Debora M. Ortega

Independence or Interdependence: Rethinking the Transition From Ward of the Court to Adulthood

Youth who transition out of foster care are often overlooked and unprepared for a life outside of the child welfare system. As youth begin to grow up in the foster care system, they are encouraged to move toward the goal of self-sufficiency. This article examines the idea of self-sufficiency as it relates to youth transitioning from the foster care system and proposes a different approach to the state of transition, an approach called interdependent living. Through this examination, the authors suggest a way to reshape practice approaches by emphasizing the values of interdependence, connection, and collaboration. Together these values lead to an empowerment model of practice for youth who transition from foster care.

Serving Two Masters: When Domestic Violence and Child Abuse Overlap:

Does exposure to domestic violence indicate a form of child maltreatment? It is imperative that child welfare workers identify and use interventions that protect families from domestic violence and eliminate harm to children without further stigmatizing victimized women. The research described in this article attempts a first step in understanding the factors involved in the decision making process of child welfare supervisors in domestic violence cases. Findings indicate that the attitudes and beliefs of child welfare supervisors about the overlap between domestic violence and child abuse are influenced by personal experiences, professional longevity, and training.

The Illness Experience of Undocumented Immigrants With End-stage Renal Disease

Importance The exclusion of undocumented immigrants from Medicare coverage for hemodialysis based on a diagnosis of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) requires physicians in some states to manage chronic illness in this population using emergent-only hemodialysis. Emergent-only dialysis is expensive and burdensome for patients. Objective To understand the illness experience of undocumented immigrants with ESRD who lack access to scheduled hemodialysis. Design, Setting, and Participants A qualitative, semistructured, interview study was conducted in a Colorado safety-net hospital from July 1 to December 31, 2015, with 20 undocumented immigrants (hereinafter referred to as undocumented patients) with ESRD and no access to scheduled hemodialysis. Demographic information was collected from the participants’ medical records. The interviews were audiorecorded, translated, and then transcribed verbatim. The interviews were analyzed using inductive qualitative theme analysis by 4 research team members from March 1 to June 30, 2016. Main Outcomes and Measures Themes and subthemes from semistructured interviews. Results All 20 undocumented patients included in the study (10 men and 10 women; mean [SD] age, 51.4 [13.8] years) had been in the United States for at least 5 years preceding their diagnosis with ESRD. They described the following 4 main themes: (1) a distressing symptom burden and unpredictable access to emergent-only hemodialysis, (2) death anxiety associated with weekly episodes of life-threatening illness, (3) family and social consequences of accommodating emergent-only hemodialysis, and (4) perceptions of the health care system. Conclusions and Relevance Undocumented patients with ESRD experience debilitating, potentially life-threatening physical symptoms and psychosocial distress resulting from emergent-only hemodialysis. States excluding undocumented immigrants with ESRD from scheduled dialysis should reconsider their policies.

Elite Knowledge or the Reproduction of the Knowledge of Privilege Social Work Doctoral Education

Epistemology is fundamental to feminism. This editorial grapples with the cultural norming process that influences the way knowledge emerges, is developed, and shaped. It makes a case that social work scholarship continues to be shaped by a dominant paradigm that controls knowledge production through the reproduction of white racial privilege, the acculturation of alternative perspectives, and the pressures of educational institutions that are tied to a market economy. Doctoral students in social work develop as new scholars in an environment driven by these forces. Because of this, feminist epistemology and methods often are relegated to marginal spaces in the education and mentoring of new scholars. This marginalization begins early as the pool of students from which to draw doctoral students begins to be shaped as early as middle and high school. Consequently, an editorial on doctoral education must begin with considering the available pool from which doctoral program can draw its students. In this way, we must tangle with who has access and under what conditions students are successful in high school and institutions of higher education. Pew Research Center in a recent report again affirmed high schools are failing Hispanic students at a greater rate than any other racial group (this excludes American Indians as they were not a part of the Pew calculation; Lopez & Fry, 2013). In the same report, Pew Research Center noted that college enrollment declined between 2011 and 2012 for all groups except Hispanics high school graduates (who were already a dwindled pool). This report exemplifies the roller coaster ride of higher education access. Many youth of color are eliminated from accessing higher education because of school failure rates and when youth are successful (or as some may say, survive), the primary and secondary educational systems they choose to continue on to college. Unfortunately, this already grim story of educational access does not paint a complete picture of the struggle of students of color to persist and thrive in a system of educational inequity (Salazar, et al., 2008). In July of this year, Georgetown University Public Policy Institute released a report entitled, Separate and Unequal: How higher education reinforces the intergenerational

Using Simulation Training to Improve Culturally Responsive Child Welfare Practice

Child welfare professionals need to understand the complexities of the factors that influence parenting, values, and worldviews. Being able to work across cultures is critical to assessing safety, obtaining effective services, and creating permanent healthy families for children of color. The purpose of the project was to grapple with the challenge of increasing culturally responsive practice in a context of safety and permanency that is defined by American political and cultural values. The response to this challenge was a competency-based training program designed to enhance the effectiveness of child welfare practice with Latino families. A key feature of the training was a simulation to raise awareness and learning readiness through an experiential approach to learning. The simulation is the first component of a multi-faceted training curriculum aimed at the integration of culturally responsive practices in child welfare practice. The training series was part of a 3-year demonstration project funded by the Childrens Bureau (Washington, DC).

