Presentations

Saturday, January 14, 2012: 10:00 AM
McPherson Square (Grand Hyatt Washington)

Antoinette Farmer, PhD, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Purpose:
Several studies have been done assessing the factor structure of the Parental Distress Subscale. If we plan to use this subscale as an assessment tool to help identify those in need of services, more information is needed on the ways in which the items are better able to discriminate at various levels of stress and distress. This would allow for the refinement of the measure and potentially the development of a shorter measure to be use in clinical practice. The purpose of this study is to use Item Response Theory (IRT) to examine the discriminability of the items associated with the parenting demands stress and general distress subscales, which have been identified as two of the Parental Distress subscales (McKelvey et al. 2009).

Methods:
Using data from the Fragile Family Child Wellbeing Study, an IRT analysis was conducted to assess the discriminability of the items associated with the parenting demands stress and general distress subscales. The sample consisted of 2,655 mothers who had complete data at wave three. An IRT was conducted using MPLUS. Two separate IRT analyses were conducted—one for each subscale. For the purpose of the IRT analysis the items were dichotomized, where 1= strongly agree and agree, and 0 = not sure, disagree, and strongly disagree.

Results:
As for the general distress subscale, the results of the 2 parameter logistic IRT model was significant x2(113, N = 2,655) =175.71, p < .001. Examination of the item characteristic curves, range of item difficulty (.89 to 2.57) and item discrimination (.05 to.17) provided evidence that the seven items making up the general distress subscale all have distinguishable relationships to the latent trait being measured. The questions which asked the respondents to indicate do they feel alone and without friends and when you go to a party, you usually expect to have a bad time discriminated at high levels of general distress. It should be noted that the latter was the hardest question. Whereas, the question that asked the respondents how often they have feelings that they cannot handle things very well discriminated well at low levels of general distress. For the parenting demands stress subscale, the results of the 2 parameter logistic IRT model was significant x2(21, N = 2,655) =48.09, p < .001. Examination of the item characteristic curves, range of item difficulty (.05 to 2.75) and item discrimination (.83 to.17) provided evidence that the five items making up the parenting demands stress subscale all have distinguishable relationships to the latent trait being measured. The question that asked respondents do they find themselves giving up more of their lives to meet child’s needs than expected discriminated well at low levels of parenting stress. Whereas, the question that asked the respondents having a child has caused more problems than expected in relationship with men discriminated at the high levels of parenting stress.

Implications for Clinical Practice:
These subscales are important tools for social work practice.

Sunday, January 15, 2012: 10:45 AM
Penn Quarter A (Grand Hyatt Washington)

James I. Martin, PhD, Associate Professor, New York University, New York, NY
Edward J. Alessi, PhD, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ

Purpose and Background:
Recent research shows a high rate of sexual orientation bias-related victimization among U.S. lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations (Herek, 2009; Huebner, Rebchook, & Kegeles, 2004). Among them, gay men experience the highest incidence of victimization (National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, 2010). However, gay and bisexual men may also be victimized because of their gender expression, race/ethnicity, or other characteristics, or for non-bias reasons. Additionally, they experience intimate partner violence at rates comparable to women in opposite-sex relationships, and much more frequently than men in opposite-sex relationships (Greenwood et al., 2002). Examining incidence of total victimization in this population would be important because behavioral, emotional, or physical health problems may result from any of these experiences. In order to manage the distress associated with these experiences people may mobilize task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and/or avoidance coping strategies (Endler & Parker, 1999), as well as social support (Friedman, Koeske, Silvestre, Korr, & Sites, 2006) and community-wide resources (Elliott et al., 2006; Meyer, 2010), but research has not examined the relationship between coping and total victimization among gay and bisexual men. The aims of this study were to examine the 6 month incidence of total victimization and the associations between victimization experiences and general coping strategies among self-identified gay and bisexual men. We hypothesized that higher incidence of victimization would be associated with emotion-oriented and avoidance coping.

Methods:
A convenience sample was recruited through several Internet-based methods. Inclusion criteria were male gender, same-sex sexual orientation or report of having sex with other men, U.S. residence, and a minimum age of 18 years. A total of 297 men meeting these criteria completed an Internet-hosted questionnaire. Voluntary drawings for $50 gift certificates served as an incentive. Victimization during the past 6 months was measured with 13 items adapted from Herek’s (1994-1997) Northern California Men’s Study; coping was measured with the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (Endler & Parker, 1999). Relationships between victimization and coping were analyzed with Spearman correlations and oneway analyses of variance.

