On the Front Lines of Violence Intervention
Two new studies at the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research have focused on a long-neglected but essential aspect of community-based violence intervention programs: the people who work on the front lines.
Reducing community violence through prevention and interruption programs is not a new concept, and certainly not new to Chicago. For twenty years, the UIC School of Public Health was home to Cure Violence, a pioneering program that applied a public health approach to violence interruption and community safety. Now, at the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research (Policy Center), two leading-edge studies are elucidating a formerly neglected aspect of violence prevention: the intervention workers themselves. Through the examination of the experiences, perspectives, and well-being of these essential front-line workers, these studies have elucidated factors that contribute to successful community-based responses to gun violence and have elevated the voices of people who put themselves at risk working in violence prevention.
“I know the streets and I know what’s been going on.
I can reach out to people with high risk. I have seen them grow up. I have been living in this community for years.
I have compassion for kids and want to show young women the right way.”
The People Who Do the Work
The majority of Acclivus staff are male and are predominantly Black or Latinx, and the CEO is an African-American male. The age of Acclivus staff ranges from 36 to 66, with a mean of 47. Thirteen of the staff members were formerly employed by Cure Violence, eight of whom were front-line intervention workers.
The staff live in and have strong connections to the communities and people they serve. They also have shared experiences with the people they are trying to reach; staff described their backgrounds as having been involved in gangs, on the wrong path, or a troublesome youth, and a little over two-thirds had been incarcerated. Those shared life experiences make them very dedicated to their work and they report a strong sense of having learned from their past experiences and wanting to help others. On the other hand, they also work long hours and speak of being on-call “24/7”.
The educational background of the staff is diverse, with the highest degree obtained ranging from GED to doctorate. For 40 percent of the staff, the highest degree was a GED or high school. Forty-six percent had an associate degree or some college, and 13 percent had a bachelor’s degree
or higher.
The staff report great pride in what they have achieved in their own lives, for example, buying a house or a car, completing a college degree, or seeing a child go to college. The importance of family is evident in their responses, with some reporting the grief of losing family or friends during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doing the Work
In general, the staff view communication as key to their work, involving maintenance of a network of relationships with individuals and community organizations, team communications, effective communication in deescalation efforts, and communication of available supports and resources to individuals and families in the community.
“They understand the communities where the individuals come from and the dynamics of the situations. They truly understand the culture and without being judgmental provide them with valuable assistance.”
They see their work of connecting residents to resources or social services, or helping people find employment, as core to the promotion of community safety. Likewise, the public health aspect of the work is evident in the frequency with which staff speak about supporting the health or mental health of community members. This is especially true with the community outreach team.
The focus of the hospital response team is centered around deescalation and violence prevention after a shooting, and they often cite rapid response as key to deescalation. However, they also work to connect clients and their families to supportive services or resources.
The staff express great care for the communities in which they live and work, and for the individuals they serve. They also indicate a fundamentally trauma-informed approach in the way that they respect their clients’ individuality and avoid stigmatization or further traumatization.
“The goal is to prevent the gun shot or stabbing victim from being reinjured and prevent family members/friends from retaliating.
We help prevent violence; improve health outcomes; prevent domestic violence; address homelessness, and (improve) mental health. We feed the homeless. In our communities we do it all.”
Assessing Success
Acclivus staff view their efforts as important and successful, and attribute their connections to the community as key to that success. They are also aware of the importance of changing social norms about violence at both the individual and community levels.
The staff think highly of the organization and its leadership, as well as of the organization’s approach to violence prevention and interruption, and they see their efforts as essential and successful. However, many staff cited lack of resources and funding as a limitation on expansion of their services.
Community members and stakeholders also see the work as valuable, and view the street intervention workers as assets in the community. Ability to navigate and effectively communicate within the community was also cited as a particular strength of Acclivus staff.
“Having a fuller understanding of the people who succeed at this dangerous but necessary work may be helpful in replicating violence interruption in other communities or other cities,” observes Dr. Hairston. “And it also serves as a reminder that people from the community are often the heart of effective community-based responses to gun violence.”
Supporting the Wellness of Street Intervention Workers
“Our outreach workers have been caught in crossfires. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen them lose people, get attachments to participants that’s making strides, and then they ended up getting killed.”
Dr. Kathryn Bocanegra
Assistant Professor Kathryn Bocanegra describes street intervention work as a healing profession, helping to heal individuals and communities. “However, most people in healing professions have not been the patient; most trauma surgeons have not had a traumatic injury, or most therapists have not experienced mental illness,” she says. “Street intervention workers, on the other hand, are often wounded healers, healing from their own trauma as they accompany others in the process of redirecting and transforming their lives.”
Dr. Bocanegra’s recent study, Between a Bullet and Its Target, examined the primary occupational stressors experienced by street intervention workers (SIWs), the forms of trauma they are exposed to, and the existing organizational supports and best practices to support them in addressing this trauma. “We need to do everything possible to support front-line workers engaged in violence reduction practice. Their success can be measured in human lives,” she says. “They are doing this work with few resources available; It’s like trying to stop bullets with their bare hands.”
To better understand the range and impact of these traumatic experiences, Dr. Bocanegra and her team conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with SIWs and supervisors who provide services in Chicago neighborhoods that experience community violence. Following is a general overview of
the findings.
The Experience of Trauma
“I began this work while incarcerated. So, we began to do outreach in the space that we were in…so many nights of watching the news and seeing what was happening in the city that we loved.”
