Documenting the quick and the dead: a study of suicide case files in a coroner's office

In keeping with recent critiques of literature on the body and the life course, the argument of this paper is that social identities can, to a certain extent, be constructed post‐mortem and in the absence of a living body. The authors make this case with reference to a sociological autopsy study of a hundred suicide case files in a coroner's office in a medium‐sized British city. The research draws on ethnographic approaches to the study of documents. There is discussion of some of the diverse artefacts in the coroners' files: medical reports, witness statements and suicide notes. The identity work revealed in these sources is as much about the living as the dead and is especially bound up in the process of avoiding blame.     

Discretionary Use of Involuntary Commitment by Case Managers of Mental Health Clients: A Case Study of Divergent Views

In an exploratory study, case managers held divergent views about their appropriate roles in involuntarily committing clients to psychiatric care. In light of vague organizational guidelines about appropriate use of involuntary commitment, case managers drew on professional social work values to form views about commitment. These values supported client self-determination, but did not clearly delineate ways for case managers' use of power and discretion concerning involuntary hospitalization, resulting in a range of understandings among case managers. This article provides a history of discretionary choices in the helping professions, cases illustrating divergent views about commitment among case managers and consequences for clients, and a discussion of ways this range may be narrowed in the future.     

Proper Documentation:

Over the past decade, almost all states in the U.S> have passed legislation related to elder abuse. Most of the legislation mandates that Adult Protective Services (APS) workers assess the validity of reports of alleged elder abuse or neglect. Some states also mandate these workers to plan and manage services aailable to victims. Assessing and serving victims and their families requires that APS workers have knowledge and skills in many areas. One important skill is properly documenting the assessment process. In this paper, a case is made for including proper documentation as an important topic in any APS training prorgam. Then, a systematic method is suggested for training APS workers in how to document their assessments of cases.     

Principles of steam sterilization

Moist heat in the form of saturated steam under pressure, is by far the most reliable medium, known for the destruction of all forms of microbial life. Steam sterilisation, therefore, is the most economical, effective and widely used method of seeking sterilisation in hospital practice. This article aims at describing the principle mechanism that makes steam an effective destruction of micro-organisms, the equipment that is most commonly used for the purpose and the practical methods of testing for sterility. The application of these principles, it is hoped, will ensure standardisation and quality control of routine sterilisation practice in hospitals thus, contributing towards the reduction in the incidence of hospital acquired infection.     

Sterilizing the "Feeble-minded": Eugenics in Alberta, Canada, 1929–1972

Abstract Between 1929 and 1972, the Alberta Eugenics Board recommended that 4739 residents of the province be sterilized. However, only 60% of these individuals, 2834 in total, were ultimately sterilized since the legislation under which the Eugenics Board operated required patient consent to be obtained unless the individual recommended for sterilization was diagnosed as "mentally defective." Women, teenagers and young adults, and Aboriginals were particularly targeted by the Alberta Eugenics Board. The Board pursued its sterilization mandate extremely aggressively and, because of a unique set of social, political and economic circumstances in the province, continued to operate long after other political jurisdictions in North America had set aside their involuntary sterilization programs.     

Recognising Strategy and Tactics in Constructing and Working with Involuntary Social Work Clients

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the author’s academic work on working with involuntary clients, which began with a knowledge exchange project in Scotland. I reflect back on this work and use it as a way to explore subsequent reflections on the field. These move beyond consideration of the skills required to undertake such work through locating the category of involuntary clients within wider, yet contradictory, governmental discourses on client engagement. These are identified as the strategy that sets the context for such work. But the strategy is enacted through the day-to-day tactics of social workers on the ground; such tactics, enacted in everyday encounters, are constitutive of effective but also ineffective engagement with clients. The discussion goes on to problematise the distinction between voluntary and involuntary clients and to suggest that effective social work practice, whatever the nature of that involvement, requires that clients are recognised at an ethical and relational level.

IMPLICATIONS

• The term involuntary client(s) cannot be taken for granted but is constructed and needs to be understood in particular and often contradictory policy and professional contexts.

• Effective but also ineffective ways of working with involuntary clients go beyond the acquisition or demonstration of particular skills but are embodied in the everyday relational practices of social workers.

• Ethical engagement with involuntary clients proceeds from a sense of mutual recognition.

     

Animals and anomalies: an analysis of the UK veterinary profession and the relative lack of state reform

The sociology of professions literature would predict that the contemporary state would not allow groups to continue unregulated or unreformed. However, this is indeed the case with the UK veterinary profession, with legislation dating back to 1966. Using an interdisciplinary analysis of published literature and reports, this paper assesses whether wider social, political and ethical dynamics can better explain this intriguing anomaly. We conclude with critical implications for the sociology of the professions. Furthermore, we argue that continuing to ignore the veterinary profession, and animals more generally, in sociological research will result in an impoverished and partial understanding of contemporary healthcare and occupations.     

