Exploring the Impact and Implications of Residential Mobility: From the Neighborhood to the School

This cross-sectional study examines residential relocation among a cohort of 495 fifth graders in one urban community in the Southeastern U.S. The impact of residential mobility is discussed in relation to student/family outcomes as well as the stressors placed upon schools. Results support previous findings which suggest residential relocation is correlated with academic problems. In addition, highly mobile students are twice as likely to be referred by teachers for disciplinary intervention and families are five times more likely than their residentially stable counterparts to be involved with child protective services. Implications from this study address the need for school systems, including school social workers, to look beyond the classroom to understand and respond to the needs of highly mobile families

Exploring the Impact and Implications of Residential Mobility: From the Neighborhood to the School

This cross-sectional study examines residential relocation among a cohort of 495 fifth graders in one urban community in the Southeastern U.S. The impact of residential mobility is discussed in relation to student/family outcomes as well as the stressors placed upon schools. Results support previous findings which suggest residential relocation is correlated with academic problems. In addition, highly mobile students are twice as likely to be referred by teachers for disciplinary intervention and families are five times more likely than their residentially stable counterparts to be involved with child protective services. Implications from this study address the need for school systems, including school social workers, to look beyond the classroom to understand and respond to the needs of highly mobile families

Anticipating and Adapting to the Future Impacts of Climate Change on the Health, Security and Welfare of Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) Communities in Southeastern USA

Low elevation coastal zones (LECZ) are extensive throughout the southeastern United States. LECZ communities are threatened by inundation from sea level rise, storm surge, wetland degradation, land subsidence, and hydrological flooding. Communication among scientists, stakeholders, policy makers and minority and poor residents must improve. We must predict processes spanning the ecological, physical, social, and health sciences. Communities need to address linkages of (1) human and socioeconomic vulnerabilities; (2) public health and safety; (3) economic concerns; (4) land loss; (5) wetland threats; and (6) coastal inundation. Essential capabilities must include a network to assemble and distribute data and model code to assess risk and its causes, support adaptive management, and improve the resiliency of communities. Better communication of information and understanding among residents and officials is essential. Here we review recent background literature on these matters and offer recommendations for integrating natural and social sciences. We advocate for a cyber-network of scientists, modelers, engineers, educators, and stakeholders from academia, federal state and local agencies, non-governmental organizations, residents, and the private sector. Our vision is to enhance future resilience of LECZ communities by offering approaches to mitigate hazards to human health, safety and welfare and reduce impacts to coastal residents and industries

Engaging Undergraduate Students as Scholars: The Hurricane REU Model

This workshop introduces an innovative student-faculty-community collabora- tive research strategy designed to develop skills of critical inquiry through the context of a real world problem – hurricanes. For the past three years, the University of South Florida has provided a 9-week Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) to study the social aspects of hurricanes – i.e., how individuals, communities and institutions prepare for and recover from hurricanes. Implemented with funding from the National Science Foundation, an engaged group of faculty mentors from anthropology, sociology, geography, education, social work, aging, and public health train students in qualitative and quantitative research methods and provide an intense and substantive research experience examining hurricanes from an interdisciplin- ary social science perspective. Community partners collaborate with the research endeavor by providing training in disaster-related humanitarian intervention skills (e.g., mass care, sheltering, behavioral first aid), and in real- life disaster exercises to immerse the emerging scholars in the field of hazards research. This presentation shares lessons learned in developing, implement- ing, and maintaining a collaborative research experience with undergraduate students. Examples of scholarly work produced by the students will be showcased including technical reports, posters and published manuscripts

Macro-Focused Social Work Dissertations: A Preliminary Look at the Numbers

Dissertation research is an important indicator of practice trends and emerging issues. The social work profession relies on this scholarship to build its knowledge base thus reducing reliance on cognate fields. It is worthwhile to note how many dissertations are being completed and to review the categories being pursued in dissertation products to see if there are trends or questions that are dominating or masking larger issues in the field. Social work dissertations focused on macro scholarship efforts are of particular interest for the purpose of this article. This research investigates two simple, yet important, questions: How many macro-focused social work dissertations have been awarded in the past 10 years? and What was the content area of these works

Evacuation Decision-Making during Hurricane Matthew: An Assessment of the Effects of Social Connections

This study conducted in Florida examines the relationship between an individual’s social connections and their decision to evacuate during a hurricane warning. Using Hurricane Matthew in 2016 as a case study, a survey was conducted on two groups (those who evacuated and those who did not), assessing one’s social connections considering three dimensions: dependability, density, and diversity. These factors, in addition to socioeconomic variables (e.g., age, race, education), were used to better define a picture for what influences evacuation decision-making. To avoid memory decay, the surveys were completed at the time of the evacuation for those who evacuated and immediately after the passage of Matthew for those who did not evacuate. It was concluded, through statistical analyses, that the perceived dependability of a person’s social connections (i.e., their perceived access to resources and support) played a significant role in the decision to evacuate or not, with non-evacuees having more dependable relationships and having a tightknit community they can rely on during a storm event. On the other hand, the density and diversity of peoples’ social connections did not significantly impact the decision to evacuate. This study has important implications for adding to the knowledge base on community-based sustainable disaster preparedness and resilience

Exploring the Role of Social Networks in Hurricane Preparedness Planning: A Study of Public Housing Residents

