What's Love Got to Do with It? Sexuality,Shame, and the Use of the Other

This article examines Jessica Benjamin's path-blazing feminist work on domination/submission as the foundation for later studies on sexuality and emphasizes intersubjectivity both as a philosophical model and as a clinical concept. The problem of dependency in the mother-infant relationship, the terrors and desires of the mother-baby relationship, and the intersubjective aspects of sexuality as they appear in the clinical work are discussed. The article suggests that the mother's body plays a fundamental role in the discovery of oneself and of the other and particularly in the development of the capacity for love.     

Anti-social youth? Disruptions in care and the role of ‘behavioral problems’

This paper explores the mechanisms behind the disturbingly high occurrence of placement disruption among young people in out-of-home care. Discussions have usually been framed in a vocabulary of risk and protection, with the bulk of research designed for singling out factors that correlate with stability and discontinuity in care arrangements. From this research tradition, we have learned that ‘behavioral problems’ are by far the strongest predictor for disruptions in care. By exploring the quality of care as experienced by young people themselves, this study suggests an alternative strategy. Findings suggest that disruptions occur as a result of complex social relations, as when young people struggle to fit in among other troubled youth in demanding residential settings. The paper concludes that labels such as ‘behavioral problems’ may have a reifying effect that individualizes the problem of care disruption while not being particularly helpful in explaining the phenomenon.     

Nursebots to the rescue? Immigration,automation, and care

Abstract

This paper explores the rising cost of care services in affluent countries, with a particular focus on nursing. It suggests that competitive pressures lead to forms of ‘over-commodification’ that can both lower the quality of care and lead to deterioration of the work environment. While immigration and automation can help reduce costs, they can also pose threats to care quality. Care providers and care recipients need to collaborate in efforts to set and enforce high quality standards.     

Are maternal and community risk factors associated with the presence of asthma among children placed in foster care?

Objective

The occurrence of pediatric asthma has been associated with exposure to chronic stress. This study examined the relationship between maternal and community risk factors and asthma in a sample of maltreated children in foster care.

Method

Interviews were conducted with 365 maltreated children in foster care. Measures included youth/caregiver reports of asthma, an index of maternal risk based on data abstracted from child welfare records and community violence exposure.

Results

After controlling for demographic variables, maternal risk was associated with the presence of asthma (OR = 1.314, 95% CI = 1.09–1.58). Community violence exposure, however, was not related to the presence of asthma.

Conclusion

Maternal risk factors were significantly associated with the presence of asthma in a foster care population. Physicians who care for maltreated children in foster care should be particularly attuned to the presence of these additional risk factors that may place high-risk children at increased risk for chronic health problems.     

Migration,technology and care: what happens to the body?

Migration is a social phenomenon impacting upon family life and conceptualisations of care. Simultaneously, technological advances allow families to stay connected. Care issues in the context of disability and aging may affect family relationships and how families develop. What is little understood is how these issues in migrant families affect a ‘family life course’. We use the case of a South African family with a daughter who is deaf and has other impairments. We argue that when communication is foregrounded and other, embodied, aspects of family care are relegated to the background, we lose the opportunity to understand family care patterns. We relate our discussion to broader theoretical questions regarding the body and care in disability studies.     

Using respondent-driven sampling with ‘hard to reach’ marginalised young people: problems with slow recruitment and small network size

This paper documents an experience of using respondent-driven sampling (RDS) to recruit socially marginalised young people in Sydney, Australia. Respondents were young people aged 16–24?years who were current illicit drug users and who reported at least one feature of social marginalisation (e.g. recent homelessness or juvenile detention). Four seeds initiated the sampling and 61 respondents were recruited until the sampling was closed due to slow progress at week nine. The paper examines: (1) the overall success of RDS and compares this with similar RDS studies; and (2) the sufficiency of network ties among respondents. The analyses suggest that RDS was generally successful in that, despite its small size, the sample achieved adequately long recruitment chains and variables converged to equilibrium. Nevertheless, recruitment was much slower than comparable studies. This could be due to the study population having reduced willingness to participate, a high proportion of respondents who did not fit the selection criteria, and small and disparate networks. Using RDS with marginalised youth may require generous resourcing to allow large incentives to increase willingness, and a lengthy recruitment period. Moreover, the small networks suggest that researchers should start the sampling with a large number of seeds.     

