Gina Miranda Samuels | University of Chicago (original) (raw)

Papers by Gina Miranda Samuels

Background: Despite contested definitions, trauma is often conceptualized as an event that shocks... more Background: Despite contested definitions, trauma is often conceptualized as an event that shocks or overloads human systems, shaping memory and meanings as the body and mind attempt to cope and survive. Adoption is often the presumed redress for childhood trauma. Thus, few scholars have examined how, or if, some conditions of adoption or the status itself might involve unique traumas or adversities. Objective: In this paper, I argue that the condition of being transracially adopted can represent intersectional minoritized statuses, which in turn activate potentially distinct formations of epistemic trauma-structurally and relationally transmitted harms to a person as a knower and to their capacities for claiming, making sense of, and healing through their lived experiences. Participants and setting: I draw from my personal and professional standpoints as a black, mixedrace, woman who was transracially adopted from public foster care as an infant, became a child welfare caseworker and later, a child welfare scholar. Methods: Using a critical and reflexive autoethnographic method I ask how theories of epistemic injustice might help to highlight conditions tied to the status "transracial adoptee" that distinguish adoption-specific trauma. By reflexively analyzing my experiences in the context of extant theory and research, this paper brings theories of epistemic injustice into conversation with an emic perspective on adoption. Results: In my experience, "transracial adoptee" and "mixed race" operated as statuses that occasioned epistemic injustices. I propose these conditions can become traumatic when they chronically and structurally disenfranchise claiming and cultivating folkways essential to one's healing and resilience across the life course. Conclusions: This paper is a call to invest in advancing epistemologies of adoption and theories of trauma that are anchored within diverse adoption experiences. I also invite future scholarship to explore epistemic injustice in adoption as trauma, and to identify and disrupt the many spaces in which it may be enacted culturally, relationally, familially, and in a society through its laws, policies, practices, and scientific knowledge.

Social Service Review

Every year 4.2 million young people in America experience some form of homelessness. The observat... more Every year 4.2 million young people in America experience some form of homelessness. The observation that homelessness has a complex etiology spanning structural, relational, and individual levels of influence is not novel. However, few studies have empirically demonstrated how conditions across these levels collectively shape a distinct social ecology of homelessness, particularly for youth. Using critical realism and the extended case method, we analyze in-depth interviews with 215 young people. Our findings suggest a social ecology of displacement prior to and during homelessness. Findings complement ecological perspectives on homelessness among youth but support a more dynamic, interdependent, and bidirectional theorizing of its causes and consequences. We propose a conceptual model illustrating these processes and call for critical placemaking as a much-needed, relationally just praxis with young people.

Wellbeing, space and society, 2023

The sixth in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on... more The sixth in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. Across any 12-month period, more than 4.1 million young people ages 13-25 in the U.S. experience some form of homelessness. Why? The nation's ability to end youth homelessness depends on answering that question. By conducting interviews with 215 youth in five distinct counties across the U.S., we can report their insights into the diverse causes and conditions of housing instability. The findings show that young people experience significant adversity, family disruption, and interpersonal trauma both before and during their homelessness. Factors include, but extend far beyond, each youth's individual characteristics. This brief uses findings to suggest revisions within the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program Authorizing Legislation (RHYA). By centering youth voices, we highlight countless missed opportunities to mobilize and strengthen existing services outlined within the RHYA.

Ethnic and Racial Studies, Nov 1, 2009

... al. 20034. Coleman, Hardin LK, Norton, Romana A., Miranda, Gina M. and MCCubbin, Laurie D. 20... more ... al. 20034. Coleman, Hardin LK, Norton, Romana A., Miranda, Gina M. and MCCubbin, Laurie D. 2003. “'An ecological perspective on cultural identity development'”. ... 33. Rockquemore, Kerry A. and Brunsma, David L. 2002a. ...

