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This study investigates successful completion at a faith-based organization providing residential substance abuse treatment services. Method: The authors apply a complex systems paradigm using a single moderator variable. The participants are primarily African Americans and most have current criminal justice involvement. Probabilities of treatment program completion for participants active in spiritual activities versus similar participants not involved in these activities are calculated. Results: Participation in the spirituality component appears to provide a valuable attractor to treatment completion. Conclusions: In the past decade, evaluation methods have included the greater use of probabilistic approaches, most notably Bayesian inference. Findings suggest that this model, as applied to the complexities of a faith-based organization, is useful for understanding treatment completion.

AbstractService systems for children and families have been shaped by standard approaches to knowledge‐building, which reflect a reductionist approach and assume linearity and/or that individuals and experiences are normally distributed. Yet, these approaches may be inadequate for clients most at‐risk, especially those who would be analytic 'outliers'. A complexity lens focuses on the whole system and seeks to identify patterns, including the dynamic interactions between components of the system. Social work scholars have begun to apply complexity theory to social work research efforts, demonstrating the conceptual potential of incorporating this theoretical approach into social work theories and models such as the person‐in‐environment framework and the ecosystems perspective. Yet, frameworks informed by complexity theory may require ontological and epistemological shifts in thinking and new methodological approaches in order to fully embody a complexity approach. Complexity theory offers the opportunity to consider social work clients who are most at‐risk, as it is better suited for power law distributions. We can, therefore, reconceptualize the most 'at‐risk' clients as being in a state of transition, which is also the space of most creativity and possibility.

Objectives:Using agent-based modeling (ABM) within a complexity theory framework provides an alternative and promising method for significantly advancing the study of social good. Complexity theory is a systems approach based on the idea that aggregate patterns arise from the interactions of agents and their environments. Such systems operate according to a set of simple rules, and patterns emerge from these simple interactions that sometimes cannot be predicted by examining those interactions alone. ABM is a computational approach that simulates the interactions of autonomous agents with each other and their environments (social and/or physical).Methods:We adapted the Rebellion model from the NetLogo software library to demonstrate the potential of this approach to measure social good. Specifically, we examine the impact of variables related to juvenile justice involvement on the converse of social good, social exclusion, which in this model was conceptualized as the lack of educational attainment among youth at risk of juvenile justice involvement. After designing our ABM, we ran a total of 2400 simulations where we systematically varied key variables, including arrest risk and maximum sentence.Results:We report the descriptive statistics from our simulations for key output variables in the ABM, including percent socially excluded and average accumulated jail time, and demonstrate the usefulness of this method by identifying nonlinear, bivariate associations across the simulations.Conclusion:Our model demonstrates the usefulness of an innovative methodological approach, complexity theory, coupled with an innovative technology, ABM, in developing policies and programs that will maximize social good.

Improving quality of life is the primary focus as adolescents with disabilities enter adulthood. They increasingly, however, encounter difficulties transitioning into domains such as employment as these services occur near the end of their high school experience. Using an ecosystems model within a developmental approach, the program sought to improve the likelihood that adolescents will find and maintain meaningful employment as adults. The authors measured physical health, psychosocial functioning, and attitude toward employment of adolescents participating in the program during a 2-year period. Physical health, school functioning, and total functioning improved during the 2 years. Career attitudes were above the norms in earlier grades but fell in later grades. This suggests the need for early and continued intervention.