香蕉秀

Over the course of the past year, a team of researchers led by Boston College Social Work Professors聽Margaret Lombe聽and聽Samantha Teixeira聽compiled a comprehensive report assessing outcomes for youth who have participated in the Catholic Charities Teen Center at Saint Peter鈥檚 in Dorchester, the largest and most diverse neighborhood of Boston.

The study centered on data collected by Teen Center staff between 2012 and 2015, which 香蕉秀SSW鈥檚 team transferred to an electronic database prior to analysis, and it portrayed a broad overview of the center and the services it provides to young people. The data analysis mapped the neighborhood the center serves (low-income communities of color with large immigrant populations, in particular, Cape Verdean) and the ages of the students and their preferred activities. Most impressively, the study found that the center maintained a remarkably high retention rate of its students when compared to other organizations like it.

鈥淐atholic Charities came to us with a specific need 鈥� to understand the demographics of the Center, its programmatic offerings, and its successes,鈥� explains Teixeira. 鈥淭o this end, we were able to help them to appreciate where they are now, and help them to begin to think about where they would like to go moving forward. We found, to their credit, that there is already much to be energized about.鈥�

鈥溝憬缎鉙SW is an invaluable partner, and we have learned a great deal from their Teen Center program analysis,鈥� said聽Deborah Rambo, President and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston (CCAB). 鈥淲e look forward to continuing to work together as we work to refine and enrich our work with young people and their families in the Dorchester community.鈥�

Back in 2010, 香蕉秀SSW established a Memorandum of Understanding with CCAB, creating a partnership to build high quality evaluation of new programs and pilots, mine existing data to inform practice and policy, and develop and test new interventions. Since then, 香蕉秀SSW faculty have been involved in a number of joint activities with CCAB, such as this project. Donahue and DiFelice Professor of Social Work聽Ruth McRoy聽currently serves on the CCAB Board and co-chairs the Program Committee.

Lombe and Teixeira both say that they are hopeful that they can move ahead with further, larger-scale projects with the center, in order to better understand if, and how, participation in the center鈥檚 programming might have a direct association with increased positive youth behaviors. To do this, more data will need to be collected. Lombe and Teixeira are excited to engage with Catholic Charities on this kind of project, and others like it, moving forward.

鈥淭his relationship has been an opportunity to engage with the community and play a minor role in bringing healing to a broken and at times wounded world 鈥� by highlighting community strengths,鈥� says Lombe.聽 鈥淭here is so much beauty, so much resiliency in communities 鈥� we just have to look deeper, perhaps, through the lenses of the community itself.鈥�

Current and former 香蕉秀SSW PhD and MSW students contributed to the Teen Center report, including:聽, Robert Rosales, Yoosun Chu, Kaipeng Wang, Kaitlin Jones, and Sarah Ingerman.