Predicting Immigrant Employment Sequences in the First Years of Settlement1

Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, we analyze factors shaping new immigrants’ month‐by‐month employment trajectories over their first 4 years of settlement. We treat trajectories as multidimensional and holistic entities, seeking to predict the correlates of a set of typical pathways identified via optimal matching techniques and cluster analysis. Human capital attributes and household context shapes trajectories in important ways, but patterns related to bias and discrimination are not straightforward and social ties have little impact.     

Consequences of Casual Sex Relationships and Experiences on Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being: A Prospective Study

Casual sexual relationships and experiences (CSREs) are still considered to be detrimental to the psychological well-being of youth even though findings remain inconclusive. Most studies have focused on emerging adulthood. Using a prospective design based on a representative sample of high school students in the province of Québec, we measured sexually active adolescents’ (N = 2,304) psychological well-being six months after engaging in these relationships while controlling for prior well-being. We analyzed two forms of CSREs, friends with benefits (FWB) and one-night stand (ONS) relationships, as well as levels of sexual intimacy. The results show that CSREs had a small impact (small effect sizes) on subsequent psychological well-being, especially among girls; FWB relationships involving penetrative contact increased girls’ psychological distress and both their alcohol and drug consumption. ONSs including sexual touching increased girls’ psychological distress and their drug use. None of the CSREs influenced boys’ psychological well-being. The findings underscored the importance of using caution when arguing that CSREs are detrimental or harmless to the psychological well-being of adolescents. The results also highlight the importance of taking into account gender and forms of CSREs in prevention and health interventions.     

‘They are just good people…generally good people’: perspectives of young men on relationships with social care workers in the UK

The perspectives of marginalised young men on what they value in relationships with social care workers are under‐researched and have not received adequate attention within policy and practice literatures. Moreover, problematic assumptions about gender pervade much political and cultural commentary. Research findings from a study of 50 young men, aged between 16 and 25, attending a range of social care services, are highly significant in this context. They highlight young men's investment in a language of care and respect and their rejection of categorical presumptions. However, the services were steeped in practices and understandings of their marginalisation and offered important opportunities for recognition.     

Rising Rates of Cohabitation and the Odds of Repartnering: Does the Gap Between Men and Women Disappear?

Men are more likely to repartner than women. This pattern might reflect gender disparities in barriers to repartnering. When rates of cohabitation increase, the gender disparity might shrink, as cohabitation is a less institutionalized form of coresidential partnership and therefore has lower entry barriers in comparison to marriage. Using event-history models applied to Czech data from the Generations and Gender Survey, we show that the odds of repartnering were indeed higher among men than among women in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. No significant change in the gender effect, however, was found. Similarly, the analysis revealed no change in the effect of gender on the odds of entering cohabitation rather than marriage.     

Expanding our understanding of military social work: The concept of military- and veteran-connected populations

Abstract

Cultural competence is the cornerstone of engagement in the helping professions. This article is intended to introduce and describe the concept of military- and veteran-connected populations with the intent of promoting awareness of the many individuals in our society whose lives are impacted by military service.     

Serving families with child maltreatment and substance use disorders: A decade of learning

ABSTRACT

An increase in parental substance use disorders (SUD) and the number of infants and toddlers entering foster care has prompted federal and state efforts to change the treatment paradigm toward more integrated and family-centered strategies. The Regional Partnership Grant (RPG) program demonstrated that family-centered strategies can improve child and parent outcomes. The current challenge is to bring effective strategies to scale. This conceptual article highlights the lessons learned from 10 years of implementing and evaluating programs to meet the needs of families affected by parental SUD and child maltreatment. Effective family-centered strategies identified by the RPG program are illustrated with specifics from the Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Team program. These effective strategies could be implemented in any jurisdiction and include (1) collaboration toward integrated services between child welfare and SUD treatment, (2) timely access to SUDS treatment, (3) recovery management and support, (4) tailored family services, and (5) adaptation to local jurisdiction needs. When these strategies are operational, children are more likely to be safe and remain in parent custody, and parents are more likely to achieve sobriety and improve their parental capacity. Future research might examine the unique impact of each of the five strategies independently.     

Sufficient m-out-of-n (m/n) bootstrap

Traditional resampling methods for estimating sampling distributions sometimes fail, and alternative approaches are then needed. For example, if the classical central limit theorem does not hold and the naïve bootstrap fails, the m/n bootstrap, based on smaller-sized resamples, may be used as an alternative. An alternative to the naïve bootstrap, the sufficient bootstrap, which uses only the distinct observations in a bootstrap sample, is another recently proposed bootstrap approach that has been suggested to reduce the computational burden associated with bootstrapping. It works as long as naïve bootstrap does. However, if the naïve bootstrap fails, so will the sufficient bootstrap. In this paper, we propose combining the sufficient bootstrap with the m/n bootstrap in order to both regain consistent estimation of sampling distributions and to reduce the computational burden of the bootstrap. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for asymptotic normality of the proposed method, and propose new values for the resample size m. We compare the proposed method with the naïve bootstrap, the sufficient bootstrap, and the m/n bootstrap by simulation.     

Residual plots for linear regression models with censored outcome data: A refined method for visualizing residual uncertainty

Residual plots are a standard tool for assessing model fit. When some outcome data are censored, standard residual plots become less appropriate. Here, we develop a new procedure for producing residual plots for linear regression models where some or all of the outcome data are censored. We implement two approaches for incorporating parameter uncertainty. We illustrate our methodology by examining the model fit for an analysis of bacterial load data from a trial for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Simulated datasets show that the method can be used when the outcome data consist of a variety of types of censoring.