Preview the Next Issue
The April-June 2007 issue (Volume 88, Number 2) will highlight topics related to spirituality and social work, approaches for agency services, parenting and child care, fathering and fatherhood, mental health issues, and social work practice. More information.

Practice and Policy Focus Supplement for Practitioners 
Each edition of this newsletter will highlight articles related to a particular topic of interest for social workers and other social service practitioners and clinicians:

• Social Work with At-Risk Youth (2007, Issue 1)
• Best Practices in Foster Care and Adoption (2006, Issue 2)
• Social Work Ethics with Dr. Frederic G. Reamer (2006, Issue 1)

Hot Topic Webinars
Families in Society and its publisher, the Alliance for Children and Families, present the Hot Topic Webinar and teleconference series. Interactive presentations with nationally recognized experts focus on topics relating to practice, education, and policy within social services. Visit What's New to access these archives online.

Implementing the GBT Model in a Residential Care Setting
This teleconference, hosted by the American Association of Children’s Residential Centers (AACRC), provides first-hand perspectives and realities of program replication from the staff of several youth residential centers as they implemented a new model of care in their facilities. Discussed are their experiences regarding the planning and preparation for this change, the trials and challenges associated with the implementation, and the individual results and outcomes.

Online Continuing Education
CE4Alliance, the online continuing education program provided by Families in Society and its publisher, the Alliance for Children and Families, features over 100 courses arranged in 20 topic categories. Visit the site, or download the course catalog.

Additionally, FIS holds periodic Webinars exploring published articles in depth and featuring nationally-recognized experts. These Webinars will include additional registration options for participants to earn online CE credits. To learn more about these Webinar opportunities, add your name to our mail list.

Two new courses, developed from articles in the current issue, are now available.

• Injection Drug Use Among Youths: Scope of the Problem and Recommendations
  by Sunny Hyucksun Shin & Maryann Amodeo
  
  Course #101028 │Abstract
  The goal of this article is to heighten awareness among social workers and other human service professionals about the use of injection drugs by adolescents and young adults. Although social work and other human service providers possess increasingly greater knowledge and skills in dealing with tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use among adolescents and young adults, they often have limited knowledge of injection drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
   
• Homeless Families in Canada: Discovering Total Families
  by Jeannette Waegemakers Schiff
  
  Course #101029 │Abstract
  Research on homeless families has focused primarily on residents of emergency and transitional housing programs, most of which serve victims of domestic violence and/or substance abuse, primarily women, excluding male partners and adolescent children. Resulting family profiles are skewed towards unaccompanied women with dependent children. Evaluation of a temporary emergency shelter for homeless families revealed a markedly different profile.

Conferences
2007 National Leadership Conference on Child Welfare Issues
Clearwater Beach, Florida
Browse the post-conference materials from the Alliance for Children and Families' annual event featuring nationally recognized experts and experienced peers. The 2007 meeting focused on family-centered practice in out-of-home care settings, outcomes and benchmarking for sibling groups, supervisory development, benchmarking for continuous improvement and performance, and the key to performance based contracting.

Occasional Essay
Taking Social Services Education to a New Degree—A Collaborative Model
This essay looks at a unique collaboration between Girls and Boys Town, a national leader in services to abused and abandoned children, and Bellevue University, a nationally-accredited institution specializing in adult learning and online education. Wanting to bring its effectiveness and efficiency to a higher level, as well as to contribute towards their employees’ continued professional development, the agency partnered with Bellevue to create a new online degree program for a Master of Science in Family and Youth Services. Read the essay.
 

Current Issue  │ Table of Contents  │  Article Summaries  │ Editorial   

This issue includes topics on new approaches for agency services, competency building in domestic violence services, voices in culturally relevant practice, working with at-risk youth, parental coping with child mental health disorders, and resiliency and social supports in family functioning.

Online subscribers and registered users can access the full-text article links below. Sign in now, subscribe, or register for a free account.

To view all articles, visit the current issue page. Online subscribers can view the complete issue and non-subscribers can view all abstracts and summaries.