Social Service Review, Jun 1, 2012

Affilia, Feb 1, 2008

Feminisms and Intersectionality Theory I am new. History made me. My first language was spanglish... more Feminisms and Intersectionality Theory I am new. History made me. My first language was spanglish. I was born at the crossroads and I am whole.

Family Process, Mar 23, 2022

Parental mental health socialization is a process by which parents shape how youth develop and ma... more Parental mental health socialization is a process by which parents shape how youth develop and maintain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors regarding mental health and help‐seeking behaviors. Although culture shapes parental mental health socialization, few studies have examined specific parental socialization practices regarding mental health and help‐seeking, especially as a culturally anchored process. Using a qualitative approach, this study explores youth‐reported parental socialization of mental health within Chinese American families by examining focus group data from 69 Chinese American high school and college students. Findings revealed that youth received parental messages that conveyed culturally anchored conceptualizations of mental health that included stigmatized views of mental illness and perceptions of mental distress as not a legitimate problem. Parents responded to youth distress in culturally consonant ways: by encouraging culturally specific coping methods, dismissing or minimizing distress, or responding with silence. Youth engaged in the active interpretation of parental messages through cultural brokering, bridging the gap between their parents’ messages and mainstream notions of mental health and help‐seeking. Overall, our findings point to the significant role of culture in parental mental health socialization in Chinese American families and the need to integrate culturally specific understandings of mental health into future interventions for Asian American youth.

The third in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on... more The third in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. Missed Opportunities: Pregnant and Parenting Youth Experiencing Homelessness in America details the unique challenges faced by young people experiencing homelessness who are pregnant or parenting. Our findings suggest that many of the nearly 4.2 million adolescents and young adults in America who experience some type of homelessness during a 12-month period are pregnant or young parents. Many of those young parents are homeless with their children, and pregnant and parenting youth experiencing homelessness are a particularly vulnerable population. Supporting these young people and their families is critical to ending homelessness among youth in the U.S.

Family Relations, Jan 22, 2013

The nation's minority population is now over 100 million, so that about one in three U.S. residen... more The nation's minority population is now over 100 million, so that about one in three U.S. residents is a person of color. In the period from 1980 to 2000, the European American population in the United States grew in size by 8%. In this same time period, the African American population increased by 30%, the Latino/Latina populations by 143%, and the American Indian/Alaskan Native populations by 46%. In striking contrast, in this time period the Asian American population in the United States increased by 190%. This transformation of the U.S. population configuration was facilitated by

Child & Family Social Work, Feb 9, 2020

Youth aging out of foster care are at high risk for homelessness. This research explains how and ... more Youth aging out of foster care are at high risk for homelessness. This research explains how and why homelessness occurs among youth with serious mental health struggles after aging out of residential and transitional living programmes. Using a longitudinal constructivist grounded theory design, we analyse 20 in-depth interviews exploring youth's transition experiences and perceptions of transition success within 4 months of emancipation and at 6 and 12 months postemancipation. Monthly 15-min check-ins prevented attrition. A three-phase transition process was observed driven by participant desires and actions to cultivate psychological home through establishing physical home alone away from social networks. Pre-emancipation, the promise of home was privacy and opportunity for self-redefinition. Shortly after emancipation, home became a physical and social space to be, a valuable resource to share and a demonstration of personal transition success. However, later in the year postemancipation, maintaining physical home proves nearly impossible given the risk context. Findings speak to how and why youth aging out appear overly self-reliant upon emancipation. Cultivating a psychological sense of home has practice implications for child welfare providers who aim to prepare youth to live independently postemancipation. K E Y W O R D S aging out, child welfare, homelessness, serious mental health conditions, transition-age youth adulthood theory (Arnett, 2007) to explain their instability. Youth

