Research Design Alignment Table

Title

Social Work Training in the Identification of Human Trafficking Victims.

Supporting Literature

The first step in developing your prospectus is to search the literature related to the general area you want to investigate (see social problem below). In your review of recent, empirical literature, what keywords did you search and in what databases?

The keywords and databases searched included Key Word Used; Evaluation, Social work, Human Justice, Human Rights, Protection, Roadblocks, Education, and human trafficking. To conduct a comprehensive review of the literature associated with the study, multiple searches of the literature using Google was performed and EBSCOhost® search engines. In particular, and within the EBSCOhost search engine, the following databases were searched: Research gate, Academic Search, Elite, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, ERIC, and PsycEXTRA.2

Provide at least 10 brief summaries of recent, scholarly (peer-reviewed) articles that support/justify a current and relevant problem in your discipline or professional field. Source(s) supporting your framework should be included. Include the complete, APA reference entry, followed by (a) an in-text citation; (b) what was studied; (c) what was found; and (d) why this research is important in relation to your study. This evidence provides the justification for your research problem.

1. Beck, M. E., Lineer, M. M., Melzer-Lange, M., Simpson, P., Nugent, M., & Rabbitt, A. (2015). Medical providers' understanding of sex trafficking and their experience with at-risk patients. Pediatrics, 135(4), e895-e902.

This study addresses the biggest barrier to clarity about the scope of youth sex trafficking in the United States. In this study, victims are often misidentified or not identified at all by Workers who work with youths. Many social workers are not prepared to encounter victims because these social workers either do not know the warning signs of trafficking or are not actively looking for them among the youths they serve.

2. Chester, Stephanie E., "Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking and Social Work Practice" (2017). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 3597.

https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3597

This article studies domestic sex trafficking in minors and the impact of social work practice in alleviating it. It finds that social work does not have the right identification tools and specialized services for this population (Chester, 2017). This study will be useful in identifying the areas of weakness in social work training, and therefore, will help in supporting my argument for my research problem.

3. Davy, D. (2015). Understanding the support needs of human-trafficking victims: A review of three human-trafficking program evaluations. Journal of Human Trafficking, 1(4), 318-337. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2015.1090865

This article studies the consequences the victims of human trafficking may suffer as they are often subjected to a range of abuse such as physical, psychological, and emotional torture. The study finds that, there is a dearth of contemporary literature on the subject of the support needs of human-trafficking victims. Further, due to a lack of publicly available program evaluations, little is also known about whether victim support programs are able to meet the needs of human-trafficking victims. This article aims to bridge a gap in knowledge and understanding of human-trafficking victims’ support needs and whether they are being met by support programs by reviewing three recent U.S.-based human-trafficking victim support program evaluations.

4. Edwards, L.,& Mika, K. (2016). Advancing the efforts of the macro-level social work response against sex trafficking. International Social Work, 60(3). doi:10.1177/0020872815617992.

This article studies the formulation of sex trafficking in social work using research, concept and policy (Edwards & Mika, 2016). The study finds that there are hypothesized functions of social workers, which are based on literature. They also find that these professionals lack in the area of communication skills when dealing with victims of sex workers of forced migration.

5. Finigan-Carr, N., Johnson, M., Pullmann, M., Stewart, C. & Fromknecht, A. (2019). A Traumagenic Social Ecological Framework for Understanding and Intervening with Sex Trafficked Children and Youth. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal. 36(2). doi:10.1007/s10560-018-0588-7.

Finigan-Carr et al. (2019) study child trafficking and the need for a theoretical framework that can direct and provide interventions to this matter. They find that sex trafficking of kids has grown and argue for the need to create awareness of this matter in the community. This issue leads to homelessness in many youths. They therefore, argue the need for the expansion of social welfare programs as well as implement legislative and policy changes. This study takes a different approach that gives an interesting perspective to my research problem.

6. Gibbons, P., & Stoklosa, H. (2016). Identification and treatment of human trafficking victims in the emergency department: a case report. The Journal of emergency medicine, 50(5), 715-719.

