Charles H. Mindel

THE USE OF SOCIAL SERVICES BY BLACK AND WHITE ELDERLY

Little is known about the roles of the family, kin, and non-kin support networks in determining the use of social services by the elderly. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the formal and informal support systems in explaining social service utilization by Black and White elderly. Path analytic procedures are used to test an explanatory model of utilization by a national area probability sample of 3.996 non-institutionalized elderly. The findings indicate that informal family support was more important for Black elderly than White elderly. In addition, family aid was found to be supplementary rather than an alternative support system. In the planning, designing, and delivery of social services to the elderly, it is imperative that racial and cultural differences become explicit input factors. Additionally, future researchers have a responsibility to employ research procedures capable of simultaneously dealing with a comprehensive range of variables in investigating this rather complex p...

An Evaluation of a Family Strengthening Program for Substance Abuse Offenders

Abstract Family strengthening programs have been shown to be effective in preventing many types of problems with children. This study expands on prior research by evaluating the effectiveness of a family strengthening program for substance abuse offenders. Results indicate that the program is associated with significant changes on the four main variables of concern to program staff and funders: family resilience, opportunities for pro-social involvement of the children, rewards for pro-social involvement by children, and family bonding. Because of the weak pretest/posttest design, we also include and provide a rationale for the use of measures of effect size. Effect sizes in this research are very large on the four main variables and provide a better measure of program impact than significance testing.