In Their Own Words: Adopted Persons’ Experiences of Adoption Disclosure and Discussion in Their Families

This study explored adoption disclosure in a sample of 18 adult adoptees who were adopted as infants. A qualitative analysis of semistructured interviews with adoptees was used to learn about participants’ experiences of adoption disclosure. The majority always knew they were adopted, were able to talk openly with parents about adoption, and had positive feelings related to learning about their adoption. Those who were dissatisfied with their disclosures reported that their parents were uncomfortable with discussing adoption and withheld information. Based on the findings, suggestions are provided for parents and adoption professionals on ways to improve the management of the disclosure process.     

Lesbian Parents and Work

Twenty-one lesbian parents, representing 15 families, were interviewed to examine the work-family issues experienced by the women. Seventy percent of the interviewees were satisfied with their employment situations and characterized the relationships between their households and the workplace as positive. Qualitative analysis of the interview data revealed work-related stressors and supports, and strategies for balancing work and family. Themes included instrumental support, interpersonal support, integration of work and family, and creative responses to work-family tensions. Implications for social work policy and direct practice are discussed.     

Building an Institution Second to None: Dr. Inabel Burns Lindsay—A Social Work Leader in the Academy

ABSTRACT

This article describes Dr. Inabel Burns Lindsay's leadership as the founding dean at Howard University School of Social Work during her 30 years of service from 1937 to 1967. It chronicles her efforts to build the School as well as her efforts to highlight social injustices of the time. Her lifelong efforts promoted the inclusion of African American social workers in the workforce and the need to understand sociocultural factors in working with different ethnic and racial groups. As a female dean, Dr. Lindsay was an avid promoter of social justice and a prolific writer and speaker on the topic. This article introduces the reader to this under-recognized social work pioneer, with emphases on the challenges of her time and her leadership style.     

Gendered Economic,Social, and Cultural Challenges to HIV/AIDS Prevention and Intervention for Chinese Women

ABSTRACT

China is experiencing the most rapidly expanding HIV prevalence in the world, with the percentage of Chinese women living with HIV/AIDS also increasing significantly. Chinese women's risk of HIV infection is heavily influenced by patriarchal cultural beliefs, Confucian doctrines, and rapid social and economic changes in China. Chinese women generally have a low level of awareness of HIV/AIDS. With inherent inferior social status and economic disadvantage, their vulnerability to HIV infection is heightened by adverse impacts of massive rural-to-urban migration, explosion of the commercial sex industry, and prevalence of gender-based violence. In order to target HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs for Chinese women, their specific needs and gendered obstacles must be addressed and tackled. These include strategies that aim to fight against poverty, improve education, enhance HIV/AIDS awareness, facilitate new life-skills acquisition and behavior change, make available woman-centered services for testing and treatment of HIV, and eradicate gender-based discrimination and violence. There is also an urgent need to further develop various public health infrastructure in China, especially in remote and rural areas. The pool of gender experts in China should also be expanded to conduct a thorough gender analysis and design a national response to address the evolving HIV/AIDS epidemic in Chinese women.     

Adolescent Sexual Debut: A Multi-System Perspective of Ethnic and Racial Differences

Data from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were used to assess the association between family, self, proximate extra-familial, and distal extra-familial system factors and abstinence/virginity and age of first sexual intercourse by ethnicity and race (N = 1,854). Findings show how and in what circumstances measures associated with these four factors vary for Black, White, and Hispanic youth. Findings point to the robustness of class and gender for each ethnic-racial group on timing of sexual initiation and of delinquency and negative peer relations on abstinence among Black and White youth and of religious affiliation among Hispanic youth.     

Social Workers' Postgraduate Use of the IFD Interpersonal Communication Model

Interpersonal communication assessment models have become very popular as a means of quickly establishing rapport in many settings across the United States. Despite their popularity and possible utility, there has been minimal research into the impact of these models, especially over time and in educational settings (more than 6 months after the training is over). In the master's of social work (MSW) program at Brigham Young University (BYU), the interpersonal family dynamics (IFD) model is used as a tool to better understand human behavior and strengthen relationships in the social work practice environment. This training is provided to first-year students in the foundation human behavior in the social environment course and to field supervisors in their field training conferences. BYU's MSW program graduates were surveyed to find out their perceptions of the utility of IFD. With a relatively high level of accuracy, the graduates reported IFD was a useful approach to better understanding human behavior in their daily practice. Graduates used the model as much in their personal lives as in their professional lives.