This article studies the identification and treatment of human trafficking victims in the emergency department. The study also found that human trafficking victims experience extreme exploitation and have unique health needs, yet go undetected by physicians and providers in the emergency department. The study finds that during the course of their exploitation, many human trafficking victims report of kidnapping and rape, and emergency personnel provide limited opportunities to intervene in the human trafficking circle of exploitation.

Gonzalez, N. (2016). The Other Side of Human Trafficking: Effectively advocating for Survivors under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Seattle Journal of Social Justice, 14(3), 839–873. Link

This study will focus on the primary level of the demand and the primary actors in creating the demand for victims - the men who purchase sex acts.5 When the focus shifts to the primary level of the demand, there is no evidence that men distinguish between women and children who are victims of trafficking and those who are not. For a woman to be considered a victim of sex trafficking by most legal criteria, she must perform the commercial sex acts as a result of force, fraud, or coercion.

This study will also describe efforts to address the demand side of sex trafficking. It will define the demand and describe its different components. It will describe laws, policies, and programs aimed at reducing the demand for prostitution in communities and entire countries. It includes a review of research on men’s behavior and attitudes towards prostitution and researchers’ analyses of men’s behavior and motives to purchase sex acts

7. Howard, Latasha Eleanor, "SOCIAL WORKER AWARNESS OF SEX TRAFFICKING VICTIMS" (2015).

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations. 204.

https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/204

This article discusses the barriers social workers face when identifying sex trafficking victims for intervention. Howard (2015) cites the challenge as being that these individuals are a part of the masked population, mostly because they are represented as prostitutes rather than victims of sex trafficking. The research finds that these victims often come from vulnerable populations and their lack of understanding and awareness of their rights and not identifying themselves as victims interferes with the ability of social workers in identifying them. Social workers also struggle with limited awareness on sexual trafficking and therefore, the need to integrate their education and trainings in this area. This study will help me show the underlying knowledge gap separating victims of sex trafficking and social workers.

8. Okech, D., Choi, Y. J., Elkins, J. & Burns, A. (2017). Seventeen years of human trafficking research in social work: A review of the literature. Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work, 15. 1-20. doi:10.1080/23761407.2017.1415177.

Okech et al. (2017) examine the issue of human trafficking going on around the world and find it appalling since it is violence social justice. It is for that reason that go out to search for literature studies about social work in relation this topic. They find that indeed there is literature covering human trafficking, but discover a gap where social workers struggle with identifying these victims. There is also an issue in the policies used for punishing the crooks and protecting the victims. This study will help me build an argument for my research problem.

9. Papouli, E., & Lampidis, A. (2019). Human trafficking as a global illegal and unethical business practice: an overview of the phenomenon and the role of social work. Researchgate, 59-61.

This article studies human trafficking and the responsibility of social workers in every country in the world. It finds that this problem often hits the most vulnerable in society. Social workers all over the world consider human trafficking as a social problem. However, the issue is that social workers are not properly trained to handle such cases as they do not know how to identify or treat these individuals (Papouli & Lampidis, 2019). This study augments the training issue in social workers concerning human trafficking and will make a good source to support my justification for my research problem.

10. Warria, A., & Chadambuka, C. (2018). Social norms and child trafficking: A springboard for social workers to facilitate community-based child protection interventions. Researchgate, 16-19

This article examines how social norms endanger child safety and how social work provides a way out. The authors find that cultural practices play a huge part in encouraging child trafficking (Warria & Chadambuka, 2018). They argue that a social worker’s job is to walk with such as community and using research- based approaches to provide solutions. They therefore, argue the need for the social worker to understand the culture in order to apply the right helpful theory. This study will help me understand the theories and practices of training in social work.

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Rubric Standard | Justified > Is evidence presented that this problem is significant to the discipline and/or professional field?

Problem

What was the social problem that prompted you to search the literature to find out more? Write in complete sentences using a scholarly tone.

The situation or issue that prompted me to search the literature is The social problem that promoted literature search is the lack of identification of human trafficking victims as evidenced by the increased prevalence of human trafficking. The underlying issue that could be resulting in the lack of identification is ineffective training of the social workers responsible with identifying human trafficking victims. It is within that context that the problem is identified as critical to educating the social worker in identifying victims of human trafficking. Comment by Diane Rullo: could be or is there evidence of this

Now that you have read and summarized some of the recent literature to understand your problem, and given what other researchers are exploring, what meaningful gap have you identified that your study will address? (What have others not yet explored about this problem that you will contribute with your study?)

