Logic Model for Non-Profit

Jewish Family Services of Greater Dallas is a non-profit program that I have had the pleasure of working with for several years through the United Way campaigns conducted every year through my place of employment. We are able to donate many goods such as baby items and food for mothers who are unable to afford them and we have created birthday bags that includes cake mixes, gift cards, balloons, streamers, cake pans, etc. for children’s upcoming Birthdays.

This program offers support to families through career services, financial services, housing and a food bank. Jewish Family Services also offers various mental health services for families or individuals who may suffering with mental illness. Services are provided to any race, religion, or ethnic background. This program has been around serving the greater Dallas since 1950. Their goal is to provide Social Services based on the needs of the communities.

Social Problem:	People are unable to provide the basic needs for their family due life crisis such as unemployment, low wages, and/or mental illness.
For Whom	Assumptions	Inputs	Activities	Outputs	Outcomes
Anyone in need in the Dallas Fort Worth region	·         Unemployment is a huge issue within the community. ·         Some families are unable to provide basic needs (e.g. food, clothing, etc.) due to low wages. ·         Many people do not know how to manage their finances.	·         Financial Services ·         Employment Services ·         Mental Health Services ·         Social Services	·         Financial workshops ·         Training programs ·         Food Banks ·         Counseling services	Provide lifelong self-sufficiency within a year of seeking services	·         Provide employment ·         Provide Housing Services ·         Families are more financially stable ·         Family have better coping mechanisms

Social Problem

Even though the country is coming out of an economic recession, there is still a growing need for employment opportunities. Many people still are without work and others do not make enough to make ends meet. These individuals are unable to meet the basic requirements for providing for their family like the ability to provide food, shelter, clothing, etc. These individuals are more prone to suffering from mental distress such as depression and some are unable to cope with their day to day lives.  

Who needs services

            Although Jewish Family Services sounds like it focuses on a specific religion, any race, nationality or individual who doesn’t have the ability to pay can seek their services. If you are in need of help financially or mentally, the services they offer may help you.

Assumptions

            This program functions on the assumptions that people are in need of unemployment services, many people struggle with managing their finances and some people struggle with providing food, shelter, clothing and they do not know where to find services to provide these needs.

Inputs

            Jewish Family Services offers Financial Services for individuals who struggle with large amounts of debt. They provide Employment services for people who are unable to maintain or find jobs. Mental Health services are available for families if they are struggling with family problems or if an individual is suffering from their own problems separate from their family. Jewish Family Services also has a food bank for people in need of meals, they provide Birthday bags for people who are unable to afford a Birthday party for their children. They also offer different resources such housing, intervention services, support groups, etc.

Activities

            Different activities that Jewish Family Services implement range from financial workshops, career networking events, job/resume training programs, counseling services such as support groups.

Outputs/Outcomes

            This programs have increased its ability to provide services to the greater Dallas. Previously they only serviced the city of Dallas but now they are able to reach areas such as Plano and Grapevine. They are able to help many families improve their situation within a year’s time.

            Outcome evaluation is very important in determining if a program actual works and if there was a need for the program (Engel & Schutt, 2014). Since we have assumptions of a needs for unemployment services, mental health services, and financial services, etc. an outcome evaluation would be great in determining the community needs before and after the program was implemented. If the unemployment rates began to drop in the city, then the program may have been effective in providing great networking opportunities or great resume writing workshops to cater to that overall need.

            The stakeholders of the program would include local mental health agencies and social workers who provide case management services. Also the stakeholders would include groups such as United Way since programs such as Jewish Family Services work directly through this non-profit organization. If I were creating my own program, I would be interested in employing similar groups to be stakeholders. These stakeholders would be a part of the implementation process. They could offer feedback and guidance on the average amount of people that should be serviced per year in order to be deemed an effective program.

References

Engel, R. J., & Schutt, R. K. (2014). Fundamentals of social work research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Survey at the Health Fair

This health fair assessment survey is determining if people have access to healthcare and if they have encountered any problems or experienced any concerns with receiving healthcare. The researchers will interview participants about the locations they seek healthcare services, the types of services they are seeking and if they encounter any specific problems while seeking these services. The researchers hope to gain a better understanding of different healthcare resources and their availability. They want to know if people have trouble gaining these services and/or the reasons they may experience these issues so they can see if alternate services may be of benefit.

