Gender and Self-Efficacy

It is one of the largest homeless shelters in Canada with an average population of about 680 adult males per night. The men have a variety of complex health, mental health, behavioral and addiction issues and are often disempowered, voiceless and troubled with few resources and complicated crisis. Employees of the shelter struggle to help them during often disheartening realities of discrimination, social stigma and limited financial support. Working with this population employees can become vulnerable to the human suffering in acts of violence amongst residence on resident and commonly towards staff creating very stressful and dangerous work environment. Fortunately after 1998 studied were concluded and changes were made away from an institutional style format to more client centered approach grounded in principals of social work fostering personal growth and understanding. .
             This created opportunities for a more gender balanced workforce. Due to prejudices it was believed by some that women employed in this environment were considered inappropriate. It would lower the level of safety and security in a dangerous work environment and be easily taken advantage of due to lack of "roughness". The affective processes in which people 's coping abilities are effected due to their view on an environment fraught with danger increased as male employees became increasingly apprehensive. .
             Employees began to magnify the severity of possible threats and worry about things that rarely happen. Over the past ten theses unfounded fears dissipated over time as one of Bandura concepts of Reciprocal Determinism comes into play. This is the constant interaction of a person's characteristic and behaviors and the environment (Bandura 1989, Flett 2007 pp224). Although these three elements are not always equal in influence the improvements in the quality of service provided by the change in personnel of women into the workforce began an ongoing sequence of events that began changing beliefs and attitudes thus creating a more positive work environment.