An Evaluation of Mechanisms of Change in Multisystemic Therapy for Juvenile Justice‐Involved Youths A Decade Following Treatment

Although researchers have identified the more immediate mechanisms of change in family‐based treatments for juvenile justice‐involved youths, it is not known whether these same mechanisms continue to prevent criminal offending into adulthood. The present study evaluated whether caregiver‐directed improvements in family relations, youth prosocial peer relations, and youth academic performance during multisystemic therapy (MST) for serious and violent juvenile offenders had an impact on young adult involvement in criminal activity and sentencing 10.2 years following treatment. The results showed that improvements in family relations were associated with reduced odds of criminal outcomes a decade later for former MST participants. Furthermore, improvements in youth prosocial peer relations and academic performance were also related to lower odds of long‐term criminal activity. These results are consistent with the underlying theory of change in family‐based treatments and demonstrate that caregivers are critical to achieving and sustaining decreased antisocial behavior for youths with serious and violent criminal histories.     

Disrupting Sexual Norms: An Application of the Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication (CIFC) Framework in the Context of Vulvodynia

This study uses intersectional methodology to critically explore vulvodynia, chronic female genital pain, as it disrupts norms governing gender roles in heterosexual sex and reproduction. Interviews with 26 women with vulvodynia illuminate core tenets of the critical interpersonal and family communication (CIFC) framework, which include power; private and public sphere bidirectionality; the critique, resistance, and transformation of the status quo; and considerations of author reflexivity. As the author is herself a heterosexual woman navigating vulvodynia, reflexivity is particularly salient. Status quo social constructs are explicated. Results demonstrate how participants experience losses of relational power and problematic media depictions establishing standards for “normal” heterosexual sex. Discourses and practices concerning the perpetuation, resistance, and potential transformation of the status quo are described.     

Foster Care: How We Can,and Should,Do More for Maltreated Children

Foster care provides round-the-clock substitute care for nearly 700,000 U.S. children who are temporarily or permanently separated from their family of origin each year. Each state manages its own foster care system according to federal regulations. Despite numerous large-scale federal policy reforms over the past several decades, substantial concerns remain about the experiences and outcomes of children in the foster care system. The most recent effort to reform foster care, the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, attempts to both reduce the use of foster care and increase the quality of care. In this report, we review how policy has shaped the experiences and outcomes of children in foster care, where policy has succeeded, and where it falls short of achieving its goals. We then identify opportunities for federal and state policy to better support the safety, health, and well-being of children in foster care.     

Knowledge of Suicide Risk Factors,But Not Suicide Ideation Severity,Is Greater Among College Students Who Viewed 13 Reasons Why

Abstract

Objective: To test associations between viewing 13 Reasons Why, Season 1 and past week suicide ideation severity, behavior risk, stigma, and knowledge in college students. To explore whether personal exposure to suicide and depressive symptom severity moderated these associations. Participants: Eight-hundred and eighteen college students, 64% (n?=?522) of whom watched 13 Reasons Why. Methods: Students completed surveys online. Multivariate negative binomial regressions were used to test associations between watching 13 Reasons Why and suicide-related variables, and interaction terms. Results: Suicide ideation severity and suicide behavior risk were not significantly associated with viewing 13 Reasons Why; however, there was limited statistical power to detect associations. The association between watching 13 Reasons Why and greater suicide knowledge was stronger among those who did not have personal exposure to suicide. Conclusions: 13 Reasons Why may be a platform for psychoeducation on suicide, particularly among those who do not have personal exposure.     

Resolving complex community problems: Applying collective leadership and Kotter's change model to wicked problems within social system networks

How does collective leadership within social networks resolve chronic and complex problems common to communities? Unfortunately, sometimes it does not, but when it does, the outcome may be truly extraordinary. We use a case study approach to explain how one Midwest community within the USA applied collective leadership within a community network to reduce teen births. It took ten years of what many identified as provocative media campaigns and comprehensive sex education programs to reduce teen births by 65%, significantly exceeding the stated goal. Using Kotter's change model as a backdrop, powerful strategies and provocative creativity reveal courageous leadership within a social network of diverse people and organizations focused on improving the social well being of their community.     

