   
Working But
Poor: Next Steps for Social Work Families in Society Volume 88, Number 3 (2007) |
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EDITORSSondra J. Fogel, PhD, ACSW, is associate professor, School of Social Work, University of South Florida. Guest Editor, Families in Society Sondra Fogel specializes in community practice in urban neighborhoods with a focus on social and economic capacity-building strategies, poverty, and homeless issues. She has worked as an evaluator and consultant for related program and service initiatives including the Gainesville NeighborWorks organization in partnership with the Shimberg Center for Housing Affordability, the Belmont Heights Community Economic Impact Analysis with the Tampa Housing Authority, and the Community SUPPORT Project with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In June 2007, Dr. Fogel was appointed associate editor of Families in Society. Additionally, she has contributed scholarship in leading social science journals such as the Journal of Policy Practice, Journal of Public Affairs and Issues, Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, Journal of Applied Social Sciences, and Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. William E. Powell, PhD, LCSW, is professor, Social Work Department, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.Editor, Families in Society William Powell has extensive practice experience including several years in a supervisory position at the Fort Wayne State Hospital in Indiana, working as a psychotherapist with emotionally disturbed adolescents in Milwaukee, and then several years of geriatric medical and psychiatric social work. He also provided crisis counseling and other services for sexual assault, incest, and domestic violence clients for over seven years. In research and academia, Dr. Powell has worked as a research specialist on a National Institute on Aging (NIA) project in Long Term Care, and was chair of the social work department at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and coordinator of the Graduate Achievement Program in Gerontology. He subsequently became chair of the Social Work department at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater for 5 years during which time it grew to become the largest such program in the country and also coordinated the gerontology minor program at that institution. Currently, he is a professor at UW-Whitewater teaching group work, research, and gerontology courses. Dr. Powell has long been a valuable member of the Families in Society forum, beginning in 1986 and assuming positions over time as book review editor, advisory board member, associate editor, and now editor. His passion for social justice, and for giving voice to those that are served by social work, is woven throughout his editorials and other writings, including a forthcoming book on the art of social work practice in partnership with Dr. Mel Gray of the University of Newcastle in Australia. CONTRIBUTORSAnn Abbott, PhD, LCSW, is project director, professor, and director of the MSW Program, West Chester University Graduate Social Work Department. Dr. Abbott spent 20 years working with a wide range of agencies and constituents in Camden, NJ, one of the most impoverished cities in the United States. In addition to teaching and program administration, Dr. Abbott has been an active member of a number of community boards and professional organizations including serving as past president of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Her research interests include welfare reform, professional values, and substance abuse. Steven G. Anderson, PhD, is associate professor, School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has enjoyed a long community practice career in public legislative and executive settings before returning to academia. He served for ten years as fiscal analyst and then associate director for Human Services at the Michigan House Fiscal Agency, which serves as the budget development and monitoring arm of the Michigan House of Representatives. Dr. Anderson has conducted many research projects evaluating the impact of welfare reform programs, as well as the implementation of childcare, financial management training, and other support services intended to improve the well-being of low-income families. He has published extensively on these topics in leading social work and interdisciplinary research journals. Dr. Anderson received his BSW and MSW degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and later earned MA and PhD degrees in political science from the University of Michigan. Annie Laurie Armstrong, MPA, is president, Business Government Community Connections in Seattle. Ms. Armstrong, the founder of Business Government Community Corrections, has worked since 1981 to understand and influence the ways in which different institutions strengthen families and advance employment availability. She is co-author with Roberta Rehner Iversen of the publication Jobs Aren't Enough: Toward a New Economic Mobility for Low-Income Families (2006; Temple University Press). Mona Basta, LSW, ABD, is assistant professor, Binghamton University. Ms. Basta's current research interests include low-income single mothers, welfare reform, policy implementation, and employment experiences of immigrants and ethnic minorities. In 2003, she was awarded the Eileen Blackey Doctoral Fellowship in welfare policy and practice by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Foundation. Ms. Basta received her ABD in Social Welfare from the University of Pennsylvania with her PhD forthcoming, and her MSW from Temple University with a concentration in social planning. David Beimers, MSW, is doctoral candidate, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University. His research interests include youth employment, juvenile