May 2006 Children, Youth, and Families Interest Group Newsletter

UNIVERSITY OF MICIDGAN CHlLDREN, YOUTH, &FAMILIES INTEREST GROUP

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK

Volume I, Issue I

May 2006

Let Us Know What You Think: •

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Contact the CY&F group at sswcyf@umich.edu Would your agency like to participate in a collaboratory?

Greetings to the social work community dedicated to the well-being of children, youth, and families.

The University of Michigan School of Social Work's Children, Youth, & Families Interest Group (CY&F) is committed to engaging in ongoing dialogue and collaboration with social work practitioners, policymakers, and clientele. We are especially invested in making our research agendas relP.vant to children. youth, and family constituencies.

Inside This Issue:

Welcome Note

2006 Collaboratory The CY&F Group 2 Karen Staller, PhD., JD

Introducing the Children, Youth, and Families Interest Group

To this end, we are launching a three-pronged endeavor. We will engage in a series of collaborative forums or workshops. The "collaboratories" will address cutting edge and controversial topics in service delivery to children and youth in families and society. These collaboratories will be conversations among School of Social

Work faculty, doctoral students, community practitioners, policymakers, and clients. The first of these is described in this newsletter and will focus on runaway youth. Professor Karen Staller and Katie Doyle, CSW, will lead this collaboratory. Our second collaboratory will focus on teen suicide and self-destructive behaviors and will be co-led by Professor Sean Joe and staff from the Children's Center of Detroit.

The Children, Youth, & Families Interest Group's other two endeavors are this newsletter, which we will produce twice a year, and, in the near future, a website that will foster collaboration and information sharing.

We welcome your comments and contributions.

Kathleen Coulborn Faller, Professor of Social Work

Kathleen Coulborn Faller, CY&F Director

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June 2006 Collaboratory Features Ozone House and Dr. Karen Staller Runaway and Homeless Youth Upcoming Event: Dr. Sean Joe Practitioner Profile: Katie Doyle

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A pioneer in runaway and homeless youth services, Ozone House has continued to provide free services to Southeastern Michigan youth and their families.

Established in 1969, Ozone House has been able to expand its available services throughout the years. They currently offer a 24-hour crisis hotline, an emer-

gency youth shelter, a transitional living program, supported independent living services, an LGBTQ support group, and other youth programming.

In spring 2006, Ozone House will open a new Drop-In Center, which will be located in the heart of downtown Ypsilanti.

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Ozone House provides services co runaway and homeless youth and their families.

Page 2

The Children, Youth, & Families Interest Group Front row: Dean Paula Allen-Meares, Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, Susan McDonough Back row: Dale Fitch, Michael Spencer, Liz Gershoff, Trina Shanks, Mary Ruffolo, Robert Ortega (Not pictured: Karen Staller, Debbie Gioia, Michael Reisch, Leslie Hollingsworth, Sandra Danzinger, Doug Davies, Sean Joe, Michael Woolley. Deb Willis)

We look forward t o communit y

agencies and U-M faculty collaborating togethe r t o create and run new programs and services for youth.

June 2006 Collaboratory: Details (continued from p. I) The collaboratory will be held at Trotter House in Ann Arbor. The address is:

1443 Washtenaw Ave Ann Arbor, Ml 481 04 We kindly request that you RSVP to sswcyf@umich.edu if you plan to attend. Refreshments will be provided.

By foot (from the Michi~an Union) Walk down S. University until you are at the corner of S. University and Washtenaw Ave. Go across the street. Take a right and walk approximately one block.

From 1-94 (from Detroi(I Take 1-94 west to the State St. exit (Exit 177). Turn right. Continue on State St. approximately 2 miles.

Take a right on Hill St. Take a left on Washtenaw Ave. Trotter House will be on your right.

Faculty Profile: Professor Karen Staller Karen Staller, PhD, JD, received her education at Cornell Law School and Columbia University School of Social Work where she worked on her dissertation on policy development affecting runaway and homeless youth.