            Conducting an in-person interview can be tricky for some researchers because some participants can question the privacy of the interview when the interviewer is writing down their answers. As long as the interview is performed in a private area, there should be minimal ethical concerns. Some people may find this type of study to be uncomfortable because some of the topics of discussion may be private or controversial to speak about.

Survey Questions

            The questions seem to have specific responses but because there is a category called other to choose from, there could be some variations with the responses. Depending on the type of participants they are getting form this study, there could be some test-retest reliability. If the participants generally have the same education levels, socioeconomic statuses, and possibly similar zip codes, then the results may be similar if this study was conducted again.

            When it comes to face validity, the nature of the questions can cause the questions to be under-reported or downplayed. Since the research questions bring up controversial issues regarding discrimination, some people may choose not mention if they have experienced any type of discrimination. This can cause the questions to be lacking in face validity.

Administration of Questions

            The questionnaire should be administered either through an online questionnaire or pen and pencil. As mentioned before, due to the nature of the questions, some people may choose not to report the concerns or negative experiences they have had while seeking health services. This could be, in part, due to the uncomfortable nature of the questions or they may feel the interviewer will not understand. Some may even think the interviewer could judge to them if they knew they share something that is private to them so they would want their responses to be completely private, even from the interviewer.

Survey Strengths

            The survey gives the researcher an opportunity to fully assess the participants access to healthcare and if they experience any type of issues with receiving service or gaining access by allowing the participants to give another explanation. Most questionnaires give specific answer choices that you must fit your experience into but some people’s experiences could veer away from the answer choices.

            The questionnaire has a good overall appearance. The questions and answers are formatting in a clean manner which allows the interviewer to move easily through the questions. Also the questions are worded in a way that is easy for the interviewer to understand.

Survey Weakness

            The survey has both open ended and closed ended questions because it allows for the other explanation answer. This a weakness because the answers could vary from person to person thus causing the interviewers to see very mixed results.

Assets/Limitations

            The biggest asset of the survey is demographics category. The researchers made sure to set different categories that could affect their results. Age, education, socioeconomic status, race, marital status, employment status and zip code could all effect the results. I can imagine that a person who is single, unemployed, a minority, and living in a zip code that is a predominately low income area may not have adequate access to healthcare or may have negative experiences such as discrimination based on the ability to pay when seeking services.

            The biggest limitation, as mentioned before, is the type of survey being conducted. I believe by conducting an in-person interview, the researchers may not get the results they have hypothesized because people may be too uncomfortable to share their negative concerns or experiences. The interviewee may think that the interviewer does not identify with their experiences due to cultural barriers and may feel less eager to share their negative experiences.

            

Too Blessed Part 2

   The article written by Bryant, Haynes, Greer-Williams and Hartwig, “Too Blessed to be Stressed” is about rural African American males, whom have strong ties in faith based communities, and their perceptions about the experiences they had with depression (2013). The authors strongly believe that faith based communities are better equipped to handle African American men’s depression because most African American’s use prayer as a treatment method for depressive symptoms rather than clinical treatments (Bryant et. al, 2013). Because depression symptoms are usually misdiagnosed in African American men due to cultural differences, the authors used interviews to explain how African American’s view and express their own depression symptoms within their faith based communities in hopes that better methods can be applied to helping them overcome their depression.

            The African American faith based community have a more negative view of depression among their men due to cultural teachings; these men tend to deny experiencing depression because of negative stigmas that surrounds their symptoms (anger, aggression, substance use, impulsive behavior, etc.) (Bryant, Haynes, Greer-Williams and Hartwig, 2013). They truly believe they are more likely to be incarcerated, hospitalized or experience some form of job discrimination (Bryant et. al, 2013). The social issue, research question, social work practice relevance and purpose of the study was conveyed very well. I did not have any issues with the descriptions the authors gave.

            The theoretical framework wasn’t really mentioned due to the article being a qualitative research. The organization of the literature review and the concepts of the nominal definitions and major concepts was clear and easy to follow but there is some literature review that isn’t very current and needs to be updated to reflect current times. Some of the literature review was 10 to 15 years outdated and may not be accurate as statistics can change every 10 years or so.

