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Native Hawaiians constitute 401,000 or 0.1 percent of the total U.S. population, with approximately 60 percent residing in the state of Hawai'i. In Hawai'i, Native Hawaiian elders ("na kupuna") face a number of social and health disparities when compared with their non-Native Hawaiian counterparts: higher rates of poverty, greater disability rates, higher rates of specific life-threatening diseases, shorter life expectancies, and lower utilization rates of some services. Integrating life course literature and resiliency theory, the authors propose a model that provides a context from which to analyze and understand social and health disparities found among older Native Hawaiians. The authors introduce a historical timeline that identifies key cultural and historical markers in the lives of "na kupuna" and then link this timeline to health and social-health delivery strategies. This model offers a rationale for the development and implementation of culturally based solutions for "na kupuna" and underscores the need for social workers to intervene at the micro, meso, and macro levels to affect the well-being for this and other ethnic populations.

Young children with disabilities are significantly more likely to live in poverty than their peers without disabilities. Exposure to poverty creates additional risk of adverse outcomes for these vulnerable children. In this article, the following key circumstances contributing to this increased risk of impoverishment are analyzed: elevated costs of raising children with disabilities, low levels of public income transfer benefits, difficulty balancing parental employment and caregiving responsibilities, unavailable or high-cost child care, and inadequate leave time to permit parents to meet their children's episodic care needs. The implications of these issues for social work practice and advocacy needs are discussed.

Describes an evaluation of an innovative site-based service program, the Growth and Achievement Program (GAP). Results show that GAP clients had significantly higher gain scores than did the comparison group and were less likely to rely on public financial assistance as their primary source of income. (RJM)

Public libraries in the United States have begun to partner with social work to address the psychosocial needs observed in patrons that are beyond the training and education of most library staff. This is a new area of inquiry with limited research available. Of the few published studies, the majority focus on staff perceptions of patrons' needs and surveys of patrons experiencing homelessness about their use of public libraries. The present study is the first to examine and compare staff perception of patrons' needs, patrons' self-expressed needs, and the actual use of social work services by patrons within one library system. Comparisons are explored between actual service usage alongside the perception of patrons' needs as originally reported by both staff and patron groups. Implications for library-based social work practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide neoliberal policies are transforming the landscape of social work. Studies have shown that these policies increased social workers' caseloads, regulated welfare expenditures, impaired public services' capabilities to attend to the needs of growing demand, transformed social services delivery by implanting new public management methods, and often also worsened working conditions and deteriorated the professional status of social workers. Moreover, these policies have raised both poverty and inequality levels and left their negative marks on social work education, by prioritizing academic disciplines more attuned with the needs of neoliberal regimes. This article seeks to encourage schools of social work, social workers in the social services, and people living in poverty to challenge the harmful impact of this context by engaging in meaningful alliances focused on the fight against poverty and social exclusion. This article presents a long-term partnership project between a school of social work, local public social services, and groups of active clients, to tackle the issue of poverty in Israel. The article describes the project, introduces the theoretical and methodological principles, analyzes achievements and challenges, and finally discusses the potential contribution of such partnerships for the future of the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores state registries of people substantiated for child maltreatment. It is reported that these registries disproportionately impact women of color (black and Latinx) and can impact employment for years after allegations are made. The article notes the protective role of these registries for children as well as their collateral consequences for those placed on them.

