Souls in Extremis: Enacting Processes of Recovery from Homelessness Among Older African American Women.

In a midwestern city of the USA, the authors implemented the Leaving Homelessness Intervention Research Project-and its eight subprojects-to further understand homelessness as experienced by older minority women, develop intervention strategies to facilitate the movement of the participants out of homelessness, and illuminate the women's recovery process. After reviewing the social issue of homelessness among older African American women in the USA, and offering a framework on recovery and qualitative themes of recovery among participants involved in the Telling My Story subproject, the authors present a four-factor model of recovery-focused practice. The model reflects two recovery paradigms: one that is responsive to the negative consequences people experience as a result of their exposure to extreme situations, such as homelessness, and a proactive one in which assistance is designed to help people in recovery advance their own self-development and move forward their process of individuation.

Positioning the arts for intervention design research in the human services.

The arts have been integral to the human experience fostering innovation in social arrangements, strengthening group cohesion, and merging esthetics with the utilitarian properties of technology. For intervention design research in the human services the arts can harness innovation and creativity in meeting human needs and addressing social issues. Given their capacities to stimulate expression of first person experience through interpretative strategies, the arts can equip people and groups, including researchers, with opportunities to express primary experiential knowledge through creative means, portray useful ways of meeting human needs, educate others about the social issues people experience, and formulate intervention strategies or even models to address the causes and consequences of those issues. In this paper, the authors discuss how the arts can inform and deepen human service intervention design and development and, as a result, advance innovation in the human services. They offer a rationale supporting the inclusion of the arts in the design of human service interventions, examine the contributions of the arts to the formulation of intervention concept and developmental research to further improve interventions, and consider how the arts can advance the reflexivity of intervention designers. The authors draw implications for how researchers can position the arts in the nine steps of intervention design and development the authors offer in this paper.

The relationship between spiritual resources and life attitudes of African American homeless women.

Little is known about the relationships between spiritual resources and life attitudes of homeless African American women. Spiritual resources may serve as protective factors for women leaving homelessness. This descriptive study examines spiritual resources, life attitudes, and selected demographics of 160 African American women who were homeless in the Midwestern United States. Participants ranged in age from 30-62 years of age and reported being homeless 1-9 times, with a mean of 1.94 (SD = 1.53) times. The authors draw inferences for how spiritual resources and life attitudes can influence women's efforts to leave homelessness and identify implications for nursing practice.

Self-efficacy as a unifying construct in nursing-social work collaboration with vulnerable populations.

The authors consider self-efficacy practice as an organizing construct guiding nursing-social work action research in partnership with older homeless and formerly homeless African-American women. The authors, both academics who together have worked with members of this vulnerable population for a decade and a half, report on their unifying action research perspective immersed in self-efficacy theory. We examine how our adaptations of Bandura's classic four sources of self-efficacy form a distinctive intervention practice designed to help older African-American women emerge from homelessness. We amplify the incorporation of the four sources (vicarious experience and exposure to powerful role models, emotional arousal and accompanying catharsis, verbal persuasion, and role performance) into a grand strategy useful in working collaboratively with members of vulnerable populations, so they can achieve outcomes that improve their functional health, well-being and ultimately their quality of life.

Building a responsive network of support and advocacy for older African American homeless women through developmental action research.

This paper describes the Leaving Homelessness Intervention Research Project (LHIRP), a multimodal intervention that addresses the structural barriers and personal issues older African American women face in overcoming homelessness in a large mid-western city of the United States. The project incorporates a developmental action research design in partnership with homeless and formerly homeless women. Through developmental testing of interventions, LHIRP identifies promising practices at the individual, group life, intentional community, and city levels. The paper offers a rationale for the integration of both developmental research and action research, particularly community-based participatory inquiry. The authors document the nature of the helping network, identify and describe the project's aims, organizing framework, and methods that document the lived experience of homelessness. Action research strategies that support the design and intervention activities are described, as are the tools used to test promising practices that are useful in helping older women transition and remain out of homelessness. The paper identifies the knowledge products of the intervention project including lexicon, theory, and frameworks, considers the vicious cycle that serves as an advanced organizer of relevant intervention, illuminates core principles, and examines the importance of the web of affiliation that the project seeks to form among participants, staff, and technical assistants.

Five dimensions of faith and spiritually of older African American women transitioning out of homelessness.

BACKGROUND: Homelessness among older African American women is emerging as a serious social problem. The increasing cost of living, diminishing community resources, and shrinking retirement benefits, as well as reduced social services are resulting in greater numbers of older minority women becoming homeless. AIMS: This investigation explores the relevance of faith and spirituality to an advocacy assessment designed to help participants resolve issues that operate as barriers to their leaving and staying out of homelessness. METHODS: A substudy of a larger research and development project was undertaken, in which qualitative interview methods were used to illuminate the role of faith and spirituality resources in the lives of 84 older homeless African American women. Comparative thematic analysis of illustrative cases was undertaken to better understand the role of faith and spirituality in the women's lives and in how they used faith and spirituality in coping with homelessness. FINDINGS: Five dimensions of faith and spirituality, (a) identity and beliefs; (b) affiliation and membership; (c) involvement; (d) practices; and (e) benefits, served as promising resources in understanding life spaces of homeless minority women and identified promising advocacy strategies. Two cases describe the realities of homelessness for older minority women endeavoring to transition out of homelessness and illustrate how faith and spirituality can buffer stress, facilitate coping, and sustain motivation. CONCLUSIONS: How older homeless African American women use their faith and spiritual resources to cope with demands of homelessness, challenges of transition, and recovery from the multiple traumas resulting from being homeless makes the assessment of faith and spirituality an important part of the advocacy process.

