C S Shdaimah
Biographic Data
| ID | 71132 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C S Shdaimah |
| GIVEN NAMES | C S |
| FAMILY NAME | Shdaimah |
| SIGNATURE | SHDAIMAH C S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland, Baltimore |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5142-2831 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 112 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 46 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Beyond the Micro Myopia
Prostitution Diversion Programs (PDPs) attempt to address underlying circumstances that lead people to sell sex, using court-monitored rehabilitation in lieu of prosecution or incarceration. Based on interviews with 26 current and former professional court stakeholders and participants, conducted in 2021, this study examines Philadelphia’s PDP, “Dawn Court,” through a social work micro – macro lens that calls for combined individual and social in…
International Social Work Days at the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt
Corey Shdaimah spoke with Professors Jörg Fischer and Christine Rehklau about International Social Work Days (ISWD), an annual conference run with and for students in Erfurt University of Applied S
Exploring Black civil society perspectives of drug decriminalization reforms in the Baltimore context
Drug decriminalization is gaining recognition in academic and policy settings as an intervention to address the increasingly volatile drug crisis and achieve racially equitable drug policy reform in the United States. However, few studies elicit grassroots perspectives of Black communities most affected by legal change. This study explored the perspectives of Black civil society stakeholders on drug decriminalization to inform policy. From 2021 t…
Maybe It’s Not Always to Great Effect, but There’s Some Serious Hustle
Pulling Back the Curtain as Invitation
In defense of social work's Adei mandate
Adaptive responsivity
A triad model of engaged social work pedagogy
Social work is troubled by long-standing tensions that emanate from its origin as both a practice-based profession and an academic discipline. Social work’s core social justice values often run counter to traditional positivist research and academic education. In academia, these tensions appear as educators are called to better prepare students for high quality research as well as to implement anti-oppressive (AOP) content into their curriculum. …
Transitions and Continuities
My heart is in the right place, but I don’t feel the court’s heart is beating
Of House and Home
Despite emerging as a core concern for street-based sex workers participating in prostitution diversion programmes (PDPs), housing has received limited empirical attention. In this article, we explore the meanings of housing in the context of court-affiliated PDPs in the US cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia based on interviews and focus groups with 31 PDP participants and 32 criminal legal system professionals. Three themes emerged: (a) housin…
Who Do We Call “Creepy?”
Like other forms of problem-solving justice, prostitution diversion programs (PDPs) are designed to (re)shape thinking and behaviors. The authority to surveil and punish stems from criminalization of sex work, itself an act of control over women and their bodies. The court cues normative behaviors through rewards and punishments based on information gleaned through ongoing surveillance in and out of court. Using a critical feminist lens, we draw …
Co-optation, Complicity, and the ‘Helping Relationship’ in Sex Work
This special issue complicates the prevailing discourse and public policy surrounding sex work. The authors raise questions about sex workers’ personal agency, environmental and individual-level factors, and new policy regimes, such as hybrid penal and therapeutic approaches. This issue weaves traditional academic genres with research, teaching, and practice reflections
I Have Different Goals Than you, we Can’t be a Team
This study explores how professional stakeholders navigate individual and institutional goals, ethical standards, and perspectives within the courtroom workgroup of a prostitution diversion program. We draw from semi-structured qualitative interviews of current and/or past professional stakeholders (N = 22) and past program participants (N = 3). Though collaboration and consensus building among workgroups is a core tenet of problem-solving courts…
When families, organizational culture, and policy collide
Targeted sympathy in “whore court
Using interview and focus group data (N = 44) from three study sites, we locate prostitution diversion program (PDP) professionals within logics of punishment and governance. While critical research on problem‐solving justice emphasizes professionals' performative and quasi‐therapeutic roles, inadequate attention has been paid to the contradictory logics of their roles. Involvement in a diversion program reinforces underlying assumptions about wh…
Making Sense of Sex Work, Prostitution, and Trafficking— in the Classroom and Beyond
“I‘m Literally Drowning”
Research Findings The primary goal of this exploratory mixed-methods study was to obtain a deeper understanding of center-based child care providers serving infants and toddlers. Secondarily, we explored the potential for a two-pronged mindfulness-based caregiving intervention for such providers to (a) reduce stress and (b) support caregiving behaviors. We conducted (a) individual interviews with three child care center directors and (b) three ce…
Ethical Conflicts in Social Work Practice
Most of the moral distress in current literature stems from the health professions research whereas social work scholarship lags behind. This issue seeks to bridge this gap by exploring in a critic
The Faintest Stirring of Hope Became Possible’
“And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of plague was ended.” The Plague, Albert Camus Many of the concerns laid out by the authors in our
Ethics Are Messy’