Results:
Victimization during the past 6 months included verbal insults or abuse (60%), threats of violence (27%), property offenses (21%), and being hit or beaten (15%). Higher victimization scores were associated with higher scores on emotion-oriented coping (r_s=.29, p<.01), but not with avoidance or task-oriented coping. For most forms of victimization, participants reporting one incident had significantly higher emotion-oriented coping scores than those who reported none; scores on emotion-oriented coping were even higher for those reporting two or more such incidents, but these differences were generally nonsignificant.

Conclusions and Implications:
The number of reported victimization experiences was surprisingly high, suggesting that studies on behavioral, emotional, and physical health problems among gay and bisexual men should include victimization in their explanatory models. The findings partially supported the hypothesis that victimization would correlate positively with emotion-focused and avoidance coping. Future research should examine the role and relative effectiveness of emotion-focused coping in managing victimization-related distress in this population.

Sunday, January 15, 2012: 8:45 AM
Penn Quarter A (Grand Hyatt Washington)

Michael LaSala, PhD, Director of the MSW Program/Associate Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Damien T. Frierson, MSW, Doctoral Student/Frederick Douglass Doctoral Fellow, Howard University, Washington, DC

Background and Purpose:
As children grow into late adolescence and early adulthood, they must become more autonomous yet stay connected to the family, and in a reciprocal manner, family members must support the child in doing so–a challenging task for any family and for families of gay youth even more so. Upon learning that a child is gay or lesbian, parents in general have reported feelings of loss, guilt, and anxiety (LaSala, 2010). Considering that family support, when available can psychologically benefit young lesbians and gay men (D’Augelli, 2002; Ryan, et al., 2010) and that for African Americans, close kinship ties are a protective resource (Boyd-Franklin, 2006), social workers need to know what unique challenges African American families of gay youth face in order to assist them.

Methods:
To this end, a subsample of 17 African American gay male and lesbian youth and their parents were drawn from a larger qualitative study of 65 families of gay youth. The black youth were aged 16-25 (mean of 17.6) and at the time of their interviews, were out to their parents from 6 months to 9 years (mean of 3.7 years). A combination of grounded theory and narrative methods were used to collect and analyze the data. Parents and their children were asked about parents’ initial reactions to the discovery of their children’s sexual orientation and how parental feelings changed over time. Probes were used to elicit the role of race and racism on coming out and family adjustment. Peer briefing and member checking were utilized to check codes and the overall theory.

Results:
Like their white counterparts, African American parents felt guilt, self-blame, and worry upon learning that their children were gay, and they were particularly concerned about their sons’ HIV risk. As time passed, many black parents adjusted to their children’s sexual orientation, and parent-child relationships improved and strengthened. However, parents and youth identified prominent gender role expectations in the black community and worried about the social consequences of not fulfilling them. Gay sons reported that male relatives and neighbors claimed that homosexuality clashed with the image of a “strong black man” and further tarnished society’s already compromised image of the African American male. As a result youth felt isolated and ashamed. Some parents and children learned to become critical of the prevailing norms regarding sex and gender in their communities and this helped family adjustment and youth self-esteem. Nevertheless black parents had ongoing worries that their children faced dual stigmas—one related to race and the other to sexual orientation, and they feared for their children’s physical safety as well as their prospects for future success.

Practice Implications:
Like their white counterparts, African American parents of gay and lesbian youth need assistance coping with feelings of loss, worry, and guilt. However, based on these exploratory findings, clinicians assisting black gay youth and their parents would be advised to help them reconcile their ideas about sexual orientation with gender role expectations and find ways of coping with intersecting stigmas.

Friday, January 13, 2012: 10:00 AM
Burnham (Grand Hyatt Washington)

Antoinette Farmer, PhD, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Timothy Hairston, Undergraduate Student, Rutgers University, Winston-Salem, NC

Purpose:
Previous research has identified that the risk factors for gang involvement fall within five domains: individual, family, peer, school, and neighborhood (Howell & Egley, 2005; Klein & Maxson, 2006). Most of the previous studies have examined which factors predict gang involvement but have not focused on determining if the risk factors vary by grade level. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine if the predictors of gang involvement vary for students in grades 6th-12th. The risk factors examined in this study are associated with the five above-mentioned domains.

