Although the incidence of heroin addiction among women may be rising, knowledge concerning the rates by which use is initiated and terminated remains sparse. In response to this gap, a secondary analysis has been conducted on a sample of Black methadone-maintained addicts. As the individuals included in this study are clearly self-selected, it is not possible to investigate the etiology of their addiction. Hirschi, Matza, Sutherland and Cloward provide the theoretical framework for a descriptive analysis of gender-related differentials. Bivariate and multiple discriminant analysis show significant differences between male and female clients in ties to conventional society, associates cultivated and patterns of drug use. Women in this sample develop stronger ties to the family while men are more likely to participate in the labor force. Men have more extensive criminal histories and are involved in violent and property-related crimes at greater levels than women. However, women report more extensive exposure to heroin use within the family. As anticipated, women in this sample first tried heroin at an older age and have been addicted for a shorter period of time before attempting methadone maintenance. A further series of regression and multiple discriminant analyses identifies several different patterns of experiences, centered around the clients' current living arrangements and labor force participation. These patterns may be suggestive of what can be expected while a client is maintained on methadone. The first pattern identified appears to fit into the framework provided by Hirschi. Men and women not living with family at entry to treatment, in the "fast life", have fewer ties to family and the labor force prior to addiction. They are more involved in crime. Although not indicated in the data, this pattern most likely preceeds an earlier age of addiction. Their socialization is truncated. Further ties to conventional society are not established or cultivated and criminal activity remains extensive. These clients appear to use treatment as a respite from the rigors of "hustling" and purchasing drugs. Once this life is viable again, they leave. A second set of patterns may be closer to Matza's conceptualization of drift, characterized by relatively conventional behavior along with the intermittent commission of deviant acts. Men living with their family attempt to fulfill the traditional role assigned to males, despite the difficulties faced by minority group members living in the inner city. These men have the strongest employment histories and are relatively uninvolved with the criminal justice system, both before and during addiction. They are most successful in treatment. Women who head their households apparently establish a pattern of behavior reminiscent of traditional gender-role expectations. They typically marry prior to addiction, drop out of the labor force and remain relatively removed from crime. These women appear to leave treatment only when another program offers a higher level of maintenance, perhaps due to their limited legal and illegal options. Female clients living with their spouse at entry to treatment are not clearly distinguishable from those living with children, but evidence a few distinctive aspects worth exploring. With one exception, these women have not expanded their families to include children. Their employment history is more extensive, and their marriage more likely to be established after addiction. Their higher levels of heroin use while remaining in treatment may indicate ambivalence. Several theoretical and programmatic implications can be drawn from the findings presented above. (1) The distribution by sex of the lifestyles described suggests that they "fast life" might be less accessible to women. As hypothesized by Cloward and Piven, the manner in which an addiction career is carried out may be molded by widely held expectations associated with gender. (2) While the findings indicate that female clients may have special needs, the similarities among males and females choosing a specific lifestyle could indicate specialized programs might not be the answer. Clearly, female clients in this sample have a greater need for assistance with children and may wish to train for different jobs compared with men. Yet, if program counselors are properly sensitive, these clients may be as well served within a heterosexual environment. The needs of clients in this sample to create and strengthen ties to family and the labor force go beyond sex. Given current fiscal constraints, it might be prudent to strengthen existing programs, especially in the area of vocational training, rather than establish separate facilities.