Supervision is a critical component of professional socialisation for social workers that helps them develop skills to practice in complex private and public organisations whose values may be at odds with social work ethics. Research on the relationship between supervision and how social workers navigate ethical challenges is limited and has typically focused on managing the resultant stress. This qualitative study reports on the perspectives of …
Policy on the ground
There has been little focus on decision making in child protective services, particular as it relates to the implementation of alternative response (AR). Focus groups were held in urban, suburban, and rural counties where participants explored how organizational culture influenced decisions made for families when implementing a new statewide policy. The results suggest that decisions are not family focused but are mandate driven. Further, there w…
Positioning Social Justice
This article explores the value of social justice as a shared ethical ground for social workers worldwide. Constructions and interpretations of social justice are deeply affected by different perspectives, contested positions and unequal power dynamics. As societies become ever more diversified, these may hinder the centrality of social justice as a core value. Drawing on data collected from participants in a binational interprofessional seminar …
Qualitative Research in the Chinese Social Work Academy
There has been much discussion about the contributions of qualitative research to social work knowledge, but the experiences of social work faculty engaged in qualitative research are rarely discussed. Social work is at the early developmental stage in China, which makes the country a useful laboratory to examine this question. The current study aimed to understand experiences of Chinese qualitative social work faculty and how their methodologica…
Foster parents’ experience of dependency court
Justifying Scrutiny
Neoliberal policies are characterized by a blurring of therapeutic and coercive mechanisms, heightened scrutiny, and a focus on individual problems at the expense of systemic factors. Foucauldian scholars typically examine the mechanisms by which government regulates people in subtle and overt uses of its power; yet scholars often neglect empirical exploration of people's lived experience and its relation to larger social and policy contexts. In …
Revisiting the Benefits Debate
Social work discussion about the intersection of therapy and research has been heated. There is ongoing theoretical debate about the fit of qualitative research and social work practice, as well as the proper goals and potential impact of clinical research. In this article, two qualitative researchers report empirical findings and discuss the implications of their research participants' unsolicited identification of the benefits of engaging in in…
Crime and compassion
Women who are charged with prostitution sit at an intersection of victimization and criminality. It is widely acknowledged that many women who engage in prostitution, especially those engaged in street prostitution, suffer from a variety of problems including past and current trauma and abuse, substance abuse, mental and physical health disorders, and housing instability. Our interviews and focus groups with 17 women currently and formerly engage…
Exploring wellbeing and agency among urban youth through photovoice
First and Foremost They’re Survivors”
Based on qualitative data from three sites ( N = 76), we describe prostitute women’s agency and problematize dominant assumptions. Prostitute women exhibit creative, resilient, and rational conduct. Rejecting victimhood, our respondents demonstrate moral reasoning, make choices, work systems that dominate their lives, and assert power and control when they can. Their resistance, while serving a symbolic function, also expresses their system savvy…
CPS is not a housing agency”; Housing is a CPS problem
The Faintest Stirring of Hope Became Possible’
“And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of plague was ended.” The Plague, Albert Camus Many of the concerns laid out by the authors in our
School as haven
Targeted sympathy in “whore court
Using interview and focus group data (N = 44) from three study sites, we locate prostitution diversion program (PDP) professionals within logics of punishment and governance. While critical research on problem‐solving justice emphasizes professionals' performative and quasi‐therapeutic roles, inadequate attention has been paid to the contradictory logics of their roles. Involvement in a diversion program reinforces underlying assumptions about wh…
Social Workers’ Use of Moral Entrepreneurship to Enact Professional Ethics in the Field
Social workers must manoeuvre within the challenging landscape of service delivery to achieve better outcomes for clients. We apply the concepts of moral entrepreneurship and street-level bureaucracy to three case studies to illustrate how social workers meet organisational mandates while maintaining personal and professional integrity. Dolores, a child-protective services worker, refuses to separate a family rendered homeless due to intimate par…
Child Welfare in the Court
This article reports on an innovative interdisciplinary short course in which social work students at a master's level work with law and social work faculty and law students in a simulated child welfare court experience. Social workers are called to work in a range of court settings including child welfare, criminal justice, and custody hearings. Social work students show interest in gaining knowledge and skills to raise their comfort level and g…
Ethical Conflicts in Social Work Practice
Most of the moral distress in current literature stems from the health professions research whereas social work scholarship lags behind. This issue seeks to bridge this gap by exploring in a critic
Policy on the ground
There has been little focus on decision making in child protective services, particular as it relates to the implementation of alternative response (AR). Focus groups were held in urban, suburban, and rural counties where participants explored how organizational culture influenced decisions made for families when implementing a new statewide policy. The results suggest that decisions are not family focused but are mandate driven. Further, there w…
