Community engagement initiatives have experienced an increase in attention, appreciation, and participation among those in academic, nonprofit, and other community-based organizations over the past two decades. The purpose of this study is to explore the meanings of community-campus partnerships among stakeholders in the community and in academia towards the goal of generating a theory grounded in these data that will concomitantly contribute to the social work profession and the community engagement movement. Using as its foundation the shared interest among the social work profession and the community engagement movement on values and ethics, this study utilizes a traditional grounded theory methodology as a means to systematically examine the question “What does it mean to be involved in a community-campus partnership?” The theory that emerged from the data in this study is about what it takes to sustain partnerships between community and campus organizations. The final five themes found in this theory are: A strong foundation upon which the relationship is built; navigating the process of a partnership project; goodness-of-fit for all involved; resources; and impact. Overall, the theory of partnership sustainability draws the attention of partnership practitioners and stakeholders to the importance of relationships as being the core for any partnership activity. When contemplating how a particular resource, impact, process-related challenge and issue of partner match was addressed within their partnership, the participants continually came back to the idea that partnership sustainability can be traced back to the relationship between partners. Implications for further research involve a deeper study of the nature of relationships within community-campus partnerships; the organizational culture dynamics that are unique to academia; the nature, value, and perceived importance of research done in the community; and the intersectionality of student engagement and community engagement, particularly in an age of assessment and benchmarking.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a significant difference in the levels of political engagement from a University in Southern California Master of Social Work (MSW) students that participated in the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) -CA Lobby Days and students who do not participate. This study examined the NASW- CA Lobby Days as an intervention of experiential learning as existing literature explains experiential learning to be an effective method for learning policy practice. Using a quantitative approach by looking at student scores from the Political Activities Survey (PAS) which was distributed to MSW students at a University in Southern California Survey results were analyzed by comparing average scores between the control and intervention groups. Research findings suggest that a relationship exists between Lobby Days Participation and political engagement activities of voting in local elections, contacting legislators, participating in protests of social demonstrations, participating in service clubs, and participating in service clubs as service club officers.

Thesis advisor: Thomas M. Crea / In 2019, 851,508 persons were apprehended at the Southwestern US border without lawful immigration status in the US; of whom 473,682 were part of a family unit, and 76,020 were classified as unaccompanied children (UC). UC are those entering the US under the age of 18 without a parent/legal guardian available to care for them. Recent research on unaccompanied children in the US has focused on educational outcomes, trauma, family separation at the border, and resiliency. However, more research is needed around this population given their unique vulnerabilities, the current unreceptive political climate in the US, and the fact that 2019 has had the highest arrival numbers yet. This dissertation draws on administrative data to provide information that can improve the services that social service agencies are delivering, to highlight areas of future research, and to recommend specific tools for data collection. I aim to advance three areas of research related to the human rights violations and social exclusions experienced by unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children in the US, as well as best practices used by service providers. The three areas are: (1) to understand the systems level facilitators and barriers to adjustment for UC, (2) to understand the challenges to formal education for UC, and the strategies that service providers are using to overcome these challenges, and (3) to examine the predictors of self-sufficiency for unaccompanied immigrants leaving foster care. The findings presented in this dissertation have multiple implications for policy, practice, research, and social work education. The qualitative studies provide a groundwork from which we can conduct more research in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the promising practices described, and advocate to increase funding and service availability. Through a greater understanding of the benefits and challenges to education for UC in foster care, we can build more inclusive and welcoming school environments, ultimately leading to higher educational attainment. Understanding the predictors of self-sufficiency can help caseworkers to better create service plans, and help agencies to advocate for funding of supplementary programming. Altogether, it is my hope that this knowledge can contribute to supports that help UC to be happier, thrive in school, and become productive members of our community. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

Human trafficking within and across nations is a pervasive, insidious global criminal enterprise that endangers human rights and impedes social justice. Sex and labor are two fundamental types of human trafficking, but media and policies prioritize the former. Social work calls for empowering marginalized groups, and labor trafficking survivors—who are more likely women and immigrants of color—certainly fall into this category. Since 2003, every U.S. state has criminalized human trafficking, yet the issue persists. Most human trafficking analyses focus on federal or international, not state, policies. Thus, this critical analysis aimed to explore how human trafficking is conceptualized at the state level so that policies can be equitable. The research questions of this qualitative multiple-case study were: How do state policymakers conceptualize the problem of human trafficking, and how does this conceptualization differ among states? For answers, this dissertation applied content analysis to a purposive sample of legislative speeches about old and new state human trafficking laws. This dissertation adopted an intersectional lens to uncover what types of survivors (i.e., demographics, labor or sex trafficking survivors) policymakers emphasize when publicly justifying their stances. This study found that, on the whole, state human trafficking policymaking does not consider survivors’ intersectionality, primarily focuses on sex trafficking and prostitution, employs a prosecution-heavy frame, and highlights children and girls as prototypical survivors—minimizing the experiences of women, trans, and immigrant survivors of color. These findings lend empirical support to the observation that U.S. policies prioritize the prototypical young female survivor and sex over labor trafficking. The study carries implications for survivors, policymakers, and social workers, including helping equivocate sex and labor trafficking and ensure that policymaking better reflects the experiences of marginalized groups.

(in English) The main goal of the diploma thesis "The Possibility of Social Work in Rural Areas. On the Example of the Village Majdalena" is to introduce possible implementations of social work in villages or rural communities on the example of Majdalena, a village located in the South Bohemia region, Czech Republic. The theoretical portion of this thesis describes different approaches to social work and the status of a small community in the Czech welfare system, primarily with focus on social work. Legislative background of social work in a village and community social worker's job duties and responsibilities are also discussed in the thesis. The hands-on research presented in this work focuses on Majdalena, Czech Republic. A sociodemographic analysis and a field survey were conducted to characterize the investigated community, in addition to two case studies targeting Majdalena citizens. Finally, conclusions include suggestions of particular goals and objectives for a social worker in Majdalena.