Matching Items (56)
Description
Male victims of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking have been neglected in research literature, and little is known about the experiences of male victims of sex trafficking and sex trading. This research study aims to explore the experiences of male sex trafficking and sex trading in a large urban southwestern city to identify incidences, available resources, and needed services for male sex traders. Research was conducted at a drop-in center for homeless youth ages 18-24 in a large urban city in the southwest. A total of 13 males between the ages of 18 and 24 were interviewed. The results of this study revealed that male sex trafficking does exist among the homeless youth population, that childhood sexual victimization appears to be a precursor to sex trading later in life, that there are limited resources for males that participate in sex trading, and that more research needs to be done within this population.
ContributorsVan Kleeck, Cynthia (Author) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Thesis advisor) / Risley-Curtiss, Christina (Committee member) / Sheade, Ryan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The literature on hopelessness suggests youth living amid impoverished conditions, social disorganization, and limited resources are more likely to experience increased feelings of hopelessness. Similarly, many of the aforementioned aspects are considered, in some capacity, in the research on gangs. Though a considerable amount of gang literature alludes to the fact that loss of hope may be present, it neither directly addresses it nor references it. This study attempts to converge the present literature on hopelessness among minority youth to minority youth in street gangs. This is done using data obtained from an earlier evaluation of the Mesa Gang Intervention Project, using self-report data from 197 youth, asking questions about socio-demographic information, gang activity, education, employment, crime and delinquency, family and individual crisis, and self-reported detention. Findings implicate a connection exists between gang membership and increased levels of hopelessness. Moreover, results suggest education and self-esteem help to reduce loss of hopelessness.
ContributorsRedner-Vera, Erica N (Author) / Katz, Charles M. (Thesis advisor) / Decker, Scott (Committee member) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
ABSTRACT Research suggests that there are benefits of early intervention and in focusing on mental health for infants and toddlers who have been maltreated. Court Teams for Infants and Toddlers is a model program designed to improve developmental outcomes using a systemic change approach. Multi-system collaboration between the courts, child welfare, health professionals, child advocates, and community partners are promoted to increase awareness and improve outcomes for infants and toddlers who have been removed from their parents. The Court Teams model in Arizona is known as Best for Babies. This study looks at implementation efforts of Best for Babies in two counties, Yavapai and Pima, and the unique perspectives of foster parents and attorneys representing the infants and toddlers while in the foster care system. It is important for purposes of effective program implementation to understand whether the Best for Babies program has impacted how these stakeholders address the unique needs of infants and toddlers. Findings reveal that most foster parents in this study were not familiar with the Best for Babies program; however, many of the comments shared are aligned with the values of the program. For example, all participants commented that collaboration among various stakeholders is necessary. Areas of opportunity were also illustrated in the findings regarding Best for Babies program implementation. For instance, the study found that even those foster parents familiar with the program could not attribute an impact on their care of infants and toddlers specifically to Best for Babies.
ContributorsWhite, Jennifer (Author) / Krysik, Judy (Thesis advisor) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Committee member) / Ayón, Cecilia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The research on female juvenile gang members is limited in scope and research has not yet examined mental health issues in this population. This study examines the case histories of 127 female juvenile gang members who were arrested by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. To add to the limited gender-specific research on female juvenile gang members, data are presented regarding this population's mental health problems, childhood maltreatment, substance abuse problems, age of contact with the juvenile justice system, and other factors salient to female juvenile gang members' prevention, treatment, and intervention needs. Female juvenile gang members who had a mental health diagnosis were significantly more likely to report childhood maltreatment. Female juvenile gang members who were younger at their age of first arrest were significantly more likely to report chronic substance use. Clinical levels of anger-irritability and depression-anxiety were found for approximately half of female juvenile gang members and suicide ideation was found for approximately one fourth. These findings have important implications for practitioners and gender-specific prevention, intervention, and treatment programs targeted specifically for female juvenile gang members.
ContributorsDowning, Leigh Anne (Author) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Thesis advisor) / Anthony, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Jackson, Kelly (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The purpose of this study was to create a screening tool specifically for the identification of sex trafficking victims in the medical setting through the analysis of existing human trafficking screening tool studies geared towards use in the medical setting. Screening questions from these studies were compiled and modified into a survey that was distributed to healthcare professionals through the nationwide HEAL (Health Professional Education, Advocacy, Linkage) Trafficking listserv. Each screening tool study demonstrated benefits and disadvantages that were helpful in the sampling and selection of screening tool questions. The small sample size and a lack of data on the attitudes of medical professionals on sex trafficked victims were noted as limitations to this study. Further implications for this study would include validating the screening tool questions in a medical setting to determine the sensitivity of the survey in identifying patients as possible sex trafficking victims.
ContributorsCatano, Karen Samantha (Co-author) / Byun, Jiwon (Co-author) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Thesis director) / Lee, Maurice (Committee member) / School for the Science of Health Care Delivery (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The term "Children with Special Health Care Needs," often abbreviated as CSHCN, is an umbrella term, encompassing a wide variety of children with a range of health conditions. As of 2011, CSHCN constituted 15-20% of all children age 0-17 in the United States (Bethell et al., 2013). Despite this, CSHCN "account for 80% of all pediatric medical expenses." (Hardy, Vivier, Rivara, & Melzer, 2012). This project specifically compares children with physical disability and behavioral disability in hopes of gaining a greater insight into both groups, assessing/comparing differences, and evaluating whether or not having a co-morbidity has a mediating or contending effect on care coordination.
