Employment effects of skills around the world: Evidence from the PIAAC

Using an international survey that directly assesses the cognitive skills of participants, the author studies the effect of skills on employment in 32 countries. On average, a 1 standard deviation increase in numeracy is associated with an 8.4 percentage point increase in the probability of being employed, reducing the probability of being out of the labour force and unemployed by 6.4 and 2.1 percentage points, respectively. After controlling for numeracy, the estimated employment effect of years in education falls by one third, from 2.7 to 1.8 percentage points. Notably, the employment effect of skills is more pronounced in countries with higher unemployment.     

Decision-making around psychotropic medications for children in foster care: Perspectives from foster parents

Background and objectiveChildren in foster care have complex mental health needs and receive high rates of psychotropic medications. Rarely can foster parents make legal decisions about treatment, yet they are intricately involved in the child's life and responsible for the child's safety and well-being. We aimed to conduct the first study of foster parent perspectives on decision-making relevant to the use of psychotropics with children in foster care.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured phone interviews with 13 parents in a small northeastern state who had fostered a child receiving psychotropics in the past 5 years. The state child welfare agency sent information about the study via email to all foster and adoptive parents for whom they had email contact. Interviews queried parents' knowledge and attitudes toward psychotropics, engagement in decisions, and recommendations for the decision-making process. Interview responses were coded and synthesized using mixed inductive and deductive methods in Dedoose software.ResultsChildren came into care on an average of four psychotropics. Parents reported receiving little information about the medications and finding information on their own. Parents acknowledged the potential benefits of medications, yet attitudes were largely against their use. Internal and external pressures for and against the use of medications were described. Many parents felt left out of the decisions and recommended team decisions.ConclusionsEfforts to improve foster parents' knowledge of medications, side effects, and monitoring, as well as team decision protocols, are sorely needed to improve decisions for this population.     

Training for Abusive Caregivers:

This article proposes a model for elder abuse intervention based on a recently implemented caregiver training program. Caregivers at-risk for abuse were offered traiing through mental health centers on biopsychocosil issues in aging, problem-solving, stress and anger management, and utilization of community resources. Participants were compared with similar caregivers on measures of psychosocial well-being to examine the efficacy of training. Participants experienced some reduction in symptoms of psychological distress and caregiving burden over time while symptoms worsened or remained unchanged for non-participants. Suggestions are made for utilizing this approach in cases of founded abuse.     

Probation Training: Evidence from Newly Qualified Officers

The Diploma in Probation Studies replaced the Diploma in Social Work as the qualification for probation officers in England and Wales in 1997. It had a controversial beginning, coming as it did after a lengthy struggle involving practitioners, employers and academics, who united in their opposition to the removal of probation from social work training. The fear was that the proposed new training would be too rigid, too functionalist, and too narrow in its focus to produce critical thinkers who would engage in thoughtful and anti‐oppressive probation practice. This paper reports a small qualitative study into the views of a group of 15 newly qualified probation officers from the first three cohorts to qualify about their experiences of this form of training. It finds that they felt they had a very heavy workload, with pressure points at certain times, and would have welcomed the work being more evenly spread. Some respondents struggled with what they saw as the very different requirements of academic work and the NVQ, but most felt that on this programme the NVQ had helped them to become reflective about their practice. They are positive about being well equipped for their jobs in today's probation service, but would welcome more support in their first period of practice after qualifying, to facilitate the continued development of their learning.     

Out in the country: rural sexual minority mothers

Rural and urban sexual minority mothers' parenting experiences related to sexual orientation were compared. Participants were 414 mothers in same-sex relationships with at least one child under the age of 18 years living in their home who was planned with their current partner. Rural mothers were more likely to be biological parents and not adoptive parents. Rural mothers reported higher rates of discrimination from strangers and people in service or helping professions. Although outness for rural and urban mothers did not differ, for children, classmates' parents and neighbors were less likely to know the family's status in rural areas. Rural and urban mothers did not differ on internalized homophobia, social support, or stigma consciousness. Clinical and policy implications are discussed.     

Training research-minded social workers: experience from Estonia*

ABSTRACT

Social work education in its modern sense started to develop after Estonia regained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union. The aim of this article is to introduce good practices of teaching research-mindedness, this being one of the main principles in teaching social workers-to-be in the University of Tartu in Estonia. We have been inspired by the academic tradition of university teaching in general, the new international definition of social work and, not least, the realisation of social workers in practice of not being able to apply academic knowledge to everyday social work practices. This article revisits the term research-mindedness and examines how it has been integrated into the university level teaching process. Our purpose is to discuss the methods students of bachelor’s and master’s programmes can learn to ‘translate’ social issues into research questions, critically appraise the findings and ‘translate’ them back as new research evidence for social work practice.     

The influence of logo design on country image and willingness to visit: A study of country logos for tourism

This study examines the influence of tourism logo design on people's country image and their intention to visit the country being promoted. In an online survey, undergraduate students were exposed to the tourism logos of Australia, Kenya, and Malawi. The results show that students’ evaluations of a country's logo significantly affected their image of the country and their willingness to visit it after controlling for pre-existing knowledge and attitude toward the object country.     

Turn it around: short-term management for aggression and anger

1. Although nurses are at considerable risk for assaults, there are few practical and specific guidelines for controlling anger and aggression. 2. A training course was developed to give staff the necessary skills and knowledge to cope with clients who have the potential to become angry and assaultive, or those who have already become violent. 3. Participants in the training course felt more confident in managing potentially violent situations, and they reported relying on methods to de-escalate the situation to halt a sequence that would ultimately lead to violence.     

浅谈上海世博会对我国城市发展的启示

历时半年的上海世博会已经圆满落幕,精彩的盛会过后,留给我们的是人类对于城市发展的不懈探索,以及将对中国未来发展产生深远影响的精神文化资源。各国带来的最佳创意和最能代表其社会发展的成就为城市设计者和建设者们提供了最直观、最深刻的感受,希望由此产生的灵感火花能够在我国的城市发展中生根发芽、开花结果。     

混业经营：我国金融业发展的必然选择

加入WTO的程度不断加强,所面临的国外金融业的竞争更加激烈。因此,我国金融业必须紧跟国际金融业的发展步伐,将国际金融业发展的主流——混业经营作为未来的发展方向,这样才能应对世界经济一体化、金融全球化的发展要求,适应国际金融市场竞争的需要,从而实现自身发展。混业经营是国际金融业发展的主流混业经营,是指所有金融行业之间即银行、保险、证券、信托等金融机构都可以进入上述任一业务领域甚至非金融领域进行多元化经营。综观当今世界[(\270\367\271\372)0(\243\254)]混业经营已成为普遍趋势。(一)金融全球化发展是金融业混业经营…     

Training Student Volunteers for Community Service:

This article discusses the development of a two hour training for undergraduate volunteers in youth programs in community agencies. The trainers, from a Department of Applied Psychology, conceptualized the task in the context of Miller's idea of ''giving psychology away,'' providing psychological knowledge to non-professionals who can benefit from it. The key concept given away in the training is the ''helping alliance,'' an idea from psychotherapy theory, which is modified for the specific context of volunteer helpers. Implementation of the program, preliminary evaluations, and further projects and implications are discussed.