Prologue : the Hernandez family -- Introduction -- Concurrent involvement : challenges in navigating multiple institutions at once -- Revisiting the past to understand the present : temporal view of family multi-institutional involvement -- Who's in the family? multi-household exploration of the maze -- Mitigating factors : institutional mismatch and unpredictability in the maze -- Conclusion : reflections on the maze and practical steps forward -- Postscript : Brief update about the families -- Appendix A : Methodology and reflexivity -- Appendix B : List of families.
Summary:
"Trapped in a Maze provides a window into families' lived experiences in poverty by looking at their complex interactions with institutions such as welfare, hospitals, courts, housing, and schools. Families are more intertwined with institutions than ever as they struggle to maintain their eligibility for services and face the possibility that one institutional involvement could trigger other types of institutional oversight. Many poor families find themselves trapped in a multi-institutional maze, stuck in-between several systems with no clear path to resolution. By showing families' complex and often unpredictable journeys in this maze, this book reveals the limits of the formal rationality by which these institutions ostensibly function and demonstrates how multi-institutional involvement serves to perpetuate the conditions of poverty that these families are fighting to escape"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.