Guest post by Lieke Wissink. Lieke is an anthropologist and philosopher who works at the Youth and Society knowledge center, University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam. She engages in an action-research project with undocumented youths at a day shelter, and carries-out participant observation, group workshops and interviews with residents. This blogpost reflects on feelings of empowerment and precarity as expressed by the shelter members during the Covid-19 pandemic. This post is part of our new themed series on border control and Covid-19.
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OBJECTIVES: To examine the effectiveness of critical time intervention (CTI)-an evidence-based intervention-for abused women transitioning from women's shelters to community living.METHODS: A randomized controlled trial was conducted in nine women's shelters across the Netherlands. 136 women were assigned to CTI (n = 70) or care-as-usual (n = 66). Data were analyzed using intention-to-treat three-level mixed-effects models.RESULTS: Women in the CTI group had significant fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress (secondary outcome) (adjusted mean difference - 7.27, 95% CI - 14.31 to - 0.22) and a significant fourfold reduction in unmet care needs (intermediate outcome) (95% CI 0.06-0.94) compared to women in the care-as-usual group. No differences were found for quality of life (primary outcome), re-abuse, symptoms of depression, psychological distress, self-esteem (secondary outcomes), family support, and social support (intermediate outcomes).CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that CTI is effective in a population of abused women in terms of a reduction of post-traumatic stress symptoms and unmet care needs. Because follow-up ended after the prescribed intervention period, further research is needed to determine the full long-term effects of CTI in this population.
Summary Self-managed shelters claim that participants who have been homeless, are better able to run a shelter than regular providers. Little research has investigated self-managed shelters. In this paper we described the experiences of participants and peer workers with empowerment processes in Je Eigen Stek (Your own place, JES), a self-managed shelter, based on an eight year qualitative responsive evaluation. FindingsWe distinguish three clusters of individual experiences: 1) enthusiastic, 2) moderate to critical, and 3) negative, respectively associated with decreasing engagement with social life in and management of JES. Those not engaged can still benefit materially and from the freedom of choice JES offers, which is generally appreciated. Empowerment provides a useful framework and JES in turn offers new insights into the dialectical nature of empowerment. Empowerment consists of freedom of choice and capacity development and neither should be emphasized over the other. The emphasis in JES is on freedom of choice, which does not automatically lead to developing capacities. Social workers try to balance both aspects of empowerment.Applications Our analysis shows how offering freedom of choice can contribute to empowerment, although social workers need to be aware that participants might opt not to work on capacity development.
