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Homeless mothers: coping and adaptation
Descriptive
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Title
Homeless mothers: coping and adaptation
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Gladstone
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Amy
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Amy Gladstone
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Allison
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Allison Zippay
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Farmer
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Advisory Committee
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Antionette Farmer
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Glasser
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Paul
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Advisory Committee
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Paul Glasser
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internal member
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Heather
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Advisory Committee
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Heather Strange
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outside member
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Rutgers University
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Graduate School - New Brunswick
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theses
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2008
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2008-05
Language
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English
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electronic
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xii, 208 pages
Abstract
As affordable housing resources diminish in cities throughout the country, poor families increasingly join the ranks of the homeless. This study considers the question of whether there is an association between coping ability and adaptation and the conditions of homelessness for homeless mothers.
The research design involves in-person interviews with 80 homeless mothers residing at a shelter for homeless families in New York City. All were on public assistance at the time of the study, had at least one child, and had been at the shelter for no more than 4 months.
The study considers two types of coping, problem-focused, which involves active efforts to address the stressor, and emotion-focused, which involves directing attention away from the stressor through defensive mechanisms such as avoidance. This study asked whether the type of coping, problem-focused or emotion-focused, is associated with the number of times that homeless families relocated, the total amount of time that they were homeless and the number of concurrent stressful life events they faced in the 3 years prior to the study. It also considered whether these three independent variables, number of relocations, duration of homelessness, and number of life events, were associated with adaptation to implicit and explicit shelter expectations.
Results indicate that homeless mothers who relocate four or more times utilize defensive emotion-focused coping strategies more than mothers who relocate three times or less. Additionally, homeless mothers who have experienced 20 or more stressful life events utilize more emotion-focused coping strategies than mothers who experience fewer than 20 stressful life events. Policy makers and clinicians should incorporate the results of this study as well as others documenting the detrimental effects of frequent relocations and numerous stressful life events on the coping capacity of homeless mothers in designing social policy and clinical services for this population.
The research design involves in-person interviews with 80 homeless mothers residing at a shelter for homeless families in New York City. All were on public assistance at the time of the study, had at least one child, and had been at the shelter for no more than 4 months.
The study considers two types of coping, problem-focused, which involves active efforts to address the stressor, and emotion-focused, which involves directing attention away from the stressor through defensive mechanisms such as avoidance. This study asked whether the type of coping, problem-focused or emotion-focused, is associated with the number of times that homeless families relocated, the total amount of time that they were homeless and the number of concurrent stressful life events they faced in the 3 years prior to the study. It also considered whether these three independent variables, number of relocations, duration of homelessness, and number of life events, were associated with adaptation to implicit and explicit shelter expectations.
Results indicate that homeless mothers who relocate four or more times utilize defensive emotion-focused coping strategies more than mothers who relocate three times or less. Additionally, homeless mothers who have experienced 20 or more stressful life events utilize more emotion-focused coping strategies than mothers who experience fewer than 20 stressful life events. Policy makers and clinicians should incorporate the results of this study as well as others documenting the detrimental effects of frequent relocations and numerous stressful life events on the coping capacity of homeless mothers in designing social policy and clinical services for this population.
Note
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Ph.D.
Note
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Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-207).
Subject
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Topic
Social Work
Subject
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Topic
Homeless women
Subject
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Topic
Homeless families
Subject
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Topic
Mothers
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Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.2/rucore10001600001.ETD.17317
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doi:10.7282/T33X8708
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ETD doctoral
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Rights
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Open
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Amy Gladstone
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Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
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