Evaluating Dancing With Parkinson's: Reflections from the perspective of a community organization

In 2015, Dancing With Parkinson's (DWP), a Toronto-based community organization, participated in the Ontario Brain Institute's (OBI) newly launched Evaluation Support Program. This paper reflects on that experience. In particular, we identify the key lessons derived from the OBI initiative, discuss how these lessons have informed DWP practice going forward, and highlight what we consider to be the most valuable aspects of the Evaluation Support Program. While we now recognize the need to establish an evaluation culture within DWP, we find that there are significant challenges associated with both building and sustaining evaluation capacity in the context of a small community-based organization. Whereas DWP has built considerable strengths in terms of informal evaluation capacity, on its own, such capacity is insufficient to, for example, demonstrate DWP's impact to outside audiences or successfully scale up the program.     

The Role of Appraisal and Expressive Support in Mediating Strain and Gain in Hispanic Alzheimer's Disease Caregivers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine how appraisal of burden and satisfaction, and perception of expressive support mediate the effects of caregiving on depression, somatic complaints, life satisfaction and personal gain with a sample of Hispanic Alzheimer's disease (AD) primary caregivers. A purposive-snowball sampling technique was used to identify 103 Hispanic caregivers, who completed a self-report questionnaire. A translation-back-translation process was used to translate the instruments into Spanish. Translated instruments were then pilot tested prior to being administered to the participants. Appraisal of burden was found to mediate the effects of caregiving on depression and somatic complaints and had significant direct effects on life satisfaction. Appraisal of satisfaction did not have a mediating effect on any of the measures, but did have a direct effect on depression and personal gain. Expressive support did have a mediating effect on depression, as well as direct effects on somatic complaints and life satisfaction. These findings suggest a need for improving outreach to older minorities and developing culturally sensitive interventions that can improve caregivers' understanding of problematic behavior, thereby altering appraisal of the situation, as well as developing extended systems of support.     

Multimedia Biographies: A Reminiscence and Social Stimulus Tool for Persons with Cognitive Impairment

The multimedia biography tells the story of the life of an elderly person with a cognitive impairment in motion picture format. The multimedia biography combines family photographs, film clips, audio narration, and music. It is intended to be screened on an ongoing basis to provide spaces for reminiscence and communication between cognitively impaired persons and their families. Using a production process in which we collaborated with family caregivers, we created 12 multimedia biographies for persons having Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment. This article describes our production and screening processes. We also share lessons learned from the multimedia biography research to assist practitioners, families, or researchers who wish to use similar technologies and processes for eliciting and sharing life stories.     

Eight Years of Data on Residents in Small Dementia-Care Settings Suggest Functional Performance Is Maintained

Eight years of data analysis on residents’ status from three small Alzheimer care centers suggest notable stability in function. Individuals’ functional ability was best in their first year, but their year-to-year decline was mostly not significant. Cognitive abilities also were best in the resident's first year, but first-, second-, and third-year cognitive scores were not significantly different. We compared the residents’ dementia progression rate to the true rate of natural disease progression. This study, like others on small homelike settings, suggests that appropriate homelike environments maintain persons with dementia at an optimum level longer.     

Weighing the Success of a National Alzheimer's Disease Service Demonstration

Summary

As the need for long-term care services within the United States has grown dramatically, Congress has consistently deflected the primary responsibility for such care to state governments, local organizations, and, ultimately, the family. This paper examines the impact of the Alzheimer's Disease Demonstration Grants to States (ADDGS) program, a small federally funded initiative within the context of this trend. Although the demonstration can be deemed a huge success relative to the goals of creating new services for an underserved target population, questions are raised about the merits of the program relative to the exploding need for an effective network of long-term care services.     

Prevalence,people and processes: a consideration of the implications of Lord Laming's progress report on the protection of children in England

Media coverage of the death of Baby P revived national concerns about the standard of child safeguarding practice in England following the implementation of widespread structural changes in response to the Victoria Climbié Inquiry chaired by Lord Laming in 2003. This paper discusses the recommendations of Lord Laming's recent Progress Report. It questions whether the scale of the challenge in improving child protection is fully recognised and considers briefly the culture of social care in the UK and the barriers to effective reform. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changes in Wives' Income: Effects on Marital Happiness,Psychological Well‐Being,and the Risk of Divorce

We investigate the effects of increases in married women's actual income and in their proportion of total family income on marital happiness, psychological well‐being, and the likelihood of divorce. We use data from a sample of 1,047 married individuals (not couples) in medium‐duration marriages, drawn from a five‐wave panel survey begun in 1980 and continuing to 1997. Structural equation modeling is used to assess the impact of increases in married women's absolute and relative income from 1980 to 1988 on the marital happiness and well‐being of married men and women in 1988. Event history analysis is used to determine how these changes affect the risk of divorce between 1988 and 1997. We find that increases in married women's absolute and relative income significantly increase their marital happiness and well‐being. Increases in married women's absolute income generally have nonsignificant effects for married men. However, married men's well‐being is significantly lower when married women's proportional contributions to the total family income are increased. The likelihood of divorce is not significantly affected by increases in married women's income. Nevertheless, increases in married women's income may indirectly lower the risk of divorce by increasing women's marital happiness.     

