Social Work

Multivariate procedures allow social workers and other human services researchers to analyze complex, multidimensional social problems and interventions in ways that minimize oversimplification. This book provides an introduction to four procedures for the analysis of multiple dependent variables: multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), multivariate multiple regression (MMR), and structural equation modeling (SEM). Each procedure is presented in a way that allows readers to compare and contrast them in terms of appropriate research context; required statistical assumptions, including levels of measurement of variables to be modeled; analytical steps; sample size; and strengths and weaknesses. This book facilitates course extensibility in scope and depth by allowing instructors to supplement course content with rigorous statistical procedures. The book provides detailed annotated examples using Stata, SPSS (PASW), SAS, and Amos. It also gives additional resources, discussion of key terms, and a companion website.

Community social work practice has made tremendous progress in reaching out to marginalized groups in urban and rural areas of the country, with social work scholars bringing many of the key concepts underlying community practice into fields like health promotion, fostering approaches ranging from involving beauticians in providing domestic violence services, to developing community gardens to address food security and educational initiatives. The role and importance of assessment in development of health and social services are well accepted in the field and represent the fundamental building blocks for the creation of any form of social intervention. Needs assessments are, without question, the most common form of assessment in these fields. They typically, however, result in a rather narrow view of a community that stresses disease risk profiles and lists of various social problem categories. Nevertheless, unlike needs assessments, asset assessments bring a range of factors and considerations to the creation of an intervention that are guided by participatory democratic principles and processes. Although needs assessments can also be guided by participatory principles, they generally are professionally-driven and do not stress capacity enhancement in the process. The emphasis on participatory democracy during asset assessments distances them from their needs counterpart through the use of values, the language used to communicate, and how research methods get conceptualized and carried out. Community asset assessments can be viewed as a goal, a strategy, a set of guiding principles, a method, and a process. These different perspectives make a consensus definition of a capital difficult to arrive at in both scholarly and practice realms. Consequently, it is best to view asset assessments from an evolutionary point of view in order to appreciate the variety of perspectives, tensions, and potential for achieving positive social change. In essence, these assessments are both an instrument of discovery as well as an intervention to achieve community change.

The complexity of social problems necessitates that social work researchers utilize multivariate statistical methods in their investigations. Having a thorough understanding of basic statistics can facilitate this process as multivariate methods have as their foundation many of these basic statistical procedures. In this pocket guide, the authors introduce readers to three of the more frequently used multivariate statistical methods in social work research—multiplelinear regression analysis,analysis of variance and covariance, and path analysis—with an emphasis on the basic statistics as important features of these methods. The primary intention is to help prepare entry level doctoral students and early career social work researchers in the use of multivariate statistical methods by offering a straightforward and easy to understand explanation of these methods and the basic statistics that inform them. The pocket guide begins with a review of basic statistics, hypothesis testing with inferential statistics, and bivariate analytic methods. Subsequent sections describe bivarate and multiple linear regression analyses, one-way and two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and covariance (ANCOVA), and path analysis. In each chapter, the authors introduce the various basic statistical procedures by providing definitions, formulas, descriptions of the underlying logic and assumptions of each procedure, and examples of how they have been applied in the social work research literature. The authors also explain estimation procedures and how to interpret results. Each chapter provides brief step-by-step instructions for conducting these statistical tests in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and AMOS (SPSS, Inc. 2011), based on data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS: 88). Finally, the book offers a companion website that provides more detailed instructions, as well as data sets and worked examples.

The viability, quality and sustainability of publicly supported early childhood education and care services is a lively issue in many countries, especially since the rights of the child imply equal access to provision for all young children. But equitable provision within childcare markets is highly problematic, as parents pay for what they can afford and parental income inequalities persist or widen. This book presents recent, significant research from eight nations where childcare markets are the norm. It also includes research about ‘raw’ and ‘emerging’ childcare markets operating with a minimum of government intervention, mostly in low income countries or post transition economies. Childcare markets compares these childcare marketisation and regulatory processes and the format of any public investment across the political and economic systems in which they are embedded. Contributions from economists, childcare policy specialists and educationalists address the question of what constraints need to be in place if childcare markets are to deliver an equitable service. Evidence is presented that marketisation and privatisation, including corporatisation, risk deepening, consolidating or widening inequalities of access to early childhood education and care provision and driving qualitative differences between types of provider. The book documents the varied economic and policy backdrops of current childcare market systems, examines their consequences for parents, children, providers and the systems themselves, and finally explores alternative approaches.

As internet use is extending to younger children, there is an increasing need for research focusing on the risks young users are experiencing, as well as the opportunities, and how they should cope. With expert contributions from diverse disciplines and a uniquely cross-national breadth, this timely book examines the prospect of enhanced opportunities for learning, creativity and communication set against the fear of cyberbullying, pornography and invaded privacy by both strangers and peers. Based on an impressive in-depth survey of 25,000 children carried out by the EU Kids Online network, it offers wholly new findings that extend previous research and counter both the optimistic and the pessimistic hype. It argues that, in the main, children are gaining the digital skills, coping strategies and social support they need to navigate this fast-changing terrain. But it also identifies the struggles they encounter, pinpointing those for whom harm can follow from risky online encounters. Each chapter presents new findings and analyses to inform both researchers and students in the social sciences and policymakers in government, industry or child welfare who are working to enhance children's digital experiences.