A lack of financial capability--financial opportunities and abilities--and poverty are highly interlinked. Over 65 percent of people in India are excluded from any financial services. This article explores income-poor Indians' experiences with financial capability through a qualitative study. Purposive sampling was used to collect data from 658 individuals, through focus groups (n = 566) and face-to-face interviews (n = 92). Findings show that 97 percent of respondents had the opportunity to earn an income, and 55 percent earned through financial inclusion programs, but 87 percent of respondents earned less than U.S. $2 a day. Although almost all saved and needed to borrow, 46 percent were eligible for formal savings and only 23 percent for formal loans. Financial abilities or knowledge and skills related to income, savings, and loans were higher among the few who had a stable income or had medium and high income in relation to those who had unstable and low income. Respondents experienced many challenges with their financial capabilities, including borrowing to save, fearing formal loans, and lacking clarity about loan and interest rate; banks miscalculating interest rates; and political parties influencing access to loans. Implications for social policy and social work practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social workers are leaders in the substance abuse services field and may often work in substance use disorder (SUD) education, prevention, assessment, treatment, or resource coordination and case management roles. As the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) (2010) drives changes in the fields of health and behavioral health, social workers have an opportunity to lead structural changes at the micro and macro levels that will have a positive impact on low-income clients with SUDs. In this article, authors examine the current state of SUDs and health care access, the impact of the ACA on the field, and implications for social work practice and education. Social workers should seek specialized education and credentialing in SUD services, know how to help clients apply for health care coverage, and advocate for integrated substance abuse treatment and health care programs and an expansion of Medicaid in their local communities. Social workers are well positioned to be a voice for clients to ensure that the current structural changes result in a better, integrated system of care that is able to respond to the needs of low-income clients with SUDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an empowerment approach for working with diverse women who experience poverty, trauma, and multiple structural oppressions. The approach is the result of 20 years of experience developing, implementing, and evaluating this practice in a metropolitan community, and is grounded in women's empowerment theory and relationalcultural theory. The interventions combine social work's clinical interventions with community organizing strategies to promote personal and collective empowerment, supporting the “personal is political” tenet of feminist practice. The interventions, including nonclinical interviews, story circles, and leadership and advocacy education and training, can guide practitioners in providing services and programs that create a space for women to make changes in their personal lives and in their community. Program outcomes report successful changes for women in improving symptoms, increasing self-efficacy, and engaging in community advocacy. Women who participated also reported an increased sense of power, balancing commonality and difference among women, and a sense of hope for their future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the authors discuss the role that social workers can play in helping to end food insecurity in the U.S. and ensuring that needy families gain access to food stamps and food related programs and services. They are critical of initiatives and legislation which have reduced access to food stamps in the U.S. and are supportive of having social workers advocate for food related federal programs and support rights based organizations which address hunger and food insecurity.

Payday loans refer to small-dollar, high-interest, short-term loans usually extended to lower-income consumers. Despite much research to the contrary, the payday loan industry asserts that it primarily serves middle-class Americans. This article discusses the authors' investigation of the industry's claim, by analyzing data from a U.S. bankruptcy court serving a Southern district. Results of the multivariate binary logistic regression analysis showed that, controlling for various sociodemographic and economic variables, two middle-class indicators—homeownership and annual income at or greater than the median income—are associated with a decreased likelihood of using payday loans. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the results for social work practice and advocacy in regard to financial capability, particularly asset development, income maintenance, and payday loan regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