The University of Michigan School of Social Work is located on the university's central campus.

Her scholarship focuses on social problem construction and moral panic as it influences social policy, interdisciplinary legal-social work practice, and the history of social welfare

institutions.

Her studies focus on runaway and homeless youth and other at-risk adolescents. At the University of Michigan School of Social Work, she teaches in the areas of social welfare, child and family policy, and qualitative research methods.

Dr. Staller will be collaborating with Ozone House in June 2006 for the community collaboratory.

SAVE THE DATE

June 26, 2006

I :30-3:00 pm

Volume I, Issue I

Page 3

Runaway and Homeless Youth: The Scope of the Problem?

In 1999, the most recent year we have reliable data, an estimated 1,682,900 children either ran away ("runaways") or were forced to leave their homes ("thrownaways"). Of these, 71 % were determined to be endangered during their runaway episode. Their ages ranged from 7 to 17, with 68% falling in the 15- to 17-year-old age range. Boys and girls leave home in equal numbers, with about 57% non-Hispanic white, 17% non-Hispanic black, and 15% Hispanic. Of these children, 38% traveled fewer than

I0 miles from home and another 54% stayed within I 00 miles. Although the federal definition of a runaway episode requires that a child be away from home without permission overnight, about 58% are gone for one week or less. More troubling are the 22% who are gone from home for 1-6 months.

Data taken from Hammer, Finkelhor, & Sedlak (October 2002). Runaway/thrownaway children: National estimates and characteristics. Retrieved from www.ncjrs.i:ove/html/ ojjdp/nismart/04

The Real Blue is artist Sam Gilliam's representation of social integration and the human conditio n. It can be viewed in the U-M School of Social Work library.

Upcoming Event: Professor Sean Joe Professor Joe's current research, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, fo. cuses on developing fatherfocused, fami ly-based interventions to prevent urban AfricanAmerican adolescent males from engaging in multiple forms of self-destructive behaviors, including suicidal behavior. Dr. Joe co-chairs the Emerging Scholars Interdisciplinary Network's Research Study Group on African-American Suicide. (www.emergingscholars.net)

Dr. Joe received his BA in Africana studies from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, where he also earned his MSW in social welfare. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Joe earned his PhD in social work.

Dr. Joe and his work will be featured in the fall 2006 collaboratory.

If your agency is interested in participating in a collaboratory, please e-mail sswcyf@umich.edu

Katie Doyle, CSW, Associate Director of Ozone House Katie has been at Ozone House since 2000. She received her MSW from the UM-SSW in 1996, where she was a Civitas Fellow focusing on interdisciplinary work in child abuse and neglect.

Ozone House is very involved in public and private partnerships and collaborations in W ashtenaw Co unty. This collaboratory with the UM-SSC marks another method by which we can e nhance our

services to youth and families by engaging with scholars in the field. The research and scholarship deepens our understanding of both our work and also the context within which we offer opportunities, supports, and services to the community.

Ozone House YOllTll â&#x20AC;˘ FAJ<lll" SU<vtrni

Ozone House is located in the he art of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

It was established in 1969.

University of Michigan School of Social Work

UNIVERSITY OF MICIDGAN ClfilDREN, YOUTH, &FAMILIES INTEREST GROUP

University of Michigan School of Social Work 1080 S. University Ave. Ann Arbor, Ml 48109-1106

Phone: 734-764-3309 Fax: 734-936- 1961 sswcyf@umich.edu

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK

Professor Karen Scaller's new book. Runaways: How rhe Sixties Counterculture Shaped Todoy's Practices and Policies, details how agencies such as Ozone House have influenced today's services for children, youth, and families.

University of Michigan School of Social Work The Children, Youth, & Families Interest Group Bringing academic research and community practice together

The University of Michigan Board of Regents

David A. Brandon, Laurence B. Deitch, Olivia P. Maynard, Rebecca McGowan, Andrea Fischer Newman, Andrew C. Richner, S. Martin Taylor, Katherine E. White