Most SIWs are system survivors and work within communities impacted by disinvestment and structural racism. Dr. Bocanegra found that trauma manifests itself within a longitudinal, ecological context in their lives and dynamically interacts with the regular exposure to trauma that occurs in community violence intervention. She also found that trauma exposure in street intervention work is much more expansive than originally conceived, and she describes shootings or homicides as just the tip of an iceberg. “SIWs are deeply engaged in victim services, they experience a high frequency of criminal-legal interface, and they may also experience forms of organizational trauma in their workplace,” she says.
The shared histories between SIWs and their clients also carry a number of risks, including increased potential for boundary confusion, violation, or countertransference; the projection of personal experiences onto clients; and increased vulnerability to burnout. “Just having been involved in the streets or been to prison does not make someone a wounded healer, and it does not make someone effective in street intervention work,” she explains. “Trauma recovery is the personal transformation that must take place, and how we think about trauma and understand it through existing clinical frameworks is complex.”
Dr. Bocanegra found existing clinical frameworks to be inadequate in describing the traumatic experience of SIWs, with most discourse using PTSD as the reference point for understanding symptoms. “PTSD and Complex PTSD are incomplete and inaccurate depictions of the trauma, which is ever-present and ongoing, and the problematic ‘symptoms’ we target in PTSD may be keeping SIWs alive,” she explains. “Problematizing hypervigilance and hyper-startle reactions is contradictory to the very instincts one needs to navigate environments with high rates of gun violence.” The study indicates that Continuous Traumatic Stress is the best clinical framework through which to understand the experiences of outreach workers, and it is from this framework that subsequent interventions should be designed.
“[Trauma training] helped me with some of my own trauma that I had, that I’ve experienced growing up and especially with doing this work and also had identified it through others too . . . So, yeah, it was definitely helpful.”
Organizations as Intervention Points
Dr. Bocanegra thinks it is imperative for nonprofit organizations to operationalize wellness by integrating it into onboarding and orientation, supervision, workload management, and ongoing training and professional development. Organizations employing SIWs can create safe spaces within the organization for the sharing of experiences and peer support. They can also help SIWs deal with past and ongoing traumatic experiences by providing psychoeducation or coping skills training.
“The organizations themselves play a very important role in maintaining an environment of safety and support,” she says. “By protecting the workers, they are building a more robust public health infrastructure, which has a long-term impact in the neighborhoods they serve.”
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Developing Community Leaders: Race Matters
Initiatives at JACSW are helping individuals from communities of color, especially Black communities, acquire the knowledge and skills needed to lead social services and development in their community.
At the forefront of conversations around racial justice have been discussions of how to address the underrepresentation of men of color in social work education and social services leadership positions. JACSW leadership have made these topics a focus, as well as how the College can substantively contribute to the strengthening of community-based social services and community development. The College has, therefore, prioritized the establishment of new initiatives that further strengthen and diversify the MSW program, advance the College’s mission, and enhance workforce development and capacity building in marginalized communities.
Promoting Racial Equity in Social Work Leadership: The We Are Men Program
Now in its second year, the college’s We Are Men (WAM) program recruits Black men with a demonstrated dedication to addressing the needs of impoverished communities, and provides financial assistance and other forms of support to aid them in completing their graduate degree in social work. Upon graduation, they are prepared to provide leadership for health and human services agencies and organizations.
The Need for Black Leadership in the Community
“Looking back on my childhood, I didn’t see examples of African American men in leadership. I didn’t even see Black quarterbacks in football. But when I went to the Boys Club on the West Side of Chicago, I saw Black men in leadership and that was what I looked to. That was important for me,” says alumnus Marvin Lindsey, MSW ’06. “There’s a myth that Black people are not good leaders, or don’t have the capacity to lead, when we know the reason is that Black people usually don’t have the opportunity to lead.”
Lindsey facilitates the WAM program, working in partnership with the program participants and acting as a guide and mentor during their time in the MSW program. Based on his own experiences growing up in Chicago, the program has great personal significance. “This program is really important to me, and I want to devote the rest of my professional career to this effort of recruiting African American men into leadership positions,” Lindsey says. “These men might even run for office, run a political campaign. That’s a very strong possibility. And it has great impact for the community, for young guys who are in grammar school now, seeing Black men leading gives them a lot of hope for their own future.”
Why "We Are Men"?
Why “We Are Men”?
The program’s name echoes the 1968 rallying cry “I Am a Man” used by African American sanitation workers in Memphis, whose protest for racial equity and dignity was sparked by the deaths of two Black workers. Their calls for equity intensified after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and ended in a settlement which included union recognition and wage increases. The We Are Men program honors this legacy by advancing racial justice and dignity for men living and working in contemporary Black communities.
The Benefit to Communities and Social Service Provision
The Benefit to Communities and Social Service Provision
For Dean Creasie Finney Hairston, the positive impact of WAM begins in the classroom but extends far beyond. About the need to increase enrollment of Black men in the college’s MSW program, she says, “The absence of African American males in our classes was concerning, and not only from a perspective of representation. The silence of their voices in discussions about social conditions and programs was noticeable to both instructors and students. For a program that not only values, but depends on diversity and the inclusion of multiple perspectives, this needed to be addressed.”
That void has also been a concern for service agencies providing social services in communities with poor and marginalized populations. In their 2007 report Institutional Racism and the Social Work Profession: A Call to Action, the National Association of Social Workers noted that executive leadership and management positions are occupied predominantly by white people, even in organizations that serve predominantly populations of color. And the situation now is little improved. “Many agency leaders have expressed a desire to have more Black men in positions of leadership, which can bring many benefits to both agencies and the communities they serve,” Hairston says.
