Following the principle as caring PID (People In Need) actively, respecting the needs of PID and assisting PID who are elders, orphans and low income households with self-sufficiency, Social Assistance Program aims to ensure that their living standards are above the poverty line. However, officers (Li-clerks) and undertakers of social assistance section are indispensable to applications for social assistance because, in most cases, these public servants must be active to assist PID. The purpose of this study is to analyze how officers and undertakers of social assistance program perceive the Public Assistance Act and related social assistance laws and how they use discretionary behaviors on social assistance when facing applicants for low income households and encountering the problems which arise from the process of enforcements of social assistance policy. This study also intends to analyze how applicants for social assistance perceive the qualification check and whether or not the social assistance programs function effectively under the regulations of social assistance qualification system. Besides, this study chooses Chijin District in Kaohsiung city, where people receive relatively scarcer resources, to be the object of study and does in-depth interviews with officers, undertakers of social assistance programs and applicants for the qualification of low income households. Findings and suggestions come last. The main findings of this study are as follows, 1.The functional roles that officers and undertakers of social assistance section are supposed to do should be established. 2.Due to the qualification check under paper review, the assistance programs are unpractical. 3.The structure of administrative bureaucracy limits the access to social assistance services. 4.The regulations cannot regulate a changing society; the resilient discretional behavior can complement the ineffectiveness of regulations instead. 5.The social assistance resources from civil society could instantly assist PID, which could relieve the ineffectiveness of the qualification review system. 6.Assistances with subsidy in cash ignore the needs of each case. The following is the suggestions of this study, 1.Creating incentives as many as possible for PID being independent will help PID away from poverty. 2.The integration of governmental resources for social assistance and civil social assistance is important. 3.The regulation of social assistance should leave some spaces for appropriate discretion behaviors.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 240-253). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (B. Arch.)--Roger Williams University, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Feb. 11, 2010) Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

The purpose of this study was to advance understanding of perceived intellectual and social attainment gains of first-generation, first-year college students participating in First Generation Access Programs at the University of South Florida (USF), a large, public research university in Florida. Understanding the self-reported intellectual and personal/social gains of these students in higher education can lead to higher retention rates, creative strategies that promote academic success, affective cognitive and personal development activities and services that meet the needs of this rapidly growing at-risk student population with their persistence and transition to college. Researchers have sought to examine variables that may help to increase the persistence rates of students by understanding the impact of students enrolled in First Generation Access Programs on first-generation students' academic success, as measured by grade point average. Several studies have indicated that first-generation, first-year college students have pre-collegiate characteristics that impede their intellectual and personal/social growth. In addition, research studies show that First Generation Access Programs are successful in assisting at-risk student populations successful in their transition to and persistence in college. However, there is scarcity of literature that examines the estimates of intellectual and personal/social gains of first-generation, first-year students enrolled in First Generation Access Programs. As such, this study explored the extent to which self-reported intellectual and personal/social gains predict the academic success, as measured by grade point average, for first-generation, first-year college students enrolled in First Generation Access Programs. Theoretical frameworks from higher education were used to provide an understanding of perceived intellectual and personal/social attainment and academic success of first-generation, first-year, students enrolled in First Generation Access Programs for the context of this study. According to Kuh (1995), college impact models from Astin and Tinto and Pusser were studied, as they have been used to assist higher education professionals in understanding "outcomes produced by interactions between students and their institutions' environments..." (p. 126 - 127). In the context of both college impact models, Astin's Inputs-Environment-Outcomes Model (1991) and Tinto and Pusser's Model of Institutional Action for Student Success (2006), results of this study indicated that First Generation Access Programs increase the intellectual and personal/social attainment of first-generation, first-year students. Several statistical analyses were conducted to examine relationships between variables (self-reported intellectual and personal/social gains, gender, and academic success) including multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), simple regression tests, and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. Results of this study were based on the responses of 184 participants. Results indicated that the participants self-reported significant intellectual and personal/social gains. However, findings indicated that there is no statistically significant relationship between self-reported gains and academic success as measured by grade point average, but there is a statistically significant relationship based on gender. One implication for higher education administrators and student affairs professionals is the need to investigate alternative measures for academic success of first-generation, first-year students enrolled in First Generation Access Programs. Grade point average does not seem to accurately measure academic success on perceived intellectual and personal/social gains of this at-risk population. Second, institutions should seek to understand the factors and specific strategies of First Generation Access Programs that increase the cognitive and social growth and development of first-generation, first-year college students so that it may be successfully implemented for first-generation, first-year college students who do not participate in FGAP.

