Suchergebnisse

Objective: Conduct secondary data analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of Massachusetts' Adolescent Outreach Program for Youths in Intensive Foster Care (Outreach) for increasing social support (SS) among enrolled youth. Participants: 194 youth in intensive foster care under the guardianship of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families with a goal of independent living (IL) or long-term substitute care, and born between August 1985 and December 1990 (67% female, 66% White, 27% Hispanic) participated in the study between September 2004 and March 2009. Method: We hypothesized that Outreach compared to services as usual (SAU; control group) would increase participants' SS and that there would be racial/ethnic disparities in SS as a function of the Outreach. Treatment effects were tested using mixed-effect models. Results: Outreach did not increase foster youth's SS, compared to SAU. No racial/ethnic disparities in program effect were detected. Discussion and Applications to Social Work: Providers of IL services should reconsider how best to build and strengthen SS among the foster youth they serve.

Although prior research finds that poor neighborhood conditions are negatively associated with employment, little study has focused on emerging adults who formerly had contact with the juvenile justice system and are frequently engaged in informal job markets. Using a hybrid model and three waves from panel data with formerly juvenile justice-involved emerging adults (18–24 at T1, 20–25 at T2, 20–26 at T3) collected in Philadelphia and Phoenix ( N = 947), we find an inter-individual increase in the degree of disorder within the neighborhood decreases weeks worked for community jobs (between-effect), whereas an intra-individual increase in neighborhood condition scores increases weeks worked for under-the-table jobs among emerging adults (within-effect). Some time-variant and invariant sociodemographic factors, including perceived opportunity for work, mental health, substance use, gang membership, race, and education, are significantly related to employment. Our findings reiterate justice-involved young people may have difficulty sustaining formal employment partially due to neighborhood conditions.