Description:

Latin-American immigrant women in public housing are getting ahead through their own initiative, embedded in their self-propelling agency and driven by their frames. They are embedded in efficient populations with plenty of other SPAs who, through their interaction, develop their support and leverage networks to be socially positioned. Bridges that connect them to opportunities aid Latin-American immigrant women who are socially mobile. In the process, they are changing what we know about neighborhood effects and assimilation.  Social workers and other practitioners can help their low-income clients and their communities become efficient in terms of social mobility by the utilization of social network inventories, messages from the Occupy movement, acting as bridges to bring resources across race, class and ethnicity, and providing interventions that help develop self-efficacy.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn how social workers can help immigrants get ahead, improve their status, and contribute productively to this country.

2. Explore ways to assist clients in organizing themselves as members of a group and create social policies that are inclusive of immigrant rights.

3. Develop skills to aid low-income clients and their communities become efficient in terms of social mobility, and provide interventions that help develop self-efficacy.

4. Learn the role of social networks in social mobility.

5. Learn how to develop self-efficacy and critical consciousness.

6. Learn about trauma from domestic violence and its intergenerational effect.  

7. Learn the usefulness of social network inventories.

8. Learn the role of bridges.