Government Transparency Regarding HIV Infection and Anti-Black Stereotyping

According to Fung’s (2013) ideal of democratic transparency, the public should use government-issued online information to hold government accountable. Limited cognitive accessibility, however, may lead members of the public instead to judge each other – especially African Americans – in stereotype-consistent ways. Using a behavioral approach to public administration (Grimmelikhuijsen et al., 2017), we investigate perceptual biases that may compromise the comprehension of CDC information about HIV prevalence among African Americans. We experimentally demonstrate that the most common data presentation formats lead to significant over-estimates of HIV prevalence among African Americans and associated risk assessments. Further, they increase anti-Black stereotyping in domains that are unrelated to HIV, namely derogatory perceptions of African Americans as supposedly “more lazy” than Whites, “less intelligent,” and more “prone to criminal violence.” We propose proportional scaling as a simple solution to the way the CDC in the United States, and UNAIDS globally, publish HIV prevalence information.

Within Source Diversification When the Going Gets Tough: Examining Alterations to Human Service Nonprofit Funding by Levels of Government

Government increasingly relies on nonprofit organizations to deliver public services, especially for human services. As such, human service nonprofits receive a substantial amount of revenue from government agencies via grants and contracts. Yet, times of crises result in greater demand for services, but often with fewer financial resources. As governments and nonprofits are tasked to do more with less, how does diversification within the government funding stream influence government-nonprofit funding relationships? More specifically, we ask: How do the number of different government partners and the type of government funder—federal, state, or local—influence whether nonprofits face alterations to government funding agreements? Drawing upon data from over 2,000 human service nonprofits in the United States, following the Great Recession, we find nonprofit organizations that only received funds from the federal government were less likely to experience funding alterations. This helps to illustrate the economic impact of the recession on state and local governments as well as the nonprofit organizations that partner with them.

The Practice of Youth Inclusion in Community Planning and Resiliency: The Case of Post-Hurricane Harvey

This research emphasizes inclusive civic engagement by including youth participation in creating a comprehensive plan post-Hurricane Harvey in Rockport, Texas. Traditionally, youth are less likely to be included in civic engagement initiatives; however, the community-based disaster resilience model and the public participation process model stress the importance of inclusion in rebuilding, resiliency, and planning processes. Using these theoretical frameworks to guide resiliency workshops with upper-class high school students, this research offers a unique perspective of what youth desire in community development and disaster recovery. Qualitative data was gathered from youth resiliency workshops and summative analysis was conducted to discover themes among youth responses. The findings indicate that young citizens are prepared to engage in local civic affairs, which contributes to a healthier and sustainable community. This study further highlights that youth have valuable and unique perceptions of their community and a concern regarding social equity and justice in community development and resilience.

Instruments for Exploring Trauma-Informed Care

Trauma-informed care is rising in popularity as services are recognising that traditional models are not offering a capacity for healing once thought. Service providers are becoming aware of individuals facing significant re-traumatisation using their services, and so a practical need to explore and understand approaches that accounts for these occurrences has arisen. Trauma-informed care is observed to be represented as a culture and an understanding of what this means is necessary to begin to understand trauma-informed care and its implementation. At present, there are a wide array of instruments available to evaluate the implementation and facilitation of trauma-informed care in numerous organisational services. A review of existing qualitative and quantitative instruments for exploring trauma-informed care was conducted. Many of these instruments require further validation or are limited in their construction. Foundational and substantial research on instruments were identified and discussed. Future instrument development emerging from such comparison and understanding is proposed.

Transgender and Gender Non-Binary Healthcare Coverage in State Medicaid Programs: Recommendations for More Equitable Approaches

Transgender and gender non-binary (TGNB) individuals face discrimination in healthcare settings and barriers to healthcare access, resulting in health disparities. These inequities are compounded by the intersection of lower socioeconomic status and geography. To understand the differences in how states provide healthcare to TGNB individuals in poverty, we ask: What are state Medicaid programs offering TGNB residents, and how can coverage be more equitable across jurisdictions? To answer these questions, we examine medical services covered by 15 diverse Medicaid programs and compare them to the services recommended by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Unsurprisingly, the analysis reveals inconsistent TGNB health coverage across states. While some states include coverage for TGNB-related care, some do not, and others place access to services in the hands of medical providers. These coverage disparities leave many TGNB Medicaid recipients across the U.S. without coverage for medically necessary services, prompting equity questions for both research and practice

