Recently in Human Services Category

Source: Nadwa Mossaad, Population Reference Bureau, October 2009

Timely economic data provide the means to assess the severity of the current economic hardship on the U.S. population. Official poverty estimates released on Sept. 10, 2009, by the U.S. Census Bureau show that in 2008, the poverty rate rose to 13.2 percent, and child poverty increased from 18 percent in 2007 to 19 percent, the highest level since 1997. Another measure of economic hardship, the monthly unemployment rate, rose to 9.7 percent in August 2009, a 26-year high.

Poverty and unemployment rates help to track the long-term economic health of families and individuals, but both are indirect measures of economic hardship. A more direct measure of family economic need is the number of individuals and families participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the federal Food Stamp Program. The amount of assistance depends on household size, income, and expenses. SNAP participation rates have increased dramatically in recent months and could increase even further as income levels drop and more families become eligible.

Source: Every Child Matters Education Fund, 2009

Much can be done to reduce these child abuse and neglect deaths. There exists a vast body of knowledge about healthy child growth and development, including how to prevent abuse in the first place, and how to protect children from further harm if abuse should occur. But the sheer amount of child abuse and neglect in America--already more than 20 million reports of maltreatment made to government agencies in this decade--is certain evidence that, despite the best efforts of the many who work daily to address this problem, we continue to fall far short in applying our knowledge.

Source: Carolyn Noble, Jude Irwin, Journal of Social Work, Vol. 9, No. 3, July 2009
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
• Summary: This article identifies important challenges facing social work supervision as a result of the social, political and economic changes that have characterized the last two decades in most Western countries. In response a re-positioning of the critical tradition in the scholarship and practice of social work has been proffered by several authors as a means of addressing and counteracting the more negative challenges facing social work emanating from these changes. We argue that this critical re-positioning can also be applied to similar challenges facing practice supervision.

• Findings: As the social work landscape has to contend with a more conservative and fiscally restrictive environment, so too has practice supervision become more focused on efficiency, accountability and worker performance often at the expense of professional and practice development. In addition, current research has identified a crisis in the probity of practice supervision where many practitioners cite disillusionment and despair, as well as lack of opportunity to stop and critically reflect on practice situations as another challenge in this changed climate.

Source: Gila M. Acker, Journal of Social Work, Vol. 9, No. 3, July 2009
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
• Summary: This article presents findings of a quantitative study that illuminates the `sense of competence' of American social workers practicing in a new financial reimbursement and treatment health care system called `managed care'. Questionnaires completed by 140 social workers provided data about the relationships between self-perceived competence and outcome variables including burnout and role stress.

• Findings: A central finding was that social workers who felt competent in their abilities to practice in a managed care environment also reported lower levels of role stress and burnout. Other findings included that those working with clients with severe and persistent mental illness reported lower levels of sense of competence and higher levels of role stress and burnout symptoms.

Source: Gail Warner, Labor Notes, no. 365, August 2009

Two years into a strike and lockout at a small mental-health provider in central Illinois, the 40 counselors who walked out are still standing. Years of fruitless bargaining, mediation, and picketing have left the workers clamoring for binding arbitration to bring the struggle to a close. They're campaigning for the Employee Free Choice Act, which includes an arbitration provision to resolve first-contract disputes.

Source: The Food Research and Action Center, July 1, 2009

By 2015, the United States should be a place where all children have the adequate and nutritious food they need to build healthy bodies and strong minds. Achieving that goal will require the nation to strengthen policies so that families and schools and other service providers that care for children are better able to provide food reliably and efficiently. Parents or other caregivers must be able to purchase and prepare adequate, healthy meals for the family. Schools, child care centers and homes, and afterschool and summer sites -- the places where children are learning, playing, developing and being cared for -- must meet children's nutritional needs when they are in those settings. And children should be treated with respect when help is given, and in ways that do not identify a child's socio-economic status or carry any stigma.

Source: Thomas L. Gais, Publius, The Journal of Federalism, Volume 39, Number 3, Summer 2009
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
This article examines social welfare spending on the eve of the recession to understand the likely effects of the economic downturn on the funding of state and local social welfare systems. It finds that state and local spending outside of medical assistance lost much of its real fiscal value since the last recession of 2001-02, especially when inflation-adjusted expenditures are compared to measures of need. Other trends include a growing concentration of state social welfare budgets around medical assistance, declines in federal assistance to states, and growing differences in social service spending across states of different fiscal capacities. The recession may exacerbate most of these developments and, along with the federal stimulus package, reduce the role of state governments in funding the national social welfare system.

Source: Amir Paz-Fuchs, Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, Vol. 29 no. 9, 2008

The purpose of this article is to attempt to deconstruct the reigning umbrella ideology of contemporary welfare reform. Welfare reform is often framed in reference to the concept of the (social) contract, which includes the conditioning rights on the fulfillment of obligations. I argue that the importation of contractual discourse to the welfare debate conceals certain economic and ideological agenda that should be brought to light. Even though the notion of welfare reform is now common currency in most of the industrial world, they tend to differ in their ideological emphasis, explored here, reveals the true character of a given program, and thus should provide the true basis for its normative analysis. Strikingly, the poor laws, which were in force throughout the English-speaking world for three and a half centuries, were justified by very similar motivations as the contemporary welfare programs in the United States. The advantage of placing the past and the present side by side arises from the fact that poor laws advanced policies that were unencumbered by legal and moral reservations that putatively restrict contemporary welfare reform. Because of the similarities between the poor laws and modern programs, the juxtaposition of past and present, therefore, grants us a unique opportunity to detach ourselves from the reigning ideologies of the twenty-first century, and to view current policies with the wisdom accrued over several centuries.

Source: House Ways and Means Committee, Updated March 17, 2009

Section 8 of the 2008 Green Book.

Basic responsibility for administering the program is left to States, but the Federal Government plays a major role in: dictating the major design features of State programs; funding, monitoring and evaluating State programs; providing technical assistance; and giving assistance to States in locating absent parents and obtaining support payments. The program requires the provision of child support enforcement (CSE) services for both welfare and nonwelfare families and requires States to publicize frequently, through public service announcements, the availability of child support enforcement services, together with information about the application fee and a telephone number or address to obtain additional information. Local family and domestic courts and administrative agencies handle the actual establishment and enforcement of child support obligations according to Federal, State, and local laws.

Source: Zoë Neuberger, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 3, 2009

Key Findings

Federal law requires school districts to automatically enroll children for free school meals if their families receive SNAP benefits. This automatic enrollment, known as direct certification, is highly accurate and reduces paperwork for school districts and poor families.

* A new USDA study finds that states vary widely in the performance of their direct certification systems. Sixteen states miss more than two in five children who could be automatically enrolled for free school meals.
* Many children overlooked by direct certification fail to receive free school meals because their parents do not complete a paper application.
* States can take steps to improve direct certification, such as automatically connecting children who begin receiving SNAP benefits in the middle of the school year to free school meals.