Rubella Susceptibility and Immunization in a University Population: Experience,Strategy, and Policy

Abstract

Despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine, rubella continues to occur in the United States. In recent years 70% of all cases have occurred in college aged individuals. Since 1978 the University of Rochester has required all entering students to have either rubella immunization or rubella serology. Compliance with this requirement has been excellent and has resulted in an increase in the rubella immunization rate from 52% to 71 %. Of those obtaining serology, the overall susceptibility rate (HI titer < 1:16) was 18%. Less than half of susceptible women accepted immunization, and few susceptible men sought immunization. College entry is a logical time to define an individual's rubella status.     

Embracing Applied Policy Practice: A Case Study From a Robust BSW Program

This article, first presented at the Policy Conference 2.0 in Austin, Texas, May 2014, portrays a case example of an undergraduate social work program’s robust response to the imperative that policy advocacy serve as a demonstration to students of commitment to the profession and its mission. Initial evidence from field supervisors, students, and examples of recognition suggests that students are prepared to engage in policy advocacy as they enter the profession.     

A New Immigration Regularization Policy: The Settlement Program in Spain

The topic of regularization of immigrants has occupied a position high on the agenda in Spain and elsewhere. In this paper, we contribute to this particular issue by providing an evaluative case study in Spain using administrative data from the Province of Barcelona from 2005 to 2009, which allows survival analysis, the follow‐up of migrants’ trajectories after regularization and the examination of the hazard of lapsing back into irregularity. Our analysis reveals critical differences on the effectiveness of two pathways to earned legalization in Spain as a policy: the 2005 Normalisation and the Settlement Program in full operation since 2006.     

A Comparative Analysis and Evaluation of a University Employee Assistance Program

Abstract

The major goal of this presentation is to provide overview of evaluation results of the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) Faculty and Staff Assistance Program (FSAP). The major goal of the Pitt FSAP evaluation was to generate information pertaining to the program's service adequacy, program effectiveness, client satisfaction, cost-efficiency and cost-savings. Such an evaluation effort is becoming increasingly important due to the recent trend of organizational downsizing and coping with resource constraints. As Universities downsize, it can be challenging to justify allocating scarce funds to employee assistance programming. This study also includes review of EAPs among eighteen universities and colleges from around the country in order to compare program performance of the Pitt FSAP system.     

Developing a Strategy to Meaningfully Engage Stakeholders in Program/Policy Planning: A Guide for Human Services Managers and Practitioners

Stakeholder participation can be a valuable component of program/policy development in the human services. However, service users and other stakeholders often experience it as tokenistic and having little effect. Although management literature recommends stakeholder participation and social work ethics promote it, agency leaders and practitioners are given little guidance on how to design participation initiatives that integrate stakeholders' input into agency decision making. This article focuses on creating a strategy that can foster meaningful stakeholder participation. We outline 7 principles of meaningful participation and present a 12-step process for formulating a participation strategy that applies these principles.     

Barriers to Implementing a Mentoring Program for Youth in Foster Care: Implications for Practice and Policy Innovation

The aim of this article is to report on the findings of an evaluation of a youth in foster care mentoring pilot program and the difficulty that arises when a program is not well implemented. The pilot program and evaluation of its effectiveness were mandated by the Texas 80th Legislature through the passing of HB 3008. Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas implemented the pilot to match youth in foster care age 14 years and older, who participate on a voluntary basis and who have been screened for participation by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) with an adult mentor. As part of the pilot, youth were to receive 8 h of face-to-face time, and at least 1 h of phone, email, or text contact with their mentor. Though there were problems with implementation of the mentoring pilot, responses on the confidential youth survey suggest that those who did participate had positive experiences. Based on responses on the survey from the youth and based on the existing empirical literature on the benefits of mentoring programs for trouble youth and following the recommendations presented in this article the mentoring programs should be encouraged for youth aging out of foster care.     

Social Change and Social Policy in China: National Adaptation to Global Challenge

As a part of designed human intervention against social problems, social policy has to respond and adapt to social changes. In this article, the author aims to discuss social changes that occurred in the past decade in China (including economic, demographic, and cultural changes) and relate them to relevant social policies formulated by the Chinese government to address the concerned social issues. To interpret the roles of the state, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and the community in tackling social problems in the changing context of the market economy and globalization, the author attempts to provide a theoretical explanation on the emergence of social policy in China in a new era and to further re-assess the concept of the welfare regime in East Asian countries.     

