All it takes is leadership

The authors, as leaders in a public child welfare system, have teamed together and reached out to their private sector partners in a large, rural county in western Colorado. This effort was part of a comprehensive, communitywide effort to redesign and fundamentally improve the entire child welfare service delivery system. Across the country in many areas where collaboration and integration have been the focus, we often hear voices in the private and public sector declaring the importance of integration. Why, then, does it not happen as a general course of action? The authors believe the answer lies in leadership, both public and private. They hold the Mesa County model up as witness to that fact.     

Between football and martyrdom: the bi-focal localism of an Arab-Palestinian town in Israel

Studies of the relationship between nationalism and localism have brought evidence that these orientations might maintain either relations of opposition or congruence. By conceiving of localism mainly as a strategy, this paper argues that localism can be used alternately as an anchor of nationalist narrative or as an alternative to nationalism by the exact same community. This argument is illustrated by the case of Sakhnin, an Arab-Palestinian town in Israel. Local pride in Sakhnin has developed around two separate foci: a nationalist heroic narrative of martyrdom and the success of the local football team. These two foci developed in complete isolation, since the first is embedded in a Palestinian nationalist narrative while the latter is oriented toward the Israeli Jewish public. An ethnographic study follows the construction of these separate spheres and a survey conducted among 174 men in the town confirms that involvement in the football sphere correlates with both local pride and integrative orientations.     

Family-directed structural therapy

Family-Directed Structural Therapy (FDST) is an approach to family therapy built on traditional concepts of Structural Family Therapy, the Strengths Model, and Group Work Theory. The FDST approach is a goal-oriented, time limited approach that enables the family to identify strengths and areas of concern, as well as to enhance family functioning. This process is facilitated via the use of a common vocabulary and a concretely organized, easily administered FDST Assessment Tool that is completed by adult family members. This article presents the essential features of the FDST approach, including the use and scoring of the FDST Assessment Tool. It concludes with an extensive case example.     

The implementation of motor learning principles in designing prevention programs at work

Occupational therapy practitioners offer services to workers in the workplace to prevent musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), to help the injured worker restore function, and to recover capacities needed to return to the job. Despite the existence of some evidence about the efficacy of prevention programs, there is uncertainty and even disagreement among health professionals, about the outcome of prevention programs for people with MSDs. It is proposed that principles of motor learning can assist the therapist in structuring prevention programs to facilitate the workers learning of correct movement patterns. This paper discusses basic concepts of motor learning emphasizing characteristics of the learner, the type of task, the structure of practice and application to prevention programs at work settings. We present a four-stage model for prevention programs based on principles of both motor learning and ergonomics. This model coincides with the broad perspective suggested in current occupational therapy models which focuses on the person, the environment, the occupation and their effects on occupational performance.     

Substance use and social identity in the lesbian community

Although the study results report discrepancies in the rates of substance abuse in the lesbian community, the general consensus in the field of gay and lesbian studies is that these individuals, as a whole, have a higher rate of substance use. For this study, data were collected via the Internet on the use of drugs and alcohol, level of self-esteem, and degree of social identity in the lesbian community. A correlation analysis was used to determine if negative social identity within the lesbian community leads to low self-esteem that is reflected in higher rates of substance abuse. Though a positive relationship between social identity and self-esteem was determined, no significant correlation between negative social identity, low self-esteem, and substance use was determined. However, it is important to consider that respondents with higher levels of self-esteem reported more frequent use of specific drugs. That outcome in itself is an implication for further investigation.     

马克思和达尔文——重新考虑

几乎有一个世纪,马克思和达尔文的名字被难分难解地联在一起,这种联系几乎完全是虚构的.关于达尔文的两封信,一封真是给马克思的,一封是给马克思的女婿阿维林而被人误认为给马克思的,现已查清,不必再加叙述.马克思与达尔文之间关系的神话是从1883年恩格斯在马克思墓前的讲话开始的.他把马克思发现人类历史发展的规律比之于达尔文发现了生物界发展的规律.一星期后,这篇讲话就在《社会民主党》上发表.五年以后,恩格斯又在《共产党宣言》1888年英文版序言中作了     

Access to health care: does neighborhood residential instability matter?

Many Americans do not have access to adequate medical care. Previous research on this problem focuses primarily on individual-level determinants of access such as income and insurance coverage. The role of community-level factors in helping or hindering individuals in obtaining needed medical care, however, has not received much attention. We address this gap in the literature by investigating the association between neighborhood residential instability and access to health care. Using individual-level data from the 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and block-group level data from the 2000 decennial census, we find that individuals who live in neighborhoods with high residential turnover have worse health care access than residents of other neighborhoods. This association persists even when the prevalence of poverty, the supply of health care, and a variety of individual characteristics are held constant. We offer explanations for these findings and suggest directions for future research.