Marvin Lindsey is in whole-hearted agreement and thinks that having Black men not only as leaders but as practitioners can make a difference, especially for younger males whose experiences have led them to a position of mistrust. “If a young African-American male is seeking support, it could be beneficial to have a Black person as an option for them,” he says. “It is likely that an African-American practitioner could be more genuinely empathetic to their experiences than a non-Black person would be.”
He also thinks that having more Black people in leadership positions will help guide the provision of social services with greater basis in cultural and historical context, and more authentically reflect the needs of the community. “Cultural insensitivity and implicit bias on the part of practitioners in the past led to misdiagnosis with, for example, Black children receiving a more severe mental health diagnosis,” he says. “Trained practitioners who are from the community can help lead to much greater health equity. In the current environment people are talking a lot about equity, and I think WAM will bring more equity into social work and the realm of leadership for Black men.”
Although WAM and it’s sister program BAM (see below) are new to the college, they are already showing success and year-over-year growth, with a total of 19 African American men enrolled in the college’s MSW program, 15 of whom were enrolled in fall 2020.
Spotlights on the WAM and BAM programs
Spotlight on WAM Participant David Banks
David was always looking for ways to improve the Cleveland community where he grew up, volunteering his time to plant gardens or serve on neighborhood clean-up projects. “I saw so much dysfunction in my environment growing up, of people stuck in a loophole, feeling hopeless and not knowing how to better themselves,” says Banks. “I wanted to break the cycle, make a difference, accept responsibility and be a resource. On college tours in ninth grade I saw examples of what other Black leaders have done and it gave me a sense of what I could do.”In the WAM program, David is already manifesting his skills as a leader and serves as co-president of the program. “There’s no telling where I’d be without We Are Men,” Banks says. “It’s prepared me to do the work needed to ensure vulnerable populations, especially Black men, have the resources needed to grow and create change. It is fighting for social justice in making sure there is opportunity for everyone to have an equal chance and be treated fairly.”
BAM: A Community Partnership
In fall of 2020 the College partnered with the community organization Youth Guidance and their Becoming a Man® (BAM) program to support men of color in obtaining an MSW degree, as they continue their employment as counselors at Youth Guidance, providing crucial social services in the community. Below, JACSW alumnus Michelle Morrison, MSW ’90 and CEO of Youth Guidance, talks about how effective the partnership has been.“When I first met with Dean Hairston, it was crystal clear we were completely aligned on the common goal to have diverse voices informing and leading the field of social work. It was also clear that we wanted to take immediate action, and that is what we’ve done. We currently have six BAM counselors finishing-up their first year of JACSW’s MSW program and the impact has already been tremendous.
We’ve got this amazing staff, rich with experience. They have youth development and clinical expertise, and they have the lived experiences that make them credible messengers, able reach young people in ways that are transformative. What they don’t have, however, is the benefit of a graduate education and a network of social workers.
Greater equity in educational access to opportunity will ultimately help disrupt systems that aren’t working and will help inform policy to remove barriers for the next generation, resulting in increased Black representation and leadership in social work.”
Michelle Morrison, MSW ’90
Chief Executive Officer, Youth Guidance
Addressing the Racial Injustice of Mass Incarceration: Academic Resource Program
For people returning to their community after having been incarcerated, the odds are stacked against successful reentry. They may experience barriers to nearly everything they need to successfully make that transition, including basic needs such as housing, health care, and transportation. They are also effectively barred from social and economic advancement because of barriers to accessing education and employment. And given our nation’s unjust policies in policing, arrests, convictions and sentencing, these barriers are disproportionately experienced by people from poor Black and Latinx communities. For many returning citizens of color, the lack of opportunity, healthy support networks, and dignity and self-worth leaves them disconnected from their community and vulnerable to recidivism.
A Path to Independence and Social Impact
In January of 2021, the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research (Policy Center) launched the first cohort of its Academic Resource Program (ARP). The program addresses the injustice of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact in communities of color by supporting individuals with justice system involvement in the attainment of a college degree. Leveraging a network of community-based services and partnerships, ARP provides holistic support to help returning citizens bridge the gap between incarceration and higher education, providing access to socioeconomic opportunity and reducing recidivism. The program has received funding from the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) to help achieve these goals.
Joseph Strickland, PhD ’08, Senior Researcher at the Policy Center, says the intent of the program is to support people who have actually served time in jail or prison. He says, “We often use the phrase ‘justice system involvement,’ but for ARP we’re really talking about people who have spent at least a couple years in jail or prison.” Strickland goes on to explain that for many people, lack of education is a prime reason they found themselves incarcerated to begin with. “They may have attended schools with poor educational methods, or somehow they didn’t connect and dropped out, or they performed so poorly in school that they didn’t want to continue their education,” he says. “ARP is here to help people in that situation, people who are returning to their community and need a network to support them in attaining a college degree.”
Strickland notes the critical need to connect returning citizens to a healthy support network that can help translate into socioeconomic autonomy and success. “If you come from a community and a social network where most members are living unhealthy lifestyles, then your chances of recidivating are higher when you return to that environment,” he observes. “By connecting people to a more positive and healthy social network, they’re provided with social capital that helps them learn more about what opportunities exist in college, as well as after college on the job market.”