Positioning Social Justice
This article explores the value of social justice as a shared ethical ground for social workers worldwide. Constructions and interpretations of social justice are deeply affected by different perspectives, contested positions and unequal power dynamics. As societies become ever more diversified, these may hinder the centrality of social justice as a core value. Drawing on data collected from participants in a binational interprofessional seminar …
The Construction of Social Class in Social Work Education
Social work introductory textbooks reflect myriad practical interests, pedagogical concerns, and theoretical considerations. However, they also present students with accepted views, dominant perspectives, and main discourses of knowledge. In light of this centrality, the present article examines the representation of the concept of "social class" in introductory textbooks as a way to look at the construction of the concept in social work educatio…
Child care policy
The law cannot terminate bloodlines”
The Power of Perspective
Documentaries can be used as a pedagogical tool to better understand social policy. This medium is especially suited to provide perspectives that often go unheard in policy debates, academic discussions, and textbooks. While many social work educators use documentary films, there is little discussion about this media in the social work literature. Drawing on interdisciplinary film scholarship and the author's classroom experience, this article ra…
Of Pots of Gold and Pots of Glue
This article reports data from two qualitative studies with child welfare lowyers, judges, masters, and social workers (N = 59). Two themes emerged: the first is that child welfare involvement occurs within a broader societal context, and that child protective services and courts are called to address a broad range of concerns with severely inadequate resources. Participants saw that the paucity of resources as evidence of lack of societal concer…
Collaboration Between Community Advocates and Academic Researchers
There is a growing interest on the part of community groups, academics and funders in developing collaborative research projects between researchers and community groups. The authors of this paper collaborated with a community-based advocacy group on a study that focused on home repair problems faced by low-income homeowners in Philadelphia, PA (the ‘Home Repair Study’). In this article, we provide a critical analysis of the collaborative process…
Who Do We Call “Creepy?”
Like other forms of problem-solving justice, prostitution diversion programs (PDPs) are designed to (re)shape thinking and behaviors. The authority to surveil and punish stems from criminalization of sex work, itself an act of control over women and their bodies. The court cues normative behaviors through rewards and punishments based on information gleaned through ongoing surveillance in and out of court. Using a critical feminist lens, we draw …
Foster parents’ experience of dependency court
I Have Different Goals Than you, we Can’t be a Team
This study explores how professional stakeholders navigate individual and institutional goals, ethical standards, and perspectives within the courtroom workgroup of a prostitution diversion program. We draw from semi-structured qualitative interviews of current and/or past professional stakeholders (N = 22) and past program participants (N = 3). Though collaboration and consensus building among workgroups is a core tenet of problem-solving courts…
When families, organizational culture, and policy collide
Ethics Are Messy’
Supervision is a critical component of professional socialisation for social workers that helps them develop skills to practice in complex private and public organisations whose values may be at odds with social work ethics. Research on the relationship between supervision and how social workers navigate ethical challenges is limited and has typically focused on managing the resultant stress. This qualitative study reports on the perspectives of …
Collaboration Between Community Advocates and Academic Researchers
There is a growing interest on the part of community groups, academics and funders in developing collaborative research projects between researchers and community groups. The authors of this paper collaborated with a community-based advocacy group on a study that focused on home repair problems faced by low-income homeowners in Philadelphia, PA (the ‘Home Repair Study’). In this article, we provide a critical analysis of the collaborative process…
Revisiting the Benefits Debate
Social work discussion about the intersection of therapy and research has been heated. There is ongoing theoretical debate about the fit of qualitative research and social work practice, as well as the proper goals and potential impact of clinical research. In this article, two qualitative researchers report empirical findings and discuss the implications of their research participants' unsolicited identification of the benefits of engaging in in…
Of Pots of Gold and Pots of Glue
This article reports data from two qualitative studies with child welfare lowyers, judges, masters, and social workers (N = 59). Two themes emerged: the first is that child welfare involvement occurs within a broader societal context, and that child protective services and courts are called to address a broad range of concerns with severely inadequate resources. Participants saw that the paucity of resources as evidence of lack of societal concer…
What Does Social Work Have to Offer Evidence-based Practice
Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a relatively recent incarnation in social work's long history of valuing evidence as a basis for practice. Few argue with the ethics and usefulness of grounding practice in empirically tested interventions. Critics of EBP instead focus on how it is defined and implemented. Critiques include what counts as evidence, who makes decisions regarding research agendas and processes, and the lack of attention to context. …
The Power of Perspective