Methods:
Using data from the School Success Profile (SSP), this current study examined the predictors of gang involvement for students in grades 6th to 12th. The sample for this study consisted of 12699 6th-8th graders, 4160 9th-10th graders, and 2220 11th-12th graders. There were 950 6th-8th graders who were involved in a gang, 394 9th-10th graders who were involved in a gang, and 135 11th-12th graders who were involved in a gang. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted using MPLUS. Three separate binary logistic regression analyses were conducted– one for grades 6th-8th, one for grades 9th-10th, and one for grades 11th-12th. Nineteen risk factors were included in each model to assess if they predicted gang involvement. These risk factors were as follows: individual domain (negative life events, self-esteem, race/ethnicity/ and gender); family domain (family structure, poverty, parental monitoring, and parent’s belief about the importance of doing well in school); peer domain (associating with deviant peers and peer group rejection); school domain (perceptions of school safety, received failing grades, repeated a grade, school suspension, school engagement, college aspirations, and involvement in extracurricular activities); and neighborhood domain (neighborhood youth get into trouble, and perceptions of neighborhood safety).

Results:
Each model was statistically significant (p < .001). The predictors varied across grade levels, with the 6th-8th graders having the most risk factors and the 11th-12th graders having the least risk factors. The majority of the risk factors for both the 6th-8th and 9th-10th graders were in the school domain. As for the 11th-12th graders, the majority of their risk factors were in the individual domain. Additionally, there were some predictors that were consistent across grade levels. These predictors were being African American, male, perceiving that one’s neighborhood was unsafe, being rejected by one’s peers, and associating with deviant peers.

Implications for Interventions:
Based on the results of this study, specific grade level interventions are warranted. For example, for the 6th-8th graders, interventions should focus on increasing parental monitoring, helping students deal with the death of a friend, and preparing students to achieve academically so that they can be prepared to go to college. At every grade level, interventions should be developed to increase neighborhood safety and enhance students’ skills and ability to make friends with students who engage in prosocial behaviors. Social skills training should also be provided so that students will be less likely to be rejected by their peers.

Thursday, January 12, 2012: 1:30 PM
Independence D (Grand Hyatt Washington)

Jeounghee Kim, PhD, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Myungkook Joo, PhD, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Purpose:
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) prohibited a state from using any part of its federal TANF grant to fund assistance to teenage parents without a high-school or equivalent degree unless they are in school working toward a high-school degree or in an alternative education or training program approved by the state. In response to this policy, many states (34 states) also broadened the school-attendance requirement and imposed it on all teenagers in TANF families, including youths who were not parents. The purpose of this paper was to examine if the school-attendance requirement of the PRWORA significantly increased attendance among the teenage girls that the policy targeted.

Methods:
This study applied difference-in-difference and difference-in-difference-in-difference methods to 12 years of cross-sectional data from the October Supplement of the Current Population Survey (from 1994 through 2005) while isolating the effects of PRWORA from the effects of other factors that might have influenced the target population’s school attendance. The final sample for this study includes 63,395 teenagers aged between 15 and 18, excluding teenagers who completed high school, including those with a GED. The sample teenagers were further divided by their family background. There were 13,640 teenagers whose backgrounds placed them at risk of current and future welfare receipt (at-risk group), and the remaining 49,755 teenagers had backgrounds that did not place them at risk for welfare receipt (not-at-risk group).

Findings:
The findings indicated that PRWORA, overall, did not have significant positive impacts on school attendance; rather, the policy was associated with a small but significant reduction in school attendance of U.S.-born disadvantaged teenage girls between 1996 through 1999 and essentially no effects on the target population thereafter. The results are generally in line with the literature from experimental and non-experimental studies that suggested mixed evidence regarding the effects of mandatory school attendance. The results are most congruent with the findings of Hao and his colleagues (2004), who found that lower income teenagers were less likely to return to school under a more stringent welfare policy. Hao and Cherlin (2004) also found evidence that welfare reform had sporadic harmful effects on school attendance, a finding very similar to what this study revealed. Despite PRWORA’s intention to promote education among the most disadvantaged teenagers, this study suggests that the policy’s mandatory attendance requirement was ineffective.

Discussions:
There are also at least a couple of reasons why PRWORA’s school-attendance requirement might not have been very effective. Identifying minor parents within families on welfare is challenging, and it might have been another challenge for welfare agencies to monitor their actual attendance and take action when they don’t comply with the requirement. It is also important to note that truancy and dropout problems are oftentimes a manifestation of other serious family or school problems that are counterproductive to school attendance. To more successfully implement a school-attendance requirement, many supportive services and programs need to be in place for teenagers living in these environments.

