Use of the One-Way Mirror in Child Custody Reunification Cases

Abstract

This paper describes a desensitization protocol that uses the one-way mirror as a tool to reintroduce children to an alienated or estranged parent. The one-way mirror provides a physical and psychological barrier from direct contact with a parent whom the child fears and allows the clinician to more easily control the pace of the reunification process. Allowing a child to view the estranged parent from behind the one-way mirror can significantly reduce a child's anxiety and provides a shield of safety that can make the reunification process tolerable, if not fun. A well equipped viewing room that uses electronic communications technology can permit the child and parent to talk to one another by speaker, thus further alleviating anxiety as the child can hear the estranged parent's voice and ask questions from behind the mirror. A protocol is described that can be adapted to clinics without access to a one-way mirror, and a case example is provided.     

Turkey: A Pilot Study of Elder Mistreatment in a Convenience Sample

ABSTRACT

Attitudes towards elder abuse were explored through a survey on International Perspectives on Family Violence and Abuse in a Turkish convenience sample of 25 females and 14 males, ranging in age from 22 to 58. Participants gave examples of behaviors considered in their culture to be extremely abusive, moderately abusive, and mildly abusive from an adult child toward his or her older parent. Responses were coded into four major categories of abuse, each of which had several subcategories: psychological aggression (including the subcategories of verbal aggression, emotional abuse, disrespect, disobedience, power assertion, blame, and imprisonment), neglect (including physical neglect, psychological neglect, abandonment, and putting the older individual into a nursing home), physical aggression (including beating and hitting), and mistreatment related to goods and services (including economic demands, economic withholding, and labor). The most common examples of extreme abuse were neglect, particulary physical neglect, followed by physical abuse. At the moderate and mild levels, various forms of psychological aggression were most commonly mentioned. The only significant gender difference was that men listed more instances of verbal aggression as examples of extreme abuse than women. A positive correlation was found between age and the number of abandonment examples at the extreme level. Results were interpreted from a cultural perspective.     

The review of new evidence 5 years later: SAMHSA's National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP)

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) decided that NREPP should offer a second review option for interventions that have already been reviewed and included in the registry for 5 years. Principals from 135 such interventions were invited to participate in a second review, and an exploratory study of the Principals’ responses to this invitation was conducted. The study used a mixed-method approach, quantitatively describing characteristics of Principals and their interventions and qualitatively summarizing feedback from phone interviews with a convenience sample of Principals participating in a second review. Of the Principals invited, 21% accepted a second review, 24% were interested but unable or not ready to submit materials, and 56% did not accept or did not respond. Mental health treatment interventions were more likely to undergo a second review, and substance abuse treatment interventions were less likely. Similar percentages of interventions undergoing a second review had received funding from the National Institutes of Health (86%) and had been evaluated in a comparative effectiveness research study (79%). Overall ratings for interventions improved in each second review completed. The interviewed Principals perceived potentially lower ratings as the only risk in participating in a second review.     

‘I am not poor. Poor children live in Africa’: Social identity and children's perspectives on growing up in contexts of poverty and deprivation in the Netherlands

This study focuses on problems children living in contexts of poverty face in daily life and how they perceive poverty. Findings are based on research with children (8–12 years) from impoverished areas in the Netherlands. Besides the problems as identified by the children, such as the poor quality of playgrounds and the lack of money for activities, we identified a striking paradox, namely the taboo on or denial of poverty versus the pervasiveness of poverty. To understand and handle this contradiction, we reflect on representation of children growing up in contexts of poverty through a social identity framework.     

Variation in Associations Between Family Dinners and Adolescent Well‐Being

Empirical evidence and conventional wisdom suggest that family dinners are associated with positive outcomes for youth. Recent research using fixed‐effects models as a more stringent test of causality suggests a more limited role of family meals in protecting children from risk. Estimates of average effects, however, may mask important variation in the link between family meals and well‐being; in particular, family meals may be more or less helpful based on the quality of family relationships. Using 2 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 17,977), this study extended recent work to find that family dinners have little benefit when parent–child relationships are weak but contribute to fewer depressive symptoms and less delinquency among adolescents when family relationships are strong. The findings highlight the importance of attending to variation when assessing what helps and what hurts in families.     

KinCareTech: Interactive,Internet-Based Software to Support Kinship Caregivers

Kinship care has advantages over traditional foster care, but kinship caregivers have fewer resources and receive less support or training. Technology may be one way to evaluate needs and provide support. KinCareTech is a collaboratively developed, single-session Internet-based program designed to promote early reading and/or parenting skills through an interactive, caregiver-focused brief intervention. KinCareTech was used by a group of 10 kinship caregivers who then provided quantitative and qualitative feedback regarding the acceptability and helpfulness of the software. Feedback from these kinship caregivers suggested that they saw the software as easy to use, helpful, and relevant to their concerns.     

国外儿童性虐待解决之道——基于预防、教育、治疗三维系统视角

儿童性虐待是一个严重的社会问题,目前国外学者主张从预防、教育与治疗三个维度,构建起基于家庭、学校、社会、制度、相关服务机构等相互协同的良好社会生态系统,科学有效地解决儿童性虐待难题。     

Father Involvement and Childhood Injuries

Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for children in the United States. Parental supervision is a key factor in preventing injuries, but little is known about the role of fathers. Today, one quarter of children live with a single mother, and another third live with a mother and her new partner, resulting in tremendous diversity in the amount and type of paternal involvement in children's lives. The authors examined the effects of involvement by resident biological, nonresident biological, and resident social fathers on the risk of injury among children from birth to age 5 using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,352). They found that living with a social father and social fathers' more frequent engagement with children increase risk of injury, but only for the youngest children. Higher levels of fathers' cooperative parenting reduce children's risk of injury regardless of fathers' biological or residential status.     

Family Ties and Young Fathers' Engagement in Cape Town,South Africa

Young South African fathers are often engaged in their children's lives even if they do not live together. Using longitudinal data on children (n = 1,209) from the Cape Town area, the authors show that although only 26% of young fathers live with their children, 66% of nonresidential fathers maintain regular contact, and 61% provide financial support. The father–child relationship, however, is embedded in broader family ties. The type of father–mother relationship is strongly associated with whether fathers coreside with their children but not with fathers' contact with nonresidential children. Close mother and maternal grandmother bonds reduce the likelihood that fathers live with their children, whereas close ties between fathers and paternal grandmothers increase the chance that fathers visit nonresidential children. Family ties do not affect fathers' financial contributions, which are driven by men's current economic situation. These findings illustrate that father–child relationships are best understood in the context of interacting family systems.