‘Nothing works’ in secure residential youth care?

A debate about the effectiveness of secure residential youth care is currently going on. While some continue to support secure residential youth care, others conclude that ‘nothing works’ in secure residential youth care, and argue that non-residential treatment is superior to secure residential treatment. This article reviews recent research on this topic. The conclusion is that evidence for the effectiveness of non-residential treatment for youth with severe behavioural problems and/or criminal behaviour is sparse if considered as an alternative for secure residential youth care. Secure residential treatment shows a modest, but positive effect. We need to overhaul the myth that ‘nothing works’ in secure residential youth care, and focus on how to optimise the effects of secure residential youth care.     

Parenting stress and parenting behavior among foster mothers of foster children with externalizing problems

Foster children often have externalizing problems. Since foster parents are selected and trained, they are often expected to be able to handle the externalizing problems of these children. Very little is, however, known about foster parents' parenting stress and parenting behavior in the context of challenging foster caregiving. In this study, the parenting stress and parenting behavior of 39 foster mothers of recently placed foster children with externalizing problems were studied. By using standardized measures with normative data, foster mothers' scores on different parenting stress and parenting behavior subscales were compared to published norms. Foster mothers of children with externalizing problems experienced more parenting stress than the norm group. The parenting context, provided by these foster mothers, was similar to the parenting context provided by the norm group. The prevalence of specific dysfunctional parenting behaviors (e.g., less involvement in positive parenting) was small to moderate, but nearly half of the foster mothers could be classified as making dysfunctional adaptations to their parenting environment. Moreover, only the minority of foster mothers provided an adaptive parenting context (e.g., more than average involvement in positive parenting). The implications of these results for pre-service training and on-going support for foster parents are discussed.     

Learning and the Form of Compensation

Using data from the PSID and an empirical setup similar to the one used in Altonji and Pierret (Q J Econ 116(1):313–350, 2001)’s paper on wages and employer learning, we find that the coefficient of a hard-to-observe correlate of productivity—parents’ educational attainment—in a wage regression increases more rapidly with experience in performance pay jobs than in nonperformance pay jobs. This result is driven entirely by bonus pay jobs as opposed to commission/piece rate jobs. In the latter, there is no evidence that the importance of parental education in the wage determination process increases over time. This is consistent with the notion that explicit pay-for-performance compensation schemes are, by design, revealing workers’ productivities and that employers need not infer anything about worker productivity when the payment is ex post as is the case for commissions and piece rates as opposed to having to set pay ex ante.     

Pathways to Becoming a Church Musician

This article is the second in our series on dimensions of the social world of church musicians. For the current analysis of how people first become church musicians, we draw on data from in-depth interviews with 47 church musicians conducted by the three authors. The respondents ranged in age from 18 to 71 years (mean age 43.8 years). There were 19 women and 28 men interviewed. Keyboard players, vocalists, guitarists (acoustic and electric), bass players, drummers, a flautist, and a choir director were interviewed. Results indicate the importance of both early and ongoing socialization in the process of becoming a church musician. Our respondents took a variety of pathways to becoming church musicians, including having parents who were church musicians, regularly attending church services during childhood, and receiving early musical and/or vocal training. Our results also indicate the functioning of three enabling mechanisms—being authority directed, volunteering, and being recruited/invited—that determine the likelihood of an individual becoming a church musician as a child, as an adolescent, or as an adult.     

Public relations aspects of brand attitudes and customer activity

Featuring the role of public relations in brand equity research and best practices, this study investigates how product, non-product, and customer–business relationship attributes affect customer-based brand equity (i.e., brand attitudes and customer activity). Analysis reveals customer–business relationships are central to a causal model linking evaluation (brand attitudes) and activation/motivations (customer activity). Findings demonstrate that for service businesses (e.g., banks), customer–business relationships are the primary, rather than minor, predictor of brand equity. These findings demonstrate how public relations scholarship and practice plays a central rather than peripheral role in customer satisfaction.     