delinquency, program evaluation and social welfare policy. Mr. Beimers is currently the project director for the Supported Employment Research Project through the Center for Evidence-Based Practices at Case Western Reserve University. Previously, Mr. Beimers was a doctoral fellow with the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at that university where his research focused on public assistance programs and employment and training service delivery. Previous experience also includes planner for Workforce Solutions, the Employment and Training Division of Ramsey County in St. Paul, Minnesota and project manager for a U.S. Department of Labor Youth Offender Demonstration Project. In addition to managing the two and a half year youth offender project, Mr. Beimers administered the county's Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Youth programs, Minnesota Youth Programs, and the City of St. Paul's summer youth employment programs. Prior to working for Ramsey County, Mr. Beimers was a community specialist with the Minnesota Center for Crime Victims Services, where he provided grant administration, training and technical assistance to community-based battered women, sexual assault and general crime programs. Fred Brooks, PhD, is associate professor, Georgia State University, School of Social Work. Dr. Brooks' primary research interests include poverty issues, community and labor organizing, and welfare reform. He has published in a variety of related journals such as Labor Studies Journal, Journal of Community Practice, and Child & Youth Care Forum. Dr. Brooks also has participated in grant projects like the ACORN EITC Evaluation Project (2004-2005) and Program Evaluation of the Partnership Between Los Angeles ACORN and the Department of Public Social Services (2003). The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities. Dr. Brooks received his MSW from Tulane University School of Social Work and his PhD from the University of Georgia School of Social Work. Jessie Buerlein, MSW, is a recent graduate of the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work with a concentration in Community Organizing, Planning, Policy, and Administration. She worked to develop and coordinate community development programming for families and children as an employee of the YMCA of Greater Richmond before beginning her graduate studies. Her interest in public health began with her graduate internship at the South Boston Community Health Center, where she worked with adolescents on a community-wide substance abuse prevention initiative. She fulfilled her final internship at Health Care For All, where she worked to support the Oral Health Advocacy Taskforce's legislative priorities, aimed at expanding access to oral health care for Massachusetts residents. Jessie has participated in many international programs, and after completing a graduate course in Kampala, Uganda, one of her primary interests has become international public health. As the Improving Perinatal and Infant Oral Health Program Associate, she assists the project director in tasks related to project coordination and implementation on both state and federal levels. Richard K. Caputo, PhD, is professor of Social Policy & Research and director of the Doctoral Program in Social Welfare at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University. His areas of interest include social welfare policy formation and analysis, particularly in regard to the working poor; family and child welfare; employment and labor market conditions; and the history and philosophy of social welfare including institutional responses to people in need, particularly in regard to the role of government. A prolific researcher and writer, he has published in a variety of social service journals as well as writing or editing several publications. Dr. Caputo is in great demand at conferences around the world including recent sessions at the International Consortium for Social Development (ICSD) Symposium in Hong Kong, the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) in Canada, the International Federation of Social Workers in Germany, and the Association for Legal and Social Philosophy (ALSP) in Ireland. He serves on the editorial boards of several distinguished journals including Families in Society, Social Work Research, Journal of Social Service Research, Journal of Poverty, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, and Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. He has received grant awards for projects such as "Achieving a Basic Income Guarantee: Efforts-to-Date Around the World" and "Life-long Learning, Career Mobility, and Employment Earnings Among Women: A Longitudinal Study." Dr. Caputo's degrees include a MA from Iowa State University, a MSW from Arizona State University, and a PhD from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Mark E. Courtney, PhD, is the Ballmer Chair in Child Well-Being at the University of Washington School of Social Work and the executive director of Partners for Our Children, an independent public-private partnership committed to making positive changes in Washington’s child welfare system.. Dr. Courtney was the second director of Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and currently serves as a faculty associate at Chapin Hall as well as the McCormick Tribune Professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. Much of his research has focused on outcomes of out-of-home care placement, including family reunification, adoption, and the well-being of youth who age out of foster care. His current work includes studies of the adult functioning of former foster children, experimental evaluation of independent living services for foster youth, the impact of welfare reform on child and family welfare, and a comprehensive evaluation of the Milwaukee