            The type of study presented in the qualitative article was an exploratory study. The data was then entered into an ethnographic program. There didn’t seem to be any biases and the researchers were trained to deliver the research methods. The coding used tested the validity of each category that was being measured and didn’t seem to present any issues.

Sampling

            The authors used a small sample in this research as convenience sampling was used to get their participants. The author used nonprobability with their sample because they could only get participants who would agree to participate from select churches. The sample selected isn’t very strong because it does not fully represent the rural African American faith based community since it was confined to select churches and members. The lead researcher and community partner recruited individuals through personal contacts in the community (Bryant, Haynes, Greer-Williams and Hartwig, 2013). The authors mentioned their reasoning for getting participants in Northeast Arkansas was due to the 2010 Census showing that the area has the largest African American population (Bryant et. al, 2013). The sample size used included 24 people with 16 being male and 8 being female. Because this research focused on African American males, only people of color were studied but the sample size of women wasn’t equal to the sample size of men. The authors acknowledged that their sample and size used showed limitations within their research. A different strategy for gathering the participants should have been used. First, instead of focusing only on the rural population, the author should have focused on African American’s across the U.S., since the literature review mentions African Americans as a whole and not only those in the rural area. Also, the sample size should have been vaster. Since they decided to use a community leader to recruit participants, they should have recruited more community leaders because this could have given them a larger sample size that represents more the faith based community.

Design

The methodological approach is appropriate for the research question although instead of conducting interviews, surveys could have been just as effective. Surveys are easier to measure than interviews because everyone’s answers vary so drastically. With interviews, a person may not always give a clear cut response as with a survey, the questions and responses are clearly defined. The authors conducted the research in private rooms, restaurants, conference rooms, and churches; following the research they gave everyone a 25-dollar gift card. (Bryant, Haynes, Greer-Williams and Hartwig, 2013).

Each participant comes from different educational backgrounds. Some participants had high school educations while others had as high as graduate degrees. The participants also varied with social economic statuses, from income below the poverty line and as much as over 100,000 dollars a year. The descriptions are relevant to aid in judgment of the situations but it does explain why the study findings slightly varied from what the authors were hoping to find. People of different educational background and social economic status will most likely have differing views.

Conclusions

The results find that many African Americans in rural faith based communities view depression from a social and environmental standpoint and it’s not easily solvable through their faith as many of them deny experiencing symptoms (Bryant, Haynes, Greer-Williams and Hartwig, 2013). The conclusion is directly related to the findings of the research. The authors offer different explanations, based on their results, as to why the findings did not relate to previous studies. The main reason is because the African Americans did not view depression from a symptomatic and clinical standpoint thus making treatment seeking almost obsolete (Bryant, Haynes, Greer-Williams and Hartwig, 2013). The authors did not mention any participants that did not fit their findings. It is assumed that they did not have any outliers. The findings are discussed in terms of their content and method as it focuses only on the results from the interview and the way it was gathered.  

Though the authors mention the limitation with the research sample and size, they do not mention any other limitations. There are other limitations with this research article. As mentioned previously, some of the literature review seems to be outdated and may not be representative of today’s time period. Also, the transcripts do not give much detail about the interview itself. The authors do not reveal what questions were asked and if these same questions were asked of each participant. Very little statistical information is revealed about the findings.

The study doesn’t seem to have any ethical issues as it is current with today’s ethical standards; no trade-offs are made between the different ethical guidelines. They seemed to follow everything from the principle of community-based participatory research ethical guidelines (Bryant, Haynes, Greer-Williams and Hartwig, 2013). The authors made sure to give each participant Human Subjects Protection Training before conducting the research.

Although this research article has its limitations, there are some strengths that contribute to social work evidence-based practice. This article shows a huge disconnect in the African American community with major depressive disorders. Since many individuals in the African American community cannot seem to recognize the symptoms of the disorder from a clinical standpoint, many do not seek treatment and continue to have lifetime suffering. With the information this article has provided, future research can focus on different methods or techniques to reach the African American communities. Educated the African American community on major depressive disorders could be essential to properly diagnosing those who suffer from it. Since there is likely a cultural disconnect with clinical professionals such as social workers and doctors, more training can be implemented in practice in order for them to recognize different symptoms among ethnic cultures.