The author wishes to express gratitude to the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative for initia... more The author wishes to express gratitude to the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative for initiating and supporting this study. Special appreciation is extended to staff and administrators at Jim Casey Foundation's national office and the Opportunity Passport™ grantees that participated in this study. Their assistance and support made this project possible. Special thanks are due to LaShaun Brooks, who served in multiple roles including recruiter, interviewer, and data collection manager. His diligence in coordinating with the Opportunity Passport™ grantees and participants at four sites across the country and his skill in interviewing young people were crucial to this study. The author wishes to note appreciation to Anne Clary and staff for their editing skills and to Chapin Hall for its administrative support and the provision of transcribers for the interview data. Ultimately, this project is indebted to the young adults who agreed to participate in this study and share their opinions and experiences. Their insights and perspectives are the foundation of this project and offer a crucial perspective as the child welfare field continues to examine the development and maintenance of permanent supportive relationships for youth and young adults with foster care histories.

Child Abuse & Neglect, Aug 1, 2022

Social Science Research Network, 2018

<br>Voices of Youth Count (VoYC) is a mixed-methods, multicomponent study that documents th... more <br>Voices of Youth Count (VoYC) is a mixed-methods, multicomponent study that documents the prevalence and incidence rates of homeless youth in the United States, and describes the population’s characteristics, service gaps, and interventions of selected communities. The study uses a definition of youth homelessness that is broader than the definition in use by HUD, and includes both explicit homelessness (i.e. youth living on the street, in shelters, and in transitional housing) and unstably housed youth who are couch surfing or precariously housed. Due in part to the broader definition of homelessness utilized, the study finds that one in 30 youth ages 13-25 experienced some form of homelessness during the previous year. The study also identifies several high-risk homeless youth subpopulations, observes comparable rates of youth homelessness in rural and urban areas, and develops a rigorous methodology for future counts of homeless youth.

Child Abuse & Neglect, 2022

BACKGROUND Despite contested definitions, trauma is often conceptualized as an event that shocks ... more BACKGROUND Despite contested definitions, trauma is often conceptualized as an event that shocks or overloads human systems, shaping memory and meanings as the body and mind attempt to cope and survive. Adoption is often the presumed redress for childhood trauma. Thus, few scholars have examined how, or if, some conditions of adoption or the status itself might involve unique traumas or adversities. OBJECTIVE In this paper, I argue that the condition of being transracially adopted can represent intersectional minoritized statuses, which in turn activate potentially distinct formations of epistemic trauma- structurally and relationally transmitted harms to a person as a knower and to their capacities for claiming, making sense of, and healing through their lived experiences. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING I draw from my personal and professional standpoints as a black, mixed-race, woman who was transracially adopted from public foster care as an infant, became a child welfare caseworker and later, a child welfare scholar. METHODS Using a critical and reflexive autoethnographic method I ask how theories of epistemic injustice might help to highlight conditions tied to the status "transracial adoptee" that distinguish adoption-specific trauma. By reflexively analyzing my experiences in the context of extant theory and research, this paper brings theories of epistemic injustice into conversation with an emic perspective on adoption. RESULTS In my experience, "transracial adoptee" and "mixed race" operated as statuses that occasioned epistemic injustices. I propose these conditions can become traumatic when they chronically and structurally disenfranchise claiming and cultivating folkways essential to one's healing and resilience across the life course. CONCLUSIONS This paper is a call to invest in advancing epistemologies of adoption and theories of trauma that are anchored within diverse adoption experiences. I also invite future scholarship to explore epistemic injustice in adoption as trauma, and to identify and disrupt the many spaces in which it may be enacted culturally, relationally, familially, and in a society through its laws, policies, practices, and scientific knowledge.