Although researchers have investigated this issue, the topic has not been explored in this way: Although recent researchers have explored the increasing prevalence of human trafficking and the role of social worker in identifying human trafficking victims, none of the articles have addressed the issues concerning the barriers of social worker training towards identifying the victims of human trafficking A study by Recknor, Gemeinhardt, and Selwyn (2018) points out that the existing body of literature shows a small number of researches on best practices in the identification of human trafficking victims that can assist social workers on strategies and practices to identify human trafficking victims. The possible lack of education and inadequate knowledge among social workers stresses the need for addressing the current gaps in literature by conducting an in-depth research to helps decrease the challenges related to victim identification.

Based on all of the above information (social problem, literature review, gap), in one sentence, what is your research problem ?

The specific social work practice-focused research problem that will be addressed through this study is The problem related to this research centers on examining the nature of education of the social worker to aid in the identification of human trafficking victims.

Rubric Standard | Meaningful > Has a meaningful problem and gap in the research literature been identified?

Rubric Standard | Original > Does this project have potential to make an original contribution?

Purpose

To address your stated research problem, what is the purpose of your study? Will you describe, compare, explore, examine, etc.? Complete the purpose sentence below and be sure to clarify your variables/concepts of interest.

The purpose of this Choose method study is to The purpose of this study is to gauge the social workers’ knowledge level when faced with identifying potential victims of human trafficking. The main concepts are barriers resulting from an overall lack of knowledge about human trafficking identification.

Framework (Conceptual or Theoretical)

What theory(ies) and/or concept(s) support (frame) your study and who are the original authors? Provide an in-text citation with your response, and the complete APA reference entry with summary in the Background section.

The theories and/or concepts that ground this study include The theory that will be used in the study is interactionism theory.

How do these theories and/or concepts relate to your research problem, purpose, and the nature of your study?

Rubric Standard | Grounded > Is the problem framed to enable the researcher to either build upon or counter the previously published findings on the topic?

Research Question(s) and Hypotheses (if applicable)

List the question(s) that you plan to use to address the social work practice-focused research problem. Your question(s) must align with your study purpose and include the variables and/or concepts and how they will be examined.

1.What are the barriers to training social work towards human trafficking?

2.What changes, if any, will addressing the barriers to effective social worker training have on identifying human trafficking victims?

3.How can the barriers identified from the relevant sources be addressed to enhance the effectiveness of social work as a tool to identify human trafficking victims?

Nature of the Study

What systematic approach/method and research design do you plan to use to address your research question(s)?

To address the research questions in this Choose method study, the specific research design will include Choose approach

Reference entry for the work on which this research design is based: This study will be accomplished through case study research design method (Baxter and Jack, 2015). Observation and interviews shall be used to collect data. The interactionism theory states that people behaviors and wellness is affected through interaction with others (Reynolds, 2006).

For your planned research design, what type of data will you need and what data collection tools and sources will provide it?

For my planned research design, I will need Qualitative data will be used and some of the data collection tools that will be used are the use of questionnaires. Social workers will be asked to answer questions regarding their training process and what they feel need to be improved.

What data points from these sources do you plan to use to answer your research question(s)?

Data points are variables used to make important conclusions in the course of the study.

What limitations, challenges, and/or barriers might you need to address while conducting this study (e.g., access to participants, access to data, requirements for storing data, separation of roles or other ethical considerations, instrumentation fees, etc.)?

One of the limitations is access to available social workers that would be willing to offer unbiased answers to the questionnaires.

Rubric Standard | Feasible > Can a systematic method of inquiry be used to address the problem; and does the approach have the potential to address the problem while considering potential risks and burdens placed on research participants?

Significance

How will your study address the meaningful, social work practice-specific issue that you identified and therefore contribute to social work professional practice, contributing to positive social change?

This study is significant in that This study may help identify areas to train competent social workers who can identify victims of human trafficking and therefore spearhead a reduction in human trafficking locally. Also, it may provide information for sound policymaking to be used in training social workers to effectively identify human trafficking victims.