Case file coding of child maltreatment: Methods,challenges, and innovations in a longitudinal project of youth in foster care

State social service agency case files are a common mechanism for obtaining information about a child's maltreatment history, yet these documents are often challenging for researchers to access, and then to process in a manner consistent with the requirements of social science research designs. Specifically, accessing and navigating case files is an extensive undertaking, and a task that many researchers have had to maneuver with little guidance. Even after the files are in hand and the research questions and relevant variables have been clarified, case file information about a child's maltreatment exposure can be idiosyncratic, vague, inconsistent, and incomplete, making coding such information into useful variables for statistical analyses difficult. The Modified Maltreatment Classification System (MMCS) is a popular tool used to guide the process, and though comprehensive, this coding system cannot cover all idiosyncrasies found in case files. It is not clear from the literature how researchers implement this system while accounting for issues outside of the purview of the MMCS or that arise during MMCS use. Finally, a large yet reliable file coding team is essential to the process, however, the literature lacks training guidelines and methods for establishing reliability between coders. In an effort to move the field toward a common approach, the purpose of the present discussion is to detail the process used by one large-scale study of child maltreatment, the Studying Pathways to Adjustment and Resilience in Kids (SPARK) project, a longitudinal study of resilience in youth in foster care. The article addresses each phase of case file coding, from accessing case files, to identifying how to measure constructs of interest, to dealing with exceptions to the coding system, to coding variables reliably, to training large teams of coders and monitoring for fidelity. Implications for a comprehensive and efficient approach to case file coding are discussed.     

The impact of this involuntary mass "return" to Jordan in the wake of the Gulf crisis

"This article investigates the impact of the involuntary movement to Jordan of about 300,000 Palestinians in the wake of the Gulf crisis of 1990-91. It explores the character of the population that arrived en masse in Jordan and whether their arrival burdened or benefitted that country.... The involuntary migration compounded other effects of the Gulf crisis on Jordan and exacerbated the country's already serious economic problems. Integration of the returnees was painful. But contrary to initial expectations, the mass arrival did not result in unmitigated disaster and may have contributed to an economic recovery in Jordan, suggesting that there may be potentially beneficial windfall effects of sudden population influxes, even when they are involuntary and disorderly."     

Seeing the Case Clearly: File‐Work,Material Mediation,and Visualizing Practices in a Dutch Criminal Court

In Dutch criminal courts, judges and their assisting clerks spend significant amounts of time doing file‐work in preparation for the court hearing: a practice they often call “visualizing the case.” This practice is distributed over clerks and judges and materially mediated: the legal case file enters into face‐to‐file interaction as both a text and a material object. This article aims to unpack what techniques clerks and judges draw on in order to come to “see the case clearly,” while at the same time it elaborates on the renegotiations of these largely paper‐based practices when court workers are confronted with the digitization of case files.     

Self-reported and case file maltreatment: Relations to psychosocial outcomes for youth in foster care

The aim of the current study was to explore the relation between maltreatment and psychosocial outcomes for youth in foster care, and how this relation differs according to reporter type (self-report or case file). Participants included 285 children and adolescents and their caregivers who completed self-report questionnaires about lifetime maltreatment and psychosocial adjustment. Youths' case files containing lifetime maltreatment reports were obtained from Division of Social Services (DSS), and were coded for physical and sexual abuse, emotional maltreatment, and neglect using the Modified Maltreatment Classification System (MMCS; English & LONGSCAN Investigators, 1997). Crosstabs analysis was used to summarize proportions of youth whose caregivers reported clinically significant internalizing and externalizing and average to high adaptive functioning within groups of youth who had a) neither self-reported nor case file maltreatment, b) only case file maltreatment, c) only self-reported maltreatment, and d) both case file and self-reported maltreatment for each maltreatment type (physical and sexual abuse, emotional maltreatment, and neglect). Results showed that externalizing symptoms differ according to reporter type for physical and sexual abuse, and that internalizing symptoms differ according to reporter type for sexual abuse. Implications for methodology in maltreatment research are discussed.     

School counsellors' perceptions of mandatory reporter training and mandatory reporting experiences

The purpose of this study was to examine child abuse reporting by a national sample of school counsellors in the United States. The qualitative results from a large mixed methods study incorporating both quantitative and qualitative strands are presented. Participants were asked to comment on past child abuse training, noting the areas of training they found most beneficial and areas where they desired additional training. Participants were also afforded the opportunity to make any general comments regarding their perceptions of the current mandatory reporting legislation and their experiences of reporting child abuse. Results showed that while many school counsellors felt past training on mandatory reporting legislation and identifying types of abuse was helpful, they identified a need for additional training in identifying emotional and sexual abuse, and supervisory neglect (i.e. lack of supervision by a parent or caretaker producing potential injury or harm to the child). They also desired more training regarding working with children and families affected by child abuse. Four themes emerged from the open question. The first theme illuminated concerns regarding the effectiveness of the mandatory reporting process while the second theme was equally negative, with counsellors sharing many frustrations about their working relationship with child protection services. Additional themes related to their reporting experiences and specific challenges embedded in the school context, such as dealing with parents following a report, difficulty getting adolescent reports investigated and working with school personnel to ensure that reporting responsibilities were understood and followed. Copyright. © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Don't call it child abuse if It's really poverty