The ARP cohort, dubbed Urban Scholars to reflect the impact the program will have for individuals and urban communities, consists of nine people who are pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees at UIC and other Chicago area institutions. “The impact of our Urban Scholars will extend beyond their own individual achievement and into their communities. Some are getting degrees in law, social work, and inner city studies,” says Strickland. “The education they receive will help them provide leadership and become a resource for their community.”
College education is not always an immediate goal for returning citizens, some of whom are motivated to obtain employment and achieve financial independence as soon as possible. For these people, ARP is working with community partners to help them get their GED or access vocational training. “With our community partners we’re able to help people through workforce development services, job and career readiness services, and assistance with their resume or interviewing skills,” Strickland says, adding that the Policy Center is planning virtual events to help connect people to these services, and inform them about the workforce development and educational opportunities available to them. “Some people may not want a college degree now, but it could be an option for them in the future. We want ARP to be a full-spectrum and long-term solution not only for returning citizens, but for their communities,” he says.
Beyond Ban-the-Box: Understanding and Reforming College Admissions Practices
Beyond Ban-the-Box: Understanding and Reforming College Admissions Practices
Terrell Campbell serves as director of the ARP program, and he is also undertaking a survey of policies at many institutions of higher education in the Chicago metropolitan area, as they relate to people with a criminal background. He is examining admissions policies, practices and procedures, both formal and informal, and is gathering relevant information from institutional offices of admissions, housing and diversity.
Campbell says initial findings of the survey reveal considerable variation from institution to institution. Many have a checkbox on their application, some do not, and some lack a checkbox but ask about criminal background during the admissions process. In making enrollment decisions, an institution might consider the kind and severity of the offense, and whether or not there are multiple offenses. Returning citizens may also face barriers with financial aid, or be excluded because of certain drug crimes. And at some institutions, failure to disclose a criminal background may result in dismissal.
“We want to be able to provide practical guidance to returning citizens on how best to navigate the college admissions process,” Campbell says. “When it comes to being asked about their background, a returning citizen can experience some trauma simply by being asked that question, having to think about and relive the experience. We don’t want someone to see the checkbox on one application and just assume that every school does that.” Strickland agrees, adding, “One of the main points of ARP is to provide situational capital to guide people through these processes, while applying, while enrolled and through graduation. There is a saying: If you know more you can do more.”
A longer-term goal of this research is to facilitate policy reform around issues of access to education for returning citizens. “Much of the work we do at the Policy Center is focused on policy reform to achieve justice and equity,” Strickland says. “It’s important for elected officials and university administrators to understand the impact of their policies and the ways in which they can function as barriers to success for this population. These people already face so many barriers, why make it any harder for them to achieve success?”
This article was printed in the UIC Jane Addams School of Social Work Spring 2021 Edition of “Affirmations”.
COVID-19: The Disproportionate Impact on Marginalized Populations
AFFIRMATIONS Spring 2020
A publication of the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago
Under orders to shelter at home, there has been a well-intentioned impulse to describe the pandemic as a “great equalizer.” However, the impact of this public health crisis is anything but equal, and disproportionately affects communities of color and other vulnerable populations.
In the early days of America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals from pop stars to politicians labeled the disease a great equalizer. There is a superficial truth to that statement: both rich and poor are asked to shelter at home, liberals and conservatives all may acquire the virus. But that commonality is a veneer, masking underlying social and economic inequities that make some populations more vulnerable to the disease than others. Such vulnerable populations are typically those who have experienced a history of discrimination and marginalization.
“The most vulnerable populations are those with less access to resources, which makes life more complicated for them,” says Clinical Associate Professor Annette Johnson. “Even before the pandemic, lack of access to resources and opportunity, and lack of access to health care made those individuals and families more vulnerable. During a health crisis such as this, the situation becomes exacerbated in many marginalized communities.”
Black and African-American Communities
More recently, the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus for Chicago’s Black community has received some coverage and discussion, but the magnitude of disproportionality is stunning: as of April 7, 2020, Black Chicagoans comprised 30.1% of the city’s population, yet made up 52.1% of COVID-19 infections and 68.6% of deaths.
People in communities of color often suffer from the kinds of chronic health conditions that during this pandemic have been described as “underlying.” Assistant Professor Kalen Flynn, who has worked with urban youth of color, says that health inequity often has roots in structural social violence that increases rates of trauma among this population. “The traumas experienced by the youth I’ve worked with leads them to be more likely to have obesity, diabetes or heart disease as adults; health conditions that are more prevalent in communities of color and which make people more vulnerable to the virus,” she says. “And then on top of that, many under-resourced communities have limited access to quality health care. The coronavirus pandemic augments all of these preexisting health inequities.”
“People who are low income and people of color are also statistically less likely to have health coverage, and this is especially problematic in a state like Illinois where the Affordable Care Act marketplace is run by the federal government,” adds Assistant Professor Aaron Gottlieb. “Illinois needs permission from the federal level to reopen enrollment for ACA, and they have not agreed to do that. So that creates another limitation on health coverage in poor communities, and lack of coverage can prevent people from getting tested or treated because they fear what the financial implications may be.”
Additionally, there are factors that make Black Americans more at risk for exposure to the virus. Limited educational attainment means many Black people work in jobs that are deemed essential, ensuring that they remain more exposed. Gottlieb, whose work focuses on criminal justice reform, fears that further exposure could also arise from the increased police activity experienced in Black neighborhoods. “A number of police officers have tested positive for the virus, and people in communities of color are more likely to be stopped by police, so they are more likely to be put at risk,” says Gottlieb. “Police are expected to be proactive in stopping crime, not waiting until something has actually happened, which means stopping people and being in close contact. The way we ask police do their jobs in this country is not conducive to stopping COVID-19.”
