Troubled and disturbing children and young people—what can be done? A psychiatric perspective

The Editors have been asked to draw the reader's attention to the following joint press release from the Child and Adolescent and Forensic Psychiatry Sections of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.     

Tensions between institutional closure and deinstitutionalisation: what can be learned from Victoria’s institutional redevelopment?

Deinstitutionalisation must extend beyond the closure of institutions to individualised support to people with intellectual disabilities and societal change. Castellani suggests that closure processes may be incompatible with effective deinstitutionalisation. This article draws on findings from two Australian studies of institutional closures to explore tensions in the closure process that occur in the policy context of applying managerialist principles to the delivery of services, and examines how these processes hindered or furthered the aims of deinstitutionalisation. It suggests closure can divert attention from planning for individualised support, the needs of staff may conflict with those of residents, transition plans may be disrupted by organisational imperatives and that little attention may be paid to broader community development strategies or micro-level planning of the nature of staff support. The article reiterates the danger of equating institutional closure with deinstitutionalisation and the need to focus beyond the imperatives of closure.     

Indoor air quality: what managers can do

A significant number of workers suffer a variety of physical symptoms and illnesses associated with poor indoor air quality. These authors furnish employers with a guide for providing clean air in the workplace--an objective the achievement of which will reduce employee absenteeism and medical insurance costs, while increasing productivity and morale.     

Developmentally disabled children can be adopted

People have often thought that developmentally disabled children were hard to place and poor risks in adoption. However, this research shows that a large number of children of all ages and disabilities were placed for adoption with few disruptions. In light of these findings, agencies may well put more effort into identifying developmentally disabled children as suitable candidates for adoption services.     

Correction to: Mixed methods research: what it is and what it could be

Theory and Society - Unfortunately, figure 2 was incorrectly published.     

How bad can a voting location be

Two questions concerning the location of a single facility by a voting process are investigated for transportation networks:

- What is the maximum number of customers located on the network preferring some rival point over a voting solution?

- How does the average distance of the customers to the facility increase when a voting location instead of a Weber location is chosen for the facility?

Complete answers are given for general networks and for certain planar networks, viz., the so-called generalized cacti.     

Informal care substitution: what we don't know can hurt us

Empirical studies focusing on the relationship between formal and informal home care do little to quell the fears of policymakers that expanded access to public home care services will result in the withdrawal of informal support. A close examination of the studies designed to measure the withdrawal of informal support justifies this skepticism. Concerns about the withdrawal of informal care may hinder the introduction of more extensive home care benefits. Researchers have come some distance in trying to address this policy question. The conflicting nature of empirical findings, thus far, demonstrates that the answer depends heavily on how the question is framed, how home care is measured and over what time frame, and what sorts of analytic approaches are used to model the relationship between formal and informal community-based care. This article discusses these issues in greater detail and suggests strategies to address these problems in future research.     

School dropouts—They are not what they seem to be

Twenty-one ninth grade students at Carrigan Middle School identified as potential dropouts were divided into three equal groups, two experimental (GI and GII) and one control (GIII). The experimental groups were enrolled in the Positive Learning Program (PLP), a supportive program for potential dropouts. All groups were academically profiled for the past five years. All Ss retained their original major classes and teachers. The experimental groups, however, reported to the PLP teacher for homeroom and study. During these periods the students received academic and social support. Academics, attendance, and behavior were measured over three marking periods. The results showed significant improvement in academic performance. Although significance was not realized for attendance and behavior, there was a significant interaction indicating a change over time. It was also found that profiling could be used as a measure to identify potential dropouts.     

School dropout prevention: what arts-based community and out-of-school-time programs can contribute

Out-of-school-time programs, especially arts-based programs, can be critical players in a community's efforts to prevent school dropout. This research review suggests the following approaches for arts-based programs: (1) recruitment and retention of target populations with multiple risk factors; (2) long-term skill development that engages youth behaviorally, emotionally, and academically rather than a drop-in culture; (3) an emphasis on the critical ingredient of real-world applications through performance; (4) staff development and mentoring; (5) a strategic community-level plan for dropout prevention; (6) and program content reframed toward competencies that underlie better school performance and prosocial behavior, such as communication, initiative, problem solving, motivation, and self-efficacy.     

Photography and the imagined body

Family websites represent one of the more interesting areas of research into cultural change and reproduction. They also compellingly demonstrate the complex role of technology in both cultural processes. As the latest example of the long‐established practice of family photography, these hybrid multimedia products have followed the path of the analogue photograph, framed and displayed in the home, kept in wallets or presented as series of pictures in photo albums, with a marked move to the digital world and a much less noticed shift to the sophisticated multimedia context of the Web. This article examines how this fairly recent shift from private photography to the semi‐public space of the Internet, which is unfolding in dialogue with technology, has reinforced, expanded or radically changed the nature of family communications and the very significant social and cultural functions this highly codified practice has fulfilled from the onset. From an exploratory research study into online family websites, I discuss examples, which illustrate the similarities and changes taking place, the possible cultural‐propagandistic and emancipatory effects, and the wealth of cultural information that can be decoded. I further discuss the methodological aspects and implications of decoding these new and very vivid exponents of culture.     

Without love there can be law but no justice

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Globalizations builds the case across a diverse group of papers that law is in need of decolonization, especially law systems structuring settler-colonial societies. This is because law's dispossessing character in these contexts is hidden by the prevalence of nomophilia; that is, an uncritical love of law for the neutrality and objectivity it self-proclaims to possess. The collection of papers for this special issue constitute a collective critique of colonial law and crime that does its part in disrupting law's empire of violence by tracking the legalized violence across the axes of class, race, gender, and sexuality. The popular expression of ‘fuck the law’ captured by Agozino in the leading paper of this issue establishes the context in which we make a call for the necessity of love to enter the realm of law as an urgent decolonizing praxis. Without love there can be law, but no justice.     

Understanding the "what should be condition" in needs assessment data

In needs assessment (N/A), the calculation of discrepancies is based on the assumption the “what should be” condition is a reasonable representation of respondent perceptions. That assumption may be erroneous and requires a closer inspection. This paper examines the use of importance scores in NA and some of the problems that can arise when they are used as a proxy to measure the “what should be” condition. A review of the literature and ways of dealing with importance scores are presented, followed by a discussion of the problems and issues that can arise. Some solution strategies are offered along with recommendations for practice and research. The paper provides guidance for others interested in improving needs assessment procedures.     

Developing the field of youth organizing and advocacy: what foundations can do

For more than a decade, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund has seeded many San Francisco Bay Area youth organizing and advocacy programs. Now that the field is maturing, argues the fund's vice president of programs, foundations have a critical programmatic and capacity-building role to play. The author offers analysis and strategies for integrating youth development grant making across foundation interest areas. The programs described illustrate the diversity of youth organizing and advocacy programs that could be supported by funders, whether or not any particular philanthropic institution has a grant-making focus on youth development or youth organizing. The article ends with an in-depth portrait of the self-reported needs of youth organizing and advocacy programs and concrete strategies for foundations seeking to more effectively enable youth organizing and advocacy to play an important role in bringing about a more vibrant, diverse, and effective democratic culture.