This book represents the first full-length critical and interdisciplinary assessment of Loïc Wacquant's work in English. Wacquant's challenging critique of the neo-liberal government of crime and the punitive culture has recently shaken mainstream criminology to its foundations. In a bold political analysis he describes how the US-led revolution in law and order has dismantled the welfare state, replacing it with a disciplinary and penal state. Wacquant's analysis details the spread of neo-liberal crime control measures and the underpinning ‘pornographic’ discourses of crime across the developed world, although critics have questioned the extent to which this model of criminal justice really is gaining the worldwide dominance alleged. Written by criminologists and policy analysts, the book offers a critical but constructive application of Wacquant's ideas. The contributors welcome the opportunity presented by Wacquant's work to re-engage with a radical politics of law and order, criminalisation and marginality, whilst raising issues of gender, resistance, conflict and history which, they argue, help to enrich and further develop Wacquant's analyses and the discipline of criminology itself. The book concludes with a chapter from Professor Wacquant responding to the commentaries upon his work. It fills an important gap in the existing literature and will be exciting reading for academics and students of criminology, social policy and the social sciences more broadly.

This book provides a practical, step-by-step, hands-on guide for social work researchers, doctoral students, and professionals who are interested in conducting culturally competent research with diverse populations and groups. This book adopts ethnography as a meta-framework for conducting culturally competent research. Since its inception as an academic discipline, anthropology has developed theories, concepts, methods, and a significant body of substantive studies for the purposes of guiding cultural research, describing cultural groups and processes, and providing data needed for cross-cultural research and theory-building. Ethnography as a meta-framework for research suggests the following components of culturally competent research: (1) A collaborative social relationship with the study group and community; (2) Use of firsthand, long-term participant observation; (3) Use of self as research instrument; (4) Researcher as learner; (5) A contextual view of phenomena; (6) A holistic perspective; (7) An interactive-reactive research process; (8) A cross-cultural frame of reference; and (9) A spirit of discovery. This pocket guide describes each phase of research incorporating these components from framing and designing the study; to data collection, management, and analysis; to final analysis and report writing; and to dissemination to a variety of audiences. Inclusion of these elements ensures that the research is conducted with and close to the lived experience of the study groups. Culturally Competent Research provides a methodological framework for developing a rigorous social work knowledge base for research in an increasingly diverse and global society. Culturally competent research will help the social work profession understand the lived experiences of diverse populations, which will in turn help to shape social work practice and policy to the benefit of all.

As financial issues are currently a major concern for families, scholars, and practitioners, students have increased their interest in knowledge and skills for practice that addresses finances. Unfortunately, social workers and other helping professionals often lack preparation, knowledge, and skills to tackle increasingly complex financial problems facing their clients. This volume fills a significant gap by assembling the latest evidence about financial education and financial capability in low-income households, and linking it to education, policy, and practice for helping professionals. Financial capability, or the ability of people to understand and act in their best financial interest, includes financial knowledge or “financial literacy” and access to beneficial financial services. This volume builds on theoretical, research, policy, and program developments over the past two decades. This book develops the idea and presents evidence that financial capability has a viral role to play in social work research, education, policy, and practice. It examines recent work by scholars who are generating knowledge and understanding about the role of financial capability on individual, family, and community well-being. The volume also reviews initial efforts to build professional capacity in social work to address the financial issues of low- and moderate-income and other vulnerable households and develops an agenda for future research and education.

In 1995 New York City had one of the worst child welfare systems in the United States. The city’s system struggled under 20 class-action lawsuits and 11 court orders or stipulations resulting from these suits. Elisa Izquierdo, a 6-year old girl involved in the child welfare system, was killed by her mother while other families struggled without help until their situation exploded. The city’s response was to place children into foster care at an unprecedented rate, reaching 50,000 children in care in the early 1990s. Less traumatic and less expensive interventions could have protected many of these children and kept them safely within their families. In response to that situation, David Tobis and an anonymous donor created the Child Welfare Fund, which helped nurture a movement of parent organizers to reform New York’s child welfare system. For the first time in the history of the United States, a movement developed of parents who have been embroiled in the child welfare system. Their efforts, working with their allies including courageous and visionary commissioners, brought about unprecedented and long-lasting improvements including legal representation for parents, assistance to struggling children and families, and fewer than 14,000 children in New York City’s foster care system today. The parents in this story were victims of domestic violence, homelessness, and poverty. Some became dependent on drugs. They all had the crushing, enraging, and at times transforming experience of having their children taken from them and put into foster care by child protective services. Many of these parents entered drug treatment programs, left abusive relationships, got jobs, filed lawsuits, and were reunited with their children. Some took the next step and were trained as parent organizers. They learned how to fight effectively against child welfare policies and programs that left families victimized by a system that was supposed to help them. This book focuses on the lives of six mothers who had been pariahs and then became partners with child welfare commissioners, social workers, lawyers, foundation officers, and child welfare agency executives. It recounts how their courage and resilience brought about the most significant changes in the history of New York’s child welfare system.

Employment is the highest priority for many people with severe mental illness and it is a central aspect of recovery. Over the past two decades, the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model of supported employment has emerged as the prominent evidence-based approach to vocational rehabilitation. This book synthesizes the research and experience on IPS supported employment: historical context, core principles, effectiveness, long-term outcomes, non-vocational outcomes, cost-effectiveness, generalizability, fidelity, implementation, policy, and future research. This book relates to areas of work with populations with psychiatric disabilities and in community mental health and social service settings. In tracing the evolution of IPS, readers are equipped with an elegant example of the transition from needs assessment, to model development, to testing, and to dissemination.