The reproduction of gender: housework and attitudes towards gender equality in the home among Swedish boys and girls

The housework Swedish girls and boys age 10 to 18 do, and their attitudes towards gender equality in the home are studied. One aim is to see whether the work children do is gendered and if so, whether they follow their parents', often gendered, pattern in housework. A second aim is to see whether children's attitudes are influenced by their parents' attitudes and practices. When it comes to issues like these, Sweden is of special interest because in 1995, Sweden was appointed the most gender equal country in the world by the United Nations. The data used were the Swedish Child Level of Living Survey 2000 (see http://www.sofi.su.se/LNU2000/english.htm), a data set that includes extensive first-hand information from both children and their parents. The results indicate that girls and boys in two-parent families are more prone to engage in gender atypical work the more their parent of the same sex engages in this kind of work. The fact that girls still do more housework than boys in all families independent of, among other things, the parental division of housework and the mother's educational level indicates that housework to some extent signifies gender also to children. However, no clear relation is found between the parents' division of work and the child's attitude towards gender equality in the home. Neither is there any clear relation between the parents' attitude towards gender equality in the home and the children's attitude to the same topic.     

If Your Worship pleases: an Australian perspective on the role of the magistrate in child protection

This paper examines the hitherto unexplored role of magistrates in child protection. It reports on a series of interviews conducted by one of the authors with magistrates in the Family Division of the Melbourne Children's Court, Victoria (Australia) in 1993–1994. These interviews form part of a current, and larger, study of magistrates' decision-making in child protection. This paper critically examines the role of magistrates in planning for children in need of care and protection. Some of the questions that the paper poses include: do magistrates focus solely on judicial aspects or do they have a role in overall case planning for children? Do they have specific aims or objectives which influence how they deal with children who come before them? Do magistrates mostly agree with the recommendations which social workers put to them? Are magistrates subject to constraints which may not be understood by other professionals? The findings of the paper will assist in clearly defining the role of the magistrate in child protection, which has distinct advantages for all professionals who work in this complex area. The most appropriate outcomes for children can only be achieved when magistrates and other professionals work in partnership. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Orphans and Rich People’: A Discourse Analysis of the ‘Children's Lives’ Exhibition in Birmingham,UK

In 2012, an art gallery in Birmingham, England presented an exhibition of ‘Children's Lives’. Through its curation of photography, fine art, objects, video and text, ‘Children's Lives’ claimed to ‘let childhood through the ages speak for itself’ and to contribute ‘to a debate over what it means to be a child’. In this article, we offer a critical analysis of the exhibition, examining the relationship between the exhibition as discourse and the ‘external’ discourses around childhood that are reinforced, negotiated and in some cases challenged by the assemblage of image, text and the spatial ‘narrative’ of the gallery.     

The role,importance and challenges of social sciences and humanities in the work of the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES)

Qualified competences in social science and humanities are required across the various deliverables of the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES) in order to fully address the objectives of IPBES. Building integrative approaches has long been acknowledged as a scientific challenge. Hence, new paths have to be forged, including revisiting basic ontological and epistemological considerations, such as how we understand the world, what knowledge is, and the role of science. Constructive interdisciplinary dialogues in IPBES supports the development of innovative frames and terminologies. One example is the evolution from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ecosystem service framework to the Nature’s Contributions to People classification now applied in IPBES assessments. IPBES is still in a learning phase and critical examination of what is accomplished this far is useful when refining ongoing modes of work and in long-term strategic considerations.     

Adult Adoptees as Partners and Parents: The Joint Task of Revisiting the Adoption History

Adoption is unanimously considered a lifelong process, but adulthood and parenthood are life cycle stages that up to now have been explored only marginally. The principal aim of the present study is twofold: first, to analyze whether and how parenthood might lead the adoptee and his/her partner to reinterpret the adoption history and, second, to verify whether the attitudes of the two partners concerning adoption are similar or complementary. Thirty-four couples consisting of one adopted and one non-adopted partner, now parents, were interviewed and a graphic instrument, the Double Moon Test, was administered. Results revealed that most couples showed a shared attitude in valorizing both the origin background and the adoptive family. However, in a number of cases a divergent position emerged, highlighting the crucial role of the non-adopted partner in encouraging the adoptee to revisit his/her adoption history. Overall, the practical relevance of the research findings is discussed and future direction of research are suggested.     

