Social Work With Homeless Women in Emergency Rooms: A Strengths-Feminist Perspective

Abstract

This article presents a combined strengths-feminist framework for work with homeless women. The framework focuses on the survival skills of homeless women (many of whom are mothers and victims of wife abuse)-resources that emergency room social workers and others who work with homeless women can tap. It contrasts sharply with much of the social work literature on homelessness that focuses on the pathology of persons who are homeless, particularly their mental illness, alcoholism, and drug abuse.

“I Need Help and I Know I Need Help. Why Won’t Nobody Listen to Me?”

“…Even the most cursory review of the psychological and sociological literature on homeless adults reveals a distinct preoccupation among researchers with evidence of pathology within this group (Snow, Anderson, and Koegel 1994). In relation to homeless women, such signs of pathology frequently include: drug use, alcohol abuse, personality disorders, schizophrenia and other delusion-related disorders, suicidality, and violence (Boes and van Wormer 1997). The purpose of such research has largely centered on the measurement of these “signs” within particular sample groups, as well as developing screening, assessment, and intervention tools for service providers and mental health practitioners (Boes and van Wormer 1997).…”

“…In relation to homeless women, such signs of pathology frequently include: drug use, alcohol abuse, personality disorders, schizophrenia and other delusion-related disorders, suicidality, and violence (Boes and van Wormer 1997). The purpose of such research has largely centered on the measurement of these “signs” within particular sample groups, as well as developing screening, assessment, and intervention tools for service providers and mental health practitioners (Boes and van Wormer 1997). While such objectives clearly serve useful functions, implicit throughout much of this body of work are two unexamined assumptions.…”

“…This reframing also sheds necessary light on issues related to mental health service provision and the question of whether, when available, such services adequately meet client needs. Second, to the extent that trauma theory takes a strength-oriented, feminist approach to understanding the individual on not only a personal level, but in relation to the positions they occupy within the larger social environment (Boes and van Wormer 1997), we can see how issues of class, race, and gender operate singly and in combination to create differential access to quality mental health care.…”

“…There is little question that homeless women, as a group, have routinely been found to have high rates of behaviors viewed as pathological (Boes and van Wormer 1997; Tam, Zlotnick, and Bradley 2008). In the present article, we argue that social-scientific perspectives that focus solely on pathology not only stigmatize homeless women, but tend to obscure the root causes of these behaviors.…”

Nongovernmental Organizations

“…Through applying a strengths perspective they represent countless opportunities for social workers to combine the elements of direct clinical work and social action. The strengths perspective, as a new model for social work intervention, has been successfully introduced into individual and family change efforts to address significant social problems such as homelessness (Banerjee, 1997;Boes and van Wormer, 1997;Thrasher and Mowbray, 1995), provide support to families (Early and GlenMaye, 2000;Leon, 1999;McGoldrick et al, 1999) and as a means for promoting culturally sensitive practice (Carter, 1997;van Wormer, 1999;Zuniga, 1997).…”