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Couch hopping is a significant feature of youth homelessness in the United States. Every year, half of youth ages 18 to 25 who experience housing instability report couch hopping—also known as couch surfing or doubling up. Emerging work suggests that in some intergenerational informal hosting arrangements, youth and their adult hosts can form meaningful and supportive relationships. However, hosts also navigate material challenges that could threaten the stability of these arrangements. Based on in-depth interviews with nine youth ages 17 to 23 in informal hosting arrangements and 10 informal hosts, we describe how increased household costs and lease and benefits restrictions can impact stability, and the strategies hosts and youth mobilized to address them. We place hosts' instability in the context of intergenerational poverty and structural racism, reframing material challenges as opportunities to strengthen the village of support youth need to make sustained exits from homelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study of 19 long-term foster carers examined how they coped with traumatic events with children in their care and continued to foster children. Phenomenological methods revealed that they endured significant traumatic events regarding the children that had lasting impacts on them. While much of the related research focuses on indirect secondary trauma among foster parents, these incidents were experienced and interpreted more as primary trauma. Participants also reported an intense commitment to the children in their homes, a passion for providing a good home for them, and recognized that they benefitted personally from fostering children. Recommendations include solutions more closely aligned with primary trauma and a using veteran foster parents to support and mentor new carers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Texting-based crisis counseling is increasingly used to reach young people in acute crisis. Drawing on the online disinhibition effect (ODE), this U.S. study explored how asynchronicity and invisibility contribute to how users reveal their presenting problem and engage with counseling. A random sample of 49 text crisis line sessions with youth averaging 18 years was used to assess response lag times and flow as well as their impact on the session. Interviews with crisis counselors provided supplemental context. Content analysis identified patterns in the presenting problem, reasons for response lags, and patterns in how the sessions ended. The overall duration of text sessions was substantially longer than that of voice calls, to cover comparable content. Users frequently multitasked or become engaged in other activities between texts, creating a more disjointed flow. This also allowed the user to take time with responses to difficult questions. Counselors had to match their pace with users, make decisions when to discontinue the session, and use intentional language to develop a therapeutic connection. In line with the ODE framework, the findings suggested that the invisible nature of texting allowed users to reach out for help at the moment they needed it, regardless of their location. Implications for using texting-based interfaces are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Couch hopping" is generally considered a form of housing instability. Prior research has highlighted the discomfort and, sometimes, dangers associated with couch hopping in late adolescence or young adulthood. However, we postulated that in some cases youth may develop positive longer-term housing arrangements with adults drawn from their existing network. Through in-depth interviews with a diverse group of nine youth (17–23 years) dealing with housing instability and ten adult hosts in rural, suburban and urban areas of a Midwestern state, we sought to explore how youth found adults to stay with, what kind of support they received, as well as the character of the hosting relationships. To our knowledge, this is the first study to interview hosts. Findings suggest that informal hosting arrangements can include support beyond provision of basic housing needs, that hosts sometimes play a social service role, and that youth and hosts often develop family-like ties. Also, youth do not typically initiate: more often peers or other third parties facilitate the arrangement, or the host issues an invitation. These findings challenge the existing narrative of couch hopping as uniformly negative, and suggest that expanding services for youth facing homelessness to support informal hosting arrangements may be warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parent–child visits for children in foster care are often fraught with tension, particularly between foster parents and parents. Qualitative interviews with 42 social workers, foster parents and parents revealed more positive relations when foster parents recognized parent fears and shared power over parenting decisions with them. Social workers can support the process by clarifying visiting expectations and encouraging foster parents to reach out to parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental injustice is a growing human rights issue as climate change and environmental degradation rapidly increases. As a social justice problem, it is relevant to the social work profession, yet not integrated into our curricula. This study of 373 social work professionals found that environmental justice is a significant practice issue across broad client populations and that professionals felt unprepared to address it. Qualitative and quantitative data revealed high levels of client exposure to environmental hazards with little power to change it. Respondents reported dissatisfaction with their education to help them understand environmental issues. Moreover, they indicated that they would like to see environmental justice integrated into social work education and better-prepared graduates entering the profession. Implications for practice and education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Regular parent visits in foster care are linked to child well-being while in care and to reunification. Parents often face emotional and logistical challenges to visiting. Yet practices to engage with parents by encouraging visits and problem-solving barriers are inconsistent. This study explores the effect of three factors on parent visits among 75 foster children: specific caseworker efforts to engage parents around visiting, whether the visit supervisor is the caseworker or a designated foster parent, and the role that kin versus non-relative foster relationships play in visiting regularity. Logistic regression models demonstrated that caseworker attempts to engage parents have a significant effect on the regularity of parent visits. Focus groups with kin caregivers, non-relative foster parents, and caseworkers revealed a lack of clarity or agreement about who is responsible for engaging parents to attend visits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents descriptive findings from a project designed to understand different perspectives about family visits, to pilot a guidebook tool to help participants reach shared goals, and implement best practices. A sample of 133 parents, children, foster parents, and social workers reported their reactions to the tool. Findings revealed that, depending on the role played in visits, there was variation in perceived goals of visits and ideas about handling difficult visits. After using the tool, parents reported feeling better able to manage their emotions during visits, children reported believing their feelings about visits were more normal, and foster parents were more open to discussing parent no-shows with children. Implications for practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]