Undocumented Latinx Communities
Restricted access to healthcare is also a fact of life for undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for ACA coverage and tend to be employed in jobs that are deemed essential and do not provide health coverage. “People in these communities tend to use community clinics and emergency rooms for their health needs,” says Assistant Professor Daysi Diaz-Strong, “and right now emergency rooms are overwhelmed with coronavirus cases, which impacts their ability to address other more routine problems. Combined with fear to go to a hospital where you might risk getting infected, access to health care is further limited for undocumented families.”
Another complication is the Public Charge Rule, which went into effect in February of this year, and creates the potential for denial of legal permanent residency for individuals who are deemed likely to become a public charge due to lack of economic resources. “This is actually impacting people’s access to health care at this crucial time,” says Diaz-Strong. “If you are an immigrant who is planning to apply for legal status, the government will look to see if you have used public benefits. If you have, you might be considered a public charge and therefore inadmissible to the U.S. The rule applies to a small number of immigrants, but it’s very confusing and makes immigrants afraid to access services.” She adds that the government has said it will not count services used during the pandemic, but that the policy change creates additional confusion, and people may be unaware of the change. “Additionally, many undocumented immigrants simply don’t trust that use of services won’t count against them,” she says.
An additional stressor in the immigrant community is that a Supreme Court decision on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is expected in the near future, and there is a lot of anxiety about the potential end of DACA. “Many nonprofits that work with immigrants are preparing for this potential. If immigrants lose DACA, they lose their ability to work,” she says. “And the fact that this is happening during the pandemic creates further complication, stress and anxiety for these families.”
People in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Systems
“Prisons are places where health and health care are particularly poor to begin with, let alone with an infectious disease like this, and incarcerated people are particularly at risk of getting and spreading the disease because social distance is nearly impossible in prison,” says Aaron Gottlieb. “Also, prisoners tend to have chronic health issues, making COVID-19 potentially more deadly for them. Add to that the aging of the prison population; about 20% of people in Illinois prisons are over 50, and older people are more susceptible to the disease. All of these factors make prisons an especially bad place to be with a disease such as this.”
Gottlieb also points to jails as sites where the virus may easily be spread. “In jails you have many people going in and out all the time, including guards. Someone who is detained in a jail gets exposed to so many people, and detainees aren’t being tested unless they exhibit severe symptoms. And then they’re sent home to their community,” he says. “It seems like a perfect recipe for spreading the disease.”
Associate Professor Henrika McCoy adds, “We know a lot of people are in jail because they don’t have $200 to pay bail, so now because they are poor their lives are being put at risk. Some cities have responded to the pandemic with decarceration, and some have decided to stop incarcerating people who have committed low-level crimes, but certainly not all, and not enough,” she says. “These are places that are already overcrowded, and we know that people of color are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, so they are put at greater risk for getting this virus.”
Gottlieb agrees, adding, “We live in a country where you are more than five times as likely to be incarcerated if you’re Black than if you’re white, and 1.5 times as likely if you’re Latinx. So COVID-19 in prisons and jails is likely to have a disproportionately large impact on people of color.”
McCoy, whose recent research has focused on young men of color, brings the conversation around to the juvenile justice system. “I think we are likely to see increased negative impact on mental health for some young people in the system. Because of social distancing, I know that attorneys are using Zoom to represent their juvenile clients. Based on my experiences as a social worker who worked both sides of the court, both child welfare and juvenile justice, I know how scared young people are when they walk into that courtroom,” she says. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to not have your attorney there with you, to give some level of comfort or support, and help you understand what’s happening when a judge is about to make a decision that could impact the rest of your life. And apparently this is happening across the country.”
She is also concerned about the possibility of increased rates of incarceration resulting from the pandemic’s negative economic impact. “We know crime rates across the country have generally been down, but I am worried about how the recession could raise crime rates. A lot of businesses won’t bounce back from the recession, and there will be job loss and delays in education,” McCoy says. “Historically, we know these factors lead to increased crime rates, which will bring more people into the criminal and juvenile justice systems. We need to be prepared for that aftermath from the pandemic.”
Youth in the Public School System
“There are so many ways that school age children will be impacted by this pandemic,” says Clinical Associate Professor Annette Johnson, chair of the college’s MSW specialization in school social work. “No one was able to really plan for the shutdown of schools, but the ability to adapt to and recover from the shutdown will be a matter of resources, and there are so many inequities in our educational system, so many disparities between schools.”
Johnson particularly worries about students in underserved communities. “In general, most children will not receive the same quality of education virtually. We’re relying on the parents and on technology,” she says. “For those families who don’t have access to technology, who are unable to provide the necessary level of support or don’t have the skillset to provide that support, the pandemic exacerbates the digital divide. Educational outcomes for those children are likely to be especially impacted.”
Another factor is the loss of school programs and after school programs that support at-risk students. “I think of schools as being almost a parent for six hours a day, and for some young people that can be a great stabilizer,” she observes. “Think about the loss of that support system, and what’s happening in those families now. We simply don’t know how the students are faring throughout the shutdown.”
Johnson is also thinking about the longer-term implications for students and for the system’s response when students return to school. “It’s going to be a new normal in the schools, and we don’t know what that new normal is going to be,” she says. “What will be the social emotional health of these young people and their families, what will we see around issues of domestic violence, child abuse or neglect? That is going to manifest in ways we can’t really anticipate, but that we need to start thinking about.”