Voices of Youth: Alanna's Story Alanna is a 23-year-old woman living in Philadelphia. 1 She was p... more Voices of Youth: Alanna's Story Alanna is a 23-year-old woman living in Philadelphia. 1 She was placed in foster care* at the age of three, along with three siblings, because her mother was using drugs. Alanna and her siblings spent 7 years in foster care. They were initially placed together in a foster home that Alanna described as abusive. According to Alanna, the child welfare agency "did nothing" the first time Alanna reported the abuse. After she reported the abuse a second time, she and her siblings were removed from the foster home and split up. Alanna and a sister were placed with foster parents who were "really nice." Alanna attended the same school during most of her time in foster care, and she was considered a gifted student. At age 10, Alanna was reunited with her parents and siblings. However, her mother, who has schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was physically abusive. Her father worked multiple jobs and was often not present. The child welfare agency did not check on Alanna and her siblings to make sure they were safe, nor was her family offered post-reunification services.* Despite feeling unsafe at home, Alanna was class president, on the track team, in the debate club, and interned at the school district. She decided to leave home at age 16 because her mother put her "on punishment" for a month for no apparent reason. After leaving home, she stayed with a sister who lived in transitional housing and then with an uncle whose home was in foreclosure. Like many young people, she experienced literal homelessness and couch surfed with a friend. Alanna continued to attend high school and do "the stuff that I liked to do" despite not having stable housing. Her internship introduced her to a program that provided youth* experiencing homelessness* with basic resources like food, clothing, and assistance with job preparation and college applications. With the program's help, Alanna successfully applied to and attended Penn State University. However, she experienced housing instability during holidays and summer break when she had to return to Philadelphia. Even after earning her bachelor's degree, Alanna struggled financially and was unable to afford a place of her own. Nevertheless, Alanna appeared to be on track to succeed. Just before we interviewed her, she was offered a full-time, salaried position with the School District of Philadelphia. She had just moved into her own apartment and said she finally felt stable because she would earn enough money to pay her bills and "be able to.. .eat and put clothes on my back." Alanna was also pursuing a master's degree and serving as a mentor to and advocate for other youth experiencing homelessness. * An asterisk indicates that the term is defined in the glossary.

Background: Despite contested definitions, trauma is often conceptualized as an event that shocks... more Background: Despite contested definitions, trauma is often conceptualized as an event that shocks or overloads human systems, shaping memory and meanings as the body and mind attempt to cope and survive. Adoption is often the presumed redress for childhood trauma. Thus, few scholars have examined how, or if, some conditions of adoption or the status itself might involve unique traumas or adversities. Objective: In this paper, I argue that the condition of being transracially adopted can represent intersectional minoritized statuses, which in turn activate potentially distinct formations of epistemic trauma-structurally and relationally transmitted harms to a person as a knower and to their capacities for claiming, making sense of, and healing through their lived experiences. Participants and setting: I draw from my personal and professional standpoints as a black, mixedrace, woman who was transracially adopted from public foster care as an infant, became a child welfare caseworker and later, a child welfare scholar. Methods: Using a critical and reflexive autoethnographic method I ask how theories of epistemic injustice might help to highlight conditions tied to the status "transracial adoptee" that distinguish adoption-specific trauma. By reflexively analyzing my experiences in the context of extant theory and research, this paper brings theories of epistemic injustice into conversation with an emic perspective on adoption. Results: In my experience, "transracial adoptee" and "mixed race" operated as statuses that occasioned epistemic injustices. I propose these conditions can become traumatic when they chronically and structurally disenfranchise claiming and cultivating folkways essential to one's healing and resilience across the life course. Conclusions: This paper is a call to invest in advancing epistemologies of adoption and theories of trauma that are anchored within diverse adoption experiences. I also invite future scholarship to explore epistemic injustice in adoption as trauma, and to identify and disrupt the many spaces in which it may be enacted culturally, relationally, familially, and in a society through its laws, policies, practices, and scientific knowledge.

Social Service Review

Every year 4.2 million young people in America experience some form of homelessness. The observat... more Every year 4.2 million young people in America experience some form of homelessness. The observation that homelessness has a complex etiology spanning structural, relational, and individual levels of influence is not novel. However, few studies have empirically demonstrated how conditions across these levels collectively shape a distinct social ecology of homelessness, particularly for youth. Using critical realism and the extended case method, we analyze in-depth interviews with 215 young people. Our findings suggest a social ecology of displacement prior to and during homelessness. Findings complement ecological perspectives on homelessness among youth but support a more dynamic, interdependent, and bidirectional theorizing of its causes and consequences. We propose a conceptual model illustrating these processes and call for critical placemaking as a much-needed, relationally just praxis with young people.