Do internal and international remittances matter to health,education and labor of children and adolescents? The case of Vietnam

Using data from Vietnam Household and Living Standard Surveys in 2006 and 2008, this study estimates the effect of the receipt of international remittances and internal remittances on education, labor and healthcare utilization of children and adolescents in Vietnam. It shows that there are no statistically significant effects of receipt of remittances on school enrolment as well as child labor of children and adolescents. However, receiving international remittances helps children increase the number of completed grades by around 2% of the average completed grade for children. Both international and internal remittances are positively associated with the number of outpatient health care visits.     

What does care have to do with human rights? Analysing the impact on women's rights and gender equality

Unpaid care work is a critical human rights issue, as well as a major obstacle to gender equality and poverty reduction. This article draws attention to the impact of heavy, intensive, and unequal burdens of unpaid care work on the human rights of women living in poverty, and analyses the relevance of international human rights law to decisions on the necessary responses and remedies. The authors present recommendations for policy and practice – both for national/local governments and for development practitioners – based on human rights law and standards.     

What makes it so hard to look and to listen? Exploring the use of the Cognitive and Affective Supervisory Approach with children’s social work managers

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the findings of an ESRC-funded Knowledge Exchange project designed to explore the contribution of an innovative approach to supervision to social work practitioners’ assessment and decision-making practices. The Cognitive and Affective Supervisory Approach (CASA) is informed by cognitive interviewing techniques originally designed to elicit best evidence from witnesses and victims of crime. Adapted here for use in childcare social work supervision contexts, this model is designed to enhance the quantity and quality of information available for decision-making. Facilitating the reporting of both ‘event information’ and ‘emotion information’, it allows a more detailed picture to emerge of events, as recalled by the individual involved, and the meaning they give to them. Practice supervisors from Children’s Services in two local authorities undertook to introduce the CASA into supervision sessions and were supported in this through the provision of regular reflective group discussions. The project findings highlight the challenges for practitioners of ‘detailed looking’ and for supervisors of ‘active listening’. The paper concludes by acknowledging that the CASA’s successful contribution to decision-making is contingent on both the motivation and confidence of supervisors to develop their skills and an organisational commitment to, and resourcing of, reflective supervisory practices and spaces.     

The education of children and adolescents in out-of-home care: a problem or an opportunity? Results of a longitudinal study

The education of children in care is an issue that often falls into a no man’s land in which responsibility always seems to be attributed to the other ‘department’. Furthermore, all too often, teachers, educators and foster parents find themselves working with these children with no support, as if they were isolated cases. The aim of this study is to get to know the school situation of children in different types of out-of-home care: residential, kinship and non-kinship care. Systematic data on the school situation of 11–16-year-olds (on class attendance, school behaviour, academic results and guidance towards post-compulsory education) were gathered over a period of 5 consecutive school years. A 3-year longitudinal study on the same items (N?=?391) was made and time-series data were gathered for 5 years (N?=?1841). Results show that the in-care population is at a clear disadvantage and inequality of opportunities compared to the general population in relation to their educational pathways and outcomes; the most disadvantaged being the population in residential care. Recommendations are included, posing the challenge that what has to date been considered a ‘problem’ should become an opportunity for these children.     

Using the integrative model of behavioral prediction to understand college students’ STI testing beliefs,intentions, and behaviors

ABSTRACT

Objectives: To identify salient behavioral determinants related to STI testing among college students by testing a model based on the integrative model of behavioral (IMBP) prediction. Participants: 265 undergraduate students from a large university in the Southeastern US. Methods:Formative and survey research to test an IMBP-based model that explores the relationships between determinants and STI testing intention and behavior. Results: of path analyses supported a model in which attitudinal beliefs predicted intention and intention predicted behavior. Normative beliefs and behavioral control beliefs were not significant in the model; however, select individual normative and control beliefs were significantly correlated with intention and behavior. Conclusions: Attitudinal beliefs are the strongest predictor of STI testing intention and behavior. Future efforts to increase STI testing rates should identify and target salient attitudinal beliefs.     

Interagency practice in children with non‐organic failure to thrive: is there a gap between health and social care?

Failure to thrive is a child protection issue that crosses the boundaries between many professional groups. It is a condition that places children at risk of negative developmental, social, physical and emotional consequences, but it has complex causal roots. Although there are known to be links between neglect, emotional abuse and failure to thrive, health and social care providers have differing responses and interventions with children who are failing to thrive. An examination of recent Scottish statistics supports the argument that there may be a gap between health and social care that some children may be falling through. Evidence from the literature regarding interagency roles and responsibilities is ambiguous, and the different, albeit overlapping, professional constructions of failure to thrive may result in a gap in care for some vulnerable children. It is only by beginning to understand the crucial links between different professions that we can contribute towards effective interagency child protection policy and practice. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing practice-near social work research to explore the emotional worlds of severely learning disabled adolescents in ‘transition’ and their families

This paper aims to make a contribution to the development of practice-near research through discussion of a project which explores the experiences of a socially marginalized group — young people with severe learning disabilities. Psychoanalytically informed infant observation is adapted as a research method for observing these young people in the family home. The paper discusses the rationale for the development and adaption of the research method in the process of observing. The discussion focuses on the key themes of understanding the quality of developing subjectivity and the ways that young people, adults and siblings coped with the often stressful aspects in the home. The article concludes with the implications for policy and practice and proposes that methodologies such as this are needed to capture the complexity of the lives and experiences of these service users and their families.     