Also requiring more attention and care will be students’ mental health coming out of the pandemic and the shelter at home and Johnson indicates that students will have experienced some level of trauma. “This has been traumatic for all of us, in ways we may not even be aware of, but I think young people will be especially impacted. We are going to see students with issues around trauma, and loss and separation, because there will be some losses here, especially in the African American community,” she says. “I think we may need to look at research that has been done in war-torn countries where families have experienced significant crisis for long periods of time. Whatever trauma these children experience, the schools will have to own a lot of that, and be responsible for addressing it, because that’s where youth spend such a large portion of their day.”
Children and Families in the Child Welfare System
The impact on families involved in the child welfare system will be variable and may depend on where the family is on the continuum of services. At one end of the continuum, social distancing may have the effect of obscuring incidents that typically bring a family into the system. “With social distancing and orders to stay at home, especially for children and families who are more at risk, there is now a lack of what we call sentinels, individuals outside the family who can observe and report cases of abuse or neglect,” says Assistant Professor Christina Myers, whose work focuses on child welfare policy and practice. “The system relies on school social workers, school counselors, therapists and other individuals to report such incidents. For families not already in the system and with children now staying home from school, there could be an increase in cases that go unreported.”
She also worries about an increase in stressors that tend to amplify negative parent-child interactions. “At-risk families are already dealing with a variety of stressors. During the pandemic, if they’re worried about health, or the parents are going through financial challenges, all those kinds of things carry through to parenting and that can heighten tensions,” she says. “And children are home all day and require more care from the parents, so the parents are more stressed, and the children may experience greater levels anxiety. All of this can increase negative parent-child interactions, with mental health implications for the children.”
Myers notes that Illinois DCFS has responded to the pandemic by adapting the way it delivers services. For cases of abuse or neglect, it seems that in-person investigations are still being conducted, but caseworker visits for families receiving ongoing or foster care services are being conducted virtually or by phone. “Because case worker visits are being done virtually, they are now happening weekly instead of monthly,” she says. “Interestingly, that could have a beneficial effect of strengthening the relationship between the case worker and the family, and making families feel more supported. It might also help the caseworkers achieve a fuller understanding of what that family is going through and what their concerns are. That’s speculation, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.”
The Impact on Service Delivery in the Community
The pandemic has forced many social service agencies to change how they deliver services and conduct their business. Private sector companies and other organizations with access to resources have responded with the rapid implementation of and reliance on new technologies. For many community-based non-profit organizations, which are often under-resourced and operate on shoestring budgets, the shift to operating virtually has been much more difficult.
Henrika McCoy observes that this is another example of the digital divide in America. “I know there are staff at agencies who are not familiar with the technologies needed to function virtually. These people provide crucial services in our communities, and they are not prepared for a disruption like the coronavirus, requiring social distance and staying at home,” she says. “Additionally, so many of their clients are not able to use the technology or may not have access to a computer. The requirement of technology to maintain public health may actually get in the way of people receiving services that they need.”
As an example, McCoy cites an agency she knows that has struggled to get paperwork signed by clients, paperwork needed for the agency to be reimbursed for the services they provide. “The agency has no experience using PDFs or working with ZIP files. Until now, they had done everything on paper and that was working for them,” she says. “But that’s doesn’t work now. How can an organization like that adapt to the new reality of the pandemic, to get services to the people who need it, but also to meet their own financial needs? Again, we see that a crisis such as the coronavirus tends to magnify existing social and economic disparities.”
Amidst the pandemic’s starkly disproportionate impact in the Black community, Joseph Strickland, PhD, Associate Director of the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research, sees a potential positive outcome that could arise from the crisis. “One result of the disproportionate impact on poor communities of color is that officials at the state, county and local levels have come to understand the need to have boots on the ground in the community, in order to properly respond to such a health crisis. A community-centered approach is something that the Center has long advocated for,” he says. “In the past, resources and investment tended to go to larger organizations outside the community. Maybe now we can start to see investment in the community, and see grassroots organizations getting the resources they need to respond in a situation like this. It’s just good public policy and good public health.”
This article was printed in the UIC Jane Addams School of Social Work Spring 2020 Edition of “Affirmations”.
The Mental Health Impact of Family Separation
AFFIRMATIONS Spring 2019
A publication of the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago
The policy of separating children from migrant families at the U.S. border brought the issue of family separation into the national conversation.
As social workers, we are already familiar with the negative mental health impacts for children who are forcibly separated from their parents; we have long seen the consequences for children in the child welfare system.
Professor Sonya Leathers
In the summer of 2018, national attention became focused on migrant children who were separated from their families at the U.S. border. The policy of mandatory family separation was short-lived, but as of January 2019 there were an estimated 10,500 unaccompanied minors in detention centers in the U.S. Many of these children will not be reunited with family, and some are likely to go into foster care.
Professor Sonya Leathers, drawing on her experience with attachment and trauma among children in the child welfare system, observes that there are always mental health impacts for children who are separated from their primary caregivers. She notes that trauma will vary with the age of the child, their particular developmental needs, current or past stresses, and by how the separation is handled.
“But, in the situation at the border there has been a lack of attention to the needs of the children and how very vulnerable they are,” she says. “Their parents and siblings have really been their lifeline, not just at the moment of separation but also because they’ve been through enormous challenges up to that point. And then to have that lifeline abruptly separated...I fear there will be an enormous mental health impact.”
