Victoria A. Shivy

Ex-offenders reentering the workforce

Approximately 650,000 individuals will be released from incarceration in state and federal prisons this year. However, little is known about the challenges ex-offenders face when they endeavor to reenter the workforce. The authors used consensual qualitative research methods to analyze data from 2 focus groups: one for male (n 6) and another for female (n 9) nonviolent felony offenders, all of whom were receiving services at day reporting centers, which offer a nonresidential form of community corrections. Attendees discussed their reentry experiences, and 11 domains were identified, encompassing ex-offenders’ needs for education, training, and practical assistance; challenges in obtaining and maintaining a job; and available support, including personal networks and resources from the correctional system. Findings suggest that counseling professionals should attend to ex-offenders’ social networks, including social aspects of the workplace, as such networks can offer support or represent a liability for individuals in transition. Substance abuse issues impact ex-offenders’ social viability as well as their career-related reentry attempts. Finally, career development practitioners should understand the internal and external impacts of the stigma associated with incarceration.

Social Network Analysis: A New Methodology for Counseling Research.

Social network analysis (SNA) is a set of procedures that use indices of relatedness among individuals to produce representations of social structures and positions inherent in dyads or groups. This approach differs from traditional research strategies in that the focus is on developing an understanding of the ongoing transactions and the implications of transactional patterns between individuals, groups, or other social units. Although the primary emphasis in SNA is on the social context, network analysts also include traditional individual-differences variables as potential explanatory factors. SNA methods provide the means to derive a more complete view of a given social environment. A group-psychotherapy example is used to provide an overview of SNA, introducing the concepts, notation, and statistical methods used by the current generation of network researchers. Methodological issues are discussed, applications are reviewed, and resources are recommended for those wishing to learn more about SNA.

Ambiguity and judgments of obese individuals: No news could be bad news

Stigmatization towards obese individuals has not decreased despite the increasing prevalence of obesity. Nonetheless, stigmatization remains difficult to study, given concerns about social desirability. To address this issue, this study used paired comparisons and cluster analysis to examine how undergraduates (n=189) categorized scenarios describing the health-related behaviors of obese individuals. The cluster analysis found that the scenarios were categorized into two distinct clusters. The first cluster included all scenarios with health behaviors indicating high responsibility for body weight. These individuals were perceived as unattractive, lazy, less likeable, less disciplined, and more deserving of their condition compared to individuals in the second cluster, which included all scenarios with health behaviors indicating low responsibility for body weight. Four scenarios depicted obese individuals with ambiguous information regarding health behaviors; three out of these four individuals were categorized in the high-responsibility cluster. These findings suggested that participants viewed these individuals as negatively as those who were responsible for their condition. These results have practical implications for reducing obesity bias, as the etiology of obesity is typically not known in real-life situations.

Clinical and Counseling Psychology Doctoral Trainees: How Students Perceive Internships

The authors examined applicants’ perceptions of internship site types by specialty affiliation (clinical and counseling psychology). Multidimensional scaling analyses suggest that clinical psychology students focus their attention on internship site prestige, future job opportunities, opportunities for research, degree of client psychopathology and physical illness, and their overall comfort in working with the client population associated with the site type. Counseling students focus on fewer attributes, including site prestige, quality of supervision, degree of client physical illness, and comfort in working with the client population. Specialty affiliation also accounted for systematic differences in internship site preferences. Results are discussed with regard to internship supply-and-demand issues, and implications are offered for student applicants, academic training directors, and internship training directors.

Treatment Fidelity in Sex Offender Programming: Assessing Delivery across Community Providers∗

Abstract In an effort to focus on treatment fidelity in the sex offender field, this study evaluated the treatment delivery of ten clinicians who provided treatment to sex offenders under community supervision. Data collection and analysis involved a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Results revealed that treatment providers varied in their use of empirically-supported treatment techniques, their participation in the community containment approach, and their adherence to the treatment contract. These findings provide support for the continued study of treatment fidelity in the corrections literature. Implications and future directions are discussed.

INTUIT: A Career Decision-Making Intervention for Female Offenders in Reentry

This study evaluates cross-sectional data from 9 years of the INTUIT: Work and Careers intervention (N = 491), a program for female offenders in reentry. Of several measures used, participants showed increases on the five career decision-making self-efficacy factors assessed by the Career Decision Making Self-Efficacy Short Form (CDMSE-SF), over the course of the intervention, whereas no changes were observed across the same testing period for the control group. When control and invention groups were compared, statistically significant differences were only seen for INTUIT participants in levels of self-appraisal and goal selection. Implications of these findings are addressed.