ContributorsDevineni, Asha (Author) / McCullough, Mac (Thesis director) / Reddy, Swapna (Committee member) / School for the Science of Health Care Delivery (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
The Paradise Valley Family Resource Center (PVFRC) is a not for profit, community based organization funded by First Things First and a part of the Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) in Phoenix, Arizona. The mission of this organization is to connect and strengthen families with children from birth to five years old in the Phoenix valley. The PVFRC longed to be more cognizant of what the needs of the community they serve are, and how they, as an organization, can administer programs of value to the community. Hence, the PVFRC entered a partnership with the Community Action Research Experiences (CARE) program at Arizona State University to develop a research proposal to improve their effectiveness and efficiency at achieving their mission. The purpose of this research project was to identify and evaluate the needs of the families with children ages birth to five within the community, to improve upon existing programs and services or to implement new programs, and to discover more effective modes of awareness and advertisement to the community about the programs and services the PVFRC provides. The main research questions of the experiment included asking participants about what programs and services they need, wish, or want to exist at the PVFRC, what barriers or gaps they see or experience regarding attending the PVFRC, how did participants learn about the PVFRC, and what are the best ways to contact families in their community. The methods of the research included conducting focus group interviews with families who utilize the programs and services at the PVFRC and with early childhood professionals in the Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD), which included social workers and preschool teachers. A total of 25 participants were interviewed (10 families, 6 social workers, and 9 preschool teachers) and responses from the interviews were coded by the researcher. The results of the research was that the PVFRC is meeting many needs and current families are satisfied, participants desire some changes to current programs and services, and the best modes of advertisement and awareness were "word of mouth" and the internet. It was recommended that in order to better achieve their mission, it is advised that the PVFRC make appropriate changes to programs and services as suggested by the participants, connect with mom's or parents groups in the community, collaborate with preschool teachers on the front line, and increase their online presence through the use of social media and their website.
ContributorsHoran, Mary Jensen (Author) / Foster, Stacie (Thesis director) / Brougham, Jennifer (Committee member) / Dumka, Larry (Committee member) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / School for the Science of Health Care Delivery (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Sex trafficking is an issue that is prevalent in the United States, including in Arizona. The Catholic Charities Diversion Program in Phoenix seeks to rehabilitate adults who have been involved in prostitution. The aim of this paper was to test three pilot interventions to address stress experienced by the program clients through three different techniques that were given in workshop format. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Dance Movement Therapy, and yoga and meditation are the three types of stress reduction techniques that have been studied in previous research and were pilot tested with adult sex trafficking victims. The results of the pilot studies and all three techniques reduced levels of stress significantly, and they warrant future testing.
ContributorsSatapathy, Nikita (Co-author) / Khanal, Garima (Co-author) / Somayaji, Vallari (Co-author) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Thesis director) / Graff, Sarah (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Sex trafficking is an issue that is prevalent in the United States, including in Arizona. The Catholic Charities Diversion Program in Phoenix seeks to rehabilitate women who were involved in prostitution. The aim of this paper was to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) through three different techniques, which will be given in the format of workshops. Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Dance Movement Therapy (DMT), and yoga and meditation are the three types of stress reduction techniques that have been studied in previous papers and will be used for sex-trafficked victims. It is important to combat stress and find stress reducing techniques to improve health and quality of life in an individual. This specific section of the study focuses on yoga and meditation therapy and how it helps to reduce stress. The results showed that all three techniques, including yoga and meditation, reduced levels of stress significantly, thereby giving them a tool to use on their own to improve their health, and that they can be further tested in a longitudinal study to examine the reduction of PTSD symptoms over time.
ContributorsSomayaji, Vallari (Co-author) / Khanal, Garima (Co-author) / Satapathy, Nikita (Co-author) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Thesis director) / Graff, Sarah (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Sex trafficking in the United States is an enormous illegal underground business economy that involves the sexual exploitation of many persons. Due to the large nature of the sex trafficking business and the many different types of sex trafficking, it is helpful for social workers, government agencies, and activists to understand the intricacies of the various types of sex trafficking. This research focused on determining the human resources business structures behind pimp businesses that relied on mental coercion of the victim. The data source used, Pimpfeet.com—an online pimp authored blog—provided data from actual pimps on their business practices that were analyzed to determine trends in recruitment and retention. These trends were compared to human resource management theories from business literature to determine to what extent, or if at all, a pimp’s business recruited and retained workers in a way that was similar to how a legal business would, according to human resources strategies. The data extracted from Pimpfeet.com and used in this study consisted of 69 pimp quotes that were put into three recruitment categories and five retention categories based on human resource management literature in order to see which categories were used for recruitment and retention by pimps. This study found that pimp recruitment and retention followed, to some extent, the same models described in the human resource management literature, with slight modifications. This study showed that job embeddedness theory (Holtom, Mitchel and Lee, 2009) was able to explain much of why sex trafficking victims are retained so well by pimps since they are so embedded in the prostitution lifestyle. These findings show the different business techniques that pimps use for recruitment and retention of sex workers and are useful for understanding how a social worker, government entity or an activist can combat these forces to help remove victims from a pimp’s control, or keep victims from getting recruited in the first place. Further areas of research related to this topic were suggested.
ContributorsRivera, Kameron (Co-author) / La Benz, Alexis (Co-author) / Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique (Thesis director) / Corley, Kevin (Committee member) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05