David P. Moxley

Telling my story: from narrative to exhibit in illuminating the lived experience of homelessness among older African American women.

The authors document the integration of methods from the arts and humanities into a social research and development project, the objectives of which are to create and test promising interventions helpful in assisting older homeless African American women get and stay out of homelessness in the city of Detroit, Michigan, USA. The exhibit incorporates multiple forms of narrative, includes performative features, promotes public awareness of homelessness in the city of Detroit, and engages homeless and formerly homeless women in social action. The authors examine the prototype design and the involvement of participants in creating artistic portrayals of their homeless experience.

Lessons Learned from Three Projects Linking Social Work, the Arts, and Humanities

The aims of this paper are to illustrate how social workers can collaborate with designers and artists in addressing social issues facing communities and to identify the implications of such collaboration for social work education. The authors examine three projects linking social work, the arts, and humanities [Arts in Recovery (AIR), the Leaving Homelessness Intervention Research Project (LHIRP), and Interdisciplinary Research on Environmental Design (IRED)] for the lessons they offer social work education. They pay particular attention to the art exhibit and its catalog as products that educate the public on various social issues, as well as the exhibit visitation experience that parallels key components of traditional group work and community development. Implications for social work include teaching interdisciplinary collaboration, integrating the arts into social work methods, emphasizing the importance of participatory action research, and creating settings that promote community engagement. The authors then draw implications for how the arts and humanities can influence or otherwise shape the paradigm of social work education and instruction in the areas of policy, human behavior, practice methods, and research.

Five Dimensions of Faith and Spiritually of Older African American Women Transitioning Out of Homelessness

Background Homelessness among older African American women is emerging as a serious social problem. The increasing cost of living, diminishing community resources, and shrinking retirement benefits, as well as reduced social services are resulting in greater numbers of older minority women becoming homeless. Aims This investigation explores the relevance of faith and spirituality to an advocacy assessment designed to help participants resolve issues that operate as barriers to their leaving and staying out of homelessness. Methods A substudy of a larger research and development project was undertaken, in which qualitative interview methods were used to illuminate the role of faith and spirituality resources in the lives of 84 older homeless African American women. Comparative thematic analysis of illustrative cases was undertaken to better understand the role of faith and spirituality in the women’s lives and in how they used faith and spirituality in coping with homelessness. Findings Five dimensions of faith and spirituality, (a) identity and beliefs; (b) affiliation and membership; (c) involvement; (d) practices; and (e) benefits, served as promising resources in understanding life spaces of homeless minority women and identified promising advocacy strategies. Two cases describe the realities of homelessness for older minority women endeavoring to transition out of homelessness and illustrate how faith and spirituality can buffer stress, facilitate coping, and sustain motivation. Conclusions How older homeless African American women use their faith and spiritual resources to cope with demands of homelessness, challenges of transition, and recovery from the multiple traumas resulting from being homeless makes the assessment of faith and spirituality an important part of the advocacy process.

Enabling Older Homeless Minority Women to Overcome Homelessness by Using a Life Management Enhancement Group Intervention

This paper describes the importance of a life management enhancement (LME) group intervention for older minority women in developing personal control and self-confidence in social relationships as they overcome homelessness. Women in the treatment group showed significantly greater personal control and higher levels of self-confidence following the six-week intervention than women in the control group. Increasing personal control and developing self-confidence in social relationships can help individuals achieve desired outcomes as a result of their actions, efforts, and abilities. These attributes can help women increase and sustain appropriate coping methods and overcome homelessness.

Serving Older Native Americans: Challenges Facing Gerontological Social Work in Indian Country

Recognizing that Native American elders are a growing segment of the minority aged in the United States, this paper highlights the relevant social service issues of Native American elderly and focuses on building social work knowledge of these topics on a national and state level. The authors offer three practice strategies for a sound social work response in serving older Native Americans: (1) inclusion and collaboration with tribal nations, (2) outreach to households and local communities, and (3) capacity building, These strategies are framed against the realities of Native American elders residing in Oklahoma, a state with one of the highest American Indian populations in the United States and 39 sovereign tribal governments.

Building a responsive network of support and advocacy for older African American homeless women through developmental action research.

Abstract This paper describes the Leaving Homelessness Intervention Research Project (LHIRP), a multimodal intervention that addresses the structural barriers and personal issues older African American women face in overcoming homelessness in a large mid-western city of the United States. The project incorporates a developmental action research design in partnership with homeless and formerly homeless women. Through developmental testing of interventions, LHIRP identifies promising practices at the individual, group life, intentional community, and city levels. The paper offers a rationale for the integration of both developmental research and action research, particularly community-based participatory inquiry. The authors document the nature of the helping network, identify and describe the project’s aims, organizing framework, and methods that document the lived experience of homelessness. Action research strategies that support the design and intervention activities are described, as are the tools used to test promising practices that are useful in helping older women transition and remain out of homelessness. The paper identifies the knowledge products of the intervention project including lexicon, theory, and frameworks, considers the vicious cycle that serves as an advanced organizer of relevant intervention, illuminates core principles, and examines the importance of the web of affiliation that the project seeks to form among participants, staff, and technical assistants.

Homelessness among Older African-American Women: Interpreting a Serious Social Issue through the Arts in Community-Based Participatory Action Research

This article describes the incorporation of the arts into a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) project formulated to develop and test practices for helping homeless older African-American women. Studying how older African-American women become homeless has evolved into developing and testing promising interventions by the Leaving Homelessness Intervention Research Project (LHIRP). The womens participation in creative group activities helped them to communicate their experience with homelessness, express their concerns, develop personal strengths, and obtained mutual understanding. The use of multiple art forms has revealed a number of creative strengths among the participants, which have in turn inspired innovative artistic strategies and methodologies as part of the multiple methods that LHIRP incorporates. These interventions have been useful in helping participants resolve their homelessness. The role and benefit of the arts in CBPAR is described to show how creative activities help researchers and the public to better understand the complexities of homelessness.

Service Engagement with High-Risk Men Who Have Sex with Men: Challenges and Implications for Social Work Practice

This article reviews social work challenges in treatment engagement of men who have sex with men (MSM) and details issues co-morbidity creates for reaching HIV-positive MSM engaged in substance abuse. The literature reviewed within the article identifies HIV and substance use risk factors influencing out of care dynamics and examines relevant research identifying contextual and cultural factors central to achieving cultural competence. The article examines aspects of cultural sensitivity and competence in service development and engagement and identifies service qualities and characteristics social workers can incorporate into practice and programs to increase the likelihood of successful engagement and treatment adherence.

Using scrapbooks & portfolios in group work with women who are chemically dependent

Spirituality is an important part of human existence but is often overlooked in the conceptualization of the person as a biopsychosocial entity. This article examines spirituality as a concept, relates it to the experience of mental health clients, proposes spiritual assessments and interventions within the role of advanced practice mental health nurses, and discusses the necessity of including spiritual interventions to support healing and wholeness for mental health clients.

Development of a Multimodal Assessment Framework for Helping Older African American Women Transition Out of Homelessness

Increasingly vulnerability to homelessness is affecting older African American women because more than any other group these women are susceptible to even minor changes in socioeconomic conditions. This article describes the evolution of an assessment strategy and process found to be useful in planning older African American womens transition from homelessness. The assessment strategy was developed as part of a multimethod, multilevel research and development program the purpose of which is to identify and test tools and interventions useful in helping older African American women leave homelessness. The article offers background on the action research project in which the assessment framework was developed, examines the method for the construction of the framework, describes the assessment process, and considers the integration of specific assessment tools into the advocacy process.