School social workers and other school personnel can find meeting the educational and social needs of immigrant children a challenge, particularly if these children are also experiencing poverty and other educational barriers, including limited English language proficiency. Quality after-school programming has been associated with a variety of positive effects such as increased educational attainment and positive social and emotional development and could, therefore, prove significant in the lives of immigrant children. Yet, immigrant children participate less. The purpose of this article is to discuss ways in which school social workers can increase enrollment in after-school programming among immigrant children, six to 12 years of age, by becoming both advocates for children and families and leaders in developing and maintaining these services. School social workers are poised to play a number of roles related to practice, administration, research, and policy. Because this particular age group of children begins to look beyond the family for guidance and support, middle childhood is an opportune time for school social workers to work toward involving children in positive after-school experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research indicates that female victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) are at risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other negative mental health outcomes. Low-income women of color experience IPV at disproportionately high rates and may need a comprehensive array of resources to recover from victimization. Although cognitive–behavioral therapy, a psychotherapeutic approach, has been established as the most effective treatment for PTSD in some populations, psychotherapy may not be sufficient for this population of survivors. This article reviews the relevant research and literature on treatment approaches for victims of IPV and provides an overview of studies investigating more holistic intervention approaches that feature components such as social support groups and advocacy, in addition to psychotherapy. Relying on conservation of resources theory, which posits a relationship between resources and psychological stress, and a relationship-oriented ecological framework, this article presents a model of a comprehensive intervention for disadvantaged minority victims of IPV that can help address issues related to PTSD and empower survivors to access necessary resources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although some research suggests that the relationship between Child Protective Services workers and their clients may influence client outcomes, little is known about the function of the relationship between welfare or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families caseworkers and their clients. Building on previous research, the authors use 1999 survey data from the Welfare, Children, and Families Project--a probability sample of 853 low-income women with children living in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio, Texas--to examine the association between perceived welfare caseworker support and psychological distress. Results revealed that women who perceive their welfare caseworker to be interested, caring, and helpful also tend to exhibit lower levels of psychological distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Native Hawaiians constitute 401,000 or 0.1 percent of the total U.S. population, with approximately 60 percent residing in the state of Hawai'i. In Hawai'i, Native Hawaiian elders (nā kūpuna) face a number of social and health disparities when compared with their non-Native Hawaiian counterparts: higher rates of poverty, greater disability rates, higher rates of specific life-threatening diseases, shorter life expectancies, and lower utilization rates of some services. Integrating life course literature and resiliency theory, the authors propose a model that provides a context from which to analyze and understand social and health disparities found among older Native Hawaiians. The authors introduce a historical timeline that identifies key cultural and historical markers in the lives of nā kūpuna and then link this timeline to health and social-health delivery strategies. This model offers a rationale for the development and implementation of culturally based solutions for nā kūpuna and underscores the need for social workers to intervene at the micro, meso, and macro levels to affect the well-being for this and other ethnic populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports findings from a cross-national comparative study that examined the commonalities and differences in professional ideology among social work graduates in 10 countries by studying their attitudes toward poverty and the goals of social work. The major finding is the substantial similarity in the students' professional ideology despite the different contexts of their professional socialization process. Students in all the countries attributed poverty to structural causes and supported the extension of state social welfare as a way of dealing with poverty. They expressed a large degree of support for individual well-being and social justice as major goals of social work. Differences were also identified. The similarities and differences reflect the interplay of centrifugal and centripetal forces that fashion the characteristics of global social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People who leave welfare commonly return, and this phenomenon has become more pressing in the time-limited TANF program. Fostering stable TANF exits may be particularly difficult in poor inner-city areas because of job shortages and neighborhood deterioration. Perspectives of TANF leavers from five focus groups in Chicago about problems leading to welfare returns are presented. Participants indicated that low wages and unstable jobs were most often responsible for TANF returns. Obtaining health care and child care and inconsistent performance of TANF caseworkers were stressed as contributing factors. Participants also focused on strengths helpful in sustaining exits from TANF, particularly psychological benefits associated with working and informal supports received from family members and friends. The implications of recipient-identified problems and strengths are discussed, including balancing "work first" employment policies with substantive educational and job development policies. Strategies for improving the performance of TANF case planning are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined early research findings concerning the well-being of people who leave Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs and then applies these findings in the development of TANF-related advocacy strategies. Based on secondary data analysis of TANF leaver studies from 12 states with large TANF caseloads, the authors focus on the employment and earnings experiences of leavers; TANF recidivism and its relationship to job stability; and the use of support services. State studies typically have found employment levels among leavers in the 55 percent to 65 percent range, but average earnings fall below the poverty level. Although those who remain employed can expect earnings growth, job instability is a significant problem and contributes to TANF recidivism rates of 21 percent to 35 percent within the first year. Available support services such as Medicaid, food stamps, and child care subsidies are underused, often because leavers do not understand that they are eligible. Recommended advocacy strategies include policy interventions to improve the economic well-being of low-income working people, as well as administrative and direct practice strategies to improve the implementation of existing policies. The authors argue that attention to such advocacy efforts is both critical and opportune for social work, given the profession's historical mission, impending federal TANF reauthorization, and unspent TANF allocations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information from a study of people receiving food assistance services from food pantries and soup kitchens in Virginia. The data indicate that significant numbers of individuals and families--many of whom are employed--are seeking food assistance. Many of these individuals also have been homeless, victims of domestic violence, unable to pay their utility bills, or have lost their public benefits. A critical issue raised by the findings is the low rate of participation in the food stamp program. Fewer than 40 percent of the respondents were receiving food stamps. Although the food stamp program is intended to help households buy a nutritionally adequate diet, there is growing concern that a large segment of low-income Americans are slipping through this safety net. The article concludes with suggestions for social work interventions to address issues of food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What proportion of the American population uses a social safety net program during the course of adulthood? To address this question, we constructed a series of life tables using 30 years of longitudinal data. Our results indicate that two-thirds of Americans between the ages of 20 and 65 will at some point reside in a household that receives benefits from a means-tested welfare program (food stamps, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or other cash welfare). Such assistance is often in the form of in-kind programs, such as food stamps or Medicaid. The findings also indicate that the use of welfare tends to take place over fairly short intervals of time. For example, although 65 percent of Americans will use welfare by age 65, only 15.9 percent will do so for five or more consecutive years. However, once the use of welfare occurs, it is quite likely to occur again at some point during adulthood. Our results suggest that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the use of the United States social safety net is a mainstream experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare reform policies assume that recipients will increase work efforts if they are offered improved income and support services incentives. Yet, based on personal interviews with 60 welfare recipients, this study found that recipients often do not understand the incentives provided. This results both from a lack of knowledge about existing incentives and from confusion about eligibility rules and benefit calculations. Such knowledge deficits do not appear to be the result of lack of interest in working, but rather stem from the complexity of incentives. To improve recipient responsiveness and well-being, work incentives need to be simplified and strategies developed for better dissemination of information to recipients. Caseworkers must play a vital role in such efforts, because they often are the key to ensuring that recipients gain access to available benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the process of developing an empowerment approach in a comprehensive child development program that defined its mission as empowerment of families living in poverty. This description is derived from a seven-year organizational ethnographic research project that included data from participant observation, agency documents, individual interviews of staff and family participants, and focus group interviews with staff. Findings concerning empowerment are presented in two areas: (1) resolution of contrasts and dichotomies related to the nature of services, understanding staff roles, and working with the federal government; and (2) lessons learned for program effectiveness. Implications for empowerment-oriented social work practice and policy are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although social work practice typically is concerned with physical conditions and experiences such as poverty, addiction, and violence, relatively little attention has been given to the body in professional literature. Emphasizing both physical and sociocultural dimensions of the body, this article argues for an invigorated, more complex understanding of the body in social work theory, practice, and research. Drawing from scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and social work, a framework involving three dimensions of the body is proposed for integration with accepted ecological practice models. The nature and implications of three primary dimensions of the body for multiple domains of social work practice are explored, citing examples from narratives of mothers living with HIV disease: (1) the experiencing body, focused on the physicality of daily life; (2) the body of power, focused on the physicality of oppression and marginality, typically based on race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, physical appearance, and illness; and (3) the client body, reflecting the bodily experiences of those identified as clients who participate in relationships with social workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bronfenbrenner's process-person-context-time model is used to examine theories that explain the adverse effects of economic deprivation on children's socioemotional development. In his model, each of five structures of the ecological environment--microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, macrosystems, and chronosystems--is subsumed within the next higher level. Theories of the effects of poverty on proximal processes in the microsystem of the family have the most research support, but processes in other microsystems such as the peer group and school and in other levels of the ecological environment may also explain the relation between economic deprivation and children's socioemotional functioning. Social work practice and policy implications are drawn from the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The profession of social work has made distinctive and important contributions to individual, family, and community social welfare, because it has avoided the excessive reductionism found in other helping professions. Unlike these other helping professions, social work has addressed economic and occupational needs of individuals, families, and their communities in a unique way. As a new century dawns, it is appropriate to look back and reflect and then to look ahead toward continuing challenges and emergent needs of individuals, families, and their surrounding communities. This article highlights some social work legacies and how they will help inform 21st century practice. Drawing on lessons from the past, several examples illustrate the kinds of strategies that might inform integrative social and economic foundations for practice, policy, and human well-being. The importance of these and other income-support and capacity-building strategies is featured against the challenges associated with welfare reform, new mandates for systems change, and what some see as the "reinvention" of the welfare state. The analysis concludes by describing some of the implications for professional education, research, practice, and their relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the black families headed by single mothers: growing numbers and increasing poverty. Despite increased social welfare expenditures, the passage of anti-discrimination laws, and implementation of affirmative action programs, black families appeared worse off than they had been sixties. The numbers of never-married mothers are of particular concern because of the growing percentage of teenage women in this group, although the impression that teenagers, particularly black teenagers, are having babies in record numbers is erroneous. The continued growth of black single-mother families most often has been attributed to increases in welfare benefits and erosion of traditional family values. The economic instability of black men has contributed to the impoverishment of single black women and their children. High rates of joblessness among black men have left many black mothers as the sole support of their families or dependent on poverty level welfare benefits. The social work profession must begin to view the problem as one of black parents and children in poverty and begin to advocate just as forcefully for policies and programs that assist black men.