Documentaries can be used as a pedagogical tool to better understand social policy. This medium is especially suited to provide perspectives that often go unheard in policy debates, academic discussions, and textbooks. While many social work educators use documentary films, there is little discussion about this media in the social work literature. Drawing on interdisciplinary film scholarship and the author's classroom experience, this article ra…
Rescuing Children and Punishing Poor Families
Child welfare policy is not self implementing; an understanding of child welfare policy must therefore include the decision making practices by those whom Michael Lipsky (1980) has called "streetlevel bureaucrats." This article reports data from a qualitative study exploring perceptions of child welfare professionals about housing-related child welfare decisions. Interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 18 child welfare lawyers, judge…
CPS is not a housing agency”; Housing is a CPS problem
The law cannot terminate bloodlines”
Child Welfare in the Court
This article reports on an innovative interdisciplinary short course in which social work students at a master's level work with law and social work faculty and law students in a simulated child welfare court experience. Social workers are called to work in a range of court settings including child welfare, criminal justice, and custody hearings. Social work students show interest in gaining knowledge and skills to raise their comfort level and g…
Child care policy
Converging on Empathy
This article explores perceptions of 17 women currently or formerly engaged in prostitution regarding Baltimore City's Specialized Prostitution Diversion program. Findings indicate that most perceive the program positively because they are in desperate need of services and because they hope it augurs the readiness of the criminal justice system to understand what leads them to engage in prostitution. Their desire to be treated like “human beings”…
Real Social Science
Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on polic…
The Construction of Social Class in Social Work Education
Social work introductory textbooks reflect myriad practical interests, pedagogical concerns, and theoretical considerations. However, they also present students with accepted views, dominant perspectives, and main discourses of knowledge. In light of this centrality, the present article examines the representation of the concept of "social class" in introductory textbooks as a way to look at the construction of the concept in social work educatio…
Justifying Scrutiny
Neoliberal policies are characterized by a blurring of therapeutic and coercive mechanisms, heightened scrutiny, and a focus on individual problems at the expense of systemic factors. Foucauldian scholars typically examine the mechanisms by which government regulates people in subtle and overt uses of its power; yet scholars often neglect empirical exploration of people's lived experience and its relation to larger social and policy contexts. In …
Crime and compassion
Women who are charged with prostitution sit at an intersection of victimization and criminality. It is widely acknowledged that many women who engage in prostitution, especially those engaged in street prostitution, suffer from a variety of problems including past and current trauma and abuse, substance abuse, mental and physical health disorders, and housing instability. Our interviews and focus groups with 17 women currently and formerly engage…
School as haven
First and Foremost They’re Survivors”
Based on qualitative data from three sites ( N = 76), we describe prostitute women’s agency and problematize dominant assumptions. Prostitute women exhibit creative, resilient, and rational conduct. Rejecting victimhood, our respondents demonstrate moral reasoning, make choices, work systems that dominate their lives, and assert power and control when they can. Their resistance, while serving a symbolic function, also expresses their system savvy…
Families in waiting
Condoms and Cupcakes
This article reports on an anti-oppressive approach to working with prostitute women based on findings from a study exploring the perspectives of 17 women who attended a drop-in program run by a nonprofit organization in Baltimore, MD, as well as site observations and interactions with program staff. The organization creates a compassionate space where women may grow as they choose rather than the typical punitive or rescuing strategies employed …
Exploring wellbeing and agency among urban youth through photovoice
Foster parents’ experience of dependency court
Social Workers’ Use of Moral Entrepreneurship to Enact Professional Ethics in the Field
Social workers must manoeuvre within the challenging landscape of service delivery to achieve better outcomes for clients. We apply the concepts of moral entrepreneurship and street-level bureaucracy to three case studies to illustrate how social workers meet organisational mandates while maintaining personal and professional integrity. Dolores, a child-protective services worker, refuses to separate a family rendered homeless due to intimate par…
Qualitative Research in the Chinese Social Work Academy
There has been much discussion about the contributions of qualitative research to social work knowledge, but the experiences of social work faculty engaged in qualitative research are rarely discussed. Social work is at the early developmental stage in China, which makes the country a useful laboratory to examine this question. The current study aimed to understand experiences of Chinese qualitative social work faculty and how their methodologica…
Making Sense of Sex Work, Prostitution, and Trafficking— in the Classroom and Beyond
“I‘m Literally Drowning”
Research Findings The primary goal of this exploratory mixed-methods study was to obtain a deeper understanding of center-based child care providers serving infants and toddlers. Secondarily, we explored the potential for a two-pronged mindfulness-based caregiving intervention for such providers to (a) reduce stress and (b) support caregiving behaviors. We conducted (a) individual interviews with three child care center directors and (b) three ce…
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