196 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
affected negatively by the need to prioritize her and her children’s safety and
to put as many plans in place as she can to protect them all. However, she has
made great progress away from the social isolation that she once imposed on
herself. She has effectively reached out to many people who have been able to
help her to make the necessary preparations.Connecting and Disconnecting: Losses from Leaving Street-Based Sex Work
Corey Shdaimah
Corey Shdaimah is an associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
School of Social Work. Her research and writing focuses on how people and the profes-
sionals and agencies that serve them try to change, and adapt to, policies that they per-
ceive as ineffective or unjust. Many of her projects use participant-driven methods that
emphasize the perceptions and experiences of stakeholders about concerns that they
choose to highlight. Recent research focuses on the experiences of professionals and
stakeholders with court affiliated prostitution diversion programs in Baltimore and in
Philadelphia. She is author of numerous articles on these programs and on the experi-
ences of women in street-based sex work. She has also explored the mismatch between
needs on the ground and policy responses in dependency court reforms, housing, and
child welfare and, most recently in U.S. childcare. She is the author of In Our Hands:
The Struggle for U.S. Child Care Policy (with Elizabeth Palley); Negotiating
Justice: Legal Services Lawyers, Low-Income Clients, and the Quest for Social
Change; and Change Research: A Case Study on Collaborative Methods for Social
Workers and Advocates (with Sanford Schram and Roland Stahl).Nicole* is a woman in her 40s who participated in Philadelphia’s Project
Dawn Court (PDC). The PDC is a sentencing alternative for women with a
minimum of three prostitution charges.** In Pennsylvania, this constitutes a
second-degree misdemeanor punishable by fines of up to $5,000 and 2 years
imprisonment.*** PDC is a four-phase program that requires participation in
monthly court meetings, intensive probation (usually at least weekly), group
and individual trauma therapy, and individualized requirements that nearly
always include inpatient or outpatient addiction treatment and mental health
services over the course of a year. Program violations are punished by a phase
restart and sanctions. Successful completion leads to a dismissal of charges
with prejudice (meaning the case cannot be filed again), and possible removal
of charges from participants’ record with an additional year of “no evidence”
of drug use or prostitution (Leon & Shdaimah, 2012).
Like most PDC participants, Nicole spent many years engaging in
the street-based sale of sex for money. For Nicole, selling sex for money*All names are pseudonyms chosen by study participants.
**In describing losses from the voluntary or coerced transition from street-based sex
work, I do not take a normative stance that people should desist from the exchange of
sex for money or other forms of sex work.
***Four or more offenses are a first degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to 5 year’s
incarceration and $10,000 fines.