A history of transracial and intercountry adoptions in the United States is briefly provided as well as highlights trends, demographics, practices, and policies that have evolved as families have become more diverse. The current prevalence of intercountry and transracial adoptions in the United States is examined as well as the impact of policy changes in the United States and abroad on rates of intercountry adoption. Additionally, the challenges that have emerged for children adopted transracially and from abroad, as well as for their adoptive families, are reviewed. These include navigating ethnic and racial identity formation, cultural sensitivity, and challenging behaviors. Finally, future directions for social work practice, research, and policy are explored, and implications are provided for social workers intervening with families who have adopted children transracially or internationally. Specifically, adoption-competent professionals should also integrate cultural humility and competence into their therapeutic work with adoptive children and families. Implications for research in the conclusion focus on expanding prior studies on intercountry and transracial adoptions to incorporate racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in the literature. Policy implications include increasing access and funding for post-adoption services for all adoptive families.
21-40 of 1,146 Results
Article
Adoption: Transracial and Intercountry
Rowena Fong, Ruth G. McRoy, Amy Griffin, and Catherine LaBrenz
Article
Adoption: Lesbian and Gay Adoptive Parents
Abbie E. Goldberg and April Moyer
Adoption by lesbian and gay parents is becomingly increasingly common. This entry presents an overview of the limited research that has focused on lesbian and gay adoptive parents. Specifically, this entry addresses the experience of adoptive parenthood for lesbian and gay parents, with emphasis on the decision-making process (that is, choosing adoption, choosing an agency, choosing an adoption type, and specifying child characteristics), the transition to adoptive parenthood, the psychological adjustment of the adoptive parents and their children, and the adoptive parent–child relationship. We end with recommendations for future research and implications for practitioners and policymakers.
Article
Adult Day Care
Namkee G. Choi
Adult day care centers provide important health, social, and support services for functionally and cognitively impaired adults and their caregivers. The adult day care services are underutilized, however, because of the shortage of centers, caregivers' lack of awareness of and resistance to using services, and the mismatch between the needs of potential consumers and their informal caregivers and the services provided by the centers. To foster and support the expansion of adult day care centers, lessons learned from national demonstration programs need to be disseminated, and social workers need to be trained to provide essential services at the centers.
Article
Adult Protective Services
Patricia Brownell and Joanne Marlatt Otto
Adult Protective Services (APS) are empowered by states and local communities to respond to reports and cases of vulnerable adult abuse, neglect, and self-neglect. While incorporating legal, medical, and mental health services, APS programs are part of the social services delivery system and incorporate principles and practices of the social work profession.
Article
Adults: Overview
Ski Hunter
Various models and theories of adult development exist but they are more assumptions about development than theories. The most popular age and stage theories have lost favor to contextual theories that put more emphasis on interaction with the environment. It has also become recognized that adults are a diverse group and do not follow universal stages of development. The usefulness of chronological age is also questionable as it does not tell us much about any particular person. Instead, we have to know their concerns and the events they are dealing with, and their dreams and aspirations.
Article
Adults: Group Care
Robin Bonifas
This article presents information about group settings that provide residential long-term care for older adults, focusing on nursing homes and residential care/assisted living communities. It provides an overview of both settings and describes their scope of services, funding, and clientele. The section “Issues in Residential Long-Term Care” addresses issues of special relevance to social workers: dementia and other psychosocial care needs; quality of life and quality of care; access to and disparities in care; end-of-life care; family involvement; and abuse and neglect. The article ends with a section on the role of the social worker in residential long-term care.
Article
Adult Safeguarding
Nigel Hall
Safeguarding is an area of social work activity concerned with the care and protection of children or adults who have care and support needs and who may be at risk of abuse or neglect. This is a major concern for social workers who usually have prime responsibility for ensuring as far as possible that the vulnerable clients they work with are protected. People’s ability to keep themselves safe is partly determined by their individual circumstances, and this may change at different stages in their life, so it is important that safeguarding is always considered in relation to the wishes of the person concerned. Effective safeguarding depends on a careful consideration of the factors involved and will almost always involve a multi-agency partnership approach. This article will primarily examine the situation regarding safeguarding vulnerable adults in the United Kingdom.
Article
Advance Care Planning
Meredith Stensland, Sara Sanders, and Marla Berg-Weger
Advance care planning (ACP) is the process of determining and documenting desired wishes for the end of one’s life. Referred to by such terms as end-of-life planning, advance (health) directives, and living wills, ACP is a relatively new concept within our society, having emerged as a social, political, and ethical issue in the United States only since the 1960s. Researchers and legislators have been challenged in their efforts to examine healthcare decision-making and design appropriate policy to guide practice. This article will define ACP, provide an overview of the history and evolution of the process and the associated legal and ethical issues, and describe the process with three specific populations. In addition, it examines the role of the social work profession in working with individuals and families on planning for the end of one’s life.
