The purpose of this study of the out-of-school character-building organizations for high-school youth is fourfold: (1) to discover the problems peculiar to adolescents growing up in the disturbed social environment of this country at the present time; (2) to determine the part reputable youth-serving organizations have in quipping young persons for meeting these problem; (3) to investigate a specific situation in an effort to determine the extent to which high-school students take advantage of the services offered by these organizations; and (4) to suggest ways of reaching more of the young people by gaining from them a knowledge of the kind of program they desire.

Financial fraud in church organizations is increasing rapidly, which can affect the reputation, donation appeal, future funding, and ability of church organizations to meet their planned organizational goals. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies for preventing financial fraud in church organizations. The conceptual framework for the study was Cressey’s fraud triangle theory. Twenty participants who utilize strategies for preventing financial fraud in their organizations were purposively selected from 5 church organizations in Ghana. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and analysis of organizational financial policy documents. Interview data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed with Saldaña’s coding guidelines. Data analysis followed recommendations from Yin, including examining the data, grouping data into categories, regrouping data in themes, interpreting the data, and producing empirically based findings that answered the central research question of the study. Three significant themes emerged from the data analysis: effective administration, good stewardship and accountability, and caliber of employees. Implementation of the findings may lead to positive social change by enhancing the donation appeal of church organizations, improving their finances, and enabling them to optimize their operations to benefit individuals, families, communities, and society.

This research is an ethnography which investigates the effects of Hurricane Katrina upon the capacity of African American Protestant churches in New Orleans to provide spiritual and social ministry to the city's underprivileged. More than three years after Hurricane Katrina unleashed its fury upon the city, fifty per cent of the churches remain as the hurricane left them. Pre-Katrina, fifty per cent of the population lived at or below the poverty line and depended upon faith-based programs as part of their support network and ladder toward selfsufficiency. Because of the disaster, there was substantive loss of parishioners, financial resources, and program operational infrastructure that severely limited or destroyed faith-based capacity to serve. The purpose of the study is to examine what social vulnerabilities and barriers hinder churches' capacity to serve community needs in four particular areas, including providing and advocating for affordable housing, quality health care, strategies for eliminating poverty, and disaster evacuation education, preparedness and response. The researcher hypothesizes that structural and institutional racism were already undermining that capacity pre-Katrina and continues to hinder it more than three years since. The study investigates the veracity of this hypothesis. It attempts to offer strategies to help mitigate the social vulnerabilities and increase the community's resiliency and sustainability against future disasters. This research is important because it provides increased awareness and understanding of how pre-existing social vulnerabilities in combination with Hurricane Katrina contributed to the lingering diminished capacity of the church and community. It also provides insight into how the faith community's attitude and action toward handling its vulnerabilities lead to increased resiliency and sustainability, and suggest a course of action toward the alleviation of marginalization of both the faith institutions and the people they serve.

This thesis deals with the application of ethical principles in social work and comparing denominational and non-denominational social facilities. Great emphasis is put on the relationship between social worker and client. It is divided into a total of 6 chapters. The first chapter deals with the explanation of basic ethical concepts related to the work, which makes an easier reference to the following chapters. The second chapter involves the division of church and non-church organizations concerned with social care and describes their organizational structure and comparison. The third chapter is devoted to human rights, along with a related code of ethics and its importance as well as criticism. The fourth chapter refers to the values in social work and the values in the relationships between social workers and clients. The fifth chapter defines the concept of quality of life, human dignity and the related social work. The final chapter about the relationship of man to himself, to the client and the Christian concept of man.