Exploring the relation between maternal mind‐mindedness and children’s symbolic play: A longitudinal study from 6 to 18 months

Relations between mothers’ mind‐mindedness (appropriate attunement to their infants’ internal states) at 6 and 12 months and infants’ early symbolic play during infant–mother pretense at 12 and 18 months were investigated in a sample of 43 mothers and infants. Mothers’ appropriate mind‐related comments were associated with average level, length, complexity, and maturity level of symbolic play. Specific sub‐categories of appropriate mind‐related comments were identified as independent predictors of children's symbolic play. Appropriate comments about desires and cognitions at 6 months were associated with average level and length of episodes, as well as with maturity level of symbolic play at 12 months. Longitudinal stability in the appropriateness and content of mothers’ mind‐related comments was also investigated. The results are discussed in terms of the proposal that attunement to specific types of internal state should vary as a function of infant age in order to index mind‐mindedness.     

Infants’ reasoning about samples generated by intentional versus non‐intentional agents

The current experiments investigate how infants use goal‐directed action to reason about intentionally sampled outcomes in a probabilistic inference paradigm. Older infants and young children are flexible in their expectations of sampling: They expect random samples to reflect population statistics and non‐random samples to reflect an agent's preferences or goals (Kushnir, Xu, & Wellman, 2010; Xu & Denison, 2009). However, more recent work shows that probabilistic inference comes online at approximately 6 months (Denison, Reed, & Xu, 2013; Kayhan, Gredebäck, & Lindskog, 2017; Ma & Xu, 2011; Wellman, Kushnir, Xu, & Brink, 2016), and thus, these sampling assumptions can be investigated at the age probabilistic reasoning first emerges. Results indicate that 6‐month‐old infants expect a human agent to sample in accord with their goal and do not expect the same of an unintentional agent—a mechanical claw. By 9.5 months, infants expect the mechanical claw to sample in accord with random sampling. These results suggest that infants use goals to make inferences about intentional sampling, under appropriate conditions at 6 months, and they have expectations of the kinds of samples a mechanical device should obtain by 9.5 months.     

Capturing temporal dynamics of fear behaviors on a moment‐to‐moment basis

Identifying patterns of fearful behaviors early and accurately is essential to identify children who may be at increased risk for psychopathology. Previous work focused on the total amount of fear by using composites across time. However, considering the temporal dynamics of fear expression might offer novel insights into the identification of children at risk. One hundred and twenty‐five toddlers participated in high‐ and low‐fear tasks. Data were modeled using a novel two‐step approach. First, a hidden Markov model estimated latent fear states and transitions across states over time. Results revealed children's behavior was best represented by six behavioral states. Next, these states were analyzed using sequence clustering to identify groups of children with similar dynamic trajectories through the states. A four‐cluster solution found groups of children varied in fear response and regulation process: “external regulators” (using the caregiver as a regulation tool), “low reactive” (low reaction to stimulus), “fearful explorers” (managing their own internal state with minimal assistance from the caregiver), and “high fear” (fearful/at‐caregiver state regardless of task). The combination of analytic tools enabled fine‐grained examination of the processes of fearful temperament. These insights may help prevention programs target behaviors that perpetuate anxious behavior in the moment.     

“Me,the street,and a backpack”: employment,income, and physical capital in rural recovery

ABSTRACT

Recovery capital is a framework for understanding individuals’ resources for recovery from substance misuse. In a qualitative analysis of rural individuals in recovery (N = 49), the role of physical capital emerged prominently across ten focus groups. Participants highlighted the effects of employment status, income, and other forms of physical capital directly, as well as indirect effects through changes in human capital. Negative cultural capital components, in the form of stigma and employment discrimination, were described as barriers to physical capital acquisition and successful recovery. Based on these findings, we discuss rural recovery challenges and propose a model of recovery capital interactions.