Who stays,who goes,who knows? A state-wide survey of child welfare workers

Child welfare workforce turnover remains a significant problem with dire consequences. Designed to assist in its retention efforts, an agency supported state-wide survey was employed to capture worker feedback and insight into turnover. This article examines the quantitative feedback from a Southern state's frontline child welfare workforce (N = 511), examining worker intent to leave as those who intend to stay employed at the agency (Stayers), those who are undecided (Undecided), and those who intend to leave (Leavers). A series of One-Way ANOVAs revealed a stratified pattern of worker dissatisfaction, with stayers reporting highest satisfaction levels, followed by undecided workers, and then leavers in all areas (e.g., salary, workload, recognition, professional development, accomplishment, peer support, and supervision). A Multinomial Logistic Regression model revealed significant (and shared) predictors among leavers and undecided workers in comparison to stayers with respect to dissatisfaction with workload and professional development, and working in an urban area. Additionally, child welfare workers who intend to leave the agency in the next 12 months expressed significant dissatisfaction with supervision and accomplishment, and tended to be younger and professionals of color.     

Racism awareness who helps the client?

Abstract

“Part of living in Britain and being Black entails, at the one end, the denial of difference, and at the other, prejudice and hostility on the grounds of difference” (Ann Kutek, 1987). Local authorities have set up training in Racism Awareness, and more recently, Anti-Racism Training (RAT and ART). These moves have led to the assumption that black clients are now receiving a better service. However, research undertaken at Bradford and Warwick Universities suggests that practice, in terms of social work delivery to the client, still remains unhelpful (Jervis, 1986).

My contention is that the initiatives of RAT or ART may certainly have led to a greater political recognition of the needs of black families, but they have not necessarily led to better service. I find it particularly helpful to look at the Four Life Positions formulated in T. A. Harris' book on Transactional Analysis (1970), “I'm O.K. You're O.K.”. There he says that all human interactions fall into one of the following four categories:

Current training in aspects of Racism emphasises that the white races have perceived black races as being inferior and second class. It then attempts to reverse the situation. From a position where the white races feel “I'm O.K.”, and put down the black races into the “You're not O.K.” position, training reverses the roles. The interaction still remains a struggle for power and control, and moves between positions 1 and 3, often via position 2. The training does not seem to facilitate a move on to the fourth T.A. position above, which involves understanding, valuation and respect for each other's differences, and an ability to move on to a shared equal partnership in the immediate here-and-now situation.

I give below a cast-study of an Asian family, in which I hope to demonstrate clearly how they failed to get appropriate help from both a white social worker and an Asian community worker. In looking at these workers' responses, I will attempt to demonstrate how the various interactions during the history of the case stayed locked in Harris' positions 1 and 3, with occasional forays into position 2. In the meantime, the family was pushed further and further down the spiral of total breakdown because the workers remained unable to move on to position 4. Only in this position could they have respected and trusted each other enough to pool the resources of their two agencies in order to move on to concrete constructive steps forward for an extremely stressed and vulnerable family.     

Human genetic technology: who shall control?

The biotechnical "revolution" has fast come upon us. It promises to produce both substantial benefits and difficult dilemmas for individuals and society. Despite the growing attention being paid to biotechnology, a major unanswered question is who shall control the development and use of the powerful array of human genetic and reproductive innovations. Should the decisions be left to individual consumers and private industry or should they be made by the government or other social institutions? After briefly reviewing development in human genetics and reproduction and describing trends toward commercialization of them, this article discusses the dilemmas these trends raise for a democratic society. It argues for the urgent need to delineate societal goals and priorities for the future and for technology assessment as early as possible in the developmental process. The article concludes by presenting some examples of the social policy problems now emerging.     

Report from Wuhan:Protection Law Aids Women who Divorce

ONCE a rarely accepted reality in China, today divorce is no longer unusual for most Chinese to understand, which reflects changing ideas about the quality of marriage. At the same time, however, a women's right to divorce has become a concern in society. In Wuhan City, Hubei Province, the following situation is no exception. According to an informal survey, civil cases have always comprised half of the cases at the Wuhan Municipal People's     

Police-reported intimate partner violence during pregnancy: who is at risk?

