Harold E. Briggs

The African American Adolescent Respect Scale: A Measure of a Prosocial Attitude.

Objectives: The respect that African American youth feel promotes psychological wellness and social identity; conversely, a lack of respect compromises their identities and is viewed as a threat to safety. This article describes the development, psychometric analysis, and validation of the African American Respect Scale, a 20-item instrument measuring prosocial attitudes held by male adolescents. Method: The scale was administered to 200 African American male youth age 14 to 18 years; 100 were incarcerated in juvenile corrections facilities, 100 resided in the community. Results: After acceptable reliability was established, factor analysis revealed three principal components labeled societal, family, and peer subscales. The subscales correlated with racial socialization and predicted the use of violence. Nonincarcerated youth scored significantly higher on all three subscales than incarcerated youth. Conclusions: Suggestions for social work practice with African American youth include assessing their attitudes toward respect, and assisting them to handle disrespect without resorting to violence.

Racial respect and racial socialization as protective factors for African American male youth

African American adolescents must negotiate the transition to adulthood in a society that makes the achievement of positive cultural identity and self-respect difficult. Frequently, young men turn to violence in an attempt to achieve respect in their communities. This article explores factors that predict the use of violence among African American male youth. Adolescents from 14 through 18 years of age who completed a written survey in group settings in Oregon included 100 youth who were detained in the juvenile justice system and 100 who were members of a community youth development program. A history of witnessing violence strongly predicted the intensity of violent behavior of study youth; however, endorsing positive attitudes toward racial respect significantly moderated the effects of chronic exposure to violence. Additionally, racial socialization was negatively correlated to violence intensity and was marginally significant in moderating the effects of witnessing violence. Implications for practice with male African American youth are highlighted.

Evidence-Based Management: Origins, Challenges, and Implications for Social Service Administration

Evidence-based management is emerging in the helping professions in response to heightened demands for public accountability and organizational performance. This paper defines evidence-based management and reviews its origins in the health care and business sectors and its recent incorporation into the social work profession. A case study describes the efforts of one social service agency to use evidence-based management to improve the performance of its child welfare and mental health programs. Consideration is given to the similarities between the dominant models of evidence-based management and evidence-based practice, the challenges facing administrators seeking to incorporate evidence-based management processes into social service agencies, and the implications of evidence-based management for social service agency practice and social work management.

Citation Impact Scores of Top African American Scholars in Social Work Schools The Story Behind the Data

U.S. tenure-track positions have steadily declined over the past 30 years and emphasis on research productivity has escalated. To achieve higher research and scholarship goals, the literature revealed that African American scholars have additional issues to overcome beyond the usual hurdles and challenges confronting other faculty. This study explored current research productivity by examining citation impact scores (h-indices) collected from Publish or Perish of African American scholars in top 25 ranked schools of social work cited in the 2012 U.S. News and World Report. The resultant sample consisted of N = 14 scholars with h-index scores of 9 and higher. Results revealed nonsignificant statistical differences between specified subgroupings, and 80% of these scholars overexceeded their respective school mean h-index scores. Future research calls for a more comprehensive knowledge of faculty research and scholarship activities overall, including unique subgroups of Social Work scholars such as African Americans.

A Content Analysis of Mission Statements of Our Top 50 Schools of Social Work

Organizational mission statements of institutions in higher education have been called into question with respect to their relevance and purpose. This study investigated mission statements of the top 50 U.S. News & World Report (2012) ranked schools of social work for their clarity and brevity, content, and relationship to the Council on Social Work Education’s core competencies. A content analysis of these statements raises concerns about their quality and overall function and poses considerable doubts about their overall relevance and usefulness. Implications are directed to all stakeholders concerned about the content and accuracy of school of social work mission statements. The study addresses a distinct void in the literature in this important subject matter.

