Residents of urban American neighborhoods facing economic hardship often experience individual and collective adversities at high levels. This study explores how racially diverse adults experience stress, adversity, and trauma, and how they cope and heal in the context of their environment. Following a critical realist grounded theory methodology, four focus groups were conducted with African American, White and Latinx participants (N = 21) within an employment service program. Participants identified key stressors ranging from financial and job challenges, violence, and trauma. To cope with and heal from adversity, they practiced positivity, named trauma and its effects, sought social connection, envisioned community-based resources, and addressed structural and systemic barriers. The data generated a theory of "a mutual process of healing self and healing the community" through intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural change. The results of this study indicate a need for peer-led, community-engaged initiatives and holistic, trauma-informed, healing-centered practices.

Research suggests that low-income adults accessing employment services have experienced high levels of trauma exposure and associated consequences. Moreover, the health-related effects of trauma undermine employment and employability. A trauma-informed protocol-trauma screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment or T-SBIRT-was therefore implemented within employment service programs serving low-income urban residents. To assess the feasibility of integrating T-SBIRT within employment services, five domains were explored as follows: suitability, acceptability, client adherence, provider adherence or fidelity, and intended outcomes. With a sample of low-income adults (N = 83), the study revealed that T-SBIRT is suitable for employment service participants given high rates of trauma exposure (90.4% experienced two or more lifetime traumas), along with high rates of positive screening results for post-traumatic stress disorder (48.8%), major depression (35.4%), and generalized anxiety (47.6%). Study participants appeared to find T-SBIRT acceptable as evidenced by an 83% acceptance rate. All participants accepting T-SBIRT services completed them, revealing strong client adherence. Provider adherence or model fidelity was high, that is, 98.5%. Finally, the majority of participants accepted a referral to a mental health care (i.e., 56.6%), and over three-quarters accepted a referral to any outside service including primary or mental health care. Implications of findings are discussed.

In most major metropolitan cities, prostitution is a revolving-door offense in which individuals are arrested, sentenced, released, and rearrested, while the underlying causes that often result in recidivism virtually go unchanged. Prostitution courts are becoming an increasingly popular way to address prostitution-related offenses. Utilizing the case study method, the purpose of this study is to highlight the strengths and challenges of Supporting the End of Prostitution Permanently (SEPP), a prostitution court serving women with extensive histories of prostitution in Texas. There is a dearth of information about prostitution courts that serve individuals who are facing years in jail or prison. The majority of existing studies focus on prostitution-diversion courts and programs. Data analysis revealed strengths, challenges, and unanticipated factors of the SEPP program. Increasingly, prostitution courts are becoming attractive to local and state jurisdictions that are seeking effective ways to address prostitution. Understanding and highlighting the strengths and challenges that a prostitution court such as SEPP has experienced is important so other programs can build on the successes while minimizing the challenges.