The global increase in diabetes prevalence undermines public health efforts to eliminate TB globally by increasing TB morbidity and mortality. Emerging research suggests that diabetes has been found to increase likelihood of acquiring TB. However, there remains limited research on the multi-level risk and protective factors that are associated with these co-occurring problems and the long-term TB treatment outcomes for individuals who have both TB and diabetes. Using a matched case control study of 1600 participants in four regions of Kazakhstan, the findings from this dissertation show diabetes prevalence to be higher among those with TB than individuals without TB, at 7% and less than 1%, respectively. Multivariate logistic regressions noted that diabetes was roughly associated with nine times the odds of having both diabetes and TB (OR 8.6; 99% CI 4.13-17.85). Multilevel risk and protective factors significantly associated with both diseases included older age (45 years old and above); being obese (OR 8.19; P-value 0.015); having been to the doctor in the past 12 months (OR 4.80; P-value 0.006); urban residence (OR 3.34; P-value 0.021) and being born in a country other than Kazakhstan or Russia (OR 4.39; P-value 0.032). More importantly, the findings show that diabetes is not associated with unsuccessful TB treatment outcome as other studies have found. In general, the results of the current study point to the need to conduct robust, longitudinal studies that focus on the overlapping risk and protective factors associated with both diseases in order to better understand whether these risk factors are specific to particular settings or generalizable to all settings with high TB burdens.

The concern in human services as to how to provide skilled manpower of sufficient training and in sufficient numbers to meet public demand has been a source of experimentation and controversy over the past decade. In recent years the rapid growth of social and mental health services has provided a multitude of programs and services for both the poor and non-poor. Traditional services of social welfare -- health care, education, housing and employment -- have been increasingly supplemented by new forms of services (e.g., community organization, youth work, recreation, and personal growth therapy), thus vastly expanding the numbers of actual and potential recipients of such services. The changing nature of social services in recent years has stimulated within the helping professions serious discussion over the proper training and utilization of manpower. The new roles and functions that social workers and other professionals are entering into in order to effectively challenge old and new problems have led many in and out of the professions to call for the development of new levels and types of social service workers. A major response to this call has been the development of a new type of worker, the paraprofessional. Known variously as non-professionals, indigenous workers, subprofessionals and the like, this new breed of worker is meant to fill the gap between low level entry positions in the human services and the more specialized components and job tasks in the field. The development of the paraprofessional movement has sparked considerable controversy and study. Attempts to define and identify the precise elements involved in these new middle level positions -- the skill levels and task expectations of such positions -- and the social and political dynamics involved in their creation, have been primary focuses of such debate and study. Issues such as the relationship between paraprofessionals and professionals, the content and nature of paraprofessional training, the establishment of meaningful career ladders, and the relative effectiveness of these new workers have also invoked close scrutiny in the field. To this point, the examination of such generic issues has suffered from considerable imbalance. In recent years, research into paraprofessionalism has tended to concentrate on the recruitment and training aspects. As such, information concerning where paraprofessionals are employed and what they do once in the field is sadly lacking. This is an exploratory study intended to provide such a profile. It is meant to examine paraprofessional human service workers from three graduating classes of the Human Resources Technology program at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon. The study is interested in examining the employment status of these workers, what roles and functions they serve in their agencies, the monetary and career mobility opportunities in those agencies, and the educational status and aspirations of the graduates. The study also intends to examine their personal views and experiences concerning issues of paraprofessionalism, professionalism, and their role as new workers in the human services.

This paper will focus upon the value positions underlying two social work models: the traditional or psychodynamic and that of behavior modification. It is recognized that there are areas in which those two approaches do not seem far removed, e.g., with some neo-behaviorists and/or some ego psychologists. However, to the extent that the lines become very blurred, so does the clarity of position or practice. Like many practitioners who claim to be “eclectic,” it becomes extremely difficult to find out where they are and what they do value at a given point in time. Why do social workers become so caught up in treatment facts? Because they have not clearly defined what they value and where those values lead them. In order to demonstrate that the profession of social work has moved from position to position, this paper will first sketch briefly the early history of social casework. Second, the paper will focus upon some of the basic dangers involved in "borrowing" from the knowledge of other disciplines. Finally, two major practice models, the traditional model and the behavior modification model will be described both in terms of their nature and development and in terms of their conflictual value positions. Social workers need to be cautious not only to identify the values from which they are operating, but also to be certain that their positions are not too narrow or simplistic for the effective dealing with life.