In this article, the author outlines the history and rationale for an official poverty line. He points out the failures of the current poverty line and provides a formula that can be used to derive a more useful criterion to measure poverty in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A natural relationship exists between the fields of social work and economics. However, cooperation between these two fields is currently at a low ebb and must be improved if social work is to develop its full potential as a force in the shaping of public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are current procedures for deters mining AFDC eligibility effective in insuring that error is minimized and that poverty is reduced? The author uses descriptive tables to compare the reliability of two models of eligibility procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines some of the operational directives of advocacy, which are considered to be out of place with sound professional conduct of social workers. Advocacy has become a prominent and popular idea in social work practice. But, as the authors point out the social worker functioning as an advocate may be undermining his professional ethics as well as the interests of the clients with whom he works. Advocacy has become prominent among social work practitioners in the 1960's. But prominence should not he mistaken for novelty advocacy was a part of social practice long before it was labeled as such in the 1960's. Since that beginning of social work practice as Charles Levy point's outs many social agencies have included advocacy among their functions and, certainly many individual social workers defended the interests of their clients before such activities were explicitly defined as advocacy functions. Although practitioners throughout the century have tried to clarify advocacy role in social work practice between 1935 and 1960 concern with this issue was often submerged. During these years the profession attention was focused more on therapeutic and clinical modes of intervention than on social issues such as poverty.

