Social Isolation

This report describes a community-building approach to fighting poverty. This approach shares many concepts with policy initiatives such as Consolidated Planning, Empowerment Zones, Enterprise Communities, and Hope VI. The report has four chapters: Community-Building: Emerging as a Key Strategy; Community-Building Steps for Public Housing Authorities; Community-Building Strategies: Examples; and Community-Building Through Partnerships: Examples. The report concludes MORE

This study evaluated Bridges to the Community, a supplemental component to an intensive residential substance abuse treatment program. Bridges uses members of African-American churches as mentors for recovering women. This demonstration project included 118 female participants with primary cocaine dependence who received either standard treatment or Bridges plus standard treatment. Participants in both groups reduced substance MORE

This article looks at self-report health status measures and how they are consistently associated with medical outcomes and are cost-effective. Studies using such measures find that those who live in rural areas or have limited access to support experience poorer health status and poorer outcomes. A survey addressing these issues was administered to 401 HIV-positive persons MORE

This article describes a type of retreat which appears to provide the necessary conditions from which social support can be built and an opportunity for families to reduce their feelings of isolation, anxiety, and helplessness. Moreover, the retreat appears to help increase parents’ coping ability, produce beneficial interpersonal interactions and family socialization, and develop parental authority MORE

This report discusses the issue of youth homelessness, and the lack of relational planning for older foster care children. The author examines the number of youth who are homeless in New York City, and nationwide, and the relationships these youngsters lack as compared to youth who are not homeless. Suggestions are given on how to help MORE

This article presents findings from analyses conducted on the influence of racial/ethnic differences on the demographic and clinical profiles of 2,534 women in the SAMHSA-sponsored Women, Co-Occurring Disorders and Violence Study. Black and Hispanic women demonstrated more disadvantaged economic and social life conditions than White women. After controlling for socioeconomic differences, Hispanic women experienced more criminal MORE

This study illuminates aspects of social life within agencies designed to house homeless adolescents through research conducted at a live-in, emergency youth shelter. The shelter provides physical necessities, safety, life skills, and a consistent social environment through its operation as a quasi-total institution. Social life within the shelter is characterized by constant negotiation of the curricular MORE

This paper examined social network characteristics of 428 homeless and runaway adolescents from small-to moderate-sized cities in four Midwestern states. Recent research on the social support networks of homeless and runaway youth suggest the social networks of runaway youth are made up largely of transient deviant peer relationships. The authors investigated size, homogeneity, and correlates of MORE

This study used data from a national survey to examine the relationship between marginality and criminal victimization among the homeless. The results show that people who are homeless are victimized disproportionately often both in absolute and relative terms (i.e., compared to members of the domiciled population) and that the modal pattern entails multiple forms of victimization. MORE

This study examined predictors of perceived family bonds among homeless young people who initially left home one year earlier. Newly homeless young people aged 12-20 years who had recently left home were recruited in Los Angeles County, United States and Melbourne, Australia and followed longitudinally at 3, 6, and 12 months. These homeless young people varied MORE