Tara Powell

An Intervention to Enhance Psychological Capital and Health Outcomes in Homeless Female Youths.

Female homeless youths are vulnerable to risky sex and substance use behaviors, yet they have strengths known as psychological capital. A quasi-experimental pre-post research design with repeated measures was used to examine the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a brief intervention to enhance psychological capital, reduce health-risk behaviors, and achieve short-term behavioral goals. Study participants were 80 ethnically diverse homeless women between the ages of 18 and 23 years. Intervention participants had significant improvements in psychological capital, hope, resilience, and self-efficacy to refuse alcohol, social connectedness, and substance use (p < .05). There was a significant group by time interaction for safe sex self-efficacy; intervention participants had greater self-confidence in negotiating safer sex practices than comparison participants. At the follow-up post-test, 82% of intervention participants who remained in the study had met or exceeded their short-term goals. This brief, street-based intervention was feasible and showed preliminary efficacy.

Dissonance-Based Interventions for Substance Using Alternative High School Youth

This article describes an innovative new intervention tailored to older youth who are already abusing drugs, but who are not diagnostically ready for treatment. The basic tenet of this intervention is to utilise adolescents engaged in drug use as ‘experts’ in the prevention curriculum adaptation activity. This activity then serves as a mechanism for their dissonance-based change. This process is designed to intervene with drug abusing youth prior to their development of substance dependence. The community-based design grew from a United States federally funded NIDA project (National Institute of Drug Abuse Mentored Research Scientist Award) which found that the youth who conduct programme adaptations were effectively engaged, animatedly discussing the payoffs and downsides of drug and alcohol abuse. It is maintained through this research that dissonance between their role of ‘Preventionist’ and their own substance abuse behaviours lead to shifts in attitudes and behaviours. Dissonance-based interventions have been successfully utilised for positive behavioural change with a variety of disorders, but have not yet been implemented with substance abusing youth. Findings of pilot research are shared along with implications for future research and interventions.

The Journey of Hope: A Group Work Intervention for Children Who Have Experienced a Collective Trauma

This article presents the Journey of Hope, a school-based group work intervention for children and early adolescents who have experienced a collective trauma such as a natural disaster. This broad-based intervention takes an ecological approach to prevention and treatment and focuses on normalizing emotions and building coping skills after a disaster. Through the use of group work interventions such as use of rituals, group problem solving, and experiential and reflective learning, children and early adolescents work toward enhancing protective factors to help them in their recovery. Considering the short- and long-term emotional strains children may experience after a disaster, such group programs should be more widely accessible in schools.

Enhancing Coping and Supporting Protective Factors After a Disaster: Findings From a Quasi-Experimental Study

Objective: This article presents the Journey of Hope (JoH), a school-based intervention for children who have experienced a collective trauma such as a natural disaster. Through the use of group work, the JoH focuses on building coping skills and enhancing protective factors to help children recover. Method: This quasi-experimental research included 102 children impacted by tornadoes in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 2011. Results: Through an hierarchical linear model analysis with (n = 48) from the JoH group and (n = 54) from a wait-list control group, the outcomes indicate that after participation in the JoH youth had increased coping skills, F(100) = 5.270, p < .05, and prosocial behaviors, F(95) = 4.286, p < .05. This is the first quasi-experimental design to be conducted on the JoH; findings provide preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of this broad-based postdisaster intervention. Conclusion: Future replication studies with larger samples in other societies impacted by a natural disaster are needed to further evaluate the JoH’s impact in enhancing coping and building resilience.

Building Resilience after a Natural Disaster: An Evaluation of a Parental Psycho-educational Curriculum

Abstract Natural disasters are stressful to individuals, families, and communities on multiple levels. In the aftermath the stress of rebuilding homes and lives can make it difficult for caregivers to adequately support their children and family. Studies have shown that parental mental health and wellbeing is a protective factor against negative psychological sequelae in children. The current study assessed (N = 106) parents who participated in the Journey of Hope workshop after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake occurred in Christchurch New Zealand in February, 2011. Paired Samples T-tests indicate statistically significant gains (p < .05) in knowledge and reductions in stress after the workshop. Parents were more able to identify: (1) social supports in their community, (2) the ability to identify signs of stress and how stress affects their body, (3) how to cope with stress, and (4) a more positive outlook for the future.

Working with Children and Families Who Have Survived Natural Disasters: Exploring Substance Abuse and Other Risk Factors

Holleran Steiker: The relationship between trauma and substance abuse has long been established in social work practice and related research (Goeders, 2003). According to experts in the area of pos...

Stress on the streets: Validation of a measurement

Abstract Background: Homeless and street-dependent youths experience myriad stressors, but to date there has been no published measure of this phenomenon. Objective: This study was designed to describe the process of developing and testing a measure of stress experienced on the streets suitable for use with this population. Methods: Classical measurement theory was used to develop and evaluate relevance and validity of items in the scale. Results: The total scale content validity index was .95 and the Cronbach’s alpha was .92 in a combined sample of homeless youths (n = 90) and university students (n = 94). The mean scores of the two subsamples were statistically significantly different (t(166) = 4.22, P < .001), supporting construct validity. Factor analysis, using Principal Component Analysis, of data collected from the homeless youths yielded five subscales congruent with content in initial item construction. The subscales were: (1) safety on the streets, (2) housing stability, (3) interpersonal relationships, (4) immediate security and (5) stress about future. Conclusions: The final scale has 27 items suitable for future research with this population.