Community mobilization and health care in rural China

This study is based on interviews conducted in Xiao San Jiang Township, China. This article describes the health care system before and after the reforms of the late 1970s and the impact on community mobilization and health care provision. The success of the Chinese health care system is attributed to mass participation in disease prevention. There were the public health campaigns of the 1950s at the brigade level that mobilized people to adopt personal and environmental sanitation, pest control, and primary health education. There were organizations, such as the Youth Leagues and the Women's Federations. The large groups encouraged use of services, such as family planning services, gynecological screening, and immunization. The Barefoot Doctor and Cooperative Medical Care Insurance Schemes were introduced. Brigades became directly involved in health care delivery, and health workers increased access to primary health services. There was multisectoral collaboration between mass and government organizations. Each commune official had multiple roles and information flowed between sectors. The end result was community mobilization of resources in an organization-intensive social structure and increased hopes for improvements in health. The propaganda was effective in health promotion. In the late 1970s, township management districts and village committees replaced the brigades and communes. The responsibility system gave households responsibility for the productivity of specific plots of land in order to fulfill government quotas. Members of a health project funded by a Hong Kong-based primary health care organization discovered a number of problems. Community mobilization was waning, and mass organizations were not effective. The insurance system collapsed. People tired of political slogans. Although other countries are now adopting community health approaches, China is moving away from this approach.     

The long-term care insurance law in Israel: present and future

Aging in place is a core component of the policy on aging in Israel. This was well expressed in the Long-Term Care Insurance law enacted in 1986 and implemented in 1988. Under the law, disabled persons can receive in-kind home- and community-based services to enable frail older adults to age in place and to complement or supplement the care provided primarily by family caregivers who are legally responsible for caregiving of their elderly family members. This article presents the main principles of the law and reviews the amendments that this law has undergone during the past 22 years. Finally, some core issues and dilemmas are discussed.     

Social work and law in a foster care/adoption program

The push toward permanency planning has led to a blurring of distinctions between foster care and adoption, and consequent emotional and legal entanglements. The program described here was designed to emphasize cooperation between social workers and lawyers to safeguard the rights of all parties, and the authors discuss the pitfalls of casework with both biological and foster parents.     

Community perceptions and foster care placement: A multi-level analysis

Signs of physical and social disorder in a community have the potential to influence the perceptions about community, which could, in turn, impact the decision making processes involved in child maltreatment investigations. While extant research has demonstrated a link between community context and child maltreatment rates, there is a dearth of research examining the potential relationship between social conditions in a community and the child welfare system's response to allegations of neglect. This study examined the relationship between child- and community-level characteristics and the decision to place a child in foster care. Two data sets were linked, one containing detailed observations of community conditions (e.g., cigarette and alcohol advertisements) and a second with individual child level information about child welfare investigations. Multilevel models allowed for the simultaneous understanding of child- and community-level characteristics. The results indicated strong associations between individual characteristics and foster care placement. The race or ethnicity of the child was a strong predictor of entry into foster care, and young children were much more likely to be placed in foster care than older children. Furthermore, community factors were also associated with placement into foster care. Specifically, the presence of litter and graffiti and the lack of security signage in a neighborhood appeared to impact the decision making process for foster care.     

Protecting human participants in long-term care research: the role of state law and policy

There has been substantial recent activity addressed at the challenge of protecting the rights and welfare of vulnerable human participants in various kinds of research protocols, on one hand, without unduly impeding the conduct of research that promises findings that may substantially improve health and quality of life for many beneficiaries of research, on the other. Many of the emerging recommendations for improved participant protection are relevant to, and in some cases explicitly targeted at, vulnerable older persons, including long-term, chronically dependent nursing home and home health patients, who may be approached by investigators. Thus far, virtually all of the discussion and recommendations regarding research participant protection pertain to possible legal and policy changes at the federal level. Yet, both current federal law and emerging policy recommendations defer, either expressly or by default through their silence, on some very important matters about research participation, especially regarding informed consent, determinations of decisional capacity, and surrogate decision-making authority, to the laws of individual states. This article analyzes and interweaves recommendations regarding the role of state law and public policy in protecting older persons who are or may become participants in long-term care research projects.     

Israel's long-term care insurance law after a decade of implementation

Israel's Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) law has been in effect for a decade. It is timely to review the effects of this legislation with a view to identifying possible directions for reform and lessons for other countries considering the introduction of a similar social insurance scheme. The paper considers the law's effects in terms of the size and characteristics of the beneficiary population, the coverage of the scheme, its financial standing, the rate of institutionalization of the elderly, the caregiving burden, the service delivery system, and the overall scope of long-term care services for the aged. Israel's experience has lessons for financing arrangements, target efficiency, service delivery arrangements, and the construction of the burden of care.     

