types of thought, and to explore the nature of common, underlying dimensions.     

Exploring domestic partnership benefits policies in corporate America

This article examines the domestic partner benefits (DP benefits) movement in corporate America, among Fortune 500 companies. An unprecedented number of Fortune 500 corporations started to extend equal benefits to their employees in the late 1990s. One-third of Fortune 500 companies now extend DP benefits to their gay employees despite national refusal to legally recognize same-sex unions. We provide a macro analysis of the 2002 Fortune 500 companies to explore the characteristics of the corporations that offer the benefits and the impetus for adopting these new gay friendly policies. Findings are that top ranked Fortune 500 and industry leaders act as benchmarkers for the corporate community. Region of the corporate headquarters and commitment to diversity issues also inform these organizational changes. Isomorphisic processes offer viable explanations for the transformation of the corporate climate that touts DP benefit policies as "the right thing to do" and considers these policies as good business sense in order to compete for employees. The DP benefits movement reflects corporate America trying to enhance their reputational capital by including gay issues as part of their diversity programs and policies.     

Alternative Rural Communities: A Solution to Urban Unemployment?

The quest for solutions to urban unemployment prompted the federal government to give serious consideration to providing support and encouragement to alternative rural communities. It hoped that residents in these communities would withdraw from the formal labour market and establish alternatives to conventional employment. A study of 20 rural land sharing communities in New South Wales indicates that at the present time these communities do not provide a supply-side ameliorator of unemployment and that their future economic viability would depend on substantial government support for local employment initiatives. What the lifestyle in these communities clearly offers, however, is a quality of life denied to those on the dole.     

Healing loss, ambiguity, and trauma: a community-based intervention with families of union workers missing after the 9/11 attack in New York City

A team of therapists from Minnesota and New York worked with labor union families of workers gone missing on September 11, 2001, after the attack on the World Trade Center, where they were employed. The clinical team shares what they did, what was learned, the questions raised, and preliminary evaluations about the multiple family meetings that were the major intervention. Because of the vast diversity, training of therapists and interventions for families aimed for cultural competence. The community-based approach, preferred by union families, plus family therapy using the lens of ambiguous loss are proposed as necessary additions to disaster work.     

Treating drug-abusing offenders. Initial findings from a five-county study on the impact of California's Proposition 36 on the treatment system and patient outcomes

Five counties (Kern, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco) that demonstrate both variations and similarities in their implementation of Proposition 36 (e.g., treatment approaches, urine testing) and patient mix have been selected to participate in a study assessing how California's Proposition 36 is affecting the drug treatment system and patient outcomes. Except for San Francisco, treatment admissions increased during the first year of Proposition 36 implementation over the prior year (27% in Kern, 21% in Riverside, 17% in Sacramento, and 16% in San Diego), mostly in outpatient drug-free programs. Compared to non-Proposition 36 patients, Proposition 36 patients were more likely to be men, first-time admissions, treated in outpatient drug-free programs, employed full-time, and users of methamphetamine or marijuana. They were less likely to be treated in residential programs or methadone maintenance programs and fewer reported heroin use or injection drug use. Guided by the multilevel open systems framework, the study examines key issues of Proposition 36 that influence treatment systems and outcomes and empirically identifies "best practice" approaches in treating drug-abusing offenders.