The number and diversity of immigrants in cities have increased greatly in recent years. As social workers frequently work with immigrants, this article will focus on the following important topics: legal definitions, origins, employment, and health of immigrants and refugees, as well as micro and macro interventions in social work with this population. Micro interventions such as the culturagram for greater understanding and engagement of immigrant clients, as well as macro issues involving agency structure and government policies and laws will be explored. Advocacy continues to be an important tool for social workers to use especially with current challenging policies.

Background: The role that fathers play in the lives of their families, particularly, the lives of children, is vitally important. Research has found positive associations between father involvement and factors, such as infant cognitive outcomes, children’s school-readiness where levels of mothers’ supportiveness are low, better socioemotional, and academic functioning in children. Black males, many who are fathers, are disproportionately overrepresented within the criminal justice system. High incarceration rates have significant economic and social impacts on families and communities. Objective: This article examines differences in father involvement among Black fathers with criminal records and explores relationships between fathers’ involvement, the amount of time served in jail, fathers’ employment status, and fathers’ education levels. Method: Secondary analysis of the third wave of Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) public-use dataset was used for this article. The FFCW study follows a panel or cohort of 4,700 children born to unwed (3,600) and married (1,100) parents. The Fragile Families study employed a stratified random sample of 75 hospitals across 20 U.S. cities with populations over 200,000. Findings: The results of the analyses found (a) that the time served in jail had no effect on fathers’ involvement, (b) no statistically significant differences in fathers’ involvement based on fathers’ education level, and (c) fathers who were working were more engaged in the lives of their children, as compared to fathers who were not working and under correctional supervision. Conclusion: This article’s exploration of differences and relationships between father involvement and socioeconomic variables among Black fathers with criminal records further demystifies the complexities of fragile family compositions and circumstances while informing future policy, practices, and research.

Substance use disorders continue to have adverse consequences for a significant number of individuals and families. Despite the increasing need for behavioral health clinical social work practitioners trained to effectively work with this population, social work programs continue to lag behind in providing courses, which will adequately address this need. According to the Council of Social Work Education, approximately 4.7% of accredited social work programs had one or more required course offerings related to addressing substance use disorders. The purpose of this article is to address the identified gap by describing the development of a content-specific curriculum related to addressing substance use disorders while also providing a working framework for other Master of Social Work programs to consider.

This qualitative research study explored the perceptions and lived experiences of African American male social work students attending a Historically Black College/University (HBCU). Seven (N = 7) individual interviews and a focus group (N = 4) were collected and data were analyzed using qualitative iterative processes. This inductive analysis generated four broad themes, The Village, Social Justice Warrior, Iwoegbe, and Sankofa. Participant narratives are juxtaposed with values of African American social work pioneers and the contributions of HBCUs to instill pride and resiliency in serving the African American community. Presented in an Afrocentric framework, findings reveal culturally relevant factors in recruiting and retaining African American males to the social work profession. Strength based curriculum and pedagogical strategies that correspond to each theme are offered.