Saturday, January 14, 2012: 10:00 AM
Roosevelt (Grand Hyatt Washington)

Jeffry Longhofer, PhD, Associate Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Jerry Floersch, PhD, Associate Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Background and Purpose:
In recent years ‘recovery’ has become the single most important conceptual development in mental health service delivery. And while recovery is not a technique, method, or model of practice (i.e., motivational interviewing, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or assertive community treatment), it does purport to describe and prescribe desired and valued outcomes for clients, parents, providers, researchers, and policymakers. In research and scholarship, memoirs and personal accounts, recovery makes reference to the roles of formal and informal relationships in producing and sustaining recovery from serious mental illnesses. The aim of this study was to identify the ‘practical knowledge’ deployed in problem solving interactions among mental health providers (principally case managers) and clients.

Methods: Single and comparative case study methods were used to study three clients (one with major depression and two with schizophrenia) and three case managers over 24 months. Participant observation of case manager and client-initiated interactions were audio recorded or notated and a three-stage analytic strategy (thematic, grounded theory, and narrative) was conducted using two coders who independently coded problem-solving events for type of relational activity. Coders could not agree on 33 events (i.e., the thematic relational code); these were discarded and the remaining 628 events were used in a grounded theory and narrative analysis.

Results:
Four categories of practical and relational knowledge were identified: doing for, doing with, standing by for support, and letting go. A narrative matrix of provider and client interactions identified the practical and relational actions (e.g., doing for and doing with) associated with specific life domains (i.e., cognitive, emotional, and behavioral). These findings demonstrated that the activities of case management were not only practical. They were also value driven. For example, when case managers respected client dignity and independence, they acted with values that guided them in making judgments about both the type and use of the relational activities (e.g., doing for and doing with activities) within specific time and spatial dimensions.

Conclusions and Implications: Foucault and Bourdieu inspired an enormous and diverse literature on practice and its relationship to theory. In this paper we argue that this scholarship tends to elide how knowledge works in the ethical dimension, that is, in the inevitable and necessary tension between fact and value. Doing for and doing with, for example, emerge from practical knowledge and in the particulars of caring relationships, and their effects cannot be explained or prescribed by technique. And these practitioner reflections on value require our taking seriously ‘values’ as knowable and actionable. Indeed, these data show how practical knowledge in provider/client relationships produce particular ‘valued’ effects and how relational aspects of treatment are often overlooked because the fact/value separation in social work research consigns these to the subjective (i.e., value) and emotional (i.e., interference), thus unknowable dimensions of practice.

Nadine Shaanta Murshid, MPP, Doctoral Student, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Allison Zippay, PhD, Associate Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Background and Purpose:
Microfinance or micro-credit loans to poor women in Bangladesh as an anti-poverty tool have received mixed reviews from researchers and practitioners alike. Some suggest that there is an intrinsic value to giving poor women an opportunity to earn additional income for the household, which in turn helps to bring the family out of poverty. Others suggest that the scale at which this happens is not large enough to have an actual impact on the poverty index. Others see it as a tool that ‘empowers’ poor women to become independent (Amin et al., 2003; Hunt et al., 2001; Mayoux, 2000; Schuler et al., 1998). Some suggest that women’s enhanced autonomy may have unintended consequences in terms of domestic violence because of the challenge to traditional patriarchal norms and traditional gender roles (Amin, 1998). Despite the wide application of micro-finance programs, with an estimated 12 million users in Bangladesh, information about its effects is limited by a lack of representative studies. This paper draws on data from the USAID funded nationally representative Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2007 to examine differences between poor women who have accessed micro-finance and those who have not on variables including wealth, autonomy, and domestic violence, and to examine whether autonomy is associated with domestic violence.

Methods: This paper uses the BDHS 2007 survey of 10,400 households in which they interviewed 10,996 ever-married women between the ages of 15 and 49 and ever-married men between the years of 15 and 54. The survey was designed to produce representative estimates for the indicators for the entire nation, for urban and rural areas, and for each of the six major divisions of Bangladesh. This paper, however, uses the Women’s Questionnaire only, as microfinance loans are primarily intended for poor women in Bangladesh,. The key variables are: microfinance (recipient vs. non recipient) as a dichotomous variable, the wealth index created by the original survey designers, autonomy conceptualized as ‘freedom of movement’ and domestic violence measured using the Conflict Tactics Scale. Chi Square and MANOVA analyses are used to delineate the relationship between microfinance receipt and wealth, autonomy and domestic violence.