Article
Advanced Statistical Analysis
Shenyang Guo
Definitions of what constitutes advanced statistical analysis often differ among social-work researchers and across disciplines. In this article, the term advanced statistical analysis refers to advanced models increasingly applied to social-work research that help address important research questions. Because contemporary statistical models fully rely on the maximum likelihood (ML) estimator, this article begins with an overview of ML that serves as a foundation for understanding advanced statistical analysis. Following the overview, the article describes six categories of analytic methods that are important in confronting a broad range of issues in social-work research (that is, hierarchical linear modeling, survival analysis, structural equation modeling, propensity score analysis, missing data imputation, and other corrective methods for causal inference such as instrumental variable approach and regression discontinuity designs). These analytic methods are used to address research issues such as generating knowledge for evidence-based practices; evaluating intervention effectiveness in studies that use an experimental or quasi-experimental design; assessing clients’ problems, well-being, and outcome changes over time; and discerning the effects of policies.
Article
Advocacy
Diane R. Bessel and Erin Carman
Social work is different from other helping professions in that its mission and ethical standards require members to not only serve persons in need, but to support their empowerment and work for the amelioration of harmful social conditions and inequities through advocacy. Social work advocacy has taken many historic and contemporary forms, reflecting the broad spectrum of social work practice and related knowledge, values, skills, and cognitive and affective processes. Given increasing diversity and complexity in the world today and the continuing need to advance human rights, as well as social, economic, and environment justice, ongoing commitment and attention to social work advocacy is needed, especially as it pertains to social work education, practice, and operational approaches.
Article
Affordable Care Act
Stephen H. Gorin, Julie S. Darnell, and Heidi L. Allen
This entry describes the development and key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which instituted a major overhaul of the U.S. health system, much of which took effect in 2014. The key provisions of the ACA included an individual mandate to purchase insurance, an employer mandate to offer coverage to most workers, an expansion of Medicaid to all persons below 138 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), minimum benefit standards, elimination of preexisting condition exclusions, and reforms to improve health-care quality and lower costs. This historic legislation has deep roots in U.S. history and represents the culmination of a century-long effort to expand health care and mental health coverage to all citizens.
Article
Affordable Housing: An International Perspective
Bonnie Young Laing
This entry explores key definitions, causes, and characteristics of slums in the global arena, along with the types of social work practice and general community development approaches being used to catalyze action to decrease the prevalence of slums. Core strategies include using planning efforts that prioritize input from people who live in slums, creating affordable housing, and otherwise transitioning urban slums into vibrant communities. Concluding thoughts and further considerations for social work practice are offered.
Article
African Americans: Immigrants of African Origin
Fariyal Ross-Sheriff and Tamarah Moss-Knight
The number and percentage of immigrants and refugees from Africa to the United States have increased substantially since the mid-1990s. Though still a relatively small percentage of the immigrant population, immigrants from Africa encounter many challenges that are important for social work professionals to address. This entry examines two groups of immigrants from Africa: legal migrants (immigrants) and refugees. It provides information on distinctive characteristics of recent African immigrants, reasons for emigration from Africa, challenges they face in the United States, and their settlement (geographical distribution) patterns. While black Africans are the focus of this entry, the research literature does not provide clear distinctions within the group of African immigrants. The emphasis is on black African immigrants to the United States as their experience is unique in terms of their race in America and the types of stigma and discrimination they face as a result. Critical issues for social work practice are examined through a case example of Somali refugees, followed by implications for social work practice and research.
Article
African American Social Welfare History
Iris Carlton-LaNey
This article discusses the African American social welfare system that began to develop during the early 20th century. This social welfare system, designed by African Americans to serve African Americans, addressed needs that were not being met by any other formal social services while the nascent social work profession was emerging. The myriad programs included settlement houses, boys and girls programs, training schools, and day nurseries. The women’s club movement played a critical role in the development of this social welfare system and provided much of the impetus for change and inclusion. Through formal organizations, including the National Urban League (NUL) and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and an array of clubs and social groups, social services were extended to urban and rural communities throughout the United States.
Article
African Americans Overview
Larry E. Davis, Trina R. Williams Shanks, and John M. Wallace Jr.
