Beyond Contact? Policy approaches to work with families of looked after children in four European countries

In England, placement within the looked after system is not viewed as a desirable long‐term solution for most children, and policy has prioritised continued contact with parents, and swift return home, wherever possible. This review examines policy approaches to work with families of looked after children in England and in three other European countries: Denmark, France and the Netherlands, aiming to identify areas for shared learning in relation to this challenging area of policy and practice. The research highlights relationships between care populations and policy understandings of the purpose of work with families, including understandings of children's and/or parents’ rights.     

Toddlers Help Anonymously

Young children are extremely motivated to help others, but it is not clear whether they do so in anonymous situations without social recognition. In two studies, we found that 18‐month‐old toddlers provided help equally in situations where an adult recipient was present and in situations where an adult recipient was not present. We included several control conditions to rule out that toddlers were simply unaware of their anonymity or were merely motivated to restore the physical order of things. Together, these findings suggest that early in ontogeny children are motivated to help others in need regardless of whether they can immediately be recognized for their prosocial intentions.     

Trend smoothness achieved by penalized least squares with the smoothing parameter chosen by optimality criteria

This work presents a study about the smoothness attained by the methods more frequently used to choose the smoothing parameter in the context of splines: Cross Validation, Generalized Cross Validation, and corrected Akaike and Bayesian Information Criteria, implemented with Penalized Least Squares. It is concluded that the amount of smoothness strongly depends on the length of the series and on the type of underlying trend, while the presence of seasonality even though statistically significant is less relevant. The intrinsic variability of the series is not statistically significant and its effect is taken into account only through the smoothing parameter.     

Bayesian and Robust Bayesian analysis under a general class of balanced loss functions

For estimating an unknown parameter θ, we introduce and motivate the use of balanced loss functions of the form L_{r, w, d0}(q, d)=wr(d₀, d)+ (1-w) r(q, d){L_{\rho, \omega, \delta_0}(\theta, \delta)=\omega \rho(\delta_0, \delta)+ (1-\omega) \rho(\theta, \delta)}, as well as the weighted version q(q) L_{r, w, d0}(q, d){q(\theta) L_{\rho, \omega, \delta_0}(\theta, \delta)}, where ρ(θ, δ) is an arbitrary loss function, δ ₀ is a chosen a priori “target” estimator of q, w ? [0,1){\theta, \omega \in[0,1)}, and q(·) is a positive weight function. we develop Bayesian estimators under L_{r, w, d0}{L_{\rho, \omega, \delta_0}} with ω > 0 by relating such estimators to Bayesian solutions under L_{r, w, d0}{L_{\rho, \omega, \delta_0}} with ω = 0. Illustrations are given for various choices of ρ, such as absolute value, entropy, linex, and squared error type losses. Finally, under various robust Bayesian analysis criteria including posterior regret gamma-minimaxity, conditional gamma-minimaxity, and most stable, we establish explicit connections between optimal actions derived under balanced and unbalanced losses.     

Community Wise: The Development of an Anti-Oppression Model to Promote Individual and Community Health

Communities with histories of oppression have shown great resilience, yet few health interventions focus on structural oppression as a contributor to health problems in these communities. This article describes the development and active ingredients of Community Wise, a unique behavioral health intervention designed to reduce substance use frequency, related health risk behaviors, and recidivism among individuals with a history of incarceration and substance abuse residing in distressed and predominantly African American communities. Community Wise, developed through the collaborative efforts of a board of service providers, researchers, consumers, and government officials, is a 12-week group intervention that aims to address behavioral health problems by raising critical consciousness in distressed communities.     

Self‐Construal,Career Decision Self‐Efficacy,and Perceived Barriers Predict Mexican American Women's Life Satisfaction

This study used the social cognitive theory of well‐being (SCTW; Lent, 2004 ) to examine the role of career decision self‐efficacy (CDSE), perceived educational barriers, and independent self‐construal on the life satisfaction of 176 Mexican American college women. A 3‐step hierarchical regression analysis indicated that independent self‐construal, CDSE, and fewer perceived educational barriers significantly predicted greater life satisfaction among Mexican American college women above and beyond the influence of socioeconomic status and generational status. These findings are consistent with SCTW and highlight the need for counselors and researchers to be aware of the role that self‐construal, CDSE, and perceived educational barriers can have on Mexican American women's life satisfaction. Implications for practice at the secondary‐school and university levels are discussed.     

Building a Values‐Informed Mental Model for New Orleans Climate Risk Management

Individuals use values to frame their beliefs and simplify their understanding when confronted with complex and uncertain situations. The high complexity and deep uncertainty involved in climate risk management (CRM) lead to individuals’ values likely being coupled to and contributing to their understanding of specific climate risk factors and management strategies. Most mental model approaches, however, which are commonly used to inform our understanding of people's beliefs, ignore values. In response, we developed a “Values‐informed Mental Model” research approach, or ViMM, to elicit individuals’ values alongside their beliefs and determine which values people use to understand and assess specific climate risk factors and CRM strategies. Our results show that participants consistently used one of three values to frame their understanding of risk factors and CRM strategies in New Orleans: (1) fostering a healthy economy, wealth, and job creation, (2) protecting and promoting healthy ecosystems and biodiversity, and (3) preserving New Orleans’ unique culture, traditions, and historically significant neighborhoods. While the first value frame is common in analyses of CRM strategies, the latter two are often ignored, despite their mirroring commonly accepted pillars of sustainability. Other values like distributive justice and fairness were prioritized differently depending on the risk factor or strategy being discussed. These results suggest that the ViMM method could be a critical first step in CRM decision‐support processes and may encourage adoption of CRM strategies more in line with stakeholders’ values.