Enhancing Family Advocacy Networks: An Analysis of the Roles of Sponsoring Organizations

Family participation in shaping system reforms in childrens mental health has increased over the past ten years. In 1990 the National Institute of Mental Health funded the development and enhancement of 15 statewide advocacy organizations that were to be controlled and staffed by families of children who have serious emotional disorders. These family advocacy organizations had three major goals: to establish support networks, to advocate for service system reforms, and to develop statewide family advocacy networks. Seven family advocacy networks worked with sponsoring organizations because they needed assistance and/or could not receive funding directly. State and local chapters of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the National Mental Health Association served in this capacity. Because there were no guidelines to educate sponsoring organizations about their interorganizational roles and responsibilities, staff of some sponsoring organizations used approaches that were supportive and effective, while staff in other organizations used methods that were counterproductive. The information and recommendations discussed in this paper are based on evaluation data and observations of the relationships between seven sponsoring organizations and family advocacy groups over a three-year period. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that includes: (1) a clear definition of the sponsoring organizations roles, and (2) an analysis of the advantages, limitations, and critical issues for the sponsoring organization.

Group Treatment of Separated Parent and Child Interaction

Effective child-behavior management is an important characteristic in facilitating positive parent and child interaction. The current study examines the impact of a behavioral parent-training group methodology on problem behaviors and goals for a single mother and two young boys. Results indicate that the procedures were valuable for enhancing goal achievement and reducing the frequency of problem behaviors for the single parent and the young boy participants of this case study.

Promoting Adoptions by Foster Parents Through an Inner-City Organization:

This study evaluated changes in the number of foster parent adoptions during a multilevel behavioral intervention. Staff and management of an inner-city community organization providing foster care services to African American children and families were taught how to (a) make permanency planning decisions, (b) train foster parents, (c) prepare biological and adoptive foster families for foster parent adoptions, and (d) implement foster care services. Foster parent adoptions increased as the number of consultation and training hours increased incrementally each year during the life of the study. The consultants recommendations were followed by qualitative changes in the organization. There was a reduction in administrative staff turnover, an increase in administrative support, an increase in the number of new foster homes, and an increase in foster parent attendance at training meetings. Future research is needed to explore the effectiveness of this approach on direct care staff retention and performance variables.

Creating independent voices: The emergence of statewide family advocacy networks

The efforts of 28 statewide family advocacy networks (SFNs) as they aim to promote family support, system change, and enhancement of self-governing capacities are the foci of this article. This systematic study of the developments and activities of statewide family advocacy networks has provided a rich qualitative database that documents the diversity and types of organizational arrangements, the increase in outside financial resources, the extent to which ethnically and culturally diverse people are involved, and the commonly used outreach strategies to increase minority participation. Clearly, statewide family networks are demonstrably capable of selfgovernance and provision of family support, and play an important role in addressing childrens mental health system of care and legislative issues. The data point to a number of future studies as SFNs pursue their objectives. Implications for social service providers and agency directors seeking ways and means to creatively include parents in the delivery and administration of mental health programs are raised as topics for future studies.

Perceptions of the African American Experience (PAAX): A New Measure of Adaptive Identities Among African American Men and Women

Differential treatment based on race impacts the adoption of prosocial or maladaptive behaviors and attitudes of African Americans, which in turn influences their perceived wellbeing. In essence, the African American experience is shaped by intrapersonal, interpersonal, and institutional social determinants. As such the nature of the African American experience is predicated on the identity formulated and the associated lifestyle adopted by African Americans. To empirically verify this proposition, the newly developed Perceptions of African American Experience (PAAX) scale was tested. The PAAX includes 2 maladaptive and two adaptive subscales that define 4 identities among African American men and women. The maladaptive identities, Depreciated and Vulnerable coping styles, are theoretically connected to risk, unhealthy social determinants and anti-social outcomes. The adaptive identities, Transcendent and Integrated coping styles, involve resiliency characteristics resulting in both healthy and prosocial outcomes. It was hypothesized that the 4 PAAX subscales would show acceptable psychometric properties for internal consistency and validity, but that the 2 higher order dimensions, Risk and Resilience, would emerge with factor analytic approaches. An item analysis demonstrated it is feasible to maintain subscale integrity while retaining only those items from the 4 hypothesized subscales, which produces acceptable internal consistencies. A higher order confirmatory factor analytic approach was then used. The confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesis that for African Americans the 4 adaptive identities load on 2 underlying dimensions, Risk and Resilience. Implications for the future study of the PAAX scale among clinical populations as well as with other racially diverse groups are highlighted.