Salir adelante (perseverance): Lessons from the Mexican immigrant experience:

Summary Although migration and immigrant issues have been well studied in sociology, economics, and demography there is significantly less information specific to Latino immigrants within the field of social work. This is of particular concern as the population of Latino immigrants and their children continues to grow and access areas of social work practice and policy development. This research study focuses on understanding the experience of first-generation immigrants of Mexican origin living in Denver, Colorado, through the use of qualitative research methods. Seven Mexican immigrants living in Denver described their experience through an in-depth interview process. Grounded theory was the chosen method for analysis. Findings Four themes emerged during the data analysis process: (1) ‘We are working people’; (2) ‘I am not an animal’ (experiencing racism, prejudice and discrimination); (3) fear; and (4) internal strength. Together these themes create a conceptual framework that is useful as a starting place to understand the lives and culture of Mexican immigrants. This conceptual framework highlights how immigrants negotiate racism, prejudice, discrimination, and fear through their strong work ethic and the belief in their ability to ‘salir adelante’ (to persevere or better oneself or one’s family situation). Applications Results indicate that Mexican immigrants are faced with numerous challenges, particularly due to racist laws, discriminatory procedures, and acts of prejudice. However, results also suggest that Mexican immigrants and their cultural resources provide a source of hope, allowing them to persevere even as they face challenges. The findings have several implications for direct service, advocacy and social justice, and social work education.

In the Name of VAWA

It may at first seem curious that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would be the topic of an editorial 9 months after its 2013 reauthorization and before we have the opportunity to examine its impact, since it takes effect in fiscal year 2014. Nonetheless, advocates can revel in their victory of a battle hard fought, particularly after the failure of Congress to reauthorize VAWA in 2012. For some of us, the true curiosity was that there was a battle at all. Surely, we can agree that interpersonal violence is socially undesirable, if not tragic. In her blog, Bea Hanson (2013), acting director of the Office of Violence Against Women, reported, ‘‘The week that VAWA was reauthorized, at least 15 women and 4 men were killed by intimate partners. A 9-year-old boy was killed by a hatchet by his father, who had previously served time in jail for domestic violence and fought for custody after his release. A 17-year-old boy was arrested for stabbing his 16-year-old girlfriend to death. And a 22-year-old pregnant woman was shot in the head and her body burned—her boyfriend has been arrested.’’ Notwithstanding these tragedies, the curiousness begins to fade when the sticking points of the reauthorization become transparent; three provisions for previously unaddressed or underaddressed groups were included: (1) protections for intimate partner violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT); (2) the sovereignty of Native tribal courts; and (3) extended access to U visas for immigrant victims (Eichelberger, 2013; VAWA: Udall Celebrates Senate Reauthorization of VAWA, 2012). These ‘‘sticking points’’ allow us to use multiple theoretical lenses to contextualize our cultural acceptance of violence against women in the United States (because surely no theoretical lens helps us understand that this violence is appropriate).

An exploration of the relationships between student racial background and the school sub-contexts of office discipline referrals: a critical race theory analysis

Abstract A growing body of research indicates that exclusionary school discipline practices disproportionately impact students of color. Some scholars have theorized that racial disparities likely vary across school sub-contexts, as implicit bias in perceptions of student behavior may be more influential in locations where students and adults have weaker relationships (e.g. bathrooms and hallways, compared to the classroom). Guided by Critical Race Theory, this study used administrative data from a large urban school district (n = 20,166 discipline incidents, 9,170 students, and 185 schools) to consider the relationship between student race and the locations where youth are disciplined. Results indicate that Black, Latino/a, and Multiracial youth were no more likely than White students to have a discipline incident take place outside the classroom. These findings suggest attention is needed to the role of systemic bias and colorblind policies and practices in discipline disparities.

Feminist Transformation Deconstructing Prisons and Reconstructing Justice With Criminalized Women

The prison therefore functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs; it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism, and, increasingly, global capitalism.

Complacency, Violence, and Gender On Being Female

The levels of violence experienced by women in the United States are at unacceptably high levels. Generations and generations of women are socialized to be afraid as they walk down streets and in dark parking lots. Women of all ages are aware of their need to be hypervigilant about their safety (Helliwell, 2000). In the United States, by age 17, one in four girls has experienced sexual assault by adults and peers (Finkelhor, Shattuck, Turner, & Hamby, 2014). This does not account for those young women who experienced physical violence alone. In either case, by late adolescence, women are exposed to violence based on their gender that is systematic, robs them of their feeling of safety, and interferes with their full participation in society (World Health Organization [WHO], 2013). We know based on women’s protective behaviors that violence is every woman’s problem and we theoretically believe that violence is every man’s problem. The latter issue, gender violence as every man’s problem is less clear. For instance, after several conversations among undergraduate and graduate students over the last several years about women’s protective behaviors when returning to their cars in dark parking lots, it is most often the case that college-aged men are unaware of the daily threat of violence felt by women. Some feminist theorists describe the social messaging regarding women’s experiences of violence in these way: Women are portrayed as vulnerable, weak, and incapable of protecting themselves from male assaults and that because of this, women must rely on the law enforcement or male family members or friends (Carlson, 2014). Embedded in this are several ironies. First, given the research on gender violence, by the age of 15, violence has already occurred often at the hands of male adults or peers known to the assaulted female teens. Second, that globally, intimate partners are responsible for the deaths of 38% of murdered women (WHO, 2013). In both these cases, the perpetrator of the violence is potentially the same people that the social messages deem as our protectors. Finally, police protection is available inconsistently, given social class and race. In other words, the reports of upperand middle-class women are more likely to be believed by the police than for poor women and women of color (Miller, 2008). Our college campuses have visible education campaigns about the sexual violence experienced by college women and men. These campaigns range from messages about what constitutes sexual violence, the ways that we can support friends who have been violated and banners with pictures of college-aged men pledging that they will be conscious of the safety of women. While it is difficult to pinpoint when women begin to become aware of their vulnerability to gender-based violence, it is