Team Managers in Local Social Service Departments in Israel as Bottom-Up Social Policy-Makers

Following on Felice Perlmutter's work on the managerial role of social workers in social services, this article contributes to the still limited knowledge on the role of social workers in middle-management positions in formulating new policies `on the ground`. The study expands knowledge about policies determined by team managers in local social service departments in Israel. It occurs in the nexus between street-level bureaucracy, professionalism and managerial positions. Semi-structured interviews with 28 team managers revealed that they formulated `new` policies with regard to the provision of psychosocial services and material assistance (who gets what, when and how). This occurs when they resist official policy, when it is vague or non-existent. Most of their policy decisions are not documented and draw upon consultations with colleagues and superiors though not with clients. The team managers perceive these policies as a means for achieving balance between clients' well-being and budgetary constraints. Yet their decisions lack transparency, are decided upon without public discourse and may lead to greater inequity between clients

Political Social Work: An Essential Component of the Profession

Social workers have played a key role in political settings from the profession’s historic roots to present day. Their knowledge, skills and values position social workers to practice in political settings. Social work faculty and students were interviewed to assess a) how field placements in legislative offices and participation in Campaign School and NASW-sponsored Legislative Education and Advocacy Day (LEAD) impacted students’ professional development and perspectives on political social work, and b) social work faculties’ perception of these activities in students’ social work education and necessary political social work knowledge and skills. Initial results demonstrate a high level of support for these activities among faculty and students with opportunities to further include them in the explicit and implicit social work curriculum.

Sharing the Mic in Domestic Violence Program Leadership: Expanding on Dr. Perlmutter’s Call for Social Work Administration

Domestic violence (DV) work in the United States emerged as a grassroots collectivist movement and grew into more formalized programming within nonprofit social service organizations. In this commentary, co-authored by DV program leaders along with DV scholars and social work educators, we apply and extend the work of Dr. Felice Perlmutter as we reflect on the role of professionalized social work in DV program leadership. Narratives of DV program leaders highlight models of anti-oppressive, feminist and empowerment-focused leadership emerging from diverse sources of experience and education. We promote an anti-oppressive stance of “sharing the mic” to include diversity of voices and ways of learning and leading. We assert that formal social work education and training provides valuable preparation, as do lived experiences, survivor voices, and community membership. A theory of effective leadership emerges that promotes mutual

Painful Places: Medicare Fails Homebound Patients With Substance Abuse Disorders

There is extensive literature on the significance of substance use, misuse, and abuse among the elderly in the United States. A literature review indicates a paucity of information on the nature, significance, or impacts of the lack of substance use and abuse coverage in Medicare home health. This article presents background on the topic and an initial, exploratory study to address the literature gap, based on interviews of a convenience sample of 48 home care social workers between January 2013 and May 2015 in the New York City metropolitan area. Results indicate social workers believe substance use and abuse occurs frequently among Medicare home health patients; substance use and abuse is not assessed and treated professionally in Medicare home health; the lack of coverage in Medicare home health results in exacerbation of existing patient physical and mental health conditions, which, in turn, worsen substance use and abuse conditions; the homebound requirement and lack of coverage of transportation and personal care assistants limits home care patients ability to obtain outpatient substance use and abuse treatment; and lack of home-based assessment and treatment contributes to increased home care readmissions, re-hospitalizations, and increased caregiver burden.

Personality, Prosperity, Priority, Productivity, and Piety: Selecting Congregational Valued Lay Leaders

Religious congregations are community hubs of welfare and health services. They are known mostly for their spiritual and faith-based activities while being the largest providers of social care with the exception of social welfare services. Their leaders, the clergy, do not work alone. Members that work alongside clergy are essential for the congregation’s functioning but are under-researched, which limits our understanding of the inner workings of local religious congregations. In this exploratory study, we surveyed clergy to assess the characteristics possessed by their most trusted congregants—the valued members. This study helps to better understand the organizational behavior and an overall understanding of congregational members, who work most closely with clergy. We used an online survey of clergy across religious traditions within the United States (N=202), who provided personal data and described their valued members’ collective characteristics. Alongside our conceptual literature review, the findings identified five key groups: Personality, Prosperity, Priority, Productivity, and Piety. Overall, the valued members ranked highest were high on productivity and lowest on prosperity. We also found differences between clergy ranking based on their age, gender, and religion.