The article presents a conceptual framework for social work consultation in inner city schools. The nature of inner-city education demands that social work consultation in the urban school be reconceptualized. The impact of poverty and racism on the lives of children who attend these schools makes the educational task enormous. For these children, violence is a constant threat; instability and uncertainty are frightening realities. The precariousness of their everyday lives demands that much energy go into simple survival. Little in these children's environment supports a feeling of self-worth. Their parents' motivation to reinforce the child's learning experience has been thwarted by their own necessary pre- occupation with survival, their disillusionment with social institutions, and their feelings of impotence stemming from numerous encounters with racism. Educators are nevertheless charged with the responsibility of providing high-quality educational experiences for black children at the same time that they are confronted with serious disorganization and deterioration at the individual, family, and community level.

This article describes an evaluation of an innovative site-based service program for residents of single-room occupancy hotels. The Growth and Achievement Program (CAP), a federal demonstration project, was designed to promote greater self- sufficiency among residents by providing social services and employment counseling to residents in their own environment. It was hypothesized that the program would increase educational attainment, job readiness, the ability to obtain and sustain employment, and monthly income for program clients compared with residents in nonparticipating housing units. The sample included 53 clients and 52 respondents in a matched comparison group at the six-month follow-up and 36 clients and 34 matches at the 12-month follow-up. Coal attainment scales and income data were used to measure program outcomes. CAP clients had significantly higher gain scores than did the comparison group and were much less likely to rely on public financial assistance as their primary source of income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes several exemplary programs already developed and focuses on the promise the movement holds for being a major social work strategy for revitalizing impoverished communities. Substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, crime and violence, gangs, unsafe sexual practices, teenage pregnancy, single parenthood, limited health care, slum housing, and homelessness are problems frequently experienced by families living in poverty stricken urban areas. A sense of hopelessness and despair pervades the lives of these poor children and children of color, who see their parents and loved ones succumb to the pressures of poverty and see for themselves no chance of doing better. Poverty in the inner cities has a profoundly negative impact on children's educational success. The school-linked, family resource center movement is being driven largely by the seemingly intractable problems with the current network of social services for children and families. The current social services system has been characterized as dis-empowering, fragmenting and confusing for families.

The article discusses the relationship among poverty, welfare, and work, and the factors that allow communities to foster employment opportunities, enhance accumulation of wealth and provide a safety net for families, in an era of diminishing federal government's role in social services. In addition, this article outlines the research needed to raise the understanding of how communities and labor markets affect work and poverty and the process through which communities can change to meet the challenges of devolution. The agenda set forth is not exhaustive but focuses on the contexts in which low-income people, whether working or on welfare, try to raise and support their families. The agenda assumes that social workers have an important role to play in helping create community and opportunity structures that allow all families to thrive. Welfare time limits and strong work requirements will leave large numbers of families in extremely precarious economic circumstances unless many of the barriers to employment for men and women currently in the low-skill labor force and moving on and off welfare are reduced. This problem cannot be approached piecemeal or with an individual focus; it requires a comprehensive approach to rebuilding the opportunities and supports for work in low-income communities.