Wellbeing, space and society, 2023

The sixth in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on... more The sixth in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. Across any 12-month period, more than 4.1 million young people ages 13-25 in the U.S. experience some form of homelessness. Why? The nation&#39;s ability to end youth homelessness depends on answering that question. By conducting interviews with 215 youth in five distinct counties across the U.S., we can report their insights into the diverse causes and conditions of housing instability. The findings show that young people experience significant adversity, family disruption, and interpersonal trauma both before and during their homelessness. Factors include, but extend far beyond, each youth&#39;s individual characteristics. This brief uses findings to suggest revisions within the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program Authorizing Legislation (RHYA). By centering youth voices, we highlight countless missed opportunities to mobilize and strengthen existing services outlined within the RHYA.

Ethnic and Racial Studies, Nov 1, 2009

... al. 20034. Coleman, Hardin LK, Norton, Romana A., Miranda, Gina M. and MCCubbin, Laurie D. 20... more ... al. 20034. Coleman, Hardin LK, Norton, Romana A., Miranda, Gina M. and MCCubbin, Laurie D. 2003. “&amp;#x27;An ecological perspective on cultural identity development&amp;#x27;”. ... 33. Rockquemore, Kerry A. and Brunsma, David L. 2002a. ...

Social Service Review, Jun 1, 2012

Affilia, Feb 1, 2008

Feminisms and Intersectionality Theory I am new. History made me. My first language was spanglish... more Feminisms and Intersectionality Theory I am new. History made me. My first language was spanglish. I was born at the crossroads and I am whole.

Family Process, Mar 23, 2022

Parental mental health socialization is a process by which parents shape how youth develop and ma... more Parental mental health socialization is a process by which parents shape how youth develop and maintain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors regarding mental health and help‐seeking behaviors. Although culture shapes parental mental health socialization, few studies have examined specific parental socialization practices regarding mental health and help‐seeking, especially as a culturally anchored process. Using a qualitative approach, this study explores youth‐reported parental socialization of mental health within Chinese American families by examining focus group data from 69 Chinese American high school and college students. Findings revealed that youth received parental messages that conveyed culturally anchored conceptualizations of mental health that included stigmatized views of mental illness and perceptions of mental distress as not a legitimate problem. Parents responded to youth distress in culturally consonant ways: by encouraging culturally specific coping methods, dismissing or minimizing distress, or responding with silence. Youth engaged in the active interpretation of parental messages through cultural brokering, bridging the gap between their parents’ messages and mainstream notions of mental health and help‐seeking. Overall, our findings point to the significant role of culture in parental mental health socialization in Chinese American families and the need to integrate culturally specific understandings of mental health into future interventions for Asian American youth.

The third in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on... more The third in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. Missed Opportunities: Pregnant and Parenting Youth Experiencing Homelessness in America details the unique challenges faced by young people experiencing homelessness who are pregnant or parenting. Our findings suggest that many of the nearly 4.2 million adolescents and young adults in America who experience some type of homelessness during a 12-month period are pregnant or young parents. Many of those young parents are homeless with their children, and pregnant and parenting youth experiencing homelessness are a particularly vulnerable population. Supporting these young people and their families is critical to ending homelessness among youth in the U.S.

