Ramona W. Denby

Promoting Well-Being Through Relationship Building: The Role of Smartphone Technology in Foster Care

ABSTRACT Mindful of the tremendous risk factors that foster youths encounter, a federal demonstration project sought to increase their protective factors and to mitigate their adverse experiences. The ability to form and maintain healthy relationships is a key protective factor as it helps youths navigate life’s challenges, especially those challenges that result from unresolved loss and grief as a result of being in care. The study was guided by a relational competence framework. The youths were issued smartphones, and their social service providers were given a Web-based application designed to increase communication between the foster youths, their providers, and their mentors. Findings reveal several favorable outcomes associated with the use of the smartphones but also several unintended negative consequences. Recommendations for balancing youths’, caregivers’, and providers’ needs, positions, and rights are discussed. Likewise, the authors discuss the study’s implications for program development that utilizes smartphone technology to increase youths’ ability to experience healthy relationships.

Rural Kinship Caregivers' Perceptions of Child Well-Being: The Use of Attribution Theory

Sixty-one rural, southwestern U.S. kinship caregivers were asked about their experiences and how those experiences influence the well-being of the 122 children in their care. They reported high levels of caregiving readiness/capacity and parenting abilities. Attribution theory, the manner in which people associate behavior, is used to interpret the findings and provide a set of practice, programming, and policy recommendations.

African American Children in the Child Welfare System: Requiem or Reform

The sobering statistics concerning the plight of African American children have become routine excerpts found in nearly every publication concerning the child welfare system. This article examines the laws that govern the child welfare system in this country and assesses the manner in which these laws do not rectify or prevent the poor outcomes experienced by African American children. The authors discuss a reform perspective, conceptualized in an oppression framework, as a call to action to improve the status of children in the child welfare system. This reform perspective is designed for educators, as they play a critical role in preparing students and practitioners to become reformers.

Am I My Brother's Keeper: Adult Siblings Raising Younger Siblings

Adult siblings raising their younger siblings is a family configuration that rarely comes to mind; yet, in the United States adult siblings are the third largest relative caregiver group. The experiences of a sample of 77 adult siblings raising 154 younger siblings are described. The findings revealed that adult sibling caregivers may have multiple unmet service needs but they have a relatively high degree of parenting ability, which is increased by the availability of religious-based services, availability of friends and neighbors, and the ability to network with other caregivers. Additionally, adult siblings who are parenting a younger sibling who has special needs are more likely to commit to adopting that sibling. Social work practice strategies that can be used to address the service needs of adult sibling caregivers are provided.

Examination of the relationship between social support and treatment outcomes in mothers referred by Child Protective Services utilizing the Significant Other Support Scale

ABSTRACT Supportive social networks may play an important role in recovery for mothers within the umbrella of Child Protective Services (CPS). However, investigators have yet to develop methods of measuring how significant others contribute to the treatment and recovery process. In this study, the influence of significant others was examined in the family-based treatment of 38 mothers who were referred for Family Behavior Therapy by CPS. The Significant Other Support Scale (SOSS) was empirically developed and subsequently utilized to assess the extent to which participants’ significant others were perceived by treatment providers to support the participants’ goals during treatment sessions. Results indicated that SOSS scores (but not participant and significant other session attendance) were associated with lower participant child abuse potential and drug use frequency at the conclusion of treatment. There was no relationship found between SOSS scores and participant session attendance. However, there was a positive correlation between SOSS scores and significant other session attendance (r = .489, p < .01). The results of this study suggest the quality of significant other support during treatment sessions in this population of mothers may be more important to improving treatment outcomes than session attendance per se. Future directions are discussed in light of the results, including methods of using SOSS scores to assist family-based treatments.

Adolescent Co-Occurring Disorders Treatment: Clinicians' Attitudes, Values, and Knowledge.

This study examined community-based clinicians’ (N = 294) attitudes, background/experiences, values, and knowledge relating to issues of co-occurring disorders, which occur at a high rate among adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system. Study results reveal that clinicians self-rate their clinical values and attitudes at or above the expected level of competency, but they concede that their skill and knowledge levels are not adequate. Comparison measures reveal that employment setting conditions, geographic region, hours worked per week, and strongly held convictions about the importance of integrated mental health and substance use disorders service delivery distinguish clinicians’ co-occurring disorders knowledge levels. Implications are offered.