The telling my story quilting workshop: innovative group work with older African American women transitioning out of homelessness.

This article examines the use of a quilting workshop as a strategy for helping older African American women address the consequences of their homeless experience. In this examination, four studies are addressed: the original, the re-analysis, the interviews, and the quilting intervention. The relationship of quilting to group work and social support is described, and the use of quilting in the Telling My Story homeless research project is demonstrated. The researchers used the lay definition of quilting that implies the general meaning of attaching many disparate and unique pieces of material together into a whole. The researchers also describe the relevance of the group work method inherent in the quilting workshop in helping women successfully transition out of homelessness and progress in their recovery from its consequences.

Enabling older homeless minority women to overcome homelessness by using a life management enhancement group intervention.

This paper describes the importance of a life management enhancement (LME) group intervention for older minority women in developing personal control and self-confidence in social relationships as they overcome homelessness. Women in the treatment group showed significantly greater personal control and higher levels of self-confidence following the six-week intervention than women in the control group. Increasing personal control and developing self-confidence in social relationships can help individuals achieve desired outcomes as a result of their actions, efforts, and abilities. These attributes can help women increase and sustain appropriate coping methods and overcome homelessness.

Service engagement with high-risk men who have sex with men: challenges and implications for social work practice.

This article reviews social work challenges in treatment engagement of men who have sex with men (MSM) and details issues co-morbidity creates for reaching HIV-positive MSM engaged in substance abuse. The literature reviewed within the article identifies HIV and substance use risk factors influencing out of care dynamics and examines relevant research identifying contextual and cultural factors central to achieving cultural competence. The article examines aspects of cultural sensitivity and competence in service development and engagement and identifies service qualities and characteristics social workers can incorporate into practice and programs to increase the likelihood of successful engagement and treatment adherence.

The influence of perceived health status on poor women's confidence in leaving welfare: implications for social work.

This article focuses on the realities poor women living in Georgia face in the pursuit of employment. The inquiry focuses on 107 women (84.1% African American, 15.9% white) who were respondents to a survey undertaken by the Welfare Reform Project in Georgia to predict the participants' self-reported confidence in leaving welfare. Predictors of confidence to leave welfare involved health, age, welfare dependency, educational attainment, race, and number of children at home. Health was the strongest predictor, followed by age. Based on Bandura's social cognitive theory, findings suggest that the confidence of female welfare recipients may be greater than can be justified by the realities of their lives and the society in which they live. The article identifies implications for social work including the delivery of social services and counseling for poor women who face complex health issues yet who want to enter the workforce.

Homelessness among older african-american women: interpreting a serious social issue through the arts in community-based participatory action research.

This article describes the incorporation of the arts into a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) project formulated to develop and test practices for helping homeless older African-American women. Studying how older African-American women become homeless has evolved into developing and testing promising interventions by the Leaving Homelessness Intervention Research Project (LHIRP). The women's participation in creative group activities helped them to communicate their experience with homelessness, express their concerns, develop personal strengths, and obtained mutual understanding. The use of multiple art forms has revealed a number of creative strengths among the participants, which have in turn inspired innovative artistic strategies and methodologies as part of the multiple methods that LHIRP incorporates. These interventions have been useful in helping participants resolve their homelessness. The role and benefit of the arts in CBPAR is described to show how creative activities help researchers and the public to better understand the complexities of homelessness.

Telling my story: from narrative to exhibit in illuminating the lived experience of homelessness among older African American women.

The authors document the integration of methods from the arts and humanities into a social research and development project, the objectives of which are to create and test promising interventions helpful in assisting older homeless African American women get and stay out of homelessness in the city of Detroit, Michigan, USA. The exhibit incorporates multiple forms of narrative, includes performative features, promotes public awareness of homelessness in the city of Detroit, and engages homeless and formerly homeless women in social action. The authors examine the prototype design and the involvement of participants in creating artistic portrayals of their homeless experience.

Using scrapbooks & portfolios in group work with women who are chemically dependent.

This article provides a rationale and strategies for using scrapbooks and portfolios within the context of group work with minority women recovering from chemical dependence. An expanded model of recovery-based group work places the use of scrapbooks and portfolios within the context of a practice model that seeks to increase general and social self-efficacy in these women. Memory scrapbooks, lifecourse scrapbooks, and recovery portfolios are defined; their differential use in group work is described; and ways group members can use the tools to strengthen their sources of self-efficacy are explored.

Group interventions with low-income African American women recovering from chemical dependency.

This article presents findings from an investigation of two group therapy modalities involving 93 women who were generally single, with dependent children and limited education and income levels. The article presents an overview of intervention activities that participants found beneficial. Although the group interventions warrant additional rigorous evaluations, these programs helped participants develop a sense of community, reduce stress, identify and minimize gaps between current circumstances and potential positive outcomes, and improve self-efficacy and the ability to think positively.

Promising group practices to empower low-income minority women coping with chemical dependency.

On the basis of 2 cycles of group research, promising group therapy practices are described that can contribute to the recovery of low-income chemically dependent women. Self-reported benefits obtained from 78 participants in 2 types of group treatment suggested strategies to improve self-efficacy and increase empowerment that can result in desired therapeutic outcomes.