The State of the Union: Sexual Health Disparities in a National Sample of US College Students

Abstract

Objective: To examine sexual health disparities between blacks and whites in a national sample of US college students. Participants and Method Summary: Analyses utilized secondary data from 44,165 nonmarried undergraduates (aged 18–24; M = 20.1) responding to the Spring 2007 American College Health Association–National College Health Assessment; 64% were female and 94.7% were white. Results: Whites reported more experience in oral and anal sex, were less likely to use condoms for oral, anal, and vaginal sex, and less likely to have been tested for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) compared with blacks. However, blacks reported more sex partners, lower use of hormonal contraceptives, and higher rates of adverse sexual health outcomes, such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancy. Sexual behaviors and outcomes also varied across gender. Conclusions: This study highlights a need to increase access to hormonal contraceptives and early STI screening/treatment among blacks, improve HIV testing among whites, and increase condom use promotion for all students.     

Religiosity,Sexual Behavior,and Contraceptive Use of College Females

Abstract

A multidimensional religiosity scale and a sexual behavior and contraceptive use inventory was completed by 231 female college students. Respondents were classified into groups according to sexual behavior and contraceptive use. The three sexual behavior groups were: females not participating in intercourse during the preceding calendar year; females participating in intercourse with one partner only during the preceding calendar year; and females participating in intercourse with more than one partner during the preceding calendar year. The three contraceptive use groups were: females who had used intercourse-independent methods at last intercourse; females who had used intercourse-dependent methods at last intercourse; and females who had not used a contraceptive or had relied on a relatively ineffective method at last intercourse. Results of two separate analyses indicate that: (1) a set of religiosity items was able to significantly (p © .001) discriminate among the three sexual behavior groups, and (2) a second set of religiosity items was able to significantly (p © .001) discriminate among the three contraceptive use groups. Thus, it seems that females differing in sexual behavior and contraceptive use can be distinguished on the basis of religiosity.     

Collecting family network data

Contemporary family contexts are characterized by a complex web of relationships, which goes beyond the household boundaries. Indeed, individuals develop meaningful relationships with non-residential family members, close friends, neighbors, colleagues, etc. Unfortunately, most surveys dealing with family ties focus on households and study a few dyads, mainly couple and parent–child relationships. This contribution addresses the use of social network methods for the understanding of the social matrix of family interdependencies in which individuals are embedded. Social network methods broaden the definition of family by starting with the individuals’ own definition of their meaningful family context. They also allow the mapping of family networks based on the interdependencies existing among all family members. This contribution describes the use of social network methods in relation to three main settings: individuals in national representative surveys, individuals facing a family recomposition after divorce, and individuals in psychotherapy. In the light of the pluralization of life trajectories and the individualization of personal relationships, the proposed approach may significantly contribute to the understanding of the relationships that matter for individuals in contemporary societies, and of the creation of family-based social capital.     

Incorporating Prototyping and Iteration Into Intervention Development: A Case Study of a Dining Hall–Based Intervention

Abstract

Background: Previous research from the fields of computer science and engineering highlight the importance of an iterative design process (IDP) to create more creative and effective solutions. Objective: This study describes IDP as a new method for developing health behavior interventions and evaluates the effectiveness of a dining hall–based intervention developed using IDP on college students’ eating behavior and values. Participants: participants were 458 students (52.6% female, age = 19.6 ± 1.5 years [M ± SD]). Methods: The intervention was developed via an IDP parallel process. A cluster-randomized controlled study compared differences in eating behavior among students in 4 university dining halls (2 intervention, 2 control). Results: The final intervention was a multicomponent, point-of-selection marketing campaign. Students in the intervention dining halls consumed significantly less junk food and high-fat meat and increased their perceived importance of eating a healthful diet relative to the control group. Conclusion: IDP may be valuable for the development of behavior change interventions.