Family Relations, Jan 22, 2013

The nation's minority population is now over 100 million, so that about one in three U.S. residen... more The nation's minority population is now over 100 million, so that about one in three U.S. residents is a person of color. In the period from 1980 to 2000, the European American population in the United States grew in size by 8%. In this same time period, the African American population increased by 30%, the Latino/Latina populations by 143%, and the American Indian/Alaskan Native populations by 46%. In striking contrast, in this time period the Asian American population in the United States increased by 190%. This transformation of the U.S. population configuration was facilitated by

Child & Family Social Work, Feb 9, 2020

Youth aging out of foster care are at high risk for homelessness. This research explains how and ... more Youth aging out of foster care are at high risk for homelessness. This research explains how and why homelessness occurs among youth with serious mental health struggles after aging out of residential and transitional living programmes. Using a longitudinal constructivist grounded theory design, we analyse 20 in-depth interviews exploring youth's transition experiences and perceptions of transition success within 4 months of emancipation and at 6 and 12 months postemancipation. Monthly 15-min check-ins prevented attrition. A three-phase transition process was observed driven by participant desires and actions to cultivate psychological home through establishing physical home alone away from social networks. Pre-emancipation, the promise of home was privacy and opportunity for self-redefinition. Shortly after emancipation, home became a physical and social space to be, a valuable resource to share and a demonstration of personal transition success. However, later in the year postemancipation, maintaining physical home proves nearly impossible given the risk context. Findings speak to how and why youth aging out appear overly self-reliant upon emancipation. Cultivating a psychological sense of home has practice implications for child welfare providers who aim to prepare youth to live independently postemancipation. K E Y W O R D S aging out, child welfare, homelessness, serious mental health conditions, transition-age youth adulthood theory (Arnett, 2007) to explain their instability. Youth

The author wishes to express gratitude to the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative for initia... more The author wishes to express gratitude to the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative for initiating and supporting this study. Special appreciation is extended to staff and administrators at Jim Casey Foundation's national office and the Opportunity Passport™ grantees that participated in this study. Their assistance and support made this project possible. Special thanks are due to LaShaun Brooks, who served in multiple roles including recruiter, interviewer, and data collection manager. His diligence in coordinating with the Opportunity Passport™ grantees and participants at four sites across the country and his skill in interviewing young people were crucial to this study. The author wishes to note appreciation to Anne Clary and staff for their editing skills and to Chapin Hall for its administrative support and the provision of transcribers for the interview data. Ultimately, this project is indebted to the young adults who agreed to participate in this study and share their opinions and experiences. Their insights and perspectives are the foundation of this project and offer a crucial perspective as the child welfare field continues to examine the development and maintenance of permanent supportive relationships for youth and young adults with foster care histories.

Child Abuse & Neglect, Aug 1, 2022

Social Science Research Network, 2018

<br>Voices of Youth Count (VoYC) is a mixed-methods, multicomponent study that documents th... more <br>Voices of Youth Count (VoYC) is a mixed-methods, multicomponent study that documents the prevalence and incidence rates of homeless youth in the United States, and describes the population’s characteristics, service gaps, and interventions of selected communities. The study uses a definition of youth homelessness that is broader than the definition in use by HUD, and includes both explicit homelessness (i.e. youth living on the street, in shelters, and in transitional housing) and unstably housed youth who are couch surfing or precariously housed. Due in part to the broader definition of homelessness utilized, the study finds that one in 30 youth ages 13-25 experienced some form of homelessness during the previous year. The study also identifies several high-risk homeless youth subpopulations, observes comparable rates of youth homelessness in rural and urban areas, and develops a rigorous methodology for future counts of homeless youth.