Community work and community care: Links in practice and in education

This article emphasises the individualising nature of much current community care provision and then discusses opportunities which may have been presented by the emphasis on user-empowerment within the community care changes. Drawing on personal experience and written from a perspective that we need a community care provision infused with the practices and values of community work, the article considers how community work needs to change and how community care workers need to change. The implications for social work educators are brought out throughout the article.     

Community and the Elderly

No abstract available for this article.     

Culture and the law in Islam

Rather than living in a homogeneous world, Muslim women participate in vastly different cultures. The Women Living Under Muslim Law (WLUML) Network was set up to unite women in Muslim countries across the world and to stimulate them to analyze and reconceptualize the nature of their situation in order to formulate strategies for change. In Muslim countries, the law provides a web of rules which shape every aspect of women's lives. Because these laws have been presented as "Islamic," traditional human rights groups have been loathe to criticize them for fear of trampling religious rights. The WLUML started the "Women and the Law" project, therefore, to chart and conduct action-oriented research in law in 26 countries. This project is based on the conviction that the key to women gaining the power to control their destinies will lie in their ability to master the law that shapes their lives. This project should lay the foundation for the vindication of the human rights of Muslim women.     

Marx,formal subsumption and the law

Recent work rethinking the place of the law in Marxian analysis of capitalist society provides us with a foundation for a renewed look at the labor process. Drawing on this literature, which emphasizes the materiality of institutions through which labor is exploited, and returning to Marx’s discussion of formal subsumption in Capital, I argue that the law was central for subordinating labor. I then present three case studies from industries in Victorian England to demonstrate the diverse ways in which law was implicated in formal subsumption. The case studies focus on the ways in which capitalists used master and servant law, the key law governing the workplace, to subordinate labor. I conclude by considering how these cases provoke us to consider the materiality of the law in labor relations more broadly, and such questions might be pursued in developing capitalist economies such as China.     

European competition law and the non-profit sector

Although there has been a debate in the USA for more than two decades about competition policy and non-profit organisations, the debate has not yet had the same prominence in Europe. Only in the last few years, even in the USA, has anti-trust policy toward the sector been examined. The paper examines the position for two groups of competition issues in European Community law: first, the problem of the lawfulness of grant aid, given the rules against state subsidies distorting competition; and second, the application of the rules for competition in the single market including EC anti-trust law. Particular legal problems are identified for non-profits which use geographical catchment area agreements with similar organisations. Finally, the paper examines a range of policy issues which arise on consideration of Community law, including the idea of community development as a locally autarchic objective, the terms of competition for grants and contracts, and the possible implications of the future application of European competition law to non-profits in the Community.This paper is part of a series of studies on non-profit organisations and competition policy; others include 6, 1991; 1992a,b. Many people, all of whom know much more about the law and the economics of this subject than I do, have helped me with this paper. I am particularly grateful to Richard Steinberg, Tymen van den Ploeg, Richard Whish, Martin Knapp, Jeremy Kendall and Stephen Lloyd who read and commented on earlier drafts. Richard Whish urged me to greater caution on the meaning of undertaking and interstate trade effects, pointed out the relevance of the subsidiarity provisions in Maastricht, put me straight on the merger regulations, and saved me from a number of legal errors. I am grateful to Jeremy Kendall for pointing out the BUPA case to me, and to Tymen van den Ploeg for directing me to theDaily Mail case and explaining its significance to me with greater patience than I deserved. I have also benefited from advice from Lindsay Driscoll, Nigel Tarling, Bridget Phelps, Anita Randon and Janet Morrison. I am grateful also to all the people who attended an NCVO seminar on 27 April 1992 at which a late draft of the paper was given for their comment. None of them is responsible for my errors. Although I am employed by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, London, the paper represents my own views and not those of the Council.     

Compulsive gambling and the changing military law

Military courts have had to face the issue of compulsive gambling in criminal court-martial proceedings. The military recently switched from the liberal ALI definition of insanity to the much more stringent standards of the federal Insanity Defense Reform Act. However, military courts have not even allowed in expert testimony, holding the relevance of compulsive gambling has not been generally accepted in the scientific community. The rules involving extenuation or mitigation in sentencing allow much more leeway. Although compulsive gambling cannot be used as the basis for a defense of insanity in military courts, defense lawyers will continue to raise the issue in attempting to obtain lesser punishments for their military clients.B.S. Loyola College, J.D. Univ. of MD, Active duty Judge Advocate General's Corps, four years currently selected for promotion to Colonel, USAR. Partner, Stark and Little.B.A. 1982, Gettysburg College; J.D., 1987, Univ. of Balto.; Associate, Stark and Little, Baltimore, MD; member of the Baltimore City, Md. State, and Am. Bar Associations.     

Spirituality and the Gay Community

Father Leo Booth examines the need to recognize the effects negative religious messages about homosexuality have on gay and lesbian clients. He describes the difference between religion and spirituality, and offers suggestions for guiding gay client into self-acceptance, even in the face of a religious and social environment, which does not always promote such acceptance.