Article
Street-Based Social Work Praxis: An “Un-Manual” for Advancing Human Rights and Identifying Social Safety Net Failures With Youth of Color Experiencing Poverty
Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services
(2024)
Abstract
Street-based social work responds to the “social disaster” of U.S. youth of color experiencing
poverty who fall through the cracks of existing social safety nets. Drawing from 17 years of
feedback from youth clients about street-based service provision in university–community
partnerships, the flexible street-based model uses several trauma-focused, strengths-based, and
humanistic modalities to provide youth with a positive childhood experience and support their
self-determination, undergirded by a culturally sensitive accompaniment approach. Street-based
social work can be a transitional justice, human rights–based counterforce to mass criminalization
of youth of color by supporting their efforts at redress. As a translational science approach,
street-based social work yields knowledge about social safety net failures, how policies can be
improved, and effective scaling of evidence-based interventions.
Disciplines
Publication Date
January, 2024
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/10443894231219846
Citation Information
Katherine Tyson McCrea. "Street-Based Social Work Praxis: An “Un-Manual” for Advancing Human Rights and Identifying Social Safety Net Failures With Youth of Color Experiencing Poverty" Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services (2024) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/katherine_mcrea/54/