Paved with Good Intentions: The Pathway to Adoption and the Costs of Delay

The thrust of UK adoption policy is to promote adoption as thebest route to a stable family life for children in the caresystem unable to return to their birth families. However, whatwe know about outcomes for adopted children comes mainly fromstudies that report on children already in placement. This articlereports on the findings of a study that examined the outcomesof a complete sample of 130 older looked after children whohad all been the subject of an adoption best interest decision.Many were successfully placed but, of those who were not, thestudy was able to identify factors that influenced placementoutcome. The negative impact on placement outcomes and the increasedfinancial costs of poor assessment and delays in planning andaction are highlighted in this paper. The reasons why delaysoccurred, the costs of those delays and the impact on childoutcomes lend support to recent government attempts to reducedelay by the introduction of timescales into the adoption process.     

Alternative mean-squared error estimators for synthetic estimators of domain means

In forest management surveys, the mean of a variable of interest (Y) in a population composed of N equal area spatial compact elements is increasingly estimated from a model linking Y to an auxiliary vector X known for all elements in the population. It is also desired to have synthetic estimates of the mean of Y in spatially compact domains (forest stands) with no or at most one sample-based observation of Y. We develop three alternative estimators of mean-squared errors (MSE) that reduce the risk of a serious underestimation of the uncertainty in a synthetic estimate of a domain mean in cases where the employed model does not accounts for domain effects nor spatial autocorrelation in unobserved residual errors. Expansions of the estimators including anticipated effects of a spatial autocorrelation in residual errors are also provided. Simulation results indicate that the conventional model-dependent (MD) population-level estimator of variance in a synthetic estimate of a domain mean underestimates uncertainty by a wide margin. Our alternative estimators mitigated, in settings with weak to moderate domain effects and relatively small sample sizes, to a large extent, the problem of underestimating uncertainty. We demonstrate applications with examples from two actual forest inventories.     

Why are we waiting? The demography of adoption for children of black,Asian and black mixed parentage in England

The known shortage of adopters for children of black, Asian and black mixed parentage poses many dilemmas for practitioners, not least because of the potentially damaging consequences of delay while placements are sought. Drawing on a study of agency policy and practice in the recruitment of a larger, more diverse pool of adopters, this paper explores the demography of adoption for children of black, Asian and black mixed parentage. The paper suggests that the adoption prospects of children of some ethnic and religious groups may be affected by the young age structures of their populations. The age profiles and presenting needs of looked after children also vary between ethnic groups, putting some groups at a relatively greater disadvantage in terms of their adoption chances. At the same time, the paper considers the environmental and family factors that may affect the recruitment of a more diverse pool of adopters, and highlights the difficulties of achieving a balance between adopters’ expectations and the needs of waiting children. It concludes that more culturally sensitive and proactive recruitment strategies are needed, together with targeted, creative approaches to meet the placement needs of those children of black, Asian or mixed parentage who currently wait longest.     

Time preferences and consumer behavior

We investigate the predictive power of survey-elicited time preferences. The discount factor elicited from choice experiments using real payments predicts various health, energy, and financial outcomes, including overall self-reported health, smoking, installing energy-efficient lighting, and credit card balance. Allowing for time-inconsistent preferences, both the long-run and present-bias discount factors (δ and β) are also significantly associated in the expected direction with several outcomes. We consider several hypotheses regarding the strength of the association between discount factors and outcomes, such as salience of the outcome or liquidity constraints.     

'I Value What You have to Say'. Seeking the Perspective of Children with a Disability, Not Just their Parents

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child acknowledges the right for children to express opinions about issues affecting them and the right to have these views heard (Davis, 1998). There has been an increase in the number of international studies including children as informants in research, but there is noticeably less published research including children as informants in Australia if they have a disability. Rather, there has been a reliance on parents/carers for insight into their child's experiences. In this article we present the results of a qualitative pilot study where we interviewed parents and their children who have cerebral palsy about their perceptions and experiences of communication in the medical consultation. We found that the views of children and parents were different, further reiterating the need to seek the perceptions of children as well as their parents.     

A Case Study on the Informational Efficiency of Markets: The Market for Horse Racing in Australia

This paper describes a study of the informational efficiency of the thoroughbred horse racing market in Australia. It is based on the theory of stock market efficiency which explains the process by which information becomes reflected in share prices. In this paper, the theory is applied to the thoroughbred horse racing market to determine the predictive accuracy of alternative informative sources. The results obtained from the study are consistent with the underlying theory:(i) aggregated information (as reflected in a consensus of opinions) is a more accurate prediction of success than less information (as reflected in individual opinions), and;(ii) the most recent information (as reflected in race-time betting odds, known as starting prices) has greater predictive ability than less recent information (as reflected in an earlier consensus of opinions).The study examines predictive accuracy in a gambling context, but does not consider the profitability of alternative prediction processes.     

The Investment Returns of Nonprofit Organizations,Part II

We continue our examination of the investment performance of nonprofit charities and foundations. This analysis tests hypotheses about what types of organizations do better. Our motivating intuition is that nonprofits with greater focus on investment performance will secure higher returns. Our hypotheses are tested by regressing the rate of return for each organization on various characteristics. As expected, nonprofits whose primary business is predominantly financial, such as insurance providers and pension or retirement funds, consistently earn higher returns. The data also support our hypotheses that larger nonprofits, older nonprofits, and private foundations will tend to outperform. The evidence is mixed as to whether nonprofits that pay higher executive salaries or spend more on management earn higher returns.     

“I AM STILL SUFFERING:” THE DILEMMA OF MULTIPLE RECOVERIES IN THE LIVES OF METHADONE MAINTENANCE PATIENTS

This study examines narratives on the meaning of addiction recovery through interviews with 45 methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) patients. Results show that heroin addicts are dealing with multiple recoveries and many are simultaneous to each other: recoveries concerning (1) addiction, (2) associational disruptions, (3) self-identity and actualization, (4) drug induced diseases (HIV/AIDS, HCV, etc.), and (5) catalyzing event(s). The research findings, anathema of clinical MMT views on recovery, suggest that drug addicted individuals might benefit from interventions that address their multiple recovery issues as opposed to ones that emphasize recovery strictly in sobriety terms.