Jordan Institute for Families



		What's New?
		The Results are in and it's a Win-Win A report prepared by Adam Walsh, Dean Duncan, Laurie Selz-Campbell, and Jennifer Vaughn of the Jordan Institute for Families, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work indicates a win-win for a community and for homeless participants in a four-year study of expenses and behaviors at Lennox Chase, a supportive housing development that opened in southeast Raleigh in 2003. To see a press release issued by the Governor's office about the report, please click here. To see a copy of the report, please click here. Proceedings 2007 On June 19-21, the 2007 conference on Connecting Marriage Research to Practice was held in Chapel Hill, NC. Sponsored by the African American Healthy Marriage Initiative, US DHHS, Administration for Children and Families, UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work, Jordan Institute for Families and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the conference brought together researchers and practitioners to understand current research on healthy marriages and to build a future research agenda. For more information, Click here. On the Small Screen UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work faculty member Gary Shaffer was interviewed by Winston-Salem’s WXII reporter Bill O’Neil recently in a segment called “Spare the Rod.” The segment about corporal punishment in North Carolina schools can be viewed at the WXII site linked here. here. Save the Date On June 19-21, the 2007 conference on Connecting Marriage Research to Practice will be held in Chapel Hill, NC. Sponsored by the African American Healthy Marriage Initiative, US DHHS, Administration for Children and Families, UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work, Jordan Institute for Families and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the conference will bring together researchers and practitioners to understand current research on healthy marriages and to build a future research agenda. For more information, Click here. Conference Proceedings Scholars, practitioners, faith- and community-based organizations, and healthy marriage coalitions came together to explore emerging research on the African American family experience, and to discuss the implications of the research for sustaining and strengthening African American families and marriages. To see the full conference proceedings including videos of Welcome and Plenary sessions, please click here. Jordan Institute co-sponsors a national conference "Each year, an estimated 600,000–800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked against their will across international borders, 14,500–17,500 of whom are trafficked into the United States."—US State Department 2005 Trafficking Report .....Approximately 80 percent of these persons are women and girls and 50 percent are minors. The majority of these transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. .....The Carolina Women's Center, the Jordan Institute for Families, the School of Social Work, and other partners, will sponsor a national conference entitled, Sexual Trafficking: Breaking the Crisis of Silence, on April 7–8, 2006. For more information, please go to the conference page of the Women's Center site. For a pdf of the conference brochure, please click here. The 2006 NIH Summer Institute is coming to Chapel Hill Entitled the Design and Development of Quantitative Research on Social Work Interventions in Health, the Institute will host 25 faculty participants from around the US through the Jordan Institute at the UNC School of Social Work. Read more about the Institute and find out how to apply by clicking here. Jordan Institute Project Documents Increase in Food Stamp Use School of Social Work faculty member Dean Duncan was interviewed for this Greensboro newspaper account of the rise in food stamp use among Guildford County residents, a trend throughout the country as the working poor are increasingly unable to meet basic needs with paychecks alone. Duncan and his research staff, Kim Flair and Hye-Chung Kum, are tracking the ballooning food stamp caseloads in North Carolina through a project funded by the NC Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Social Services. For more information, click here. Women in prison How do incarcerated women move from victimization and rage to self-empowerment and reflection? By participating in the Jordan Institute's newest affiliate—the North Carolina Women's Prison Writing and Performance Project. Through writing and performance workshops, incarcerated women learn to chronicle their demons and perform their raw stories. Next performance of "From the Inside Out" will be March 18th at 8:00 pm, The Barn at Fearrington Village. For more informations please go to http://www.unc.edu/~cramer/prison/ Interdependent Living Curriculum Youth Talked...We listened. More than 700 youth in foster care told us what they needed to successfully transition to adulthood. The result: The Interdependent Living Curriculum, a series of eight interactive half-day trainings that focuses on youth development needs and facilitates the active participation of youth in planning their future. Funded by the Children's Bureau and produced under the guidelines of the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, the curriculum is adaptable to multiple audiences, including, child welfare practitioners, independent living staff, foster parents, and social work students. Click here for the entire curriculum and here for ordering information about the accompanying video and other curricula products. The Center for State Foster Care and Adoption Data Learn about the new Center for State Foster Care and Adoption Data, which provides state agencies with a national database to assess the impact of their program initiatives over time. For more information, visit <http://csfcad.chapinhall.org/index.html> A Vision for Strong Families The Jordan Institute has released their Annual Report for 2002-2003. Highlighting more than 30 projects—funded by state and federal