Positive and negative impacts of job loss on family life: the perceptions of Australian car workers

This article contributes to research on the impact of job loss on families. It is based on survey responses from 371 workers and in‐depth interviews with 39 of them about the family impacts of their job loss from the Mitsubishi car factory in Adelaide in 2004–2005. A majority of workers said family life had been affected by their job loss. Quantitative analysis identified four variables significantly associated with family impacts: marital status, children living at home, employment status and financial management. Qualitative responses showed the predominantly negative impacts were financial strain, loss of relationship stability and general stress and worry, although few faced catastrophic impacts from their job loss. However, in contrast to most previous research, the in‐depth interviews also revealed positive impacts from job loss, such as having more time at home and to spend with their family. We conclude that the existence of ongoing income support and public health insurance in Australia were important in avoiding catastrophic financial impacts on these workers and their families.     

Child Advocacy Center Based Group Treatment for Child Sexual Abuse

The present study examines initial symptom presentation among participants, outcomes, and social validity for a group treatment for child sexual abuse delivered at a child advocacy center. Participants were 97 children and their nonoffending caregivers who were referred to Project SAFE (Sexual Abuse Family Education), a standardized, 12-week cognitive-behavioral group treatment for families who have experienced child sexual abuse. Sixty-four percent of children presented with clinically significant symptoms on at least one measure with established clinical cutoffs. Caregivers of children who presented with clinically significant symptoms reported more distress about their competence as caregivers. Children who presented as subclinical were more likely to have experienced intrafamilial sexual abuse. Posttreatment results indicated significant improvements in functioning for all children who participated in treatment, with greater improvements reported for children who initially presented with clinically significant symptoms. Overall, the program was rated favorably on the posttreatment evaluation of social validity.     

Initial assessment: A key stage in social work intervention

Abstract

This paper examines the intake practices in child protection in the New South Wales Department of Community Services as a case study of initial assessment in social work intervention. Data was collected in three Department of Community Services local offices where 39 practitioners were interviewed about their child protection work practices. An observational study of the workers' intake practices was also undertaken for a period of approximately 110 days. While official Department of Community Services policy and procedures provided the basis for intake practice, this research found that other important factors relating to the informant, the characteristics of the frontline worker, the workplace environment and the context of child protection practice influenced the intake process. The implications of the research findings for other social work practice settings are considered.     

Quality of Web-based Information on Pathological Gambling

The present study aims to evaluate the quality of web-based information on gambling and to investigate potential content quality indicators. The following key words: gambling, pathological gambling, excessive gambling, gambling problem and gambling addiction were entered into two popular search engines: Google and Yahoo. Websites were assessed with a standardized proforma designed to rate sites on the basis of “accountability”, “presentation”, “interactivity”, “readability” and “content quality”. “Health on the Net” (HON) quality label, and DISCERN scale scores aiding people without content expertise to assess quality of written health publication were used to verify their efficiency as quality indicators. Of the 200 links identified, 75 websites were included. The results of the study indicate low scores on each of the measures. A composite global score appeared as a good content quality indicator. While gambling-related education websites for patients are common, their global quality is poor. There is a need for useful evidence-based information about gambling on the web. As the phenomenon has greatly increased, it could be relevant for Internet sites to improve their content by using global score as a quality indicator.     

A mixed method study of propensity for participatory evaluation

One way to increase the use of evaluation results is practical participatory evaluation (PPE), which enables non-evaluator participants to join the evaluation process in a participatory mode. We examined the propensity for PPE of health professionals by focusing on four components: learning, working in groups, using judgment and using systematic methods. We interviewed the professionals at a Haitian health institution to determine their positioning on a scale of propensity (low, medium and high) for the four components. The professionals defined each component in relation to the energy puts into them, being more or less proactive. Facilitating elements for all three levels of propensity integration included past positive experiences, external pressure and a desire for better individual and organizational performance. Impeding factors included a lack of available resources perceived responsibilities and commitments toward private patients. The reported advantages included improved organizational performance and idea sharing, and the disadvantages included availability of, difficulty implementing solutions and altered human relationships.     

Non-anonymous growth incidence curves, income mobility and social welfare dominance

The distributional incidence of growth is generally analyzed by comparing the quantiles of the pre- and post-growth income distribution—e.g. the so-called Growth Incidence Curves. Such an approach based on an implicit re-ranking of individual incomes ignores income mobility by assuming that only post-growth income matters in social welfare. By contrast, this paper takes the view that “status quo matters” and that social welfare should logically be defined on both inital and terminal income. This leads to consider ’non-anonymous’ Growth Incidence Curves that plot income growth rates against the various quantiles of the initial distribution. Dominance criteria that generalize those available for standard growth incidence curves are derived, which account for the inequality of individual income changes, conditional on initial income. An application to the cross-country distributional feature of global growth illustrates the analysis.     

A breakpoint detection in the mean model with heterogeneous variance on fixed time intervals

Statistics and Computing - This work is motivated by an application for the homogenization of global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-derived integrated water vapour series. Indeed, these series...