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Journal Article The majority of teen pregnancy literature and practice is deficit based, focusing on the consequences of teen pregnancy; significantly less research is devoted to the teens’ strengths. This article discusses the strengths-based perspective as a viable framework for clinicians and school social workers to implement to help teen parents and their families ameliorate some of the challenges they encounter. This article emphasizes the importance of clinicians, school social workers, and the community to adopt a strengths-based perspective when working with teen parents in order to cultivate…
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Journal Article Many Asian Americans tend to report receiving lower quality services from direct service providers. Improving the cultural competence of social workers and other professionals who work with Asian Americans may address this dissatisfaction. To date, there are few tools to help educators and supervisors evaluate the level of cultural competence of social workers and other health professionals. This study reports on the development and testing of a cultural competence measure to evaluate social workers’ preparedness for working with Asian American clients. Method: Based on a sample of 294…
Other
For too many young people the transition to adulthood is characterized by isolation, joblessness, and a lack of educational opportunity or connection to caring community. In a far-reaching effort to help disconnected youth, nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies across the U.S. are providing support in the form of shelters, job training, mentorship, college prep, job placement, and mental and reproductive health services. But in order to achieve success it is clear that these efforts require greater alignment and coordination. This special collection gathers the many lessons being…
Report, Other
This publication introduces an assessment and planning tool to help nonprofits evaluate their parent engagement efforts and chart a path toward deeper partnerships with parents and caregivers. The tool spans just eight pages, with accompanying text outlining how to use it, how to assess its results and what real-world strategies and programs are already in play — and working — to boost parent engagement. (Author Abstract)
Report, Other
This paper discusses three key policy areas regarding incarcerated mothers and fathers in Oregon: prison nurseries and community-based residential parenting programs; foster care laws; and parenting programs for incarcerated fathers. After reviewing background and best practices associated with policy implementation in each area, the paper explores ways in which policymakers, stakeholders, and advocates might address each policy area in Oregon, and suggests the formation of a legislative task force to address these issues. It emphasizes the need for increased policy attention to be focused on…
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Journal Article This study extended work on the consequences of incarceration for families by linking parents’ incarcerations to their material support of children entering adulthood. It examined two categories of support, parental transfers of cash and shared housing, that are known deficits among young children of incarcerated parents and that play important roles in young adult attainment and well-being. Propensity score analyses of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N [Wave3] = 14,023; N [Wave4] = 14,361) revealed that previously incarcerated mothers were less likely to give…
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Journal Article Young parents (less than 25 years of age) have been shown to have especially low rates of father involvement and union stability. However, research has also shown that parenting experiences of young fathers may not be uniform. There is a need for more research that assesses both the multidimensionality of relationship typologies and their temporality. Using a large longitudinal sample of low-income, young mothers enrolled in a randomized control study of a home-visitation program (n = 704; 61% program, 39% control), we evaluated how mother-father relationship dynamics changed over time. Ten…
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Journal Article Communities across the United States, in both urban and rural areas, are seeking ways to promote well-being for their citizens in sustainable ways. This paper provides a descriptive case study of one rural community that used an inquiry-based approach to ask, “How can we engage our citizens to improve child and family well-being in our community?” The group also wondered “What if Brookings had one place for families to access all family resources that support well-being?” “What if all families had a place where their needs were heard?” and “What if all resources for families looked at the…
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Journal Article Prior studies have found little evidence of an association between unemployment and child support compliance. However, few such studies used sample periods including a recession as severe as the one that occurred in 2007–2009 or a period following the Congressional mandate requiring states to adopt immediate wage withholding for all child support orders established after January 1992. While virtually assuring compliance by steadily employed nonresident fathers, this requirement imposes hardships on unemployed nonresident fathers, especially during recessions, because modifying child support…
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Journal Article In this article, we test how out-of-home placement affects men's labor market attachment, and in so doing we provide a novel parallel to existing research on how fatherhood affects men, which focuses almost exclusively on a child's arrival. Using population panel data from Denmark that include all first time fathers whose children were placed in out-of-home care from 1995 to 2005, we find that having a child placed in care is associated with up to a 4 percentage point increase in welfare dependency. Having a child placed in out-of-home care appear to aggravate conditions that likely…