Ethical Issues in Open Adoption: Implications for Practice
by Frederic G. Reamer & Deborah H. Siegel

Open adoption, a newer trend in the United States, is now considered a best practice for the birth parent, foster/adoptive parent, and child, but also carries ethical concerns. Ethical issues arise in open adoptions related to privacy, confidentiality, self-determination, paternalism, conflicts of interest, deception, and truth-telling. The authors define guidelines for social workers based on the most up-to-date ethical standards available in the practical ethics field. Practical ethics entails the deliberate application of ethical theories and concepts to challenges faced by practitioners. In open adoption, social workers must be vigilant in their efforts to uphold and embrace the profession’s enduring ethical principles.
Abstract  │  Article PDF (free to registered users)

Domestic Violence Continuum, Forensic Assessment and Crisis Intervention
by Albert R. Roberts

Domestic violence continues to be one of the most pervasive, traumatic, life-threatening, and harmful family problems in society today. This article proposes a new 5-level classificatory continuum of the duration and severity of woman battering for assessment and intervention by social workers and forensic specialists. The classification system can be employed for psychosocial indicators that can be used as a basis for early case-finding, crisis intervention, and preventive intervention. Improved identification of different types of battering relationships can provide a model for effective crisis response involving police-based domestic violence units, 24-hour crisis hotlines, and social service delivery systems.
Abstract  │  Article PDF (free to registered users)

Using a Positive Youth Development Approach in Addressing Problem-Oriented Youth Behavior
by Maryann Amodeo & Mary Elizabeth Collins

There has been growing interest in the positive youth development (PYD) approach and its application to work with youth in a variety of settings. This article demonstrates that within a youth service paradigm—one that traditionally focuses on problem behaviors and the need for treatment (e.g., child welfare)—there are ways that workers can empower youth by minimizing the emphasis on deficits, while still offering options for change. Building on three theories—strengths, coping, and stages of change—the authors offer practice guidelines for applying the PYD approach to problem-oriented behavior, as well as to a broader range of backgrounds and experiences
Abstract  │  Article PDF (free to registered users)

Co-CEOs: A New Leadership Paradigm for Social Service Agencies
by Linda Mercuri Fischbach, Carol Smerz, Ginni Findlay, Crystal Williams, & Amy Cox

In this essay, the authors introduce a new type of collaborative leadership, the Co-CEO model, with a study by two experienced female executives who lead a mid-sized community behavioral health center. Increased accessibility of information, cross-functional workplace challenges, and financial belt-tightening have led organizations since the 1990s to consider a joint leadership style where leaders embrace teamwork and empower staff through motivation rather than wielding traditional authoritarian power. For women in particular, this egalitarian style fits with feminist principles of relationship and consensus building, and supports effective power sharing. The essay discusses the advantages and disadvantages of adopting the Co-CEO model for social service agencies and offers recommendations for further study.
Abstract  │  Article PDF (free to registered users)

Uncovering Stories of Family Resilience: A Mixed Methods Study of Resilient Families, Part 2
by Cynthia A. Lietz

What makes a family resilient with the ability to overcome negative consequences typically associated with high risk? This second article in a 2-part series reviews the qualitative findings from a study of high-risk families including the narrative reconstruction of the qualitative data as portrayed in a model of family resilience. It is revealed that families identified different stages of reactions to their difficulties: survival, adaptation, acceptance, growing stronger, and helping others. The author further stresses that the purpose of the study was to show that resiliency is not simply a process that applies to individual development, but an important experience for families to use strengths to overcome risk and maintain functioning.
Abstract  │  Article PDF (free to registered users)

Special Focuses
Issues are periodically published that give readers in-depth perspectives on specific topics.

Working But Poor: Next Steps for Social Work Strategies and Collaborations
(October-December 2007—Print and Web publication)
Increasingly, many low income working individuals and families confront significant challenges to their ability to remain economically self-sufficient. A substantial portion of these individuals, referred to as “working but poor,” or “the working poor,” rotate in and out of social service agencies seeking assistance in coping with everyday difficulties emerging from insufficient social and/or financial capital. Look for this issue to be published in late 2007.

Have an idea about a special issue or topic?
E-mail our editorial office: editor@familiesinsociety.org  

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT AND METHODS

"The article on using diagrammatic assessment for family relationships has been a very useful [training] resource for our social caseworkers, probation counselors and clinical social workers."
Lori M. Herz, Technical Training Specialist
Rhode Island Child Welfare Institute

“FIS helps keep our clinicians and management team in touch with current trends, programs, and research … It’s great to have such a valuable resource readily available online to our entire staff!”
Lynn D. Kyle, Executive Director
Lampion Center
Evansville, IN

“Our project on building cultural competence in disability services’ staff benefited from your specialized articles.”
Maureen Kingshott, Assistant Director
Multicultural Disability Advocacy Association
New South Wales, Australia

“Families in Society is among the few professional journals that I turn to time and again to inform my practice and deepen my knowledge base. It has been consistently one of the more accessible, innovative, and reader-friendly journals available. Special themes on contemporary issues in the field keep the content fresh from issue to issue.”
Andrew Malekoff (ACSW), CASAC Associate Director
North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center
Roslyn Heights, NY

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