Adoption of an Outdoor Residential Hall Smoking Policy in a California Public University: A Case Study

Abstract

Objective: Because secondhand smoke is a public health concern, many colleges have adopted bans to ensure healthier environments. This study demonstrates how outdoor smoking policy change can be accomplished at a large public university. Participants: The participants were 1,537 students housed in residential communities at the University of California, Berkeley, who completed an online survey. Methods: A proposal for smoke-free residential communities that included student resident survey data was prepared. Results: The survey data indicated that most students (77%) were bothered by secondhand smoke, and most (66%) favored smoke-free environments. The data were used to advocate for a change in the residential community smoking policy. Conclusion: The survey data and institutional comparisons played a key role in administrators’ decision-making about campus smoking policy. Despite administrators’ concerns about students’ safety and freedom of choice, student-led advocacy was able to influence policy change.     

传统的企业成本管理观念亟待转变

成本的高低影响着企业的竞争态势与经济效益,而成本管理观念的优劣是关系到成本高低的决定因素。因此,在优胜劣汰的市场经济环境下,成本管理观念应不断更新,以适应变化了的情况和激烈竞争的需要。我国加入世贸组织以后,企业内外部环境发生了深刻变化,市场竞争急剧升温,客观上要求企业摸准时代脉搏,跟上时代步伐,建立起全新的成本管理观念。然而,传统的成本管理观念面对发生了重大变化的市场却麻木不仁,墨守成规,以不变应万变。具体表现在:依然单纯地为降低成     

Advocacy Coalitions and Policy Change in China: A Case Study of Anti-incinerator Protest in Guangzhou

This study examines the anti-incinerator protest in Guangzhou in China. It uses the advocacy coalition framework to analyze the dynamics between Guangzhou Municipal Government and the protesters. The research covers the establishment of a Public Consultative and Supervision Committee for Urban Waste Management in Guangzhou, a public consultative mechanism for waste management, which is a new development in the policy-making process in socialist China. The ultimate plan will be to demonstrate how policy adjustment is not determined solely by the outcome of protests but is also affected by both a decentralized political structure and the socio-cultural foundation. Consequently, the discussion also explores the gradual transformation of public participation in China’s environmental policy.     

Suicide Prevention in the Dot Com Era: Technological Aspects of a University Suicide Prevention Program

Abstract

Western Michigan University's Suicide Prevention Program utilizes multiple technological components, including an online training course, a Web site, and 2 social networking Web site profiles, as integral aspects of a comprehensive program. This article discusses the development, maintenance, use, and impact of the technological aspects of this program, which complement other program activities in meeting program goals. The Web site and use of social networking Web sites have been very well received by members of the university and wider community. Although initial outcomes of each component are positive, low participation in the online training course has limited the usefulness of pretest–posttest comparisons. It is thought that other campus suicide prevention programs may benefit from using technology as a primary method in their suicide prevention programming efforts.     

A Case Study of a Maltreated Thirteen-Year-Old Boy: Using Attachment Theory to Inform Treatment in a Residential Program

This paper presents therapeutic interventions from an attachment perspective with a thirteen-year-old boy with a history of maltreatment, living in a residential treatment facility. Attachment theory holds that accumulated memories of experiences with caregivers become organized into representational structures called internal working models. The guiding principles of the therapy begin with the critical role played by the individual therapist as an attachment figure. The central purposes of the therapy are conceived as promoting the restructuring of the internal working models of others to reflect expectations of trustworthiness and reliability, and models of the self as worthy to receive care. The approach described is contrasted with common approaches to residential treatment that rely on environmental behavioral contingencies, modeled on social learning theory.     

Multiple Response System: Evaluation of Policy Change in North Carolina's Child Welfare System

Systemic challenges within child welfare have prompted many states to explore new strategies aimed at protecting children while meeting the needs of families, but doing so within the confines of shrinking budgets. Differential Response has emerged as a promising practice for low or moderate risk cases of child maltreatment. This mixed methods evaluation explored various aspects of North Carolina's differential response system, known as the Multiple Response System (MRS), including: child safety, timeliness of response and case decision, frontloading of services, case distribution, implementation of Child and Family Teams, collaboration with community-based service providers and Shared Parenting. Utilizing Child Protective Services (CPS) administrative data, researchers found that compared to matched control counties, MRS: had a positive impact on child safety evidenced by a decline in the rates of substantiations and re-assessments; temporarily disrupted timeliness of response in pilot counties but had no effect on time to case decision; and increased the number of upfront services provided to families during assessment. Qualitative data collected through focus groups with providers and phone interviews with families provided important information on key MRS strategies, highlighting aspects that families and social workers like as well as identifying areas for improvement. This information is useful for continuous quality improvement efforts, particularly related to the development of training and technical assistance programs at the state and local level.     

