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After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse as institutions that \"save\" and \"rescue\" Black youth. Such rhetoric perpetuates an ethos of pathology that diminishes the agency of youth and their communities. Through ethnographic research with 20 youth workers at a college completion and youth development after-school program in the urban Northeast, findings indicate that tensions arise as youth workers strive to reimagine Black youth in humanizing ways despite pressures to frame them as broken and in need of fixing to compete for funding with charter schools. Data also reveal deep tensions in youth workers' experiences as they critique neoliberal reforms that shape their work; yet, at the same time, they are forced to hold students to markers of success defined by neoliberal ideals. These tensions result in youth workers downplaying the social, cultural, and emotional dimensions of their work.

We report a randomized, wait-list controlled trial assessing the effects of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS). An effectiveness analysis was conducted with elementary schools in Hawaii and Illinois where training and technical assistance in SWPBS was provided by regular state personnel over a 3-year period. Results document that the training and technical assistance were functionally related to improved implementation of universal-level SWPBS practices. Improved use of SWPBS was functionally related to improvements in the perceived safety of the school setting and the proportion of third graders meeting or exceeding state reading assessment standards. Results also document that levels of office discipline referrals were comparatively low, but the absence of experimental control for this variable precludes inference about the impact of SWPBS. Implications for future research directions are offered.

High school graduation is a key developmental milestone. Most youth in foster care and young people generally want to attend college but adverse experiences put many at risk of either not completing high school or earning an alternative degree, which reduces the likelihood of college enrollment. Youth in foster care have disproportionately low graduation rates but can be academically resilient, and studies suggest that caseworkers play an important role in their academic trajectories. Less is known about how youth-caseworker relationships, as perceived by transition-age youth themselves, relates to high school completion. Multinomial logistic regression showed better youth-caseworker relationship quality was associated with a higher probability of high school graduation with a diploma for youth who reported clinical posttraumatic symptoms. Results suggest that youth’s subjective experience with caseworkers is important, and supportive caseworkers can mitigate the negative effects of trauma so that youth can reach their academic goals. Assessing and enhancing this core relationship warrants significant focus in future research, practice, and policy.

The problem of racism has always been a pervasive issue deeply rooted in the fabric of our country. Many of our established social and human services have been structured based on the insidious nature of racism and oppression. The Child Welfare System (CWS) is not exempt and race-based inequities experienced by CWS-involved Black and Latinx families remain persistent and harmful. This article presents a qualitative account that underscores the lived experiences of racism among CWS-involved parents. Two emergent themes are highlighted: (1) the impact of CWS surveillance and oversight and (2) perceptions of race-based mistreatment and unfair judgment. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 primarily Black and Latinx parents in order to investigate their perceptions regarding CWS oversight and ways in which their minority status played a role in how they were treated. There is inherent racism in the surveillance, reporting and assessment, and resulting determinations regarding Black and Latinx people in the child welfare system. This manifests in service delivery practices underpinned by an unbalanced power dynamic between caseworkers and parents. Overall, parents expressed feeling disrespected, fearful of family disruption, shamed and judged based on implicit biases. Implications for policy and system changes are discussed, including a call to include the voices of historically disenfranchised Black and Latinx CWS-involved families.

Reuniting children with their families is the preferred outcome of foster care, yet many children reunited with their families reenter foster care. This study examined how parental substance abuse and mental health problems, and the time allotted for reunification, are associated with reentry risk. We used a complete cohort of children who entered the Texas foster care system in fiscal years 2008 and 2009 to identify the risk of foster care reentry within 5 years of reunification using selection‐adjusted multilevel survival analysis. Approximately 16% of reunified children reentered care within 5 years. Substance abuse and mental health problems predicted higher rates of reentry. Reunification after 12 months was associated with increased reentry risk overall, but not among children commonly exempted from federal permanency timelines. Permanency guidelines that restrict the length of time to achieve reunification may have the unintended consequence of pushing reunification before maltreatment risks have been resolved.

A dominant conceptualization of empathy in social work practice and education, provided by Karen Gerdes and Elizabeth Segal, relies heavily on the simulation theory adopted directly from the cognitive neurosciences. The aim was to critically challenge such a view by reporting on some recent empirical findings from the field in which professional social workers were interviewed about their experience of empathy in working with forced migrants. The findings support a phenomenological, critical account of simulation theory and provide evidence that empathy is constituted as a direct social perception of the other's experience. It was concluded that simulation theory is insufficient in providing an exhaustive approach for the professional use of empathy in social work practice and education.

Almost a quarter of the child welfare workforce leaves their job each year, and despite clarion calls over the decades, our insights into dynamics underlying turnover remain limited. Using survey data from 276 caseworkers in a midwestern state, this analysis explores an array of personality, stress, attitudinal, and perception measures and their association with three measures of turnover intent: thinking about quitting, intending to search, and intent to leave. Findings indicate that controlling for demographic factors, burnout, and confidence in decision support from agency leadership had consistent and strong associations with all three outcomes (positive for burnout; negative for decision support). In contrast, associations between conscientiousness, open-mindedness, secondary traumatic stress, and attitudes favoring family preservation over child safety varied in their significance, orientation, and strength depending on the outcome in question. Given that the most powerful and consistent predictors of turnover intentions are potentially malleable, these findings indicate that these are two important areas for agencies to consider developing interventions. Moreover, despite the commonalities, the finding that the three outcomes examined were associated with different predictors, suggests they may be distinguishing phases of contemplation and action along a pre-turnover continuum. Future research will explore the relative predictive validity of these scales.

Objective Using components of the Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response Model, Critical Race Feminism, and Sites of Resilience, this study explored how street‐identified Black American mothers engage in street life, while juggling the pressures of childrearing, family, and home life within a distressed, urban Black community. Background Street‐identified Black American mothers are vilified for their intersecting identities of being Black women who are experiencing poverty, and who may also be involved in illegal activity. Black mothers are disproportionately represented in the criminal legal system, but existing research has inadequately examined how street‐identified Black mothers “do” family in the confines of structural violence. Method We addressed this gap by analyzing interview data with 39 street‐identified Black American mothers ages 18 to 54. Data were collected using street participatory action research. Results We identified a typology of three adaptive mothering strategies employed by street‐identified Black women as they respond to and cope with violent structural conditions shaping their mothering: constrained mothering, racialized mothering, and aspirational mothering. Conclusions Findings suggested that these strategies were developed in response to an overarching carceral apparatus, of which these mothers were tasked with avoiding when possible and confronting when necessary. Their mothering strategies were shaped by a collective, Black American cultural identity and worldview, and the mothers possessed a unique way of perceiving the world as criminalized subjects with disproportionate proximity to the punitive state.

Social workers responsible for developing rape prevention programs on college campuses must have valid evaluation instruments. This article presents the challenges encountered by the authors when they attempted to keep rape myth measures relevant to student populations by updating the language to reflect the subtleties involved with rape myths. The development of a modified version of the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale is described. Focus groups were conducted to gather feedback about the language used by college students related to sexual encounters and rape. The instrument was then tested with 951 undergraduate students at a large northeastern university. Exploratory structural equation modeling was used to assess the factor structure of the scale. In addition, multiple-indicators multiple-causes modeling was used to assess the potential differential item functioning of the measure s items by gender, previous experience with sexual assault prevention programming, and knowing someone who was sexually assaulted. A four-factor structure was hypothesized and a five-factor structure supported, indicating a separate factor that looks at alcohol and accountability. Implications for social workers are discussed, including the necessity of continuously updating rape myth measures to ensure validity.