agencies and private foundations—the Report describes the Jordan Institute’s philosophy of engaging families and communities in the search for answers. To read the Report, click here. Strong Couples…Strong Children The Jordan Institute for Families at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services present a workshop on supporting children through building stronger couple relationships in low-income families. For more information and registration please click here. To look at the agenda for this workshop please click here. Gateway to Family Connections 2004 The 10th Annual National Multiple Family Group Therapy Conference will be held at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work on March 11 & 12, 2004. Sponsored by the Jordan Institute for Families, the National Association for Multiple Family Group Therapy, and the School of Social Work, the conference will focus on skills for working with multiple family groups. To read program and registration information, click here. Faculty News Shared family care—a program that involves placing whole families into foster care—was recently featured in Time. Rick Barth helped develop the approach in 1991. To read the story, click here. New Prison Program Has HEART Life in the "Big House" just got a lot homier for sixteen girls at Samarkand Youth Development Center. After years of drab facilities and punitive management, the girls-only correctional facility got a facelift and is trying a new approach: HEART. Amelia Roberts and Ray Kirk were instrumental in the development of HEART—Holistic Enrichment of At-Risk Teens. Read a recent News and Observer article about the project by clicking here. And We're Live The shelves in the library are bulging. The community center is buzzing with activity. And government hall is packed with state and federal agencies. Yes, the Virtual Resource Community is live. Organized as a village of virtual buildings, the VRC was created by the Jordan Institute to be a place where social workers, scholars, policy makers, families, and other interested individuals can find and exchange information about the latest research and policies affecting families. To visit the VRC, click below. Virtual Resource Community To MARS and beyond! The work of the Jordan Institute is going to new heights ?all the way to MARS. An acronym for Methods and Analysis Research Seminars, MARS is a new monthly series of the Jordan Institute. Faculty and doctoral students interested in learning about advanced methodologies for research are encouraged to attend. To see MARS' schedule, click here. On the road of life... For many North Carolinians, self-sufficiency seems unattainable. To help these struggling families, North Carolina funded 37 projects in 1999—The Work First Demonstration Pilot Projects. In their two years of operation, Dean Duncan helped select, support, and evaluate these projects. To read his final report, click here. In the courtroom, in the classroom, and on the air. . . The Supreme Court recently gave the legal green light to school vouchers. But is this "magic silver bullet" a cure-all for the educational ills of low income and ethnic minority children? Walter Farrell--jointly appointed to the School of Social Work and the Kenan Flagler Business School--recently sounded off on National Public Radio's The Connection. To hear the program, click here. And the debate continues. . . Evidence about the use of group care versus foster care has been gathered and debated for more than a century. Rick Barth brings new evidence to the debate in his recent report?em>Institutions vs. Foster Homes: The Empirical Base for a Century of Action. To read Barth’s report, click here. To read a review of the report by the US Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families, click here. In the news. . . The fiscal boom of the 1990s helped more Carolinians save money, buy new houses and send their children to college...."Those wages are hard to get back once you lose them," said Dennis Orthner. "Those aren't jobs you're likely to replace easily." To read this article in its entirety please click on: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/3349330.htm In the news. . . Working with the North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (DJJDP) and the North Carolina Governor's Crime Commission, a Jordan Institute project has developed a new interactive website that provides current information regarding levels of risks for juvenile delinquency in every county of North Carolina. Mark Fraser and Steve Day created the site which is accessible at http://www.unc.edu/ncjcp/ One for the scrapbook. . . What is the color of child welfare policy? Ask Nancy Dickinson (left), Executive Director of the Jordan Institute for Families, or Lynette Aytch (right) of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center. They can both tell you after listening to University of Texas Professor Ruth McRoy's recent lecture. http://ssw.unc.edu/jif/events/lecture2002.htm Hats off. . . Congratulations to Mimi Chapman and Paul Smokowski for each winning a Junior Faculty Development Award. Chapman's award will help fund a collaborative project with Krista Perreira of the Department of Public Policy to study the mental health needs of Latino adolescents in the context of immigration. Smokowski will use his award to study the ways Latino and African-American families adjust to their environments. Worth a round of applause Sheryl Zimmerman, Associate Professor of Social Work and Public Health and Co-Director of the Sheps Center's Program on Aging, Disability and Long-Term Care, has been awarded a five-year grant by the National Institute on Aging. Zimmerman will use this grant to continue researching assisted living and long-term care. Reporting from the field. . . “Poor family strength assets are related to significant family problems,? according to Income and Family Strength in North Carolina, a report by Dennis Orthner, Hinkley Jones-Sanpei, and George Cole. To read more or download the report please click here.

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