Assistant Professor Jennifer Geiger agrees, observing that even if a migrant family is fleeing violence or extreme poverty, the children have still felt safety and security in being with a parent or caregiver. She compares this to what she’s seen with children in the child welfare system. “Children fundamentally wish to stay with their parents and their family, even though home life may be abusive or neglectful. It might have been the worst situation you can imagine, but the child will almost always say they want to be back with their family,” she says. “So, working with and supporting the family and keeping the family intact is the desired outcome for the child’s mental health and well-being.”
For cases in which removal of the child is recommended, Dr. Leathers says that child welfare practitioners have been working toward a system of care that attends to the attachment needs of the child. Ideally, the trauma of separation is lessened by making sure the child understands the circumstances and understands that they will continue to have a connection to their parent. “We know from child welfare studies and practice that children fare much better when the separation is more gradual,” she says. “It’s helpful if they are able to go with the parent to their new home, and to know that the parent is involved in that decision.”
Assistant Professor Jennifer Geiger
Dr. Geiger explains that for children entering the child welfare system, the trauma of separation from family can stem from many variables, such as the allegations against the parent, who is present when the separation occurs, the age of the child, the relationship between the child and caregivers, how the adults in the situation are responding, or whether it happens at home or elsewhere. “There is always some degree of trauma as a result of the separation,” she says. “In some cases, children may develop traumatic responses to professionals who are present at the time of removal.”
Geiger worries that with the separations at the U.S. border, neither parents nor children had time to prepare. “Plus, there’s the involvement of military or law enforcement, and the presence of weapons. All of this increases the trauma,” she says. “In separating these children from their families and placing them in institutional care, it really seems as if policymakers are not considering the long-term impacts to the children.”
Dr. Leathers observes that in child welfare, children and teens are placed in an institutional setting only after an in-depth review process, to ensure it is required to meet the child’s treatment needs. “Placement in group care usually occurs only when the child has intense physical or mental health needs that cannot be met by being placed in foster care,” she says. “And when they are placed in a group setting, we hope to make the stay as short as possible.”
Dr. Geiger adds that with children who are placed in an institutional setting such as congregate care, the trauma may become further complicated. “Research shows that this is not the best environment for kids, especially if they have higher needs. In this setting there’s more instability and staff turnover,” she says, “so it’s harder for the children to form relationships with their adult caregivers.”
Geiger notes that the child welfare system is moving away from placing children in institutional care. “With the passage of the Family First Act, there will not be as much funding for those types of placements, and this will be a real shift in how we practice child welfare,” she says, “but the goal has always been to balance the safety and well-being of the child with minimizing trauma and the resulting mental health issues.”
For the migrant children who were placed in detention centers or shelters, Leathers says that it’s hard to know what sort of care the children are receiving. “Care providers working in the shelters are probably well- meaning and want to provide the best care they can, but they are probably overwhelmed by the numbers of children,” she says. “And we don’t know how many of the children are receiving trauma-informed care.”
Even when children are reunited with their families, the process of reunification may be difficult. “We know that severing the attachment between parent and child is traumatizing, and trying to mend that is extremely difficult. Reattachment doesn’t happen automatically,” Geiger says. “We see this in the child welfare system, and social workers need to play a role in the process, helping to mend the relationship and the psychological and emotional trauma.”
“ There is always some degree of trauma as a result of the separation.
In some cases, children may develop traumatic responses to professionals who are present at the time of removal.”
“For the mental health of the children, the surest remedy is prevention, making sure that families are not separated to begin with,” adds Dr. Leathers. She says that among families entering the child welfare system, there is typically a significant level of need, making it difficult for case workers to address the various needs of the parents and the children. “I would love to see a system that puts as much effort and investment into strengthening those families and making sure that parents are well- equipped from the time they have a child,” she says.
Assistant Professor Christina DeNard
Assistant Professor Christina DeNard, whose research focuses on improving services for families in the child welfare system, is in complete agreement. “From the literature, we know that families encountering the child welfare system already have risk factors. Once they’re in the system, the interventions are individual, it becomes an individual issue, and the onus is on the individual or the family,” she says. “We need to support families before they enter the system. If we invest in our communities, we can see a lot of difference in terms of families flourishing.”
This article was printed in the UIC Jane Addams School of Social Work Spring 2019 Edition of “Affirmations”.
Sexual Exploitation of Children in America
AFFIRMATIONS Spring 2019
A publication of the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago
Any person below the age of 18 who is in prostitution or the sex trade is automatically considered a victim of human trafficking, according to both international and U.S. federal law. “It does not even need to entail movement across national or state borders,” says Charles Hounmenou, Assistant Professor at Jane Addams College of Social Work. “It can affect any group in society; rich people or various marginalized populations. But children are disproportionately affected, children are the most vulnerable.”
Hounmenou is an internationally recognized authority on human trafficking. He notes that the extent of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is difficult to determine for a number of reasons, including widely differing figures, lack of comprehensive research, and because CSEC is defined in very different ways. What is known, however, is that two out of seven missing children end up in CSEC, and 75 percent of those were in child welfare when they ran away. “The child welfare system is a bridge to CSEC in every state,” says Hounmenou. “Most kids in child welfare are from poor families and have experienced abuse. Pimps know that kids in group homes are vulnerable and actively recruit them.” He is quick to point out that this is not an indictment of the child welfare system. “It is a reflection of the lack of trained staff and resources to support these young people,” he says. “When kids don’t get the services they need, they eventually run away and are likely to end up working for a pimp.”