The objective of this retrospective cohort study was to determine risk factors for police-reported intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy among Seattle residents with a registered live birth or fetal death in Washington State. Logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals for the association between demographic, behavioral, and obstetric history risk factors and any, physical, and non-physical police-reported IPV. Significant risk factors for any police-reported IPV during pregnancy included unmarried status (aOR 2.36), public health program use (aOR 1.33), smoking or alcohol use during pregnancy (aORs 1.45 and 1.80, respectively), previous live birth (aOR 1.39), and previous spontaneous or induced abortion (aORs 1.39 and 1.34, respectively). Risk factors for physical IPV varied only slightly from those for any IPV, and fewer factors were associated with nonphysical IPV. Demographic, behavioral, and obstetric history risk factors are potential markers of IPV risk during pregnancy.     

Tightening income documentation in a means-tested program: who stays away?

Programs using means tests to identify low-income households face a trade-off between promoting access and ensuring program integrity. The authors use a comparison-district design to estimate the effects of a pilot program to improve the accuracy of the process of certifying students for free or reduced-price meals in the National School Lunch Program. This pilot program required households to provide income documentation with their applications for these benefits. Requiring income documentation did not reduce the proportion of ineligible households getting free or reduced-price meals. Furthermore, this requirement did reduce access to the program among eligible households.     

Progress or procrastination? The education of young people who are looked after

The education of young people who are looked after by local authorities continues to be an issue which is inadequately addressed across England and Wales as a whole. However, recent research has shown that a number of local authorities are developing initiatives to enhance the educational experiences of this cohort of vulnerable young people. This article identifies the difficulties and, from research data, outlines some of the strategies which have proved effective. The data indicate that the problems can be resolved, given commitment, and suggest that practitioners in local authorities must continue to strive to ensure that all young people who they are looking after have an equal opportunity to experience a positive educational career.     

Career professional who volunteer: Should their motives be accepted or managed?

Career professionals, such as business executives who devote their time and talents to committee work in voluntary organizations, are highly valued as volunteers. These professionals have a variety of motives for adding volunteer work to their demanding schedules. Should volunteer agency administrators accept and reward these motives indiscriminately, or should they try to mold them to conform to agency values? The answer, according to this study, is yes to both alternatives, depending on whether the aim is to improve these volunteers' attitudes or their performance.     

The voter who wasn’t there: Referenda,representation and abstention

We analyze single binary-choice voting rules and identify the presence of the No-Show paradox in this simple setting, as a consequence of specific turnout or quorum conditions that are included in actual rules. Since these conditions are meant to ensure a representative outcome, we formalize this concern and reach our main result: no voting rule can ensure representation if abstention is possible, unless restrictive assumptions are made on the preference domain of abstainers. We then focus on the main referendum systems and show that appropriate restrictions do make them compatible with representation. The main purpose of our paper is, however, to provide a tool for referendum design: rather than imposing arbitrary restrictions on the preference domain of non-voters, we recommend instead that a conscious choice be made on how abstention is to be interpreted and that this choice be used to derive the corresponding referendum rule.The idea for this paper started with some jocose but insightful notes written by José João Marques da Silva at the time of the first referendum held in Portugal (1998). When José João passed away in August 2000, ISEG lost a bright, interested and friendly scholar. May we dedicate this paper to his memory. This paper was presented at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Public Choice Society and Economic Science Association, San Diego, CA and a preliminary version was presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the European Public Choice Society, Paris. We would like to thank Mathew Braham, Moshé Machover, Eric Maskin, Vincent Merlin, Hannu Nurmi, Katri Sieberg, Frank Steffen, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. The usual proviso applies.     

Transition secured? A follow-up study of adolescents who have left secure residential care

Many adolescents who make the transition to adulthood experience problems after their departure from secure residential care. Research suggests that these young people are often in need of support after they have left secure care. Little is known about the experiences and perceptions of adolescents during and after this transition. The aim of this article is to assess these experiences for a group of 24 adolescents in the Netherlands that have left secure residential care. The results show, in line with previous studies, that many adolescents experience problems during their transition from secure care, especially with regard to finances, school and employment, and living arrangements. In contrast to other studies, a majority of the adolescents reports to have received support in the year following their departure. Relatively few adolescents move to independence after their departure, which suggests that many adolescents are not ready for making a true transition into adulthood yet.     