The article provides a conceptual model of violence that offers a comprehensive response to urban violence that is congruent with social work's traditional concern with social justice. Violence is more deeply embedded in U.S. culture than this society wants to believe; it is the foundation of many revered ideals and institutions. Current conceptualizations of violence by the profession can be gleaned from a review of the literature. While the profession was concentrating on domestic violence, the country's attention turned to the unparalleled epidemic of Street and handgun violence that gripped every major city and the increasing violence of youth against youth. A synthesis of several theoretical perspectives forms the basis of a conceptual model of violence that discerns the manifestations of violence within conditions of oppression and considers its multilevel nature. The institutional level of violence is submerged from view so that its forms are almost completely invisible. Violence at this level includes harmful actions by social institutions and their various organizational units that obstruct the spontaneous unfolding of human potential. Institutional violence occurs in prisons, mental institutions, welfare bureaucracies, government bodies, schools, the military, and so forth in forms such as punitive welfare policies, degrading verbal and physical treatment of mental patients and prisoners, and corporal punishment in schools.

The article reports on the internal revenue code to accomplish different social and economic objectives. This article proposes that social workers should advocate for changes in the internal revenue code that promise to reduce poverty, the most fundamental social problem in the United States. The new political realities reviewed in this article strongly suggest that social work should promote changes in the Internal Revenue Code that will reduce poverty through job growth and incentives that make work more rewarding for welfare recipients and low-income Americans. Entitlement programs are further burdened by the public perception that the majority of the nation's poor people live in inner cities where they take advantage of entitlement programs. Wages and salaries for American workers increased an average of 1 percent per year between 1970 and 1989. Meanwhile, the consumer price index rose at an average of 5 percent per year. Some economists argue that the economy actually made a U-turn in the 1980s and that the number of bad jobs began to outpace the number of good jobs. The growing economic squeeze on the middle class is also the result of the shift in the tax burden to the middle class. Although its significance with respect to economic philosophy may not yet be fully comprehended by the middle class, the progressively of the tax code, the cornerstone of democratic liberalism, was seriously eroded during the 1980s.

Opinion. Comments on the social work and community development practice of empowerment of low-income populations in the United States. Association with liberal reformers; Applications of empowerment by various policymakers; Views of community change; Kemp ownership initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinion. Comments on the endangerment of Afro-Americans resulting from the cycle of violent behaviors and victimization. Extent of violent in the African American community; Institutional racism; Policy issues; Proposed model for activism; Implications for social work action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on factors that caused the deterioration of economic well-being of children in the U.S. during the 1980s. The author termed this stage economic deterioration of children as the period of juvenilization of poverty. The official definition of poverty used by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, which also serves as the guideline for eligibility standards for public assistance, establishes a monetary line below which a person is poor. Research on poverty from the 1980s identified a subgroup of poor people referred to as the "underclass."Discussion of the underclass centers on the inability of poor adults to become securely attached to the labor force. According to further researches, in addition to the growing underclass, the "feminization" of poverty has accelerated. After the recession of 1982-1983, the United States experienced over six years of economic expansion. In spite of that overall economic trend, child poverty did not decrease. The increase in child poverty is directly linked to the economic decline of young families. In order to control this juvenilization and feminization of poverty, several income assistance programs have been launched by the U.S. government and social organizations, including the empowerment of the Aid to families With Dependent Children program. The author emphasizes on the need for placing social workers in advocacy roles and to focus on poverty as a central practice concern.

The article focuses on child poverty in the U.S. First, the nature of the problem is reviewed and the U.S. situation is compared with that in other industrial economies. Second, American income support policies for children are described and evaluated. Third, alternative strategies for reducing child poverty are discussed. Understanding the options for antipoverty policies can help social workers develop a more integrated approach to child welfare policy issues. The federal government developed an official definition of poverty in 1964 and has modified it in small ways since then. The poverty lines defined vary by household size, the age of the head of the household, and the number of children under 18 years of age in the household. Children have been the poorest age group since 1974. Before then, the aged were the poorest. Because of better social security benefits and larger private pensions, poverty among the aged has declined steadily for the past 20 years. Poverty among children has not: it fell throughout the 1960s, inched slowly upward during the 1970s, sharply increased in the early 1980s, and has fallen gradually since 1983.

