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Although prior research finds that poor neighborhood conditions are negatively associated with employment, little study has focused on emerging adults who formerly had contact with the juvenile justice system and are frequently engaged in informal job markets. Using a hybrid model and three waves from panel data with formerly juvenile justice-involved emerging adults (18-24 at T[subscript 1], 20-25 at T[subscript 2], 20-26 at T[subscript 3]) collected in Philadelphia and Phoenix (N = 947), we find an inter-individual increase in the degree of disorder within the neighborhood decreases weeks worked for community jobs (between-effect), whereas an intra-individual increase in neighborhood condition scores increases weeks worked for under-the-table jobs among emerging adults (within-effect). Some time-variant and invariant sociodemographic factors, including perceived opportunity for work, mental health, substance use, gang membership, race, and education, are significantly related to employment. Our findings reiterate justice-involved young people may have difficulty sustaining formal employment partially due to neighborhood conditions.

Objective: Conduct secondary data analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of Massachusetts' Adolescent Outreach Program for Youths in Intensive Foster Care (Outreach) for increasing social support (SS) among enrolled youth. Participants: 194 youth in intensive foster care under the guardianship of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families with a goal of independent living (IL) or long-term substitute care, and born between August 1985 and December 1990 (67% female, 66% White, 27% Hispanic) participated in the study between September 2004 and March 2009. Method: We hypothesized that Outreach compared to services as usual (SAU; control group) would increase participants' SS and that there would be racial/ethnic disparities in SS as a function of the Outreach. Treatment effects were tested using mixed-effect models. Results: Outreach did not increase foster youth's SS, compared to SAU. No racial/ethnic disparities in program effect were detected. Discussion and Applications to Social Work: Providers of IL services should reconsider how best to build and strengthen SS among the foster youth they serve.

Little is known about how the challenges faced by caregivers influence the variation in social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) outcomes of youth placed in kinship versus non-relative foster care. This study examined SEB symptoms among youth in kinship and non-relative foster care settings, hypothesizing that changes in caregiver depression would modify children's change in behavior over time. Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) assessments of 199 children placed with kinship and non-relative foster care providers in a Mid-Atlantic city were conducted at time of placement and 6-12 months post-placement. Linear regression estimated CBCL change scores for youth across placement type and caregiver depression trajectories. Kinship caregivers were more likely to become depressed or remained depressed than non-relative foster caregivers. Youth in kinship care always exhibited better change in SEB outcomes than youth in non-relative foster care, but these positive outcomes were principally observed among families where caregivers demonstrated a reduction in depression over time or were never depressed. Adjusted change scores for non-relative foster care youth were always negative, with the most negative scores among youth whose caregivers became depressed over time. Caregiver well-being may modify the influence of placement setting on SEB outcomes for youth placed into out-of-home care. Findings lend to policy relevance for child welfare systems that seek kinship settings as a panacea to the challenges faced by youth, without allocating resources to address caregiver needs. Keywords Maltreatment * School age children * Maternal depression * Social-emotional problems * Prospective study, Introduction @@ Over 400,000 children in the U.S. were placed in nonrelative foster care or kinship care in 2011 due to maltreatment [1]. Twenty-seven percent of these children were placed [...]

Despite the growing emphasis on evidence-based practice (EBP), Chinese social workers' adoption of EBP has been slow and limited, due partly to the fact that they often hold negative attitudes toward EBP. This study examined factors that account for these negative attitudes, using data collected from social workers in Hong Kong. Regression revealed that females, those less experienced, and social workers in non-governmental organizations endorsed more positive attitudes toward EBP, while those providing youth services had less favorable attitudes. Recent initiatives to promote Chinese social workers' adoption of EBP will be more successful if they target those groups having less favorable attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]