Findings:
This study found that there were no significant differences in autonomy between poor women who accessed microfinance and those who did not. Those who used micro-finance were significantly more likely to have less wealth. There were significant differences in domestic violence between recipients and non recipients of domestic violence, with higher levels among those who access micro-finance, controlling for literacy, education, and wealth. Autonomy was not associated with domestic violence among either group.

Implications:
With millions of micro-finance recipients across many countries, including Bangladesh, there is a strong need to better understand the context and effects of micro-finance receipt. The findings in this study, including those on domestic violence, allude to the need for future qualitative studies to further elucidate the context and effects of microfinance receipt in Bangladesh.

 Saturday, January 14, 2012: 4:30 PM-6:15 PM
Wilson (Grand Hyatt Washington)

Cluster: Research Design and MeasuremenT
Speakers/Presenters:

Sunday, January 15, 2012: 8:45 AM
Constitution C (Grand Hyatt Washington)

Corinne Warrener, MSW, Research Associate, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Sarah McMahon, PhD, Assistant Professor/Associate Director, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Sheila McMahon, MDiv, Research Assistant, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Purpose
Using a public health model, primary prevention of sexual violence must include the reduction of risk factors and augmentation of protective factors (CDC, WHO, 2010). Three factors have been identified for examination in this study: Gender norms, media attitudes, and bystander behavior. Attitudes about gender roles have been identified as a critical area to focus on for sexual violence prevention because adherence to strict gender roles and belief in rape myths are risk factors for committing sexually violent acts (Berkowitz, 1992; Christopher et al, 1998; Lanier, 2001; Lyndon et al, 2007). Mass media has been identified as a prominent source for shaping our attitudes and norms about gender roles, therefore attitudes about media can be regarded as a risk factor (Hammer, 2009). The bystander approach suggests that every member of the community has a responsibility to be active bystanders in sexual violence situations and is regarded as a protective factor (Banyard et al, 2004; McMahon, et al., 2011).This study focuses on primary prevention by establishing a baseline of certain risk and protective factors: attitudes about gender norms, attitudes about media portrayal of gender, and bystander intervention. By understanding how groups differ in their attitudes, prevention efforts can be tailored to specific communities and groups.

Methods
Random digit dialing was used to obtain a sample of 886 from the population of New Jersey. The phone interviews took about 15 minutes to complete and asked about demographics, the participant’s beliefs regarding gender roles, sexual violence, portrayal of gender in the media, and likelihood to intervene in situations ranging from use of sexually derogatory language to potential for sexual assault.

Results
ANCOVA was used to compare demographic groups’ Attitudes about Gender Roles, Attitudes about Media, and Attitudes about Bystander Behaviors. These 3 areas were measured by mean scores from scales following an exploratory factor analysis. Age, race, and gender were examined while controlling for education, as education was highly correlated with all 3 scales. Analyses used weighted data.

Results indicate that older people, minority racial groups, and men hold more traditional views of gender roles. For Attitudes about Media, only gender was significant, with women more likely to believe that the media portrays women negatively. Attitudes about Bystander Behaviors varied by gender and age, with women and older respondents reporting greater likelihood to intervene.

Implications
Effective sexual violence prevention efforts must address the underlying assumptions held by individuals in a community in order to change rape supportive ideologies and social norms and, ultimately, to decrease sexual violence perpetration (Berkowitz, 2001; Davis & Little, 2002; Fabiano et al, 2003; Lonsway, 1996; Potter et al, in press; Stein, 2007). This study provides a foundation for tailoring prevention efforts to the various groups found in NJ by specifying groups that have higher risk attitudes about gender and media and the protective factor of willingness to intervene. Furthermore, this information provides critical information to sexual violence prevention efforts and can be used for future research and prevention efforts among communities and states beyond NJ.

Saturday, January 14, 2012: 10:00 AM
Roosevelt (Grand Hyatt Washington)

Beth Angell, PhD, Associate Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Jeanne C. Marsh, PhD, Professor, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Christina Andrews, MSW, Doctoral Candidate, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Ashley Curry, LCSW, Doctoral Student, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Results:
Results indicated that client-provider relationship was related to intermediate process and final outcomes across the three service domains of mental health, child welfare and substance abuse. The relationship did not seem to be mediated by rater of relationship. The strength of the relation did appear to be affected the immediacy, quality and malleability of the outcome measure and by the maturity of the research in a particular domain.

Conclusions and implications: Overall, the studies reviewed indicate the impact of client provider relationship on outcome is robust across the three service domains with impact appearing to be both directly therapeutic as well as mediated to some extent by other factors. Findings point to the importance of including client-provider relationship as an ingredient in the development of effective service delivery models.