Situated on the eastern end of the Gulf Coast, Florida is often ground zero for hurricanes and tropical storms 6 months of the year. In 2017 Hurricane Irma made landfall causing widespread destruction in the Florida Keys before impacting the Tampa Bay region. Weather related hazards threaten communities of all types yet little is known about the impact on public housing developments. This exploratory descriptive study engaged adult residents in public housing in Tampa, Florida to understand the role of social networks in preparedness planning and evacuation decision-making. Surveys were conducted to learn about the dependability and diversity of social networks and their value in disaster preparedness. Findings from the study suggest the integration and mobilization of social connections have important consequences for women of color and individuals with disabilities living in public housing. Furthermore, relationships with family, friends and neighbors may influence both disaster preparedness behavior and evacuation decision-making. Although family members living nearby were perceived as a positive social support, the strongest social connections were with neighbors. Results from this exploratory study are intended to assist Public Housing Authority (PHA) leaders and those in local emergency management to consider policies and practices to promote the use of strong social connections in disaster planning and evacuation decision-making. Recommendations include ways to improve communication and influence evacuation behavior to promote safety and reduce loss of life within public housing developments

The Use of Narrative Inquiry in Disaster Research: Listening to Those Who Matter the Most

Disaster research studies the phenomena associated with times of crisis during a period of disaster (Quarantelli, 1997). A disaster is defined as a sudden dreadful event that severely interrupts the functioning of a community or society and causes both material and immaterial losses that might exceed the people’s ability to cope using their own resources (IFRC, 2019). Disaster research examines how natural hazards, humanitarian emergencies and conflicts, technological miscarriage incidents and other fatal hazards affect endanger the lives, environment and wellbeing of an individual, community and nation-states. Disaster research evaluates the plan and the implementation of disaster preparedness, response and recovery actions. Rousseau is contended to be the first person to give a scientific view of natural disasters (Dynes, 2000). He observed and concluded that the fatalities of the 1755 earthquake could have been lessened if the city’s density had been lowered and people had been evacuated straightway after the first tremor had been felt. Although researchers have been studying disasters for more than a century, the scientific analyses have only just been completed, with a very limited amount of writing that discusses disaster research methods (Stalling, 2002). Disaster research has involved numerous researchers from diverse backgrounds and also various research traditions. Still, the most common used method of inquiry since 1920s is qualitative study; with interview-based and case study research flooding the field of research (Phillips, 2002). The United Nations’ Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2020 highlighted the importance of multi hazard and solution-driven disaster research and called for more studies on disaster risk management. Aside from this, the Advancing Skill Creation to Enhance Transformation (ASCENT) project was released with aims to contribute towards this SFDRR goal by reinforcing the research and innovative competences of researchers. Under the sponsorship of the ASCENT project, Lill & Witt (2017) conducted a survey on methodologies of contemporary resilience research. In order to know what research methodologies are commonly used, they analyzed 146 disaster resilience based research in environment research articles from leading disaster journals from 2005 to 2015 and discovered the general research methods used in the research are qualitative (85 articles), quantitative (35 articles), mixed methods (9 articles); most common sources of data collection are literature (67), interviews (43) and questionnaires (32); methodological keywords that help to describe research methods are case studies (60), theoretical or conceptual framework (27) and discussion (22). Tiernan et.al. (2019) analyzed 150 academic papers published from 2012 to 2017 and identified three emerging themes in disaster research which include: socialization of resilience; risk management with an emphasis on public private partnerships as enabling mechanisms; and a nuanced exploration of the concept of adaptive resilience. While Wang et. al. (2019) investigated 55,786 articles with disaster as the topic from the Web of Science Core Collection from 1999 to 2017 and reported that geological environment changes and geologic hazards triggered by earthquakes are the most popular research topic and designing disaster prevention and mitigation strategies is a new popular field of disaster research. Using a smaller scope, disaster research in Indonesia only, Djalante (2018) looked at 744 publications from 1978 until 2017,concluded that the major research stream is on hazards, risks and disaster assessment, and less concerning disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, and the most-frequently reviewed hazards are volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes. Another point Djalante mentioned was that most of the research was published in geography, earth sciences or inter-disciplinary journals on disaster, and less on social science, public administration, emergency management, and political science journals. The technical science of disaster is still the prevalent theme in areas of disaster research, but there is an urgent need to investigate disaster from the perspective of social science and making disaster research becoming more in touch with the human side of disaster. In researching resilience, disaster risk reduction, or disaster education, human experiences are important. Using those experiences, we can gain a better idea of how the events happen, what the people need, or what should be trained and taught to people, so that they are better prepared for the occasions when disasters happen. These experiences need to be organized into meaningful units, it could be a story or a narrative. A narrative acknowledges the social, cultural, physical and emotional impact of disasters from the perspectives of those affected, and potentially convey useful ideas about ways to help build resilience for the affected community and other communities. Zellermayer, (1997) states that people could create narrative descriptions about their experiences for themselves and others, and they also could develop narratives to make sense of the behavior of others. In this presentation, we will share our experiences of using narrative inquiry in our previous disaster research. Narrative inquiry is a term that gathers a both personal and human dimension of experience over time and analyses the relationship between individual experience and cultural context (Clandinin and Connely, 2000). Here, we will review what lesson we learned from using the narrative inquiry method; how data was collected, analyzed, and presented; and how the findings contribute to the area of disaster research. We will also discuss why the voices of the affected population matters. We will present some stories that we have collected and how the stories inform the disaster risk reduction scholars, policy makers, humanitarian agencies and other related parties