Who needs Cantonese,who speaks? Whispers across mountains,delta, and waterfronts

This essay digs into the ‘dirtiness’ of cultural studies to prioritize praxis, or as the way my mountain folks collect summer lotus: putting our feet in the muddy water, and finding ways to get the stems underneath the smooth leaves. Using Cantoneseness as a case to locate such ‘dirtiness’, I draw on personal/familial histories as well as research projects to tell how conjunctures of Cantoneseness are politically and unevenly lived. This complex journey travels roughly from my childhood in the Yuebei mountains of northern Guangdong through my teenage and early adult years in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) to my current location as a temporary resident in the East Pacific port of Vancouver. I selectively emphasize and speak on three different locations: first, the rural inland Cantonese location of Yuebei mountains – the borderland and hinterland experiences of my family and myself living what the mountains would offer and how these have changed; second, the industrial superior Cantonese location of PRD in Shenzhen and Guangzhou – my personal experiences and identities as a migrant youth, combined with a case study including interviews with migrant peasant-workers and their children; and third, the western transnational Cantonese location of East Pacific waterfronts in Vancouver and Richmond – my personal engagement with social activism as an ethnicized, international student, combined with a narrative study including interviews with social activists with different Cantoneseness and migration routes. While this mix of whispers speaks in its own way towards using cultural studies with more seriously (global) space-sensitive and (social justice) praxis-sensitive approaches, the primary focus is more modestly on my autobiographical accounts and research efforts as a specific case: to show some strategic locations of ‘Cantonescape’ on the one hand, and to invite wider conversations around cultural-spatial politics on the other.     

People who live apart together (LATs) – how different are they?

‘Living apart together’– that is being in an intimate relationship with a partner who lives somewhere else – is increasingly recognised and accepted as a specific way of being in a couple. On the face of it, this is a far cry from the ‘traditional’ version of couple relationships, where co‐residence in marriage was placed at the centre and where living apart from one's partner would be regarded as abnormal, and understandable only as a reaction to severe external constraints. Some commentators regard living apart together as a historically new family form where LATs can pursue a ‘both/and’ solution to partnership – they can experience both the intimacy of being in a couple, and at the same time continue with pre‐existing commitments. LATs may even de‐prioritize couple relationships and place more importance on friendship. Alternatively, others see LAT as just a ‘stage’ on the way to cohabitation and marriage, where LATs are not radical pioneers moving beyond the family, but are cautious and conservative, and simply show a lack of commitment. Behind these rival interpretations lies the increasingly tarnished spectre of individualisation theory. Is LAT some sort of index for a developing individualisation in practice? In this paper we take this debate further by using information from the 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey. We find that LATs have quite diverse origins and motivations, and while as a category LATs are often among the more liberal in family matters, as a whole they do not show any marked ‘pioneer’ attitudinal position in the sense of leading a radical new way, especially if age is taken into account.     

Spouses’ time allocation to pro-environmental activities: who is saving the environment at home?

Family members often perform pro-environmental activities in a cooperative manner. We assume there are two decision-makers in a household, and develop an economic model of pro-environmental activities based on the household production framework. Our theoretical analysis shows how the opportunity cost of time, family structure, and environmental concerns affect an individual’s participation in pro-environmental activities. Using data from the Japanese General Social Survey 2002, we conducted an empirical analysis and found that spouses with lower time costs tended to allocate more time to specific pro-environmental activities. It was further revealed that family structure determines participation in pro-environmental activities.     

Changing Facebook profile pictures as part of a campaign: who does it and why?

People changing their Facebook profile picture in support of social and political campaigns has recently become relatively common, particularly among young people. The current study presents an analysis of young people who change their profile picture and their motivations to do so. Using original data collected among less than 35 years old Facebook users (N?=?267), we find that besides the intensity of Facebook use, offline engagement in protest and boycotts has a significant and positive effect on the likelihood to change one's profile picture as part of a campaign. Hence, the opportunity for Facebook users to engage in politics by changing a profile picture to support a campaign seems to be seized more often by young people who are politically engaged offline than by those who are not. Among those who change their profile picture, raising awareness seems to be the primary motivation to do so. Identity formation is also a crucial motivation, in particular for profile pictures changes to support a political party and the marriage equality campaign.