Methodological challenges in the implementation and evaluation of social welfare policies

As social reality is quite elusive, even regarding seemingly well-recognized everyday concepts and objects, there are always methodological challenges underlying assessments and evaluations of implementation policies. The present article addresses this area of concern by presenting the results of a rereading of an empirical study of elderly home care services. Our results reveal the emergence of a dissolution of common and professional key concepts and objects in these welfare services to a degree that challenges both the implementation policy and the evaluation of policy. We claim that this has methodological implications for evaluation of implementation policies in general.     

女性遭受家庭暴力的原因分析及心理治疗

家庭暴力是世界范围内危害大众心理健康的社会问题,并且大多数的家庭暴力是由男性配偶向女性配偶施暴,家庭暴力会导致女性受害者在医学、行为和心理三方面出现不良后果,大量的研究表明女性遭受家庭暴力与所处的文化标准、女性自身的一些特征、男性施暴者的个性特征、行为和早期经历有关,研究表明对女性受害人进行心理治疗和干预是十分有用的,这些方法包括心理动力学治疗方法、认知行为疗法、催眠疗法、药物疗法等。尽管这些疗法的理论倾向或技术不同,但是它们都遵循以相同的原则。家庭暴力的预防要从以下三方面做起：（1）减少社会对妇女的歧视;（2）及早发现家庭暴力事件;（3）通过使用个人、家庭和团体心理治疗可以有效地缓解家庭暴力对受害人所造成的长期不良影响。     

The collaborative professional: towards empowering vulnerable families

This article describes the authors' journey in an attempt to understand why considerable efforts of professionals working with vulnerable families are not compensated by better results. The authors propose guidelines to support professionals to develop a collaborative approach, which would empower them as well as the families they work with. The guidelines focus on the front-line professionals, whose main tasks include (i) promoting their own resilience (and of other professionals involved) through reflection and supervision; (ii) building up a trusting relationship with families, which can be achieved by being flexible and informal, providing instrumental support, using time in active, extensive and intensive ways and (iii) promoting and reinforcing small positive family achievements during the course of the intervention. The proposal poses a challenge to professionals' actions and expertise as well as to agencies, being simultaneously a response to their aspirations to do better.     

Interviews with Children Exposed to Violence

The aim of this article is to show how research practices may simultaneously follow principles of children’s citizenship rights to participation and principles of protection and support when children exposed to violence are informants. The article focuses upon organisation of interview processes and interactions between adult researchers and child informants in interview encounters. We point to a number of ways in which one may negotiate the tensions between, on the one hand, victimised children’s vulnerability and dependence upon adults for protection and support, and on the other these children’s agency and rights to participation.     

Primary versus secondary prevention messages: College students' perceptions of effectiveness by marijuana user status

Abstract

Objective: With medical and recreational marijuana legislation expanding throughout the country, the need to educate high-risk populations is evident. The purpose of this study was to assess college students’ perceptions of health communication messages comparing primary and secondary prevention messages concerning marijuana. Participants: Participants (n?=?487) included college students, ages 18–25, enrolled in a Midwestern University. Methods: Participants assessed messages based on likeability, creativity, believability, persuasiveness, relevance, and usefulness using an online questionnaire that also included open-end comments. Results: Rasch analyses indicate that nonmarijuana users rated primary prevention messages higher than secondary prevention messages, whereas marijuana users ranked secondary prevention messages more favorably than primary prevention messages. Conclusion: Interventions designed to address marijuana use among college students may be more effective if tailored toward user status. Specifically, primary prevention materials should be designed for abstainers, while secondary prevention messages that focus on harm reduction strategies should be used with marijuana users.     

INTERVENTION WITH MULTI‐PROBLEM POOR CLIENTS: TOWARDS A STRENGTHS‐FOCUSED PERSPECTIVE

Since multi‐problem poor clients are mostly recognized by their problems, intervention is developed from a problem‐centered perspective, which has shown itself to be only modestly effective. The strengths perspective, on the other hand, which assumes that every system has competences, has been shown to be more effective. Nevertheless, incorporating the strengths approach is difficult since the problem‐centered view is embedded in our social, cultural and professional context. This study aims to learn whether the strengths approach is incorporated (or not) in practice involving multi‐problem poor clients, thus allowing us to perceive what obstacles and potentialities to such an approach emerge. An interview was administered to both clients and practitioners, and the results confirm that the problem‐centered perspective is dominant and that a shift in perspectives is still in an incipient stage.     

Max versus Max

ABSTRACT

Disability-related services and experiences of the United States of America and Germany are compared. A fictional case example concerning a person with a developmental disability is followed from birth to adulthood. Examples of possible life choices are given.     

Influencing economic change: Government interventions, disputes between sectors, and public relations campaigns in Israel

As with the earlier downturn of the Great Depression, the current global economic crisis has revived direct government intervention in the marketplace. It has also stimulated wider contemporary debates on the role of government in financial markets that feature not just funding issues, but questions of regulation and social legitimacy, and a greater acknowledgement of distinctive national–international tensions rather than a converging consensus around continuing to deregulate a global market. This article seeks to provide historical perspectives to these debates by considering the role of government, with the involvement of public relations, during economic changes in Israel. It focuses on major campaigns in Israel around the roles, and inter-sector disputes, of three major sectors: agriculture during the first half of the 20th century; industrialization from the 1960s to the 1990s; and commerce and competition from the 1990s into the 21st century. The article tracks these three historical transformations as part of Israel's gradual shifting from a nation economy toward a global economy. It concludes that, in the present downturn, the Israeli experiences offer a reminder of the impact of communication campaigns, interwoven with national identity, on economic changes, and the potential for public relations strategies and tactics to have long-term effects.     

论大学生心理危机及其干预机制的建构

大学生心理危机有其自身的特征和类型，因此，高校的心理危机干预机制也应该针对大学生心理危机的特殊性作理论的探讨与实践的尝试。在“危机干预三级网络”的组织架构的基础上，建立高校内部各个干预单元在心理危机的不同阶段对危机个体进行早期预警、中期干预、后期跟踪三者相结合的三级干预、全程干预模式是大学生心理危机干预机制的有效尝试。