This is the way I have done it in the past. Frist, the User object has a folders property that returns a list of folder names. See arcgis.gis module — arcgis 1.8.0 documentation. From there you can verify that the folder you are looking for is, in fact, an actual folder in the user's account. Once you get the folder name you can call the user.items() method. This method has a folder parameter. See arcgis.gis module — arcgis 1.8.0 documentation. The first step is not necessary but its a starting point. Good luck!