This was a study of traits associated with the choice of social work as a career. Two samples of people from the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon, who had shown an interest in social work, were studied, together with the factors that influenced this interest. The traits and factors considered were substantially those examined by Arnulf M. Pins in Who Chooses Social Work, When and Why? Traits measured by the Pins study of individuals who had gone on to graduate education in social work were held indicative of individuals most likely to become professional social workers. The Pins’ questionnaire was slightly modified for appropriate application to the sample population of 150 taken from the files of Social Work Careers in Oregon, Incorporated, (SWC) and the sample of twenty two Oregon Public Welfare employees attending the Oregon City Orientation Center (OC) in June 1967. Examination of these traits and factors was undertaken to provide information for a more thorough understanding and an evaluation of characteristics associated with consideration of social service as a career, the future evaluation of policy direction and practice for recruitment efforts, the evaluation of potential students by schools of social work, the selection of agency personnel, and the contribution of knowledge in the field of social work about career patterns of nonprofessional and professional social workers. Two general hypotheses guided the comparison of the Oregon samples with the Pins’ findings: the traits of the Oregon samples (SWC and OC) are not significantly different from the Pins' sample, there is no significant difference between the OC and SWC samples with respect to independent variables influencing the time that a career in social work is chosen. Descriptive and statistical inferential tests were used to analyze the data. No significant differences in the OC group and the Pins’ sample of first year graduate students were revealed in the specific traits analyzed, i.e., undergraduate major of social science; previous work experience; time of awareness, consideration, and decision of choice of social work as a career; and the conception of the most important functions of social work. The statistically significant differences between the SWC and the OC/Pins' groups were: 1) a larger number in the SWC group decided earlier on social work as a career, 2) fewer in the SWC group took psychology courses, 3) a greater proportion of the SWC sample chose as their major reasons for considering social work "liking to work with people" and “the important contribution social work makes to individuals and society", 4) the SWC sample was not as predominantly committed to the casework method. Both hypotheses were rejected as a whole, but with important distinctions drawn. It was found that the SWC sample and Pins' sample were significantly different, but that the OC sample and Pins' sample were not significantly different. The conclusions were that the people who contacted SWC appeared to be good prospects for entry into the field of social service at the bachelor's level and the OC sample at the master’s leve1. Generalizations about the social work community or those considering employment in the social work community should be cautiously drawn both because of the complexity of the association of traits and the limited size of the populations studied. The major factors influencing individuals to enter the field of social work were direct work or volunteer experience in social work, college courses or instructors, and acquaintance with social workers. The study would have been enhanced by inclusion of more questions in the questionnaire that measured values and personality traits and by an examination of traits of a sample drawn from the general population.

This thesis examines the factors that influence staff retention and turnover of Australian rural social workers and the process of personal and professional adjustment that they often experience after relocating to commence practice. / Thesis (PhD(SocWk))--University of South Australia, 2001

This research project critically engages with Maori social workers in order to develop an understanding of their practice methods and to ascertain whether they have changed since the 1980's. This will include a particular focus on the influences of the Puao-te-Ata-tu report (1986) on Maori practice methods and the perspectives of Maori social workers within social service organisations. Kaupapa Maori research and Qualitative methods inform this research project. Eight Maori social workers are interviewed and their discourses are examined in relation to the changing cultural, political and economic enviroment in the 1980's. The findings show that Maori social work methods are underpinned by tikanga Maori and that these have not changed significantly since the 1980's. The Puao-te-Ata-tu report was also found to be highly influential to Maori social work in general, however it did not have a direct effect on the practice methods of Maori social workers. The research project concludes with recommendations from both the participants and the researcher. These recommendations lay emphasis on the importance of educational institutions and social service organisations implementing the Puao-te-Ata-tu report and tikanga as a means of improving services for Maori.

Thesis (M. P. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1982. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-164). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio State University, 1982. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-97). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.