Work & Economics
A decline in social or economic status, often due to job loss or illness.
What is downward mobility?
Social class strongly affects access to this stage of schooling.
What is higher education/college?
Besides physical health, poverty strongly affects this type of health.
What is mental health?
Households headed by this group are most likely to live in poverty.
What are female-headed households?
Despite their circumstances, many families in poverty are still marked by this strength.
What is resilience or resourcefulness?
On average, women earn about this percent of what men earn.
What is 62% (McGoldrick et al., 2016)?
Consider This: As of 2024, per the Pew Research Center, this percent is now 84%. What are some potential reasons for this shift?
Youth from downwardly mobile families often take on this kind of debt to try to move up.
What are student loans (often high-interest)?
For working-class families, a serious illness often leads to this outcome.
What is job or housing loss?
Stress from financial instability often leads couples to delay this.
What is marriage?
Helping families see struggles as caused by inequality, not personal failure.
What is externalizing questions?
Consider This: What are some examples?
Many single mothers face financial hardship because of this systemic issue.
What is the gender pay gap?
When parents didn’t attend college, children may face this unique challenge.
What is being first-generation in higher education?
Consider This: What are some challenges you've had or someone who know has had as a first generation student?
Families sometimes rely on this risky strategy to pay for medical care or education.
What is high-interest credit card debt?
Children in working-class or poor families are more likely to take on this adult role early.
What is contributing financially or caregiving for siblings?
A major risk for therapists working with multistressed families.
What is burnout?
Consider This: How would you, as a therapist, tend to your own mental health while working with multistressed families?
When people are employed but still cannot make ends meet, it is called this.
What is underemployment?
Discrimination based on both race and class limits these opportunities.
What are educational outcomes and career opportunities?
Consider This: Are there any educational or career resources that you wish you knew about during your time in high school and higher education?
An evidence-based violence prevention approach that is especially effective for marginalized communities. The word means to "go back and retrieve" in the Twi language of Ghana, which aligns with the mission of this program.
What is SANKOFA (Students Accumulating New Knowledge, Optimizing Future Accomplishments)?
Addressing clients holistically. Seeing them as complex people with intersecting identities. Knowing that just because you're not part of a population doesn't mean you shouldn't try to understand that population.
What is culturally appropriate mental health care/cultural humility?
Consider This: How would you attend to the intersectional needs of a low SES queer client?
The main goal of therapy with poor families is to connect them to these.
What are community resources and supports?