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References

Bryant, K., Haynes. T., Greer-Williams, N., & Hartwig, S., M. (2013). Too blessed to be stressed: A rural faith community’s views of African American males and depression. Journal of Religion and Health, 53, 796-808. doi: 10.1007/s10943-012-9672-z

What Does "Too Blessed To Be Stressed" Really Measure?

Problem and Research Question

“Too Blessed to be Stressed” is an article by Keneshia Bryant, Tiffany Haynes, Nancy Greer-Williams and Mary S. Hartwig (2013). This article is about African American males in a rural faith based community and their perceived experiences with depression. The question the authors are trying to formulate is; is rural faith communities an effective resource in helping African American males with depressive symptoms? The author explained the problem by suggesting that African American men have higher prevalence of depression than their male counterparts due to many societal factors (e.g. poverty, cultural issues, racial discrimination, etc.) Though the author mentioned there is a problem in the African American community, the percentage of this prevalence was not mentioned.

The basic research question the author is asking is “what evidence-based intervention is appropriate for African American males in rural faith based communities based on their views?” The statistic the author provided was 14.8 million people experience depression but the number of African American males experiencing these symptoms is not given. Because this number is not supplied, it hard to know if depression among African American males is a high problem. Also, the author slightly touches on increasing rates of suicide but doesn’t go into much detail about whether this issue in this community leads to incarcerations, addiction, divorce, etc. The research question is very important to social work as it could lead to evidence based practices that could be effective in treating depression among African American males but more information is still needed to explain why it is important. The author talks about this problem being a major health issue among African American males. I didn’t detect any bias in the research at all because they supported their reasoning with literature reviews.

Literature Review

The literature review listed in this research is relevant to the study. For example, there are articles that measure depression in African American males and articles that speak about religion and heath connections in the church. The literature is logically sequenced and follows a good flow to each topic that is being discussed. During the introduction, the author gives background information about the research topic and follows each point with literature reviews that focus on how depression is perceived and the different symptoms as well as reasoning behind the perceptions. Later in the discussion, the authors talk about their findings for the research and follow it with information that was previously studied and how their findings did not fit the previous research.

          The authors follow a positivist paradigm as they believe if we understand the experiences of African American males in the rural faith community and how they perceive depression, then we can develop interventions that could tackle the health based issue that is faced among these individuals. A feminist view can also be seen in this research because masculinity and gender roles are examined closely. This feminist view was very important to the research as it explained the perception that many African American males are taught “boys don’t cry or show their emotions” thus explains some reasoning why these men are holding in their depression or denying it all together.

          Some of the literature can be seen as outdated and needs to be reexamined because it is 10 to 20 years old. This can have a significant impact on the accuracy of the information presented. Some information could have changed as of today. There does appear to be more recent information included as well.

          It was almost unclear if a theoretical framework is presented in this research because there are many different thoughts and information being presented. The only time I saw a theory being mentioned was when the authors mentioned past researchers wanting certain standard interventions to help African American males who suffer from depression cope by using their faith and prayer. Not much literature review is presented in this theoretical framework. More information to back up this theory needs to be explored. 

          The nominal definitions used in this research was presented by those participating in the study. Depression was defined as either stuck, unable to move or down (Bryant,  Haynes, Greer-Williams & Hartwig, 2013). The author needed to provide more clear cut nominal definition for depression in the study. Another nominal definition used was denial of depression, a clear cut definition was used to show what categorizes as denial. Lastly, masculine roles didn't have a clear cut definition. Though this measure is assumed to be understood by the reader, more information on what gender roles and masculine roles are needed. 

Hypotheses and Measurement

The study presented is exploratory and the study is qualitative. The one hypotheses that appeared to be stated is faith based interventions for depression could possibly form based on different perceptions of faith based African American males. No other clear cut hypotheses were stated as this research was just exploring perceptions of depression within the given population. The independent variable is African American males and the dependent variable is perception of depression experiences. Other variables the author felt was important is age, marital status, education, employment, household income and denomination. The only variable that seemed to be mentioned as a factor in the research is household income as this variable was mentioned as a cause of depressive symptoms. Not very many operational definitions are used for the variables. The ones measured are the three different cohort categories used, the religious categories used, the age range, and the different themes used to measure the categories. It is also mentioned that coding and definitions were used as a standard to test the validity of each category being measured. The variables are measured through self-reporting and questions.

