School of Social Work

Research & Special Projects

• Children & Adolescents

• Aging & Gerontology

• Native American Children & Families

• Poverty

• Community Mental Health

• Disability, Diversity, & Universal Access

• International Social Work

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Poverty

Research on the Parents as Scholars Program

• Project Directors: Sandy Butler, Ph.D. & Luisa Deprez, Ph.D. (University of Southern Maine)
• Funded by: National Center on Adult Learning ($5,000)
• Project Timeframe: September 2000-2001

Maine, one of only two states in the country to promulgate a welfare reform strategy that assured welfare recipients access to post-secodnary education, created the Parents as Scholars (PaS) Program. Data from over two hundred comprehensive questionnaires will be analyzed to center questions of inquiry around issues that include the following: What does it "take" for poor women with children to continue post-secondary education? Who can "accomplish" post-secondary education and under what circumstances? What institutional supports are available and essential to poor women's pursuit and successful accomplishment of higher edcuation? What are these women's goals and aspirations?

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Employment and Life Experiences of AFDC/TANF Participants in Maine

• Project Director: Sandy Butler, Ph.D.
• Funded by: University of Maine Faculty Research Funds ($10,000)
• Project Timeframe: Summer 1995 and Summer 1998

In 1995, in collaboration with advocacy organizations in the state, a 20 page survey (The AFDC Parent Survey) was sent to a random sample of all AFDC families in Maine to ascertain information on their lives, employment and welfare receipt histories. Survey results (n=929) were used to change the focus of state welfare debate from one focused on behavior to one focused on the structural barriers facing welfare families. The 1995 survey results informed state welfare policy prior to federal welfare reform in 1996 (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). In 1998 a follow up survey was sent to all those respondents who had given us their names to learn about their lives three years later. These results were also utilized by advocacy organizations to help pass some of the most progressive state welfare laws in the nation after PRWORA.

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