Enhancing advocacy for individuals in poverty: The role of a poverty simulation training.

Abstract

Psychologists have a responsibility to be advocates for the individuals they serve within public service settings, and there is a need to identify or develop training strategies to support these efforts. Low-income families are a subset of consumers who frequently require services within these settings yet also may face providers who are not optimally supportive. One factor that interferes with providers' ability to engage in empathic, well-informed, and effective advocacy is their underlying attributions about causes of poverty that overemphasize personal responsibility. The current studies examined whether a poverty simulation training would be sufficient to modify participants' poverty attributions. Undergraduate participants in Study 1 (N ϭ 126, Mean age ϭ 21.6, SD ϭ 5.6) were significantly more likely to emphasize external causes of poverty following the simulation. In Study 2, social service providers (N ϭ 98, Mean age ϭ 38.58, SD ϭ 11.56) reported lower internal beliefs following participation in a poverty simulation but did not shift to a predominantly external belief index. The results of these studies demonstrate that causal attributions of poverty within both student and professional samples can be modified by participation in a poverty simulation. Because these attributions have important implications for advocacy work with consumers and efforts to address poverty, the poverty simulation experience has the potential to be an effective training tool that could yield real-world impact.

A poverty simulation to enhance nursing student knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward people living in poverty

“…The Meaux study 16 showed significant improvement in 12 items; the Garrett‐Wright study 17 showed significant improvement in 11 items, with a significant worsening of attitudes toward people living in poverty in four of the 21 items. Still other researchers have experienced great benefit when using the CAPS poverty simulations 18–21 …”

Escaping the Climate Trap: Participation in a Climate-Specific Social Dilemma Simulation Boosts Climate-Protective Motivation and Actions

“…Lastly, it is common for educational simulations in other domains to be evaluated as we have here (i.e., for impacts on the participants post-simulation) [95,96], and it would be advantageous to expand this approach to other environmental simulations. In particular, the other climate-change-related simulations that have been developed, including ones focused on a social dilemma, could be tested in this way.…”

Introduction to the special issue: Advocacy in public service settings.

“…Advocacy for and with individuals who experience poverty has long been a focus of social justice efforts, yet provider misconceptions stemming from inappropriate causal attributions that emphasize individuals’ personal responsibility for their poverty reduce provider empathy and impede advocacy efforts. Engler and coauthors (2020) present a novel poverty simulation training program that reduces individual-level attributions and enhances participants’ understanding of external causes of poverty. Although this pilot does not assess long-term changes resulting from program participation, it demonstrates promise for shifting attributions.…”