An investigation of successfully treated adolescent sex offenders

Little is known about the characteristics of adolescent sex offenders who do not reoffend. Most studies emphasize reoffense rates, recidivism and those who reoffend. Moreover, these studies provide quantitative summaries without describing the individual, his behavior, and challenges after treatment. The present study seeks to provide novel information about the life experiences of adolescent sex offenders who have not reoffended after reentering society. Through a structured questionnaire and an in-depth qualitative interview, the adolescents (N = 7) provided information regarding their life experiences after treatment with an emphasis on the challenges they face in society.     

Illicit use of prescribed stimulant medication among college students

The authors investigated illicit use of stimulant medications at a midwestern university. They used a questionnaire to (a) examine the extent to which university students illicitly used stimulant medications prescribed for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; (b) determine why college students abused such drugs; and (c) identify the factors that predicted illicit use of prescribed stimulant medication. Findings revealed that 17% of 179 surveyed men and 11% of 202 women reported illicit use of prescribed stimulant medication. Forty-four percent of surveyed students stated that they knew students who used stimulant medication illicitly for both academic and recreational reasons. Students reported they experienced time pressures associated with college life and that stimulants were said to increase alertness and energy. Regression analysis revealed that the factor that predicted men's use was knowing where to get easily acquired stimulant medication, whereas the main predictor for women was whether another student had offered the prescribed stimulants.     

Narrating Adoption: Resisting Adoption as “Second Best” in Online Stories of Domestic Adoption Told by Adoptive Parents

Framed in narrative theory and relational dialectics theory, one hundred online stories of domestic adoption told by adoptive parents were qualitatively analyzed, revealing four primary discourses of adoption that challenge the idea that adoption is a second-best way to parent. Narrative beginnings were dominated by a discourse of adoption as a valuable alternative to pregnancy. Narrative middles-and-ends featured two discourses of how the adoption process unfolds: adoption as a worthwhile struggle guided by destiny and adoption as a smooth and predictable process. Intertwined with these process-oriented constructions of adoption was a discourse of adoption as communal kinning, which emphasized a hybrid family form comprised of both biological and nonbiological ties.     

The Discounted Moments of the Surplus After the Last Innovation Before Ruin Under the Dual Risk Model

□ This article's focus is on finding an explicit form of the discounted moments of the surplus at the time of the last jump before ruin for the compound Poisson dual risk model. For this purpose, we derive a non-homogeneous integro-differential equation, which is satisfied by the targeted quantity. To solve this equation, the general solution of the corresponding homogeneous equation and a particular solution of the non-homogeneous equation are obtained. Also, some additional results are provided, such as the defective distribution of the time to ruin and the Laplace transform of the time when the last jump before ruin happens.     

Evaluating Parents in Partnership: A Preliminary Study of a Child Welfare Intervention Designed to Increase Reunification

Child welfare systems struggle with how best to accomplish reunification for children who have been removed from their home due to child maltreatment. Parent mentor programs may facilitate the reunification process. In these programs, parents who have successfully reunified with their children after child welfare involvement provide support and guidance for parents currently navigating the system. The current study examines (a) whether distance was a barrier to participation in orientation of a parent mentor program (called Parents in Partnership [PIP]) for 98 parents involved with the child welfare system and (b) whether participation affected reunification outcomes for 73 parents. Logistic regression models showed parents who lived closer to the PIP orientation location were more likely to participate in the orientation. Further, parents who attended PIP orientation were 5 times more likely to reunify with their children. Parent mentor programs may be one way to increase the likelihood of reunification for families involved in the child welfare system and may increase the engagement of fathers involved with the child welfare system. Future research should examine whether participation in parent mentor programs reduces the length of time children stay in foster care in addition to increasing rates of reunification.     

Long-term planning and decision-making among midlife and older gay men and lesbians

This article examines the issues of long-term planning and decision-making among midlife and older gay men and lesbian caregivers. Using a qualitative methodology, in-depth interviews were conducted with 19 gay men and lesbians over 50. Participants reported on their long-term planning and decision-making processes. All but four persons reported that their partners had advance directives, but the majority of caregivers did not have advance directives for themselves. Concerns about informal family dynamics and interactions with formal systems were expressed, along with financial and ownership issues. It is important for social workers to intervene across individual, organizational, and community levels in advocacy for the needs of older gay men and lesbian clients.     

Alzheimer's aggression: influences on caregiver coping and resilience

This study assessed impact of Alzheimer's patients' aggressive behavior (AD aggression) on caregiver coping strategies (task-, emotion-, and avoidance-focused) and caregiver resilience, and examined whether coping strategy moderated the AD aggression-caregiver resilience relationship. Informal caregivers across Louisiana (N = 419) completed surveys with measures of demographics, AD aggression, caregiver coping strategies, and caregiver resilience. Task-focused coping positively related to resilience. Aggression negatively predicted caregiver resilience. Emotion- and avoidance-focused coping strategies separately interacted with aggression and increased its negative relationship to caregiver resilience. Task-focused coping showed no moderation. Implications for social work professionals are discussed.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF PROCEDURAL JUSTICE IN SECURING COMPLIANCE: A STUDY OF TAX SCHEME INVESTORS

Throughout the 1990s, tens of thousands of Australian taxpayers invested in mass‐marketed tax effective schemes. They enjoyed generous tax breaks until the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) told them in 1998 that they abused the system. This study examines the circumstances surrounding taxpayers' decision to invest in scheme arrangements. It also explores investors' perceptions of the way the ATO handled the schemes issue and, perhaps more importantly, why such a large number of investors defied the ATO's demands that they pay back taxes. Data were taken from in‐depth interviews conducted with 29 scheme investors. Consistent with the procedural justice literature, the findings revealed that many scheme investors defied the ATO's demands because the procedures the ATO used to handle the situation were perceived to be unfair. Given these findings, it will be argued that to effectively shape desired behaviour, regulators will need to move beyond enforcement strategies linked purely to deterrence. A strategy that aims to emphasise the procedural justice aspects of a regulatory encounter will be discussed.     

Daughters helping their elderly mothers: impact of early attachment, daughter's trait anxiety and helping interaction characteristics

The aim of the study was to explore the relationships between early attachment between mother and daughter, the adult daughter's general anxiety level, and characteristics of the helping interaction between the adult daughter and her elderly mother on the one hand and the quality of this help on the other. One sample consisted of 46 Swedish women (mean age: 55 years) who acted as informal caregivers for their elderly mothers. A second sample consisted of 106 Swedish female nursing students (mean age: 27 years). The participants rated the quality of the practical, physical and psychosocial help they gave their elderly mothers (imagined helping activities in a predefined situation among the nursing students). Subjects also rated their mother's degree of caring and overprotection in childhood, their own trait anxiety, and various characteristics of their helping interactions. A high degree of motherly caring and a low degree of motherly overprotection in childhood covaried with a lower level of trait anxiety in the adult daughters. These conditions, in turn, covaried with mutual friendliness during the helping interactions. All these conditions covaried with high-quality psychosocial support. The quality of practical help and physical caring covaried with friendliness during the helping interactions only.     

It Takes a Community: Older Lesbians Meeting Social and Care Needs

Although specialized formal services are becoming more prevalent in addressing the needs of the older LGBT community, little is known about informal groups that have organized to meet the needs of this population. This article presents two case examples that depict the efforts of older lesbians to meet the social and care needs of members of their communities. The concept of psychological contracting is used to analyze these experiences, and combined with a review of the literature, practice implications for care and support for this special population are discussed.