A Culture-Centered Approach to Listening: Voices of Social Change

Drawing on an understanding of marginalization as intrinsic to mainstream communication theorizing and research, this essay argues that exploitation is rooted in the denial of the communicative capacity of the margins and in the co-optation of the margins as the subjects of top-down communication directed at the margins by experts. The distributions of communicative infrastructures map out the inequities in distributions of economic resources, reifying the unequal distribution of resources by perpetuating values embedded in the interests of the power elite. Listening offers an opening for interrogating the inequities in the global landscape of distribution of power, by attending to the unvoiced assumptions and principles underlying the logics of concentration of power in the hands of the transnational elite. Drawing from postcolonial and Subaltern Studies theories, I engage with the culture-centered approach to outline key tenets of listening as entry points to addressing the global inequities that are produced by neoliberal globalization. Listening through inversion, incompleteness and imagination works in solidarity with the margins to co-construct theory rooted in the ontologies, epistemologies, and values of the margins.     

The Shelf Life of a Disaster: Post‐Fukushima Policy Change in The United States And Germany

How can large‐scale disasters prompt policy change beyond the local environment in which they occurred? Working at the intersection of political sociology, disaster studies, and cultural sociology, we introduce the concept of the shelf life of a disaster to analyze the short and limited impact of Fukushima Daiichi on U.S. nuclear energy policy and its vitality within Germany. American media, nuclear industry representatives, regulators, and policy makers contributed to a tepid political environment for policy change by expanding symbolic distance from Fukushima, focusing on U.S. superiority to Japanese infrastructures. While this technicist orientation was evident in Germany as well, its distancing effects were offset by a conjunction of mechanisms that packaged Fukushima as a precursor to an inevitable German nuclear catastrophe.     

From Transition to Innovation: Policy Issues in a Knowledge-based Economy

This paper contains a general vision of the main issues on innovation policies in East European new member countries and candidate countries. It is based both on the data taken from the main European benchmarking studies on innovation perspectives, and on the direct experience of advisors who worked in East European pilot countries (Slovenia). This paper focuses on the problems arising from the encounter of European innovation policies and local culture and governance structures in these countries. This situation shows that the innovation phase, following transition, generally calls for a further tuning of EU innovation policies in these countries. In order to develop effective market spin-offs from innovation policies, greater attention should be given to triggering bottom-up policies at regional level by reducing decision-making centralism; lowering the risk of imitative and trend-oriented policies; supporting the birth of new enterprises besides backing the existing ones; developing mostly software rather than hardware policy components. All of this should fit in a general framework recognising the central role of individuals – and thus of culture, starting from entrepreneurial culture – within a knowledge-based innovation process. The recent Slovenian action plan for innovation is included as an example of a strategic plan able to spotlight these main issues.     

Migration and Citizenship Law in Spain: Path‐dependency and Policy Change in a Recent Country of Immigration

This article analyzes the links between migratory processes and the evolution of nationality legislation in Spain. We argue that this case challenges the theoretical models that link immigration to liberalizing reforms in citizenship law. Despite large‐scale immigration experienced over the last two decades, Spanish nationality law has remained strongly focused on keeping ties with Spanish communities abroad. To account for the high degree of stability of Spanish citizenship law we structure our analysis along three basic lines: the historical conceptions derived from Spain's past as a colonial power, as well as its tradition as a country of emigration; the lack of incentives for political actors to introduce the reform of citizenship law in the political agenda; and the strategies adopted by those political actors in relation to the politicization of immigration.     

The Development of a Physician Vitality Program: A Brief Report

We describe the development of an innovative program to support physician vitality. We provide the context and process of program delivery which includes a number of experimental support programs. We discuss a model for intervention and methods used to enhance physician resilience, support work‐life balance, and change the culture to one that explicitly addresses the physician's biopsychosocial‐spiritual needs. Recommendations are given for marriage and family therapists (MFTs) who wish to develop similar support programs for healthcare providers. Video Abstract