Receptive and expressive vocabulary skills in preschoolers are predictors of later literacy skills. Research shows that children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds are generally behind their peers in the area of vocabulary skills when they enter school. Many preschool programs now focus on increasing these skills through shared book reading interventions. The purpose of the current research is to study the efficacy of a specific shared book reading intervention, dialogic reading, with low-income preschoolers in the area of vocabulary development. The search yielded 10 intervention studies that utilized dialogic reading strategies in interventions with the target population. Studies yielded mixed results but generally found that dialogic reading intervention does have significant positive effects on receptive and expressive vocabulary. Limitations and implications for practice are discussed. / text

Research has shown that caregivers are confronted with a number of stressors such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of being in direct or close contact with the people suffering from chronic diseases such as HIV/AIDS. However, relevant and professional training, and effective self-care strategies could prevent such stressors. Using the “Individual Interviews with Formal Caregivers” dataset, this study looked at the experiences of seventeen caregivers who provided care to stigmatized and low income people of living with HIV/AIDS. The study sought to understand how the well-being of caregivers was impacted by providing care to stigmatized and low income people living with HIV/AIDS in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Also, it examined how formal caregivers perceived their relationship with people living with HIV/AIDS at their care. The findings suggested that caregivers were confronted with and experienced stressors such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress due to having direct and close relationships with people living with HIV/AIDS in their care. Medical caregivers treating HIV/AIDS patients perceived these as formal professional relationships; however, most caregivers working in community support, community outreach, and education sectors understood their caregiving relationships with people living with HIV/AIDS as that of supporter and helper. There was not much research on how caregivers in HIV/AIDS sector perceived their relationships with people living with HIV in their care, so further research is needed to explore the nature of the relationship between the caregiver and care recipients. Finally, this study enriched the existing research on this topic by providing an insight on how caregivers in HIV sector perceive their relationships with individuals living with HIV/ AIDS in their care. / October 2015

Thesis (MTech. degree in Public Management.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2012. / This study has examined the implementation of the incremental housing process, or as the researcher has termed it, self-driven housing, in rural South Africa. Self-driven housing is the type of housing where individual households drive the processes of addressing their own housing issues, with government playing a supporter role. The purpose of the study was to obtain a thorough understanding of how this process has been implemented internationally and in South Africa to improve the lives and living spaces of the rural poor. Most importantly, this study was aimed at investigating whether this process can be considered a viable alternative to the provision of free low-cost government houses in the quest for reducing the housing backlog, in South Africa in general, and urban areas in particular. In other words, "Can the self-driven housing approach be a solution to the housing crisis in South Africa?"

Despite the considerable improvements in housing conditions during the last decade, housing still remains a critical determinant of one’s health. Broader social and environmental issues that are associated with housing and health problems have emerged. Such issues include neighborhood characteristics, individual behaviors and associated health outcomes, social backgrounds, and housing affordability as well as the physical conditions of housing. Many low-income families’ substandard housing conditions make them suffer from housing-related health problems more seriously. This report suggests a green affordable housing program, in particular Green Communities, as one of the solutions to address this issue. To understand how Green Communities affects one’s health, this report evaluates existing Green Communities’ criteria against housing health performance criteria that are developed based on a literature review. After the evaluation, this report suggests how current green affordable housing practices can be improved to be a health promotion tool. / text

Childhood obesity has become an increasingly important public health concern in Canada. This paper provides an econometric analysis of the role of income and other explanatory factors on adolescent overweight and obese statuses within Canada using data from the 2009/2010 Canadian Community Health Survey. Results reveal the importance of low-income status on adolescent body weight. The effect of low income is particularly pronounced after accounting for household size. However, it does not account for much of the additional incidence of overweight and obesity in the Atlantic region of Canada.

<p>This research examines the economic well-being of nonmetropolitan low-income households through an analysis of their objective economic outcomes and subjective experiences of poverty. Despite a large body of scholarship aimed at urban poverty, comparatively little research examines economic hardship among impoverished nonmetropolitan families. This research contributes to existing work through an analysis of nonmetropolitan low-income households' employment experiences and short-term economic trajectories. Additionally, this research uses fine-grained longitudinal data to address how families subjectively experience poverty and economic im/mobility. The analyses use ethnographic data from a sample of households (n=71) in the Family Life Project, a multi-method, longitudinal study conducted in six counties within Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The analyses reveal that families across these two regions experience a high level of constraint with respect to their employment choices and economic mobility outcomes. The analyses also present alternative metrics for job quality and job satisfaction which explicitly include criteria from the perspectives of low-wage nonmetropolitan workers. Most households experience little or no upward economic mobility throughout their participation in the study, and family members express conservative expectations for their long-term economic well-being. The study concludes with suggestions for continued research in the nonmetropolitan U.S. This work contributes to existing scholarship in the areas of economic mobility, work and poverty. These analyses reveal scholarly assessments of work, poverty and the decisions of economic actors can be improved through the inclusion of subjective household perspectives. Additionally, these analyses should motivate scholars to reevaluate the effectiveness of employment for promoting upward economic mobility, especially among contemporary nonmetropolitan low-income households.</p> / Dissertation