Social Service Review

It's easy to miss important news over winter break--like the fact that the December 2023 issue of SSR is now up on our website!

With 5 original articles, a book review, and Brief Notices listing new books of interest to the field, you don't want to miss it. Click below!

Social Service Review | Vol 97, No 4 Long-lasting, supportive relationships (what we call “enduring relationships”) are important for youths’ transition to adulthood, but these relationships are often ruptured for young people in foster care. We investigate how common enduring relationships are among youth making the transition o...

We are pleased to announce that SSR has awarded the 2024 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize to Jessica Pac, Sophie Collyer, Lawrence Berger, Kirk O'Brien, Elizabeth Parker, Peter Pecora, Whitney Rostad, Jane Waldfogel, and Christopher Wimer for their article “The Effects of Child Poverty Reductions on Child Protective Services Involvement,” which appears in the March 2023 issue. The prize pays tribute to Professor Breul’s career as an educator, administrator, and editor of the Social Service Review (SSR) while on the faculty of the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago.
The Breul Prize is awarded annually for article judged by the editor, after seeking input from the editorial board, to be the best published in SSR in the preceding year. The article, linked at the bottom of this post, is available with open access on our website.

Pac and colleagues’ timely article uses microsimulation methods to show that the implementation of certain policy packages from a recent National Academy of Sciences report, intended to reduce child poverty, could also reduce investigations by child protective services (CPS) by as much as 19.7 percent. Moreover, such policies could particularly improve the lives of Black and Hispanic children, helping to reduce the entrenched racial disparities that plague CPS systems. The SSR editorial board was effusive in its praise of the piece, citing the way the rigor of its methods undergirds its strong argument about how we could substantively improve child well-being in the United States, should we choose to so.

Jessica Pac, PhD, is an assistant professor at the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sophie Collyer is a doctoral student at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at the Columbia University School of Social Work. Lawrence Berger PhD, MSW, is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Kirk O’Brien, PhD, is a research/evaluation consultant with the Georgia Family Connection Partnership. Elizabeth Parker, PhD, is a senior service fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Peter Pecora, PhD, is a professor at the University of Washington School of Social Work. Whitney Rostad, PhD, is a senior public health researcher at the American Institutes for Research. Jane Waldfogel, PhD, is the Compton Foundation Centennial Professor of Social Work for the Prevention of Children’s and Youth Problems at the Columbia University School of Social Work. Christopher Wimer, PhD, directs the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at the Columbia University School of Social Work.

The Effects of Child Poverty Reductions on Child Protective Services Involvement | Social Service Review: Vol 97, No 1 Abstract In this study, we use microsimulation methods to estimate the reduction in child protective services (CPS) involvement resulting from implementation of three of the policy packages from a recent National Academy of Sciences proposal to reduce child poverty, including the introduction of a c...

As our followers have likely noticed, we don't use this page very much these days. From here on out, we plan to announce a handful of updates a year, such as the release of new issues, and the awarding of the annual Bruel Prize.

If you'd like a more active SSR social media experience, we currently maintain accounts on both Twitter (where our handle is ) and BlueSky (where it's .BSky.Social). If you use either platform, we invite you to follow us there. And, of course, you can find our articles on our UChicago Press webpage, and in academic libraries!

Our latest issue is up! You can find the September 2023 issue of Social Service Review at the link below.

We're pleased that this issue has two open-access articles (both dealing with eviction, a crucial social issue), as well as three more articles, two book reviews, and our usual Brief Notices. Please check it out!

Social Service Review | Vol 97, No 3 Policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with a broad array of policies that were intended to prevent housing instability among renters. Eviction moratoriums were an important part of this policy landscape. Recent evidence indicates that these moratori...

We are pleased to announce that the 2023 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize has been awarded to Yoosun Park and Michael Reisch for their article “To ‘Elevate, Humanize, Christianize, Americanize’: Social Work, White Supremacy, and the Americanization Movement, 1880–1930,” which appears in the December 2022 issue. The prize pays tribute to Professor Breul’s career as an educator, administrator, and editor of the Social Service Review (SSR) while on the faculty of the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago. The Breul Prize is awarded annually for the article judged by the editor, after seeking input from the editorial board, to be the best published in SSR in the preceding year.

