A follow-up outcome evaluation of independent living services for foster care youth

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Independent Living (IL) program targeting foster youths to prepare them for effective adulthood. The study employed a pre-post, two-group comparative research design. The IL group was composed of 49 young adults who participated in the IL or SIL (subsidized IL) program prior to their emancipation from foster care (mean age, 20.6 years). The comparison was made up of 18 young adults who experienced foster care but never participated in the IL or SIL programs (mean age, 20.2 years). Data were collected via a mailed survey that included the Daniel Memorial Independent Living Assessment (DMILA) and an additional questionnaire developed by the researcher. The study also examined: (1) why youth in foster care do not participate in IL programs, (2) how participating youth evaluate IL services and what recommendations they make to improve services, and (3) the internal consistency of the DMILA. Results suggest that the DMILA assessment has mediocre reliability. IL program participation is associated with better educational, employment, income, housing, early parenting-prevention, transportation, anger control, criminal-prevention, and self-evaluation outcomes. However, IL participation is not associated with better social support, perceived parenting competence, substance abuse-prevention, sexual risk-prevention outcomes, increased knowledge in money management skills, job seeking and job maintenance skills, interpersonal skills, or lower depression. Results also suggest that the outreach activities of the IL program may be flawed. IL participants reported the IL program was doing best in educational preparation, criminal involvement prevention, and money management preparation and least well in parenting preparation, housing preparation, employment preparation, and substance abuse prevention. To improve services, youths recommended primarily that IL counselors develop closer relationships with youths, that IL training better address organizational skills, and that monthly subsidy be raised and SIL eligibility requirements softened. The study's political context and limitations are also discussed and implications are derived regarding prevention, intervention, outreach, mentorship, empowerment, cross-systems collaboration, and future research. ^

Carmen de Burgos: La educacion de la mujer y la literatura de viajes como genero narrativo

This study analyzes Carmen de Burgos' European travel literature, and focuses on two themes: education and travel literature as a literary genre. An examination of her travel literature reveals two essential elements related to her view of education. The first is the influence that the European educational system had on her way of thinking, particularly with respect to the idea of tolerance, the practice of hygiene, and the important role of nature in education. The second is the development of her view of education as the foundation for the emancipation of women in Spain. Carmen de Burgos espoused the view that the reform of the Spanish educational system was the primary and foundational goal to further social, political and economic progress of women in Spain at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century. ^ In the second part of this dissertation I support the theory that her travel literature was her main source to convey to Spanish women the need for social change. I do this by analyzing four properties that are considered characteristic of women's travel literature: (1) the woman as a hero, (2) scientific authority of women, (3) feminine style, and (4) feminine content. I argue that Carmen de Burgos's travel literature uses these properties to facilitate her access to women audiences and to assure that this audience regarded her as an authoritative voice. ^