The article focuses on the increasing poverty and concentration of wealth that will affect the needs of social work clients, the delivery of services, and the role of social welfare in U.S. society. Poverty, unemployment, and changing family structures present social workers with new and increasingly severe problems. A global economy, which results primarily from the growth of multinational corporations, concentrates wealth and makes it unavailable for social needs. An internationalist perspective is necessary to develop strategies and policies appropriate for the new economic and social structures. Social workers must guard against service cutbacks, develop new programs, and focus practice on social action. The question of whether 20 million or 34 million or 50 million people of the U.S. are poor is surely an indecent one; the lowest of these figures is a national scandal. No matter how poverty is measured, the decline in poverty that began in the sixties slowed and then stopped in the seventies since 1978, the numbers below the poverty level have steadily risen.

The article focuses on a brief analysis of the War on Poverty, Medicare, and the Family Assistance Plan that shows that political factors influenced their design and their fate more than need or effectiveness. The author suggests that social workers have a role in promoting the wiser and wider use of research data for determining social policy. Interest has grown to the point of demand that social work practitioners and administrators give priority to evaluating their programs and methods of intervention leaders of the profession, social scientists, and key governmental officials have put forth compelling arguments on the importance of demonstrating the effectiveness of services and ways of work. Program evaluation seems to have relatively little to do with initiating, implementing, and modifying social programs. How much this failure reflects the capacity of social research to evaluate may be irrelevant. Sustained research in the three major social programs examined was neither demanded nor supported on a scale commensurate with the problems under consideration.

To arrive at an effective solution to the problem of poverty, action is necessary in both the job and income maintenance areas. Present employment and income programs do not reach, or do not adequately aid, millions whose family income falls below the poverty level. Positive features of the guaranteed annual income, negative income tax, and children's allowance programs are presented, as are such drawbacks as perceived cost and unpredictable social outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses income maintenance alternatives. Public welfare is in bad repute and criticism of it has been gathering momentum. It is scored for its inadequacies and inequities, for its failure to encourage initiative, for the failure of states to respect their own standards, for capricious exercise of administrative discretion and calculated discrimination, for wastage of staff in eligibility determination instead of in the provision of social services, for failure to wither away to residual status and dimension. This last, perhaps, has been public welfare's greatest sin, its affront to affluence. A formidable indictment has been made and it has opened the door to a search for new approaches. The income maintenance alternative that has most captured popular and professional interest is the negative income tax (NIT). Economists have undoubtedly been attracted to the NIT because it deals with their stock in trade. But they are impelled also by other values. They see the NIT as non-exclusive, it is not concerned with the cause of poverty but with the fact of income insufficiency. It picks up all eligibles and it is what economists call "efficient," namely, it closes the poverty gap without wasting public funds by distributing benefits above the designated income guarantee to those who do not need them. They believe that the NIT can preserve work incentive and provide an impersonal, non-stigmatizing means test. Moreover, it can be self-administered in the same way that the taxpayer establishes his eligibility to pay income taxes.

The problems encountered by social workers practicing In an antipoverty agency that is not social work oriented are examined by focusing on the structural variables emanating from the agency's organizational environment and the social work profession's structure. The need to develop new role models for workers and new structure for service is indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the new welfare rights movement--how it has been influenced by the civil rights movement and the Community Action Programs of the War on Poverty, Its aims and methods, and the problems it faces. The author maintains it is important for social work to have an understanding of this movement if the profession is to contribute effectively toward change in social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doubts about the Community Action Programs are held by both the Congress and people in the social welfare field who have noted the seeming failure of the community action idea in practice. Critics of the CAP, the author states, must recognize that the CAP must first establish and maintain Itself before attempting to achieve the goals set for it. He suggests critical variables that influence the movement from Phase 1, in which the CAP is focused on its own survival, to Phase 2, when the CAP can begin to deal effectively with the local problems of poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing public assistance programs, the author contends, have outlived their usefulness and must be replaced. Three key tasks for social workers are outlined: (1) the exertion of pressure both within and outside the system to bring about its collapse, (2) engagement in systematic planning efforts to design new work opportunities for social work employees released from public welfare activities, and (3) initiation of a program of education and political action with reference to the guaranteed minimum income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]