Does formal integration between child welfare and behavioral health agencies result in improved placement stability for adolescents engaged with both systems?

National survey data were used to assess whether child welfare agency ties to behavioral health care providers improved placement stability for adolescents served by both systems. Adolescents initially at home who were later removed tended to have fewer moves when child welfare and behavioral health were in the same larger agency. Joint training of child welfare and behavioral health staff was negatively associated with numbers of moves and numbers of days out of home.     

What's love got to do with it? Passion and inequality in white‐collar work

Emotion has become an increasingly important aspect of work in the 21st century. In this article, we take stock of the extant literature delineating the role of emotions, especially passion as a cultural schema, in white‐collar workplaces. Scholars have covered extensive ground on emotions at work, but the role of passion remains an underexplored yet significant area. Drawing from recent developments in research on white‐collar work, we argue that the passion schema has become a critical marker in the labor market for sorting individuals into occupations, hiring and promotion within organizations, and assigning value to people's labor. Emergent research suggests that because the expression and perception of passion remain ambiguously defined in the workplace and varies by context, it is pivotal in reproducing social inequalities. In this review, we focus on how privileging passion in the workplace and interpreting it as a measure of aptitude impacts social inequalities by race, gender, and social class. We close by setting an agenda for further research on this topic.     

Joining formative evaluation with translational science to assess an EBI in foster care: Examining social–emotional well-being and placement stability

This study examined measures of placement stability and social–emotional well-being for a federally-funded demonstration project of inhome Parent Management Training-Oregon model (PMTO) for children in foster care with serious emotional disturbance (SED). Following a cultural exchange framework for translational research and a tollgate approach to evaluation, this formative study tested these measures prior to further investment in summative evaluation. The research aim was to observe whether measures of social–emotional well-being and placement stability performed as expected. Using a pretest–posttest randomized consent trial, children identified as SED within six months of entering foster care were randomly assigned to PMTO or to a services-as-usual comparison group (N = 121). A multi-group structural equation model was tested to observe the relationship of baseline social–emotional wellbeing and placement stability on post-test social–emotional well-being. Results showed that post-test well-being was significantly predicted by baseline well-being for both groups and, importantly, only the intervention group demonstrated significant effects of placement stability on post-test well-being. For the intervention group, as placement stability increased, post-test social skills significantly improved, demonstrating an association between well-being and placement stability that was not evident in the comparison group. Overall, wellbeing measures performed as expected and detected relationships between variables and variation as hypothesized. Additionally, placement stability may have been mediated by the PMTO intervention. In conclusion, by using a real world example of the translational research concept of cultural exchange between university-based researchers and agency-based practitioners, this study shows that formative evaluation offers an important opportunity to test ad hoc research questions inspired by the process of implementation itself.     

Anti-elite politics and emotional reactions to socio-economic problems: Experimental evidence on “pocketbook anger” from France,Germany, and the United States

Many observers have noticed the importance of anger in contemporary politics, particularly with reference to populism. This article addresses the question under which conditions people become angry about a specific aspect of their lives: their personal financial situation. Specifically, it asks if populist anti-elite rhetoric has a causal influence on anger and if this influence differs across socio-economic groups. The theoretical expectation is that anti-elite rhetoric allows people to externalize responsibility for an unfavorable financial situation and thereby to turn negative self-conscious emotions into anger. The argument is tested with original survey data from France, Germany, and the United States. The empirical analysis yields three main insights. First, negative emotional reactions to respondents’ personal finances (and anger in particular) are surprisingly widespread in all three countries. Second, there is a pronounced socio-economic gradient in the distribution of anger and other negative emotions. Third, and most importantly, randomly exposing participants to populist anti-elite rhetoric causes considerably higher expressed anger about one's financial situation in France and Germany, but less so in the United States. This suggests a causal role of anti-elite rhetoric in stirring “pocketbook anger.” This is true in particular in the middle classes. The notion that populist rhetoric reduces negative self-conscious emotions, such as shame, is not supported by the data.