Assistant Professor Charles E. Hounmenou, PhD
According to Hounmenou, 75 percent of children in prostitution in the U.S. are under the control of a pimp. “Working for a pimp is akin to slavery, so they experience more trauma and have greater mental health needs. Trauma-informed services become much more important,“ he says.
Some may be surprised to learn that more than 70 percent of child sex trafficking victims in the U.S. are citizens, born in this country. Also potentially surprising, a number of studies have shown that about half of young people in CSEC are boys, and often LGBTQ+. A study conducted in Chicago found that 47 percent of child sex trafficking victims were male, 41 percent female, and 12 percent transgender. Additionally, boys are rarely rescued as victims of sex trafficking. “But this may be because boys tend to work independently on the streets, working for basic necessities like food or clothing,” says Hounmenou. “Girls are more likely to end up under the control of a pimp, working for money.”
Hounmenou has done much research into the characteristics of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in West Africa, and is continuing that work in Chicago. In his current project, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Chicago: Identification, Needs Assessment and Service Access, he plans to interview young people who are involved in CSEC.
“I think there is a mismatch between what these kids need and what service providers are offering them,” he says. “I want to hear from these youth what their needs are and what services they think would help them, or about their experiences with law enforcement. I want to give these kids a voice.”
This article was printed in the UIC Jane Addams School of Social Work Spring 2019 Edition of “Affirmations”.
From Adjudication to Matriculation
AFFIRMATIONS Spring 2019
A publication of the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago
The college is partnering with the UIC Department of Special Education to prepare social workers and special education teachers to collaborate in helping adjudicated youth with disabilities achieve academic success.
Nationally, it has been estimated that one-third of youth in juvenile corrections facilities have a disability, and that nearly half of those youth have an emotional disturbance. Research also shows that youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities tend to commit more serious offenses, are at higher risk for second- and third-time offending, and enter the juvenile justice system at a younger age.
“Young people with disabilities may become involved in the juvenile justice system because of their vulnerability,” says Annette Johnson, chair of the school social work specialization at Jane Addams College of Social Work.
“When they return to school, they don’t have a good support network and may end up in alternative schools, where they still don’t get the supports they need. These students are set on a path toward poor attendance and dropouts, and they often end up in poverty, or in the school-to-prison pipeline.”
Project LEAD
To help such young people, the Jane Addams College of Social Work is working in partnership with UIC’s Department of Special Education on a new program entitled Project LEAD (Leaders Enhancing outcomes for Adjudicated youth with Disabilities). The program will prepare special educators and school social workers with the knowledge and skills required to improve outcomes for adjudicated youth with disabilities in temporary detention center schools and in middle and high schools.
Over five years, 32 graduate students from the College of Education and from the College of Social Work will enter into a year-long program that involves shared coursework, engaging in forums, seminars and workshops, and internship co-placements at Chicago Public Schools and the Juvenile Justice Division of Cook County Juvenile Courts. In addition to this year-long partnership, they will be supported during an additional year as they enter the field.
“ Young people with disabilities may become involved in the juvenile justice sys- tem because of their vul- nerability. These students are set on a path toward poor attendance and dropouts, and they often end up in poverty, or in the school-to-prison pipeline.”
Dr. Lisa Cushing, associate professor at the College of Education and principal investigator on Project LEAD, notes that such a collaborative approach is unique. “This kind of intercollaboration between social work and special education has never before been undertaken. These practitioners will serve as point people for adjudicated youth, bridging the gap between juvenile justice and the educational system, and they need to know how to work together,” she says. “This collaboration is modeled throughout the program, ensuring that students are immersed in best practices from both disciplines.”
For example, the first cohort of students currently enrolled in Project LEAD have had the opportunity to collaborate in assessing youth who have been in detention and have probation officers. Cushing says, “This gives our students authentic hands-on experience in serving this population, working as a team in assessing their social emotional, academic and behavioral needs.”
A Foundation for the Future
The goal of Project LEAD is to create a network of practitioners and scholars who will continue to refine evidence-based best practices for serving court-involved youth with disabilities. Ultimately, the project
will launch a web portal for the public dissemination of research and practices to support adjudicated youth with disabilities in their return to school.
The first Project LEAD cohort, comprised of four MSW students from JACSW, and four students from the College of Education. JACSW students are in the front row, from the left, Olivia DeLeon-Rodriguez, Maureen van de Water, Corey Berdell-Brewer and Sean Prendiville (far right).
About JACSW’s involvement in the program, Annette Johnson says, “Project LEAD is a wonderful example of how social workers can be part of an interdisciplinary approach to improving outcomes for vulnerable populations. Graduates from Project LEAD will guide the field and the practice of working with adjudicated youth in Chicago and beyond.”
Project Lead is funded through a five- year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), administered by the UIC College of Education.
This article was printed in the UIC Jane Addams School of Social Work Spring 2019 Edition of “Affirmations”.
Project LEAD is one of several curricular enhancements available to our MSW students. Other such programs are:
Certificate in Evidence-Based Mental Health Practice with Children
Jane Addams Child Welfare Traineeship Program
Integrated Behavioral Health Care Training Program
Integrated Substance Use Disorder Training Program
**Coming Soon**
Although the physical location of Foundlings Home closed in 1971, we’ve partnered with organizations who bring our mission into the 20th and 21st centuries. To give adoptees and their families an idea of the incredible work that is still being done through CFH, we are featuring a blog to highlight each organization and their connection to Foundlings home and then tell stories from MercyWorks, New Beginnings, RUSH Adolescent Family Center, SOS Children’s Villages, and the Jane Addams College of Social Work.