Summary of Critique

The author covers the background information but still has some limitations with this aspect as well. The actual results seem to be problematic. Each theme talks about what is being measured but there are one or two transcripts mentioned per theme and it doesn’t seem to show any further statistics on how many individuals shared these views per cohort. It doesn’t state whether specific questions were asked to each individual in each cohort or was it just simply dialogue.

For future studies, I would suggest the author make the population more representative of a rural faith community as they had a very small sample. Next, since this study focuses on African American Males, make the gender population even or explain if there is a comparison between men and women as this doesn’t seem to mentioned. Also there needs to be more individuals who do not identify as pastors or parishioners in order to back of the claim that faith based interventions may be beneficial. The leaders such as pastors and parishioners are those individuals who would be providing the services.

This article does contribute to research as it gives us an idea of the thought process of faith based African Americans and their experiences with Depression. It does show that there is a strong cultural disconnect with mental illness and those who should seek treatment.

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References

Bryant, K., Haynes. T., Greer-Williams, N., & Hartwig, S., M. (2013). Too blessed to be stressed: A rural faith community’s views of African American males and depression. Journal of Religion and Health, 53, 796-808. doi: 10.1007/s10943-012-9672-z

Are There Errors of Reasoning When Politicking?

Errors of reasoning are found in everyday society. We make assumptions based on generalizations, observations, resistance, illogical thinking, and because someone we respect shares a certain viewpoint. Although we know people are bound to make these assumptions, are there errors of reasoning in politics?

When looking at the Huffington Post which is a major media outlet known for their political blogging. I examined an article, written by Senior Political Reporter Amanda Terkel, 79-Year-Old Congressman Tells Hillary How To Get Young Voters: Rappers, Liquor And Pandora (Terkel, 2016). Getting into the meat of the article, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) believes Hillary Clinton should get votes from the younger demographic by serving alcohol, inviting rappers, and punk rockers to reach the young masses (Terkel, 2016). When reading this statement, I think selective observation. The congressman has an assumption that the young demographics only care about drinking, rappers and punk rockers. He truly believes this will gain Hillary Clinton her votes.

The next article I found, I took a look at CNN Politics. A recent article that has been making public news talks about Donald Trump gaining the black vote because of NBA Player, Dwyane Wade’s recent family tragedy. "Dwayne Wade's cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!" he tweeted, misspelling Wade's first name (Scott & Diamond, 2016). Trump’s statement is a case of illogical reasoning. Just because a person was killed walking her baby, doesn’t mean this will suddenly cause black voters to vote for him. There is no evidence to support his claim. 

What does it mean for those individuals who read these articles and believe these errors of reasoning to be true? Simple! They may be actually missing out on receiving factual information. These errors of reasoning can go unchecked for a long time and eventually sway someone else follow the same path or make the same assumption. 

The first step to changing these errors of reasoning are making sure we fact check. Major leaders can persuade people to take one view over another which could be detrimental when making certain decisions or if you're just wanting to know what is actually going on in the world. Whether it's knowing what drives young voters or sway black voters, I make sure I do my own research to get the facts. Researchers can look for ways to show people that there are many errors of reasoning that we tend to overlook. By explaining what errors of reasoning are to people, they will know how to recognize it in their everyday lives. Many people also  take everything the media offers at face value but knowing the difference between a subjective and objective media outlet can guide you towards getting the facts. 

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Scott, E., & Diamond, J. (28, August 28). Trump links death of Dwyane Wade's cousin to black vote. Retrieved September 4, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/27/politics/donald-trump-dwyane-wade/index.html 

Terkel, A. (2016, September 02). 79-Year-Old Congressman Tells Hillary How To Get Young Voters: Rappers, Liquor And Pandora. Retrieved September 4, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alcee-hastings-young-voters_us_57c9a63ee4b0a22de095c2ae?utm_hp_ref=hillary-clinton