Machine gaming in Sydney clubs: characteristics of the supporting resident populations

This research provided background for surveys and interviews in later stages of a 3 part project. It aimed to identify, from secondary research, sociodemographic characteristics which tend to support registered clubs and their machine gaming activities in the Sydney Statistical Division. Using multiple methods including Pearson's Product Moment correlation, Principal Components factor analysis, and stepwise regression, the study profiled Sydney populations which spend highly on gaming machines. The most important sociodemographic predictors of Sydney statistical local areas where per capita gaming machine expenditure is high are large proportions of the adult resident population who were born in Malta, Greece, Lebanon, China, Italy, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, India or the Philippines; have no vocational or tertiary qualifications; or are unemployed.     

Knowledge and Perceptions of Child-Care Social Workers about ADHD

Correspondence to David Pentecost, Department of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Finchley Memorial Hospital, Granville Road, London, N12 0JE. E-mail: david.pentecost{at}lineone.net Summary Four hundred and forty social work practitioners for children,including those of Guardian ad Litem status, were surveyed regardingtheir knowledge and perceptions concerning attention deficithyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Questionnaires were distributedto the social workers via managers in seven boroughs in thesouth-east of England. The majority of practitioners in thesample were able to correctly identify the key diagnostic criteriaclosely associated with the condition. Over a third of respondentswere unsure of the appropriateness of treatment with stimulantmedication while the large majority felt that psychosocial interventionsinvolving the families were appropriate. Length of post-qualifyingexperience was found to be a crucial variable influencing bothknowledge about ADHD and the preferences for interventions forthe condition. Less than three out of ten practitioners regardedit as important to involve the Children with Disabilities Teams(CDTs) in such cases and a similar proportion were unaware oflocal resources that may support these children and their families.The results are discussed in relation to previous studies, implicationsfor social work practice and training and the role of CDTs inthe field.     

The influence of religious and ethnic differences on marital intimacy: intermarriage versus intramarriage

The influence of religious and ethnic differences on marital intimacy was examined by administering the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships and a demographic/attitudinal questionnaire to 25 Jewish couples (intramarried) and 25 couples with one Jewish partner (intermarried). All couples were childless and in the first 5 years of their first marriage. Results indicated that the groups did not differ regarding couple level of intimacy, similarity of intimate experience, or mutual understanding. However, in-depth interviews revealed differences in the pathways by which these two groups arrived at a similar level of intimacy. Intramarried couples appear to experience greater personal similarity and mutual understanding rooted in their ethnic bond, which aids the development of intimacy. Intermarried couples appear to find that the very process of negotiating ethnic differences leads to greater mutual understanding and intimacy. These findings indicate that clinicians and religious leaders should not assume that intermarriage constrains levels of intimacy. Nor should it be assumed that intramarriage assures high intimacy.     

Aging with HIV: Historical and Intra-Community Differences in Experience of Aging with HIV

Gay men living with HIV/AIDS face a complex of health issues, including those associated with the aging process, long-term HIV infection (25 years or more), and side effects from Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART). If aging can increase marginalization, this is more likely for the aging HIV positive gay man, who is already marginalized for being queer and living with a stigmatizing disease. This article presents findings from a study of a long-running HIV support group. It locates the members, all gay men living with HIV, in a specific historical and political context to explore how feelings of loss and the struggle to sustain community affect long-term survivors and other older HIV+ gay men. We identify specific challenges presented by aging for men who contracted HIV early in the epidemic, contrasting them with those faced by men infected with the virus later in life. While both groups appear to struggle with a vision of what life could have been, had AIDS not forced loss and change, they also celebrate the community their shared plight has enabled.     

Symptoms of Mental Health Problems: Children’s and Adolescents’ Understandings and Implications for Gender Differences in Help Seeking

Amidst concerns that young people’s mental health is deteriorating, it is important to explore their understandings of symptoms of mental health problems and beliefs around help seeking. Drawing on focus group data from Scottish school pupils, we demonstrate how they understood symptoms of mental health problems and how their characterisations of these symptoms as ‘rare’ and ‘weird’ informed participants’ perceptions that peers, teachers and parents would respond to disclosure in stigmatising ways. Consequently, participants suggested that they would delay or avoid disclosing symptoms of mental health problems. We highlight subtle gender and age differences and outline implications for policy and practice.     

Reconnecting Past,Present and Future Lives: Therapy with a Young Person who Experienced Severe Childhood Privation

This case study describes therapy over a three year period with a young adopted person who presented as highly suicidal, with a childhood background characterised by severe privation and abuse. The paper describes the use of a visual Life line, designed to assist the young person in reconnecting and honouring different parts of her life. A flexible and client centred therapeutic approach is also described.     

An integrative framework for studying sustainable practices and its adoption in the AEC industry: A case study

The diversity of priorities and differing awareness of sustainable practices among stakeholders in the architecture, engineering and construction industry is critically shaping the adoption of green technology, and the rate at which the industry is shifting towards more sustainable practices. In this paper, we develop an integrated framework that allows reorganization and integration of existing sustainability research in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, emphasizing the perspective of decision-makers and stakeholders. Further, an agent-based model is introduced that allows study of the decision-maker with the decision context, thus making them an integral part of the decision-making process rather than independent of it. The coupled system is adaptive and dynamically organizes itself to reflect complex bottom-up interactions between individual stakeholders, their contexts and the constraints driving their decisions even as they implement or respond to top-down decisions pertaining to the adoption of sustainable practices. The contention of this research is that an integrative systems approach to top-down decision-making and an understanding of bottom-up influences in stakeholder decisions is critical to the understanding sustainable practices and decisions that lead to their adoption in the AEC industry.     

Impacts of the Triple Global Crisis on Growth and Poverty: The Case of Yemen

Yemen is an oil‐exporting and food‐importing country with the highest levels of poverty in the Middle East and North Africa. The impacts of the triple crisis are likely to further complicate pre‐existing conditions of conflict, oil depletion and governance failure. Using a dynamic CGE model, this article finds that oil‐driven growth in 2008 dominated the negative growth impacts of the food crisis, but that growth was not pro‐poor. The financial crisis of 2009 slowed growth sharply and raised the poverty rate to 42.8%, up from 34.8% in 2005/6. Poverty continues to be higher in rural areas, where almost half the population live in poverty.