Unions and Employment Growth: Evidence from State Economic Recoveries

We test the hypothesis that in an economic recovery, unionization negatively affects job creation. We examine state-level job growth following two recent recessions, those with troughs in November 1982 and March 1991. In the five years following the troughs, we assess whether variations across states in union membership and right-to-work laws affect the rate of job growth. We find evidence that links union influence to slower job growth during an economic recovery, a finding consistent with previous studies reporting that unions negatively affect average employment and employment growth.

Measuring changes in interagency collaboration: an examination of the Bridgeport Safe Start Initiative

This paper describes the evaluation of interagency collaboration in a network of child-serving providers as part of the evaluation of the Bridgeport Safe Start Initiative (BSSI). In line with the system of care approach, the objectives of BSSI included reducing fragmentation of efforts and delivering integrated services to families of young children exposed to or at risk of exposure to family violence. Interagency collaboration was examined via social network and focus group data collected at three time points starting at baseline. Network analysis findings suggest that over time the network structure became consistent with BSSI's vision of an ideal collaborative network structure. Focus group findings, however, present a more complex picture of the status of collaboration. This paper sheds light on approaches and challenges to measuring interagency collaboration in a service delivery system and communicating social network analysis findings to stakeholders in a way that is accessible and useful.     

Discourses of Inter-Professionalism

This paper explores identity through looking at how differentdiscourses of inter-professionalism are drawn on by professionalsand by service users in relation to the multi-professional contextof service provision. It follows traditions in critical discursivepsychology in understanding talk as constitutive. Glimpses ofthe emergence of a new professional identity congruent withthe demands of inter-professional work can be seen in the onlinediscussions of students on a course in managing care and thepaper considers how this identity is constructed. A feature of particular interest in the student forum data isthe extent to which they construct colleagues from differentprofessions, managers and service users as ‘the other’in ways that devalue their contribution, while at the same timepraising the benefits of inter-professional collaboration. Thepaper concludes that new professional identities that fit witha context of new working arrangements and relationships nonethelesscontinue to show ‘othering’ in the production ofa positive identity. However, rigid binaries have been disturbedby an emphasis on inter-professional working. As people workin different and cross-cutting new organizations that involvere-defining what the team is, the binaries become less fixedand more fluid.     

The putting-out system: Transitional form or recurrent feature of capitalist production?

The putting-out system has frequently been described in accounts of rural domestic industry during the European industrial revolution as a transitional form of production relations accompanying the development of full-fledged capitalism. In this article, the authors argue that the putting-out system is a relatively enduring feature of capitalist production, appearing in various times and places under conditions which can be specified through comparative analysis. To contribute to such specification, we systematically analyze the similarities and differences between the putting-out system in the contemporary hammock industry in Yucatan and in earlier European cases.     

Putting Programme into Practice: The Introduction of Concurrent Planning into Mainstream Adoption and Fostering Services

Originating in Seattle, USA, in the early 1980s, concurrentplanning aimed to speed the placement of children into permanentfamilies, either birth or substitute, and to reduce overallthe time spent in impermanent care. When the first pilot concurrentplanning project was introduced in the UK in 1998, independentevaluation was a requirement of government funding. The evaluationwas expanded to include two additional projects when the numberof initial referrals failed to meet the projected target. Thispaper looks beyond the successful outcomes of the pilot projects,focusing instead on the local authority context in order toexplore some of the difficulties in setting up such an innovativeprogramme, and to shed light on why concurrent planning appearedslow to take off. Based primarily on interviews conducted withsocial workers at different levels of responsibility, the researchersencountered a steep learning curve for all the professionals.The research findings indicated positive outcomes for the childrenplaced through concurrent planning, but limited understandingof the concept of concurrent planning, uncertainty in the divisionof responsibilities, and failure to take up preparation andtraining opportunities contributed to the initial slow progressin the incorporation of the programme.     

The Role of Alumni in Baccalaureate Social Work Education

This article discusses the results of a 1993 national survey of undergraduate social work program directors on the role of alumni in their programs. Respondents indicated that they involved alumni, primarily as field supervisors, campus speakers, and members of curriculum advisory boards. Only 20% of respondents reported social work-specific alumni organizations; most often these were institutions with public affiliations, joint MSW-BSW program structures, and enrollments exceeding 10,000. Having a social work alumni organization was associated with higher rates of alumni participation in field supervision, mentoring, linkage and networking activities, recruitment, and curriculum advisory boards. A profile of the typical social work alumni organization is presented, and the need for more programs to initiate such organizations is examined.     

Health Care and Female Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Health Professionals' Perspectives

The present study explored health professionals' experiences with adult survivors of child sexual abuse in New Zealand. Face-to-face, semistructured interviews of up to an hour took place with 13 health professionals. The participants were asked about training, screening practices, their response to disclosures, and advice to other health professionals. A model—transition to ethical practice—emerged from the data, where delivering more sensitive health care to child sexual abuse survivors sits on a continuum from lack of awareness of child sexual abuse to delivery of care where all patients are comfortable. We recommend making sensitive care for all as the standard care of practice and providing training for health professionals on how to deal with disclosures.