Lost in transition: Illicit substance use and services receipt among at-risk youth in the child welfare system

This study examined the use of mental health and substance abuse services among adolescents in the child welfare system (CWS) who reported use of illicit substances. 1004 adolescents age 11–15 years at baseline were followed for 5–7 years, over five waves of data collection. Shortly after the investigation for maltreatment (baseline), 69.1% of youths using illicit substances received mental health and/or substance abuse outpatient specialty services. By the last follow-up, during the transition to adulthood, only 21.5% of young adults using illicit substances received outpatient specialty services. Youth who used illicit substances were more likely to receive outpatient and inpatient specialty services than non-users at the time of contact with the CWS (mostly baseline), but this difference faded over the follow-up period. By 5–7 years follow-up, there was no significant difference in specialty services receipt for illicit substances users versus non-users. Predictors of outpatient service use at most waves were having Medicaid, mental health needs, and having recently seen a school counselor or primary care physician. Among illicit substance users transitioning to adulthood, African American youths were less likely to receive outpatient specialty services than White youths. These findings reveal a need for more attention to illicit substances use among youth in the CWS, better cross agency integration, and special attention to the needs of transition-age youth to better connect them with services as they age out of the CWS.     

Media Images of the Poor

This article provides a comprehensive overview of research that has examined the content and prevalence of stereotypic media images of the poor. Research examining televised images and print media are reviewed. An analysis of media framing as well as classist, racist, and sexist imagery is provided. Additionally, to assess media depictions of the poor in the wake of welfare reform, 412 newspaper articles about poverty and welfare published during a 3-month period in 1999 were content analyzed. Although most articles were neutral in tone and portrayed the difficulties facing welfare recipients and the poor sympathetically, they did little to contextualize poverty or illuminate its causes. These findings are discussed in terms of their context and political function.     

Closing the Loophole: A Case Study of Organizing for More Equitable and Affordable Access to Health Care in San Francisco

This paper presents in-depth case study of a successful hybrid political and community organizing campaign to ensure equitable access to health care through the perspective of a grassroots San Francisco community-based organization, the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), which has been organizing low-income Chinese immigrants for over four decades. First, it outlines the Health Care Security Ordinance (HCSO), which, since its passage in 2006, has established a near-universal health care access program, helping to make health care accessible and affordable to individuals living and working in San Francisco. Then it presents the campaign to save the HCSO, focusing on CPA’s participation in the HCSO coalition. Finally, it discusses health care as it relates to the San Francisco’s affordability crisis and the political economic context in which it is taking place. Despite the limitations inherent in small case studies like this one, it nevertheless provides a valuable opportunity to better understand how one politically progressive city attempted to address the problem of grossly inequitable health care access through the lens of community organizing, advocacy, and coalition building. San Francisco, like many major American cities today, is being confronted with rapid gentrification and growing economic inequality—the backdrop to the HCSO. Through innovative experiments in social responsibility like the HCSO, however, the city has made leaps in health care access. It concludes with lessons learned from local organizing and advocacy to save the HCSO as these may inform other local efforts to promote health care for all.     

Developing the Fearless School Counselor Ally and Advocate for LGBTQIQ Youth: Strategies for Preparation Programs

To better serve the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and questioning (LGBTQIQ) youth population, counselor educators can assist school counselors-in-training in developing advocacy competencies within their training programs. A focus on advocacy competencies outlined by the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) standards, and infusion of techniques throughout the education process, may increase levels of comfort for neophyte school counselors-in-training when working with LGBTQIQ youth. To increase efficacy in this multicultural population, myriad environments representative of the systemic nature of the school environment and culture must be examined and explored through training processes. These authors discuss intervention strategies for counselor educators to develop future school counselor advocacy, which align with the ACA advocacy competency domain areas.     

The Multidimensionality of Prosocial Behaviors and Evidence of Measurement Equivalence in Mexican American and European American Early Adolescents

There is growing recognition of the need to examine distinct forms of prosocial behaviors and to conduct research on prosocial behaviors among ethnic minorities. Middle school students (mean age=12.67 years; 54% girls; European American, n=290; Mexican American, n=152) completed a multidimensional measure of prosocial behavior and measures of parental monitoring, externalizing behaviors, and religiosity. Results yield supportive evidence that anonymous, dire, emotional, compliant, public, and altruism are different forms of prosocial behaviors. Moreover, the measure of prosocial behaviors shows measurement equivalence properties across ethnicity and gender. The discussion focuses on the multidimensional nature of prosocial behaviors and implications for future research on prosocial behaviors.     

Some alternatives to Edgeworth

The Edgeworth expansion is well known as a means for obtaining approximate tail probabilities from information concerning the moments of the distribution. Recent saddlepoint and asymptotic methods lead to several alternative approximations. These alternatives are developed and compared by means of average relative error.     

Non-nested linear models: A conditional confidence approach

The comparison of nested linear models with normal error is well standardized in the common procedures of the analysis of variance. This article considers the comparison of two non-nested linear models that have the same parameter dimension; the comparison is made on the assumption that the true mean lies somewhere in the linear span of the two models. The analysis leads to a precision-based conditional confidence interval for the unsigned angular direction of the true mean, and this in turn provides a confidence assessment of the two directions that correspond to the two models being compared. The confidence interval is an approximate conditional interval (given the distance of the estimate from the intersection of the hypotheses), and its length as a fraction of π indicates the precision of the confidence procedure. The method provides a conditional-inference alternative to a confidence interval available by Creasy-Fieller analysis.