County child welfare system. Before moving into academia, he worked for several years in various capacities providing group home care to abused and neglected adolescents. He has served as a consultant to the federal government, state departments of social services, local public and private child welfare agencies around the country, and the foundation community. Dr. Courtney has an MSW in Management and Planning, as well as a PhD from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. Amy Dworsky, PhD, is senior researcher, Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and has experience working with both administrative and survey data. Her research interests include poverty, welfare reform, child welfare, public housing and incarcerated women with children. She is currently the project director for three studies. The first is a longitudinal study of approximately 1,100 Milwaukee County families that applied for assistance from Wisconsin's TANF program in 1999. The second is a longitudinal study that is examining the young adult outcomes of more than 700 former foster youth who aged out of care in three Midwestern states (Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa). The third is a collaborative effort involving a number of city and state agencies that provide services to families affected by the transformation of public housing in Chicago's mid-south region. She has also been working on a study of child welfare services involvement among the children of incarcerated mothers from Cook County, Illinois. Dr. Dworsky received a PhD in social welfare from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Robert L. Fischer, PhD, is research associate professor and co-director, Center on Urban Poverty & Community Development at Case Western Reserve University. In this capacity, he conducts evaluation research and teaches evaluation methods to students in social science administration and nonprofit management. He is also the associate director for Policy and Evaluation of the Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change. Currently, he coordinates various evaluation projects including the evaluation of Invest in Children, a county-wide early childhood initiative that includes home visiting, children’s health, and child care components. From 1994-2001, Dr. Fischer served as director of Program Evaluation for Families First, a nonprofit family and children's agency in metropolitan Atlanta, conducting evaluations of family interventions dealing with issues such as divorce, teen pregnancy and parenting, and homelessness. Judith G. Gonyea, MSW, PhD, is professor, Boston University School of Social Work. Her research focuses on the economic and health status of vulnerable populations. Using a life course perspective, she is particularly interested in exploring the cumulative effects of social and economic inequalities on the life experiences of older adults. Dr. Gonyea is currently engaged in a collaborative effort between Boston University School of Social Work and Hearth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the elimination of homelessness among the elderly in Boston, focusing on evaluating the effectiveness of its housing programs. She has also worked as co-principal investigator on the national evaluation of the Hartford Foundation's "Geriatric Social Work Initiative." Sur Ah Hahn, MA, is PhD student, University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. She received her master's degree in Women's Studies in South Korea. She has worked on various projects on women's human rights, violence against Asian women, and social welfare policy development for women in South Korea. Her current research and practice interest is around the intersection of poverty, violence and mental heath issues in women's lives. Anna Haley-Lock, PhD, is assistant professor, University of Washington School of Social Work. Her research focuses on the experiences of working poor adults and their families through its attention to the employment conditions of low-wage jobs. Dr. Haley-Lock also teaches a joint Social Work and Business course that trains professional students to create employment—particularly at the lower wage levels—that balances firm performance with employee and family well-being. She serves on the boards of the Economic Opportunity Institute and two Seattle child care centers whose organizations are dedicated to improving the living conditions of lower-wage families and their children. John S. Hoffmire, PhD, is the director of the Center on Business and Poverty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and faculty associate at the Puelicher Center for Banking Education at the UW–Madison School of Business. Before starting the Center on Business and Poverty in 2004, John had a twenty-year career in equity investing, venture capital, consulting and investment banking. His work has had a particular focus on employee stock ownership plans. As founder and CEO of his own investment banking firm, he helped employees buy and manage approximately $2.2 billion worth of ESOP stock. He sold his firm to American Capital, which then went public. John left American Capital as senior investment officer when the company reached $1 billion in assets and became vice president at Ampersand Ventures, formerly Paine Webber's private equity group. After he finished his PhD at Stanford University, he also worked as a consultant at Bain & Company. Stephen D. Holt, JD, is principal, Holt & Associates Solutions in Milwaukee. Dr. Holt has been exploring the effect of marginal tax rates on low-income workers since 2000, under contract with the New Hope Project. New Hope has administered employment programs for low-income families (from 1994-1998 and again from 2003-present), and has worked to disseminate the results of the subsequent research on these programs to help