The relationship between marriage and family therapists and complementary and alternative medicine approaches: a national survey

Respondents to a mail survey of a random sample (N = 424) of Clinical Members of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy provided information about their contexts of practice, use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and relationships with CAM providers. Consistent with both national trends and the experience of psychologists as reported in a similar survey, the results of this survey suggest that marriage and family therapists have been affected significantly by and have a growing awareness of CAM practices. Limitations of the study and implications for the field are discussed.     

Toolkit for assessing the readiness of local safeguarding children boards: origins,ingredients and applications

A central plank in the transformation of children's services in England and Wales is the creation on a statutory footing of Local Safeguarding Children Boards in every local authority area. The focus of the boards will be on the promotion, multiagency coordination and scrutiny of services to safeguard and promote children's welfare. They replace Area Child Protection Committees, which were judged to be ineffective. This paper presents the origins, ingredients and applications of an audit and preparation Toolkit designed to support the establishment of the new boards. The Toolkit was developed from the findings of a survey of 204 members of 16 ACPCs by the first author, and has been tested and refined through work with a large number of ACPCs. This survey identified problematic aspects of interagency collaboration that will need remedying if the new boards are to succeed where the previous committees failed. These include: the board's strategic relationship to wider children's planning fora; operational definition of the term ‘safeguarding’; collective accountability; level of membership; performance management capacity; service user consultation. The ingredients of the Toolkit are described in relation to the findings of the survey. The paper concludes with a discussion of the applications and approaches to be considered in using the Toolkit. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Crossing international cultural boundaries in business using common contingency frameworks

This paper discusses situation-specific contingency processes used by managers and business educators in handling such (1) common cross-boundary links or frameworks and (2) significant cross-boundary differences — two seemingly divergent aspects of cross-cultural management situations. This paper is based on the authors' conducting business training programs (focusing mainly on free market planning and management and on advanced computer technologies) for Asian and Russian/Central European business managers and graduate business students. It is also based on their research work done while investigating investment opportunities and in consulting in these countries over the past seven years.     

A Novel Eigenvector Technique for Large Scale Combinatorial Problems in VLSI Layout

Modern integrated circuit design involves laying out circuits which consist of millions of switching elements or transistors. Due to the sheer complexity, optimizing the connectivity between transistors is a very difficult problem. How a circuit is interconnected is the single most important factor in performance criteria such as signal delay, power dissipation, circuit size and cost. These factors dictate that interconnections—wires, be made as short as possible. The wire–minimization problem is formulated as a sequence of discrete optimization subproblems. These problems are known to be NP-hard, hence they can only be solved approximately using meta-heuristics or linear programming techniques. Nevertheless, these methods are computationally expensive and the quality of solution depends to a great extent on an appropriate choice of starting configuration. A matrix reordering technique for solving very hard discrete optimization problems in Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) design which overcomes some of these shortcomings is proposed. In particular, the computational cost is reasonable—of the order of n ^1.4 running time.     

Incorporating social networks into leadership development: A conceptual model and evaluation of research and practice

Multilevel and relational views of leadership are expanding the focus of leadership development beyond individuals' knowledge, skills, and abilities to include the networked patterns of social relationships linking members of dyads and larger collectives. In this review, we present a conceptual model explaining how three distinct approaches for network-enhancing leadership development can improve the leadership capacity of individuals and collectives. We then present a review of the leadership development literature and the results of a survey of 282 practitioners to assess the extent to which these approaches have been examined in research and implemented in practice. Our review revealed that leadership research and leadership development practice are outpacing leadership development research in terms of incorporating networks. We aim to spur future research by clarifying the targets, objectives, and underlying mechanisms of each network enhancing leadership development approach in our conceptual model. Further, we identify additional literature, not traditionally considered within the realm of leadership development that may help advance empirical examinations of these approaches.     

Preventing short-term strain through time-management coping

This project investigated the effectiveness of time-management coping in preventing strain resulting from role overload. Structural regressions, a form of causal-correlational analysis, were used on repeated-measures questionnaire data from 96 working adults attending evening degree classes in business administration. Results showed that time-management techniques significantly lowered anxiety, but not depression or somatic symptoms. In addition, the effect of coping on anxiety remained significant when social desirability was controlled. Anxiety did not influence subsequent coping, and no significant moderator effects were found.     

Changing Homeowners' Behaviors Involving Toxic Household Chemicals: A Psychological, Multilevel Approach

We describe an education and behavior change program with a multi-level approach. The program goal is to change how people think about, use, store, and dispose of toxic household chemicals. We assume that changing long-standing behaviors is difficult, requires interventions at multiple points in the individual/group/society/physical environmental system, and requires interventions that address both short- and long-term behavior change. The heart of our program is small group discussions, with a trained leader who uses psychological theories to increase educational impact. Questionnaires indicated that participants were very pleased with the program, especially recipes for homemade nontoxic alternatives. We estimate that the presentation yielded almost three times as much cooperation as the previous 5 years of publicity and promotion (33% vs. 12%).     

Homophobic Name‐calling,Peer‐groups,and Masculinity: The Socialization of Homophobic Behavior in Adolescents

Social network analysis and multilevel modeling were used to examine the formation of homophobic name‐calling behavior in adolescents. Specifically, peer group contextual and socialization effects on homophobic name‐calling as well as the influence of masculinity attitudes, general bullying perpetration, and victimization were tested. Participants included 493 fifth‐ through eighth‐grade students from two middle schools. Results indicated that peer groups play an important role in the formation of homophobic name‐calling. Additionally, students who were victims of homophobic name‐calling over time increased their own perpetration of homophobic name‐calling. Non‐homophobic bullying was also related to homophobic name‐calling, but only for male peer groups. And finally, the role of masculinity attitudes was shown to be complex, as peer group masculinity attitudes were significantly predictive of an individual's homophobic perpetration; however, this effect did not remain significant over time. Results suggest that homophobic name‐calling during early adolescence is strongly influenced by peers and rooted in gender and masculinity.     

Teaching Note—BSW Students’ Experiences With an MBSR Assignment and the Five Facets of Mindfulness

BSW students appear to be under increasing levels of stress. In response to concerns about students’ well-being, we developed a three-credit-hour self-care elective. This article explores students’ participation in the primary assignment of the course, a modified version of mindfulness-based stress reduction. We also present empirical findings of an exploratory study examining students’ mindfulness and their subjective experiences with the assignment. Results support the usefulness of mindfulness-based stress reduction assignments in supporting BSW students’ well-being. This kind of assignment may also contribute to the development of the first social work competency, “demonstrate ethical and professional behavior,” (Council on Social Work Education, 2015, p. 7) through an increase in self-reflective and self-regulation skills.