Since their arrival 400 years ago, African Americans have endured 246 years of chattel slavery and 100 years of apartheid followed by decades of systematic racial discrimination and injustice. Nevertheless, Africans and their descendants have contributed significantly to the building of the United States and have greatly influenced every sector of society. To document this tenuous position, we summarize key demographic, economic, and social trends as well as the potential role of macro social work to improve outcomes. Present-day racism in the United States is persistent and frequently underestimated, so combatting anti-Blackness and White supremacy at structural and societal levels is essential.
Article
Afrocentric Social Work
Colita Nichols Fairfax
Afrocentric social work is a concept and praxis approach applicable in environmental and global settings where people of African descent are located. Using concept analysis as a methodology, this article explores Afrocentric social work theory and its applicability in the social sciences. Concept analysis is an examination of a thought or theory with the intent to create a more concise operational definition. Afrocentric social work not only is applicable to racial and social justice issues, it also is applicable to intellectual and philosophical discourses of social work, which has largely ignored Afrocentric social work as a viable theory and philosophical canon. The Walker and Avant method of concept analysis is employed in this article to provide a systemic discourse to define the attributes of Afrocentric social work, as well as its structural elements that scholars and practitioners utilize as a theory and praxis application.
Article
Ageism in the Workplace
Patricia Brownell
Older workers make important contributions to the workplace, its productivity, and its culture. Work remains important for older adults for financial security, to give meaning to later life, to maintain social networks, and to promote lifelong learning. However, ageist beliefs about the capacity of older adults to remain productive and contributing workers in the workforce can create barriers for older workers. Understanding how older workers experience ageist behavior in the workplace can help employers, policy makers, and social workers learn more about how to address this social problem. Organizations can become more age friendly through enabling workplace programs, supportive management, and proactive human resource managers. Social workers serving older adults in employee assistance programs and in private practice can help them to challenge ageism in the workplace. Finally, legislation such as the Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects the rights of older workers; however, more legislation is needed to address bullying and harassment of older adults in the workplace.
Article
Ageism and Retirement
Lynn McDonald
Retirement is a modest social institution that appeared in most industrialized nations near the start of the 20th century. The aim of retirement was to solve the societal dilemma of an increasingly aged labor force by moving older workers systematically out of their jobs so as to not cause them financial harm (Atchley, 1980, p. 264). Although retirement has been considered benign since its inception, the history of retirement indicates that it is one of the main progenitors of ageism in society today (Atchley, 1982, 1993; Haber & Gratton, 1994; McDonald, 2013; Walker, 1990). Retirement and its accompanying stereotypes have been used as a tool for the management of the size and composition of the labor force contingent on the dictums of current markets in any given historical era. Ever-changing ideologies about older adults that extend from negative to positive ageism have been utilized by business, government, the public, and the media to support whatever justification is required in a particular era, with little thought to the harm perpetrated on older adults. Unfortunately, society has subscribed to these justifications en masse, including older adults themselves. In this article the ageism embedded in retirement is examined to make what is implicit explicit to social work practitioners and policymakers in the field of aging.
Article
Age Justice
Steve Burghardt, Joseph Dibenedetto, and Bobbie Sackman
As baby boomers enter their later years, it has become apparent that ageism is a primary cause of much of the social marginalization and economic inequity experienced by older people. It is thus important to understand that ageism has both structural as well as cultural causes that require collective mobilization to correct. As such, anti-ageism and the fight for age justice fit within the intersectional movements of the 21st century seeking systemic change. This attention to systemic issues of ageism and the call for collective forms of action and organizing have become the foundation for an age justice movement. Therefore, an age justice organizing approach to the problems of older Americans is necessary and its solutions to aging-related problems are similar to solutions in other social justice movements. The historical context of aging and ageism informs present models of age justice organizing and issues addressed in age activism. For example, older workers have experienced workplace discrimination, and in the early COVID-19 pandemic, older people were marginalized. Looking to the future, an age justice framework that consistently addresses ageism as the systemic issue it is can be developed in micro, mezzo, and macro settings for all social workers and the older people with whom they work.
Article
Agencies and Organizations in Nonprofit Settings
Jennifer E. Mosley, Jade Wong, and Jan Ivery
Nonprofit organizations play a dominant role in providing social services in the United States. This entry begins by exploring the roles and origins of the nonprofit sector, reporting on its current scope and scale, and reviewing federal regulations governing nonprofit organizations. Special attention is then given to understanding human service organizations and their financing, including the implications of changing government–nonprofit relationships. Also discussed are four additional issues facing the sector—accountability, marketization, political participation, and nonprofit growth around the world—as well as recommendations for meeting future challenges.