Park and Reisch’s eye-opening article documents the intertwined stories of racism and Americanization that characterized the field of social work as it was developing. Synthesizing the histories of multiple racialized groups of people, Park and Reisch show how ethnoracial hierarchies forged in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continue to shape the profession’s approach today. This article was selected for the award because of the pioneering nature of its topic and the breadth and depth of the authors’ analysis. Park and Reisch remind us that sometimes the best way to be timely is to look to the past. The article, linked below, is currently free to access.

Yoosun Park, MSW, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice. Michael Reisch, PhD, is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

To “Elevate, Humanize, Christianize, Americanize”: Social Work, White Supremacy, and the Americanization Movement, 1880–1930 | Social Service Review: Vol 96, No 4 Abstract Through close reading of primary sources, we analyzed social work’s role in the Americanization movement, a massive nation-building, nation-defining endeavor that flourished around the turn of the twentieth century. Although social work was a significant force in the rationalization and i...

In our latest issue, Gina M. Samuels, Susanna R. Curry, and Christine Cerven put forward an empirically grounded, multi-level conceptual model of the processes of displacement that lead 4.2 million young people in the US to experience homelessness each year. Building on this model, they "call for critical placemaking as a much-needed, relationally just praxis with young people."

This article is up on our website in open-access format, meaning that anyone can read it for free, regardless of institutional affiliation. Check it out at the link below!

Theorizing a Social Ecology of Displacement: Structural-, Relational-, and Individual-Level Conditions of Homelessness among Young People | Social Service Review: Vol 95, No 4 Abstract 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 a...

We're thrilled to announce that our December 2021 issue (Vol 95, No 4)is now available online!

The issues contains three articles (one of them open-access), a book review, our usual Brief Notices, and more. Click the link below to check it out.

Social Service Review | Vol 95, No 4 Social Service Review Previous issue No AccessEPUBMOBI Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMore 0037-7961 1537-5404The University of Chicago Press01122021December 2021SSR9540010.1086/719711Front MatterSSR202102710.1086/717434Theorizing a Social Ecology of Displacement: Structural-, Re...

SSR is pleased to announce that the 2022 Frank R. Bruel Memorial Prize has been awarded to Aaron Gottlieb and Kalen Flynn.

The prize honors their article, “The Legacy of Slavery and Mass Incarceration: Evidence from Felony Case Outcomes," which is available without a paywall on our website.

Congratulation to Drs. Gottlieb and Flynn!

Social Service Review I am pleased to announce that the 2022 Frank R. Breul Memorial Prize has been awarded to Aaron Gottlieb and Kalen Flynn. Established by the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, the prize pays tribute to Professor Breul’s career as an educator, administrator, and ed...

A Business Insider report on the housing market in recent decades and through the COVID era shows that home ownership is increasingly out of reach for many Americans. BI reports that Black Americans, those without a college degree, and unmarried low-income buyers face particularly steep hurdles. For insight into the latter group, BI draws on work by Michal Grinstein-Weiss and colleagues in our September 2011 issue (https://doi.org/10.1086/662166 ). The authors' findings are of ongoing importance to policy makers seeking to boost home ownership among disadvantaged groups.

https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-us-homebuyer-age-salary-location-budget-housing-crisis-2021-9

Meet the typical American homebuyer, who is middle-aged, lives in the south, and went way over budget for their house In the great housing shortage of 2021, the typical homebuyer had a rough go. They made multiple offers and paid more than they intended.

Did you feel disconnected from SSR while Facebook was down?

If so, this is a great time for a reminder that the journal is now on Twitter, at .

Follow us at the link below!

Social Service Review (@SocServReview) | Twitter The latest Tweets from Social Service Review (). Since 1927, publishing thought-provoking, original research on pressing social issues and social welfare policies, organizations, and practices. Chicago, IL

We're thrilled to announce that our September 2021 issue is now out! With four excellent articles (one of them open-access), two great book reviews, and our list of new and upcoming titles of interest, we're excited to share it. Please check it out!

Social Service Review | Vol 95, No 3 Social Service Review Previous issue No AccessEPUBMOBI Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMore 0037-7961 1537-5404The University of Chicago Press01092021September 2021SSR9530010.1086/717291Front MatterSSR202010010.1086/715928“Making It Work”: Accommodation and Resistance to Feder...

It may be early August, but work continues on the September issue of SSR.

But before it reaches readers, have you had time to check out our June issue? Five excellent articles, as well as an in-depth book review.

Take a look at the link below!

Social Service Review | Vol 95, No 2 This study examines whether infrastructure and processes at polling places vary by the race and income of the community where polls are located and whether voting infrastructure and process are associated with actual voting by registered voters (typically termed “voter turnout”). Data come from ...