A lattice of participation: reflecting on examples of children's and young people's collective engagement in influencing social welfare policies and practices

The article introduces four case studies from Wales, France and Finland and explores the situated, intergenerational and dynamic nature of collective participation in child welfare settings. Collective participation is conceived of as a process of engagement in which children and young people have some influence over the initiation or direction of a project; and as seeking a product, or outcome. The case studies represent a range of forms of collective engagement and highlight some key resources which supported children's participation (communicative spaces, time, money, knowledge, social position, attitudes, social networks, institutional commitment, equipment, food and transport). Challenges encountered in achieving effective participation in different nations within Europe are also identified, related to generation barriers and the distribution of resources. These elements are used to construct a lattice of participation: a model for conceptualising children and young people's collective engagement in participatory projects. The model provides a tool for visualising how, at different stages of a project, actors (children, young facilitators, adults and institutions) exercise influence by directing the use of different resources, such as finance and time. It invites reflection on why influence is limited in some stages of a participatory project, and how it is supported in other stages.     

‘The Mighty Pillar of the Family’: Young People's Vocabularies on Household Gender Arrangements in the Asia‐Pacific Region

In the light of women's increased labour force participation and the demands of western feminism for men's participation in housework and childcare, this article analyses vocabularies on these issues among young people in Australia, USA and Canada and seven countries in Asia. While very few young people in any of the samples use explicitly feminist justifications for their statements, there is high support for sharing housework when both partners are in paid work. By contrast, the strong support for role reversal — for men being ‘house husbands’— is confined to the western samples. The article explores reasons for these differences based in respondents’ domestic experiences and national family policies. Where many of the western respondents rely on equality or individualism, the Asian respondents are more likely to understand the role of the husband and wife in the context of their duties to each other and the nation or to assert the existence of gender differences between men and women.     

The Effects of 'Transnationalism Reversed' in Venezuela: Assessing the impact of UN global conferences on the women's movement

The UN world women's conferences - in particular the two most recent ones, held in Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995) - have been celebrated as catalysts for the development of a transnational women's movement. But their achievements are less clear when examining their impacts on national organizing. Consideration of the effects of 'transnationalism reversed', or how transnational organizing affects national contexts, reveals that domestic conditions combine with global opportunities in ways that may be detrimental as well as productive for national women's movements. This article illustrates the effects of 'transnationalism reversed' using the case of Venezuela. Field research from national, regional, and transnational contexts (1994-1995) shows that the stage of the national movement, its sources of funding, and the politics of particular national administrations all interact with conference preparation, with quite different outcomes at different junctures.     

The Therapist's Imagination of Self in Relation to Clients: Beginning Ideas on the Flexibility of Empathic Imagination

The therapist's capacity to imagine is one specific part of the endeavour of empathy which lies at the heart of the processes of the therapeutic relationship. This article offers beginning ideas about the significance of therapist's imagination of self in relation to her/his clients in the task of trying to understand their experience. In seeking to ‘understand’ the experience of others, the therapist is able to move between an imagination of sameness/identification with the client/s, and an imagination of difference/‘foreignness’. The family therapy orientation of curiosity and ‘not‐knowing’ relies on the imagination of self as different to our clients; more traditional understandings of empathic connection rely more heavily on the imagination of sameness/identification with clients. This article argues that flexibility in the therapist's use of self in moving between these positions allows an expanded capacity for therapeutic connectedness. These ideas have special valence in the practice territories of impasse and intercultural therapy.     

Social Movement,Action and Change: The Influence of Women's Movements on City Government in Mumbai and London

This article reports on a research investigation into gender and local government in Mumbai in India and London in England. In both these cities female representation at the political level stands at around one third, achieved in London slowly in recent years and in Mumbai more rapidly through the adoption of a quota, or seat reservation system, implemented in 1992. In considering the experience of the women concerned it is argued that their presence and aspirations have been influenced through the networks of their respective women's movements, operating through civil society and the local state. In considering the ways in which they organize and manage the duties of office and their gendered identities, as well as in their focus on the most disadvantaged in their communities and in their dealings with others, the part played by social movements in influencing change is examined.     

Social Research and the Privacy and Participation of Children: Reflections on Researching Australian Children's Playlore

Social research into the daily activities of children is important if we are to understand how children perceive themselves in relationship to their world. Ethically managed social research that allows children to speak as informed and competent subjects is thus vital. However, research regulatory bodies may be more concerned with protecting the privacy of children than facilitating their participation in research projects. In a context where publicly funded researchers are encouraged to make their data available for reuse, the bureaucratisation of the consent and ethics processes may impinge on the conduct and benefits, and the future accessibility, of the research itself. Reflecting on the findings of the Childhood, Tradition and Change research on playlore in Australian primary schools, we argue for a more balanced approach from regulatory authorities between protection and participation in relation to low‐risk social research with children.