As a society, we continue to broaden the jurisdiction of child abuse programs so that an ever larger proportion of poor children (and their families) are drawn into the child protective system. Helping these families does not require mandatory reporting laws, involuntary investigations, central registers of reports, and psychologically oriented “treatment” interventions     

The Quagmire of Return and Reintegration: Challenges to Multi-Stakeholder Co-ordination of Involuntary Returns

The institutional aspect of return migration has received little attention in the theoretical and empirical literature on return migration. This research fills the apparent lacuna by unearthing institutional challenges to multi-stakeholder coordination, at different spatial levels in crisis situations and negative effects on reintegration of forcibly returned migrants. We use the evacuation of Ghanaian migrants from Libya who occupied very low socio-economic positions, experienced racism and discrimination, including physical attacks and arbitrary arrests in 2011, as a case study to understand institutional challenges to forced return when migrants’ carefully tailored plans are thrown into disarray and they are forced to return unprepared. This study employed mainly qualitative research methods among six different categories of actors and engaged an adaptation of Cassarino's “returnee's preparedness framework” to expand theoretical understandings of return migration from the institutional perspective and to highlight what can go wrong when institutions are unprepared for involuntary returnees.     

Speaking With and Without Words—An Analysis of Foster Children’s Expressions and Behaviors That Are Suggestive of Prior Sexual Abuse

This exploratory study reports on foster children’s informal self-disclosures of previously unknown histories of sexual abuse. Data were collected from 40 children’s files, and an inductive thematic analysis of verbal and behavioral expressions was conducted. Findings suggest that foster children’s self-disclosures can be fragmented, spontaneous, narrative, or triggered and often occur during everyday activities in the foster family. The children disclose their past by referring to the perpetrator or the severity of the abuse or by acting out, mostly by reenacting sexual abuse experiences. In addition, some children use childish vocabulary focusing on genitals or sexual acts they were involved in or want to be involved in. Last, some foster children seem to be linguistically challenged to disclose that a female person abused them or that they were forced to reciprocate sexually. This study adds to the understanding of the complex process of child sexual abuse disclosure in the context of foster care.     

Walking a Tightrope: Case Management Services and Outpatient Commitment

Effective case managers in community mental health are successful at forging a working alliance with recipients. This article explores one key aspect of case management practice, serving involuntary clients, specifically those on outpatient commitment orders. In 19 intensive interviews, a subset of a larger study, case managers shared their perceptions of the utility of outpatient commitment with a focus on how such orders impacted the professional relationship. We argue that the use of advance psychiatric directives and shared decision-making processes can reduce the need for coercive practice.     

Implementing critical health services for children in foster care.

This article reports recommendations that were developed at the California Conference on Health Care for Children in Foster Care, organized to discuss implementation in the state of CWLA's Standards for Health Care Services for Children in Out-of-Home Care. Programs and legislation developed in the state are also discussed.     

Particularities of Persecution. The Policing of Gypsies in Saxony 1871–1914

This article identifies the mechanisms by which governments in the Saxon region sought to eradicate the lifestyle of travellers they labelled ‘Gypsies’ (Zigeuner). It argues that much of this policy rested on legislation that was already in place to regulate the itinerant poor, including both the restrictions governing itinerant trade and begging and vagrancy laws, but that the precise pattern of implementation for ‘Gypsies’ was nonetheless distinct. Special treatment was also apparent in the system of police escort that emerged, and in police efforts to gather and share the personal data of targets. Surviving Gendarmerie reports indicate that the implementation of policy was adversely affected by limited police resources, negligent officials, the willingness of individuals to continue to trade with travellers and, not least, the responses of travellers themselves. Nevertheless, they also make it clear that it became more and more difficult for travelling groups to sustain an itinerant lifestyle.     

INTERTEMPORAL SUBSTITUTION AND CONSTRAINTS ON LABOR SUPPLY: EVIDENCE FROM PANEL DATA

This paper tests an intertemporal labor supply model for workers who say they face quantity constraints on their hours and for workers who say they do not. The data reject the model for the first group but not for the second. I conclude from this evidence that employment fluctuations result mainly from changes in the severity of constraints—that is, changes in involuntary unemployment—rather than intertemporal substitution. It also appears that liquidity constraints influence labor supply. Finally, the paper proposes a new approach to identifying intertemporal labor supply equations.     

The role of local stakeholders in transforming economic upgrading into social upgrading in Ethiopian textile and garment firms

The authors examine the links between economic and social upgrading in a developing country with stringent industry policy and employment legislation, focusing on the strategies of local firms participating in global apparel production networks. Based on the 2015 case studies of five textile and garment firms in Ethiopia, they find that employment security and physical well-being were driven mainly by government labour regulations negotiated by local employers, workers and trade unions rather than by global buyers and conclude that upgrading and downgrading can occur simultaneously within a firm.