The dwelling space of postnatal care

BackgroundThis paper considers the dwelling space of postnatal care, how being-there feels for the woman going through the experience of matrescence. The research takes a hermeneutic approach and draws on philosophical notions from Heidegger. Question: ‘What is the nature of the dwelling space of valued postnatal care?’.MethodsAppropriate ethics approval was gained. Participants were midwives, nurses, women, and other relevant stakeholders. There were 4 focus groups involving 11 participants and 19 individual interviews. Data collection was conducted over a one week period by a team of three researchers. An interview schedule had been organised by the administrator at the Centre. Participants chose whether to come to the centre to be interviewed, or be interviewed in their own homes. Most interviews were an hour. All interviews were tape recorded and transcribed, with the participant's permission. Data was analysed through a hermeneutic process set in the context of related literature.FindingsWhen women are invited into a dwelling space that strengthens them they feel ‘mothered’: being listened to, have their needs anticipated, and are cared for in a loving manner. In such a way they grow confidence. A child health nurse reported the difference such care made to on-going mothering at home.Implications for practiceAll women deserve a dwelling space in their early days of matrescence. Small birthing centres perhaps achieve such care and ambience more easily than large institutional units. Nevertheless, wherever the place, practices need to be enabled that foster the spirit of dwelling.     

Forgiving Perpetrators of Violence: Colombian People’s Positions

Colombian people’s positions regarding the granting of forgiveness to persons who have been more or less actively involved in the violence that ravaged the country during the past 60 years were examined. Four hundred lay people living in Bogota were presented with 48 concrete cases in which a former perpetrator of violence (a member of the guerillas, the paramilitary, the military or a drug cartel) asked for forgiveness from a victim’s family. These cases were constructed using a three-factor orthogonal design: Degree of Responsibility × Severity of the Negative Acts Committed × Apologies. Four basic positions were found. The most common one, which was shared by nearly 40 % of the sample, mostly people from the wealthier segments of society, was “no forgiveness under any condition”. Eighteen percent of the participants, mostly from the poorest segments of society, considered that forgiveness could be granted each time the former perpetrators expressed true repentance (and, in the case of former organizers, if they have offered adequate compensation and had not committed very severe crimes). This was the most frequently observed attitude when perpetrators were former members of the paramilitary. Fifteen percent of the participants considered that forgiveness should be systematically granted. Finally, 28 % of the participants were undecided about the issue.     

New model helps find missing link between financial and clinical health care management.

U.S. health care is missing a link between the financial managers and clinical health managers of defined patient populations. Utilization and cost management try to bridge the gap by focusing on restricted access to care or tightly managed provider reimbursement to control costs. But frequently, they do not take clinical outcomes or health status into consideration. Take a look at another method based on the science of epidemiology that brings a more balanced knowledge of the clinical world to financial managers and more financial insight to clinicians.     

The double chain markov model

In the class of discrete time Markovian processes, two models are widely used, the Markov chain and the hidden Markov model. A major difference between these two models lies in the relation between successive outputs of the observed variable. In a visible Markov chain, these are directly correlated while in hidden models they are not. However, in some situations it is possible to observe both a hidden Markov chain and a direct relation between successive observed outputs. Unfortunately, the use of either a visible or a hidden model implies the suppression of one of these hypothesis. This paper prsents a Markovian model under random environment called the Double Chain Markov Model which takes into account the maijn features of both visible and hidden models. Its main purpose is the modeling of non-homogeneous time-series. It is very flexible and can be estimated with traditional methods. The model is applied on a sequence of wind speeds and it appears to model data more successfully than both the usual Markov chains and hidden Markov models.     

Gender Identity and Social Services: Barriers to Care

ABSTRACT

Transgender people seek social services for a variety of reasons. This literature review highlights needs assessments and social science research articles (N = 30) from the last 16 years that demonstrate the many ways in which social services are further revictimizing transgender people. Studies indicate that transgender people often encounter ignorance, hostility, and transphobic environments while attempting to access social services, and these environments can dissuade transgender people from gaining needed care. Suggestions are made to address these inequalities and include simple measures that social service agencies can begin with to make their services more transinclusive. Future research should address the bias in social services more directly and also develop a clear plan of action and best practices to help agencies remove discrimination from social service settings.     

Graphical technique for comparing designs for random models

Methods for comparing designs for a random (or mixed) linear model have focused primarily on criteria based on single-valued functions. In general, these functions are difficult to use, because of their complex forms, in addition to their dependence on the model's unknown variance components. In this paper, a graphical approach is presented for comparing designs for random models. The one-way model is used for illustration. The proposed approach is based on using quantiles of an estimator of a function of the variance components. The dependence of these quantiles on the true values of the variance components is depicted by plotting the so-called quantile dispersion graphs (QDGs), which provide a comprehensive picture of the quality of estimation obtained with a given design. The QDGs can therefore be used to compare several candidate designs. Two methods of estimation of variance components are considered, namely analysis of variance and maximum-likelihood estimation.     

A Panel Based Analysis of the Effects of Race/Ethnicity and Other Individual Level Characteristics at Leaving on Returning

Individual level differentials between migrants and nonmigrants are examined to ascertain the likelihood of return migration to a prior residence based on characteristics at the time of departure from place of origin. Analysis focuses on comparisons of Hispanics, blacks and whites, examining the odds of return migration by education, employment status, marital status, home ownership, length of residence, gender, age, and migration interval. The 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) is utilized to identify 13,798 preliminary migrations that may be followed by at least one return migration. Findings indicate a sharp decline in propensity to return migrate as length of absence from origin increases. Regardless of length of time since the preliminary migration, both blacks and Hispanics are more likely to return migrate than are whites. Individuals who resided at place of origin for longer periods before leaving had strikingly higher odds for return migration.     

Sharing the care: the qualities sought of social workers by foster carers

Given that foster carers are a scarce resource it is essential that every effort is made to retain their services. This paper considers the role played by social workers in this endeavour. The results reported here form part of larger study, involving seven local authorities, concerned with the wider issues of supporting foster placements. The paper describes the qualities sought of social workers by foster carers and discusses the relationship between these qualities and the likelihood that carers will continue fostering. It was found that carers are highly satisfied with the job of fostering, are committed to it and view social workers as a vital source of support. Promoting good relationships between social workers and foster carers is therefore an important element in any strategy that aims to retain good foster carers.