A FAMILY THERAPY INTERNSHIP IN A MULTIDISCIPLINARY HEALTHCARE SETTING: TRAINEES' AND SUPERVISOR'S REFLECTIONS

Family therapy doctoral students from American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy-accredited programs are required to complete a full-time clinical internship. The literature provides little information about these internship experiences. Two doctoral-level marriage and family therapists summarize their professional and personal experiences in their internships located within a multidisciplinary healthcare setting. In addition, their supervisor reports on her experiences working with marriage and family therapy doctoral interns. We hope that this case report will stimulate all interns and their supervisors to provide feedback to their internship sites and graduate programs about their clinical training and the extent to which the programs prepared them for their marriage and family therapy careers in the larger health and mental health community.     

Children with disabilities in out-of-home care: Perspectives on organisational collaborations

Many contemporary support services for children and young people (CYP) in out-of-home-care have adopted a collaborative approach to service provision in order to best meet the complex needs of clients. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the perceptions of Evolve Behaviour Support Services (EBSS) frontline and managerial staff delivering services to CYP in out-of-home-care with disability and complex behaviours regarding interagency/stakeholder collaboration. Views about the number and nature of collaborative partnerships, factors which facilitate or hinder effective relationships and advantages (including unintended benefits) of collaboration were sought. Qualitative interviews with 21 participants highlighted issues around: (1) general and agency/stakeholder specific issues and barriers, and (2) benefits of collaboration. The collaborative approach to service provision was seen as greatly enhancing the effectiveness of EBSS' response and ability to meet the range of CYP's complex needs, as well as having benefits for carers and service providers. Nevertheless, difficulties with collaboration were also encountered. Frequently identified challenges included reduced stakeholder engagement, differences in professional backgrounds and practice frameworks, unequal initiation of contact and follow-up, organisational disparities, communication and information sharing problems, frequent stakeholder turnover and geographical barriers in rural/remote areas.     

Moving on or moving back? The temporalities of migrant students’ lived versus imagined school careers

In migration research there has not been much work on temporal dimensions of migration experiences (with the exception of Griffiths in this journal). This article investigates migrant students’ temporal framings of their lived versus imagined school careers, drawing on participant observation and interviews with students in language introduction classes in upper secondary school in Sweden. The findings document student experiences of temporal desynchronies: as seen in reports of slow time and repetition, suspended time, temporal uncertainty and blockage. The analyses highlight the students’ experiences of being temporally out of line (in Ahmed’s words). The narratives of their past and future school lives reveal a discontinuity between the students’ lived school experiences, on the one hand, and imagined school careers on the other, contrasting life as lived with both their own hope and plans and with the school careers of other students. The analyses highlight the importance of including temporal dimensions in the analyses of post-migration school landscapes.     

Communicative Openness About Adoption and Interest in Contact in a Sample of Domestic and Intercountry Adolescent Adoptees

Adolescent intercountry (n = 122) and domestic (n = 40) adoptees and their adoptive parents were asked about their views on communicative openness. The adoptees were also asked for their thoughts on birth parents and contact. A modest association between communicative openness and feelings about adoptive status and self-esteem was found. Girls were more interested in many aspects of their adoptions than boys. Compared with the situation at 11 years of age, there was greater parent-child agreement on whether the child had difficulties talking about adoption. Nevertheless, at age 15, children were still nearly twice as likely to report difficulties talking about adoption issues than their adoptive parents realized. At the age of 15, the majority of the adoptees expressed a desire for contact with birth relatives, but this was a reduction from the numbers at age 11. They also reported finding it easier to talk about adoption issues than they did at the age of 11. The implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Resistance,Space and Political Identities: The Making of Counter-Global Networks

Activists in seven US cities were interviewed about why they thought people in their communities mobilized against alcohol-related problems. The data were analyzed in light of the focus on resource mobilization theory in the social movement literature. In contrast with claims that resources are the primary catalyst for change, informants emphasized the role of grievances, and to a lesser extent, bridging factors that caused residents to be more aware of or frustrated by problems, and thus ready for change. Resources seemed to provide necessary but insufficient conditions for explaining movement participation, suggesting that, to be effective, resources must be channeled to address and be linked to the grievous social conditions of inner city communities.     

Intensified inequities: Young people's experiences of Covid-19 and school closures in Uganda

Uganda had the longest period of school closures worldwide as a response measure during the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on longitudinal qualitative data from the Contexts of Violence in Adolescence Cohort Study (CoVAC) (2018–2023), we examine how this has affected the lives of adolescents in Uganda. Our analysis showcases how intersecting inequities based on socioeconomic circumstances, gender and location have intensified, with detrimental effects on young people's educational paths and life circumstances. Strategies that take the intersections of these inequities into account are urgently needed to help the most disadvantaged and marginalized young people return to school.     

Engaging with Parents in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

This paper asks the question: How can child and adolescent mental health clinicians constructively engage parents as a resource in the young person's treatment? It draws from qualitative research data that explore parents' experience of their involvement in their adolescent's mental health treatment program. The paper especially focuses on challenges for clinicians in engaging with parents as part of the treatment program for young people. Clinicians' input about their perceptions of interacting with parents is utilised alongside parents' experiences of their involvement in clinical processes. The clinician data revealed key challenges were managing their reactions to parent defensiveness; broadening the focus from just alleviating symptoms in the young person; not taking sides with the young person; and resisting becoming an expert instructor. The paper discusses Murray Bowen's original family research about engaging parents in treatment with the symptom bearer and addresses how clinicians can build a positive alliance with parents that avoids blame while constructively opening exploration of the family relationship process as part of a collaborative approach.     

Gender‐specific or Common Classroom Norms? Examining the Contextual Moderators of the Risk for Victimization

We tested whether gender‐specific vs. common classroom norms were more powerful moderators of the association between a risk factor (rejection) and peer victimization among girls and boys. The participants were 1220 elementary schoolchildren from grades 4–6 (with 10–13 years of age). We compared different multilevel models including combined vs. separate regressions for boys and girls, as well as the effects of norms of the whole class, same‐sex classmates, and cross‐sex classmates. Among girls, the association between rejection and victimization was strongest in classes where bullying behavior was common, and anti‐bullying attitudes were rare among girls. Among boys, the strength of the slope of victimization on rejection could not be explained by either common or gender‐specific classroom norms, but boys' level of bullying behavior was related to overall classroom level of victimization. The findings suggest that contextual factors may contribute to victimization especially among high‐risk girls. The importance of exploring multiple levels of influence on children's social development is discussed.