This article reviews the literature on political participation of social workers and the variables that promote or impede political advocacy. Early research in the 1980s and 1990s most often reported education, feelings of efficacy, having a macro-type job, and being a member of a national association as factors that determine greater political participation. Since the late 1990s, organizational and legal issues have surfaced more prominently as barriers to political participation by social workers. This article addresses barriers to participation, such as not feeling competent to perform policy-related tasks and perceived legal barriers.It then analyzes the actual restrictions that nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations and publicly employed social workers face in lobbying and partisan politics. The article summarizes the activities that are legally allowed in these areas and concludes that social workers can be more politically active than they often realize.
The authors analyze 10 years of data on homelessness to determine the characteristics of homeless families most likely to find permanent housing after leaving a shelter environment. They studied 1,156 families from 1983 to 1992 to determine where these families go after leaving the shelter and whether the pattern changed over time. Logistic regression analysis found that the larger the family size and being African American were factors that predicted a decreased likelihood of finding permanent housing. Families with one child were 1.5 times more likely to find permanent housing than were families with three children, and whites were 1.9 times more likely to find permanent housing than were African Americans. Furthermore, homeless shelter residents were five times more likely to find permanent housing in 1983 than in 1992, regardless of demographic predictors. Practice and policy implications are discussed.
This article investigates the health care and insurance status of a low-income urban area in East Tennessee. The article reviews the background of TennCare, a compulsory Medicaid managed care program initiated in Tennessee in 1994. The study compared TennCare recipients with other insurance groups on key demographic and access variables. Possible explanations for how TennCare recipients rate their care also were examined. Qualitative analysis revealed accounts of long waiting periods, out-of-town specialist care, problems with obtaining pharmaceuticals, and general confusion about the new system. Implications of these findings for social work policy practitioners are discussed, and suggestions for alleviating the burden on patients are offered.
This article explores howlabor market trends and current employment assistance policies affect reemployment opportunities and emotional well-being in a sample of female dislocated apparelworkers. The study follows the displacedwomen from the time the plant closed for 6 months to assess their financial and emotional well-being as they reentered the job market or enrolled in training programs. Averagewages of the reemployedwomen were less than their former plantwage; 14% lost their health insurance, and only half thewomen in training were in programs leading to higher paying jobs. Although some emotional recovery occurred, single parents still showed signs of depression after 6 months. Continued financial difficulty over timewas strongly correlated with depressive symptoms. Depression, in turn, was significantly related to satisfaction with spouse and children’s behavioral problems. In a multivariate analysis, baseline depression, financial difficulty, and single parenthood predicted depression 6 months later.
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