Child Abuse & Neglect, 2022

BACKGROUND Despite contested definitions, trauma is often conceptualized as an event that shocks ... more BACKGROUND Despite contested definitions, trauma is often conceptualized as an event that shocks or overloads human systems, shaping memory and meanings as the body and mind attempt to cope and survive. Adoption is often the presumed redress for childhood trauma. Thus, few scholars have examined how, or if, some conditions of adoption or the status itself might involve unique traumas or adversities. OBJECTIVE In this paper, I argue that the condition of being transracially adopted can represent intersectional minoritized statuses, which in turn activate potentially distinct formations of epistemic trauma- structurally and relationally transmitted harms to a person as a knower and to their capacities for claiming, making sense of, and healing through their lived experiences. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING I draw from my personal and professional standpoints as a black, mixed-race, woman who was transracially adopted from public foster care as an infant, became a child welfare caseworker and later, a child welfare scholar. METHODS Using a critical and reflexive autoethnographic method I ask how theories of epistemic injustice might help to highlight conditions tied to the status "transracial adoptee" that distinguish adoption-specific trauma. By reflexively analyzing my experiences in the context of extant theory and research, this paper brings theories of epistemic injustice into conversation with an emic perspective on adoption. RESULTS In my experience, "transracial adoptee" and "mixed race" operated as statuses that occasioned epistemic injustices. I propose these conditions can become traumatic when they chronically and structurally disenfranchise claiming and cultivating folkways essential to one's healing and resilience across the life course. CONCLUSIONS This paper is a call to invest in advancing epistemologies of adoption and theories of trauma that are anchored within diverse adoption experiences. I also invite future scholarship to explore epistemic injustice in adoption as trauma, and to identify and disrupt the many spaces in which it may be enacted culturally, relationally, familially, and in a society through its laws, policies, practices, and scientific knowledge.

Voices of Youth: Alanna's Story Alanna is a 23-year-old woman living in Philadelphia. 1 She was p... more Voices of Youth: Alanna's Story Alanna is a 23-year-old woman living in Philadelphia. 1 She was placed in foster care* at the age of three, along with three siblings, because her mother was using drugs. Alanna and her siblings spent 7 years in foster care. They were initially placed together in a foster home that Alanna described as abusive. According to Alanna, the child welfare agency "did nothing" the first time Alanna reported the abuse. After she reported the abuse a second time, she and her siblings were removed from the foster home and split up. Alanna and a sister were placed with foster parents who were "really nice." Alanna attended the same school during most of her time in foster care, and she was considered a gifted student. At age 10, Alanna was reunited with her parents and siblings. However, her mother, who has schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was physically abusive. Her father worked multiple jobs and was often not present. The child welfare agency did not check on Alanna and her siblings to make sure they were safe, nor was her family offered post-reunification services.* Despite feeling unsafe at home, Alanna was class president, on the track team, in the debate club, and interned at the school district. She decided to leave home at age 16 because her mother put her "on punishment" for a month for no apparent reason. After leaving home, she stayed with a sister who lived in transitional housing and then with an uncle whose home was in foreclosure. Like many young people, she experienced literal homelessness and couch surfed with a friend. Alanna continued to attend high school and do "the stuff that I liked to do" despite not having stable housing. Her internship introduced her to a program that provided youth* experiencing homelessness* with basic resources like food, clothing, and assistance with job preparation and college applications. With the program's help, Alanna successfully applied to and attended Penn State University. However, she experienced housing instability during holidays and summer break when she had to return to Philadelphia. Even after earning her bachelor's degree, Alanna struggled financially and was unable to afford a place of her own. Nevertheless, Alanna appeared to be on track to succeed. Just before we interviewed her, she was offered a full-time, salaried position with the School District of Philadelphia. She had just moved into her own apartment and said she finally felt stable because she would earn enough money to pay her bills and "be able to.. .eat and put clothes on my back." Alanna was also pursuing a master's degree and serving as a mentor to and advocate for other youth experiencing homelessness. * An asterisk indicates that the term is defined in the glossary.

Methodological Bigotry, 2024

I am writing a paper and this is the info graphic accompanying it.

I am a transracial adoptee who has spent my professional life working with and conducting researc... more I am a transracial adoptee who has spent my professional life working with and conducting research on the experiences of multiracial families and families created by transracial adoption. These guidelines offer suggestions for adults raising children in multiracial families, with special considerations for families that include transracial adoptees. Transracial adoption is a unique context in which children learn about race, ethnicity and culture, and has important implications for how parents can support their children, within and beyond families, to develop healthy racial identities.