Strengthening kinship families: scoping the provision of respite care in Australia

Kinship care is the fastest growing form of out‐of‐home care in Australia, as it is in many other countries. The Victorian Government's response has been to establish 18 programmes across the state to provide support to kinship families. The scoping project described here, based on interviews with key programme staff, explores the experiences of the new programmes in providing support, specifically respite care, to kinship families. It has produced a picture, based on qualitative and quantitative data, of how respite care is understood, the perceived respite needs of kinship families, how services are organized and provided, identified barriers to families accessing support, the effect of respite provision and what constitutes optimal practice. The findings establish a basis for a best practice model of service provision for this increasingly significant family type.     

Understanding Gaps Between the Risk Perceptions of Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) Residents and Wildfire Professionals

Research across a variety of risk domains finds that the risk perceptions of professionals and the public differ. Such risk perception gaps occur if professionals and the public understand individual risk factors differently or if they aggregate risk factors into overall risk differently. The nature of such divergences, whether based on objective inaccuracies or on differing perspectives, is important to understand. However, evidence of risk perception gaps typically pertains to general, overall risk levels; evidence of and details about mismatches between the specific level of risk faced by individuals and their perceptions of that risk is less available. We examine these issues with a paired data set of professional and resident assessments of parcel‐level wildfire risk for private property in a wildland–urban interface community located in western Colorado, United States. We find evidence of a gap between the parcel‐level risk assessments of a wildfire professional and numerous measures of residents’ risk assessments. Overall risk ratings diverge for the majority of properties, as do judgments about many specific property attributes and about the relative contribution of these attributes to a property's overall level of risk. However, overall risk gaps are not well explained by many factors commonly found to relate to risk perceptions. Understanding the nature of these risk perception gaps can facilitate improved communication by wildfire professionals about how risks can be mitigated on private lands. These results also speak to the general nature of individual‐level risk perception.     

Exploring intergenerational communication and stress in refugee families

More than half of the refugees who have resettled to the United States in recent years have been youth. Refugee youth have often witnessed or experienced violence and family separation prior to resettlement and face barriers to successful resettlement such as language and educational challenges. These factors elevate risk for mental and emotional distress, and protective factors like strong familial relationships are important to promoting mental well‐being. This study utilized focus groups with 36 refugees ages 18 to 25 from four ethnic groups to explore conceptualizations of and communication about mental and emotional distress within and outside of family systems. Youth reported a nuanced conceptualization of their premigration and postmigration stressors and their patterns of communication about distress in three domains: (a) exposure to traumatic stress prior to resettlement, (b) stressful experiences in resettlement, and (c) communication about mental health inside and outside of family groups.     

Bidirectional Linkages Between Emotion Recognition and Problem Behaviors in Elementary School Children

Cross-sectional studies support negative associations between children’s skills in recognizing emotional expressions and their problem behaviors. Few studies have examined these associations over time, however, precluding our understanding of the direction of effects. Emotion recognition difficulties may contribute to the development of problem behaviors; additionally, problem behaviors may constrain the development of emotion recognition skill. The present study tested the bidirectional linkages between children’s emotion recognition and teacher-reported problem behaviors in 1st and 3rd grade. Specifically, emotion recognition, hyperactivity, internalizing behaviors, and externalizing behaviors were assessed in 117 children in 1st grade and in 3rd grade. Results from fully cross-lagged path models revealed divergent developmental patterns: Controlling for concurrent levels of problem behaviors and first-grade receptive language skills, lower emotion recognition in 1st grade significantly predicted greater internalizing behaviors, but not hyperactivity or externalizing behaviors, in 3rd grade. Moreover, greater hyperactivity in 1st grade marginally predicted lower emotion recognition in 3rd grade, but internalizing and externalizing behaviors were not predictive of emotion recognition over time. Together, these findings extend previous research to identify specific developmental pathways, whereby emotion recognition difficulties contribute to the development of internalizing behaviors, and early hyperactivity may contribute to the development of emotion recognition difficulties, thus highlighting the importance of examining these processes and their mutual development over time.     