shape public policy. His work with Holt & Associates Solutions has been assisting nonprofit organizations and foundations in planning for effective performance; identifying desired outcomes; managing resources for achievement of identified outcomes; effectively collecting and analyzing data; and developing and implementing social policy solutions. Philip Young P. Hong, PhD, is assistant professor, Loyola University Chicago's School of Social Work. Dr. Hong's research interests include poverty and working poverty in the United States, comparative social welfare, and international social development. He has served as the principal evaluator and co-investigator on research projects at the community level. Internationally, he works as a consultant to the Poverty and Development Division (PDD) of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Bangkok, Thailand. Roberta Rehner Iversen, PhD, MSS, LSW, is associate professor, School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Iversen uses ethnographic research to better understand and improve welfare and workforce development policy and programs. In particular, her ethnographic accounts illuminate what low-income working parents need from secondary schools, job training organizations, businesses and firms, their children's public schools, and public policy in order to earn enough to support their families through work. Subsequent improvements to the housing policy in Milwaukee and workforce development programs and policy in New Orleans, Los Angeles, Seattle, St. Louis, and Philadelphia have resulted with findings from Dr. Iversen’s research. Her recent publication with co-author Annie Laurie Armstrong, Jobs Aren't Enough: Toward a New Economic Mobility for Low-Income Families (2006; Temple University Press) presents new ways to increase the economic mobility of low-income families. Howard Jacob Karger, PhD, is professor, Graduate College of Social Work, University of Houston and the School of Social Work and Applied Human Sciences, University of Queensland. In addition to his work as a labor organizer and scholar of the American labor movement, Dr. Karger has established and directed doctoral programs in social welfare. He is the coauthor of several books in social policy, including American Social Welfare Policy: A Pluralist Approach, 5th Edition (2005; Allyn & Bacon), The Internet and Technology for Human Services (1999; Addison Wesley Longman), Social Work and Community in a Private World: Getting Out in Public (1996; Allyn & Bacon), and The Politics of Child Abuse in America (1997; Oxford University Press). Dr. Karger has been a Fulbright Senior Fellow in Israel and Zimbabwe. Margaret Lombe, PhD, is assistant professor, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. Her field of interests include social and economic development policy and research, especially asset-building and civic service. Prior to joining the Graduate School of Social Work, Lombe worked for four years as a research associate in the Center for Social Development at Washington University of St. Louis. Lombe, who studied at Daystar University in Kenya, has teaching experience in courses such as community development with impoverished communities, and evaluations of programs and services. Her scholarships include two P.E.O. International Peace awards. Von E. Nebbitt, PhD, is assistant professor, Howard University. Dr. Nebbitt has published and presented research on outcomes among runaway and homeless youth, environmental correlates and mental health symptom among urban African American adolescents, and the effects of the urban context on involvement in antisocial behavior among African American adolescents. His research interests include the relationship between neighborhood risk and protective factors and health outcomes among adolescents; the role of parents in adolescents’ peer affiliations; and the effects of internalized symptoms on externalized behaviors. Dr. Nebbitt has practical experience in group work with adolescents, service coordination and case management, program development, grant writing and public administration and management. He received his BA in Sociology from St. Louis University. Dr. Nebbitt earned his MSW and PhD from George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Judy L. Postmus, PhD, ACSW, is assistant professor and director, Center on Violence Against Women & Children, at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her 20 years of practice experience includes working with children and families experiencing violence, trauma, and poverty. She began her academic career focusing on the intersection of poverty, domestic violence, and welfare reform. Her current research is on the victimization experiences of women and their interactions with welfare, child welfare, and criminal justice systems. Jennifer L. Romich, PhD, is assistant professor, School of Social Work, University of Washington, and a founder of the Policy Practice Concentration at the UW School of Social Work. She is a founding affiliate of the federally-funded West Coast Poverty Center which serves as a hub for research, education, and policy analysis leading to greater understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and effective approaches to reducing it in the west coast states. Dr. Romich’s past research has focused on how families view and use the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); the Chicago Extra Credit Savings Program, which linked EITC and tax returns with a matched savings incentive program; and child and family well-being as experienced by families in the Milwaukee New Hope anti-poverty demonstration program. A former elementary school teacher, she has served as a volunteer tax preparer for community tax clinics and EITC outreach campaigns in Cook County, Illinois, and King County, Washington. Dr. Romich holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics and earned a PhD in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University. Jeff Scott, MSW, is a PhD candidate, School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Elizabeth A. Segal, PhD, is professor and former director, Arizona State University School of Social Work. She has also been named associate dean of the College of Public Programs. Dr. Segal, who earned her doctorate from the University of Illinois-Chicago, is co-editor of the Journal of Poverty: Innovations on Social, Political & Economic Inequalities. Her research focuses on poverty, social inequality, child welfare, social welfare policy, social justice, and the impact of policies and programs on disenfranchised populations. Dr. Segal is the co-author of numerous books, including Social Work: An Introduction to the Profession (2004; Brooks/Cole); Rediscovering the Other America: The Continuing Crisis of Poverty and Inequality in the United States (2003; Haworth Press); and Latino Poverty in the New Century: Inequalities, Challenges and Barriers (2000; Haworth Press). Melissa Ford Shah, MPP (Master of Public Policy), recently accepted a senior researcher position at the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, where she studies the intersection between private employer practices and government intervention. She recently spent a year conducting participant-observation fieldwork as a part-time sales associate in a retail chain store. She has spent nearly a decade studying various programs and policies related to work and poverty. David I. Siegel, DSW, LSW, is principal investigator, TANF Project, and professor, West Chester University Graduate Social Work Department. Dr. Siegel has conducted research on many aspects of employment for past and present welfare recipients including barriers to employment, child care, and conditions of employment. His first job in social work was in working with low-income alcoholics in New York City. Jennifer Simmelink, MSW, is the Empowerment Program director at Neighbors Together, a regional nonprofit committed to ending hunger and poverty in the Ocean Hill/Brownsville/Bedford-Stuyvesant community, one of the lowest-income areas in Brooklyn and New York City. Her past experiences include working in adult chemical dependency treatment. David Stoesz, PhD, is professor and Samuel S. Wurtzel Chair, School of Social Work, Virginia Commonwealth University. He is formerly a welfare caseworker in Connecticut and a welfare department director in Maryland, in addition to holding other administrative appointments in child welfare, public welfare, and mental health. Dr. Stoesz has further been a consultant to the U.S. Treasury Department and the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank. Dr. Stoesz is the author of the publications American Social Welfare Policy: A Pluralist Approach, 5th Edition (2005; Allyn & Bacon), Small Change: Domestic Policy Under the Clinton Presidency (1996; Longman Publishing Group), and A Poverty of Imagination: Bootstrap Capitalism, Sequel to Welfare Reform (2000; University of Wisconsin Press). His commentary updates a chapter from his publication Quixote’s Ghost: The Right, The Literati, and the Future of Social Policy (2005; Oxford University Press) which won the 2006 Prohumanitate Literary Award. Stephen P. Wernet, PhD, is professor, Saint Louis University School of Social Work and Department of Public Policy. Dr. Wernet is a nationally recognized authority in the field of nonprofit and social work administration. His research program focuses on organizational restructuring through mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic alliances as well as Web-enhanced and distributed learning in higher education. He has extensive consulting experience with nonprofit and community-based organizations. He is recognized and sought for his expertise in the areas of outcome assessment, programmatic and organizational benchmarking, quality management, operational management assessment and operational planning. He has extensive experience with nonprofit community-based organizations having served as a consultant to the U.S.-Latvia Sustainable Social Services Project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and case instructor, Evaluation of Sustainability-European Conferences & Training Courses in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Dr. Wernet is a 2006 Fulbright Scholar having served at Ostrava University in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Dr. Wernet recently completed an edited book, Managed Care in Human Service (1999; Lyceum Books) and co-authored Cases in Macro Social Work Practice, Second Edition (2004; Allyn and Bacon) with David P. Fauri and F. Ellen Netting. Min Zhan, PhD, is assistant professor, School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Zhan’s research centers on identifying social policies and other factors associated with the long-term economic well-being of low-income families with children. Specifically, her research examines the impact of educational approaches, specifically in the forms of postsecondary education and financial management training, on the long-term economic well-being of low-income families. She also examines the role of asset development, an approach that aims to develop human capital and to promote economic security for low-income families through facilitating their financial asset accumulation. Dr. Zhan received her bachelor’s degree in history from Peking University, China in 1991, and her PhD in social work from Washington University in St. Louis in 2001. Back to Index Page |
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Families in
Society is a publication of the Alliance for Children and
Families (www.alliance1.org)
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