The role of woodpeckers (family: Picidae) as ecosystem engineers in urban parks: a case study in the city of Madrid (Spain)

Urban Ecosystems - Many species of the family Picidae, such as the woodpeckers, excavate the tree-cavities where they nest. Frequently the cavities are used during a single breeding season and...     

Real Jobs: the perspectives of workers with learning difficulties

In a central New Zealand region, 14 people with learning difficulties who were identified by disability agencies as successfully employed were interviewed. Semistructured interviews with the paid workers covered topics such as getting and learning their work, pay, choices about social opportunities and career paths. Interviews were transcribed and constant discussion, and challenging of qualitative data identified the following themes: the effect of paid work on lifestyles, how other people were important for support and workers' aspirations for the future. The effect of paid work has meant major changes for a few people by becoming independent of the benefit system and buying their own home. For other workers, it meant having to learn to use the public transport system and choosing their own social activities. Workers' perspectives were used to provide better understanding of the supports needed by adults with learning difficulties to enhance their employment rates and careers in the paid workforce.     

Employee Work Attitudes: The Subtle Influence of Gender

Using the construct of job satisfaction, this study examined work attitudes of 286 females and 416 males employed in 27 female-owned and 29 male-owned small businesses in three industries: construction, manufacturing, and distribution. Job satisfaction scores (dependent variables) were analyzed with regard to the interaction of owner employee gender. Demographic and job-related variables were also considered. The gender-moderated results are discussed in terms of methodological implications for conducting research regarding work attitudes.     

Intergenerational Activities that Promote Engaging Conversations are Preferred among Young and Older Adults

ABSTRACT

Loneliness negatively affects young and older adults. Intergenerational activities foster social connectedness. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, this study explored which intergenerational activities are most enjoyable for college students and retirement community residents. Demographics, loneliness, enjoyment, conversation level, and type of activity were analyzed. The enjoyment and conversation variables were positively correlated (r = .59, p < .001) which was supported by participants’ narratives. Both populations most enjoyed the activities with higher conversation levels, with the first being committees, followed by meals, one on one activities, and transportation. Retirement communities and universities should promote intergenerational activities, which include meaningful conversations.     

TRANSIENCE AND THE POSTMODERN SELF

The occupational community of resort workers offers a glimpse into the global postmodern workforce: individuals who relocate around the world, impelled by their career aspirations or their search for the intense experience of the beauty, exotic nature, and extreme recreation in various international destinations. These people have abandoned the conventional lifestyle anchored in security, continuity, and tradition and embarked upon a lifestyle of transience. Drawing on four years of participant observation and depth interviews in a luxury Hawaiian resort as well as supplemental interviews with resort workers around the United States, we articulate the four dimensions of these workers' lives that primarily engage their transience: work, ideology, family, and friendships. From these patterns we draw conclusions about the nature of the global postmodern workforce and community, and about the social psychological nature of the postmodern self.     

Locked down? Speaking from the shadows and silence for survival

I write to speak of silencing and the suffering of survivors of domestic abuse in the family courts of England and Wales and the struggle to find a voice to articulate the hardship faced in this lockdown through court. It has taken the whole period of lockdown to find the words, the courage to keep writing, even as tears stream down my face, even as I sit in a virtual court hearing, even as my voice breaks as I fight to be heard. This text is a glimpse into a world that is hidden in plain view, where I will share fragments of my lived experience. I am scared to write but know I speak or am lost in the silent void that I have known for too long. Domestic abuse and the taboo around it screams at me to remain unseen, hidden, and invisible. I keep returning to find the words, as the very real cost of not naming the violence and reaching out to speak through it is too high. The fragmented account that follows is a raw telling of living life through the court system; it is written to share a voice that was unheard in the family law court and has been minimized, side-lined, ordered, and silenced through 3 years of the court journey and the embodied effects this has had. It moves between space and time to show a journey endured. Can you hear me? Will you bear witness?