The Legacy of War: An Intergenerational Perspective

Children of combat veterans are affected to varying extents by the physical and psychological aftermath of war as experienced by the parent. Traumatic experiences exist on a continuum; trauma related messages can be communicated by a parent who does not have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. An intergenerational perspective explores the complex family processes by which those who did not experience the actual events come to exhibit varying degress of emotional, psychological and behavioral manifestations of their parents' traumatic experiences.     

Unemployment Protection and Family Policy at the Turn of the 21st Century: A Dynamic Approach to Welfare Regime Theory

This article contributes to the welfare state regime literature from a substantive and methodological perspective. At a very abstract level we confirm the relevance of the welfare state regime theory and stability for the period from 1971 to the end of the 1990s. However, by analyzing family policy and unemployment protection, we observe a dual transformation of the welfare state, consisting of a trend towards a ‘socialization’ of family policies and a retrenchment in unemployment insurance benefits. Our Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) of the two policy domains captures the multi‐dimensionality of the decommodification and defamilialization concepts and visualizes welfare state developments over time in a Cartesian space. This dynamic analysis provides us with a nuanced understanding of welfare state regime stability and change.     

The Model Development Dissertation

ABSTRACT

Asset-building programs, such as Individual Development Account (IDA) programs within social service agencies, assist low-income employed clients in building credit, purchasing affordable assets, and gaining wealth. This longitudinal exploratory study examines the credit outcomes of IDA programs to add to the knowledge concerning the effects of IDAs as an asset-building tool. Data were analyzed using a convenience sample of IDA participants and nonparticipants (N = 164), and the results indicated that initial credit score and history are associated with program participation. However, results also suggested that initial credit score is not a meaningful indicator of program completion, time to completion, or type of asset purchased for participants. Those who completed the IDA program within 2 years experienced the highest credit gains. Future research with larger samples is needed to further assess the impact of credit on program participation and completion and on whether credit gains are sustained.     

Understanding lifetime homeless duration: investigating wave 1 findings from the Journeys Home project

The variation in the amount of time people remain homeless has important policy implications with respect to reducing long‐term homelessness and designing more effective early intervention approaches. This paper examines the factors that influence lifetime homeless duration in Australia using data from the first wave of Journeys Home, a new national survey of individuals exposed to high levels of housing insecurity that employs more rigorous sampling methods than previously used. Those at increased risk of long durations of homelessness over their lifetimes include people who had less family support in childhood, shorter work histories and lower education levels. We also find evidence supporting the idea that people who first experience homelessness at a young age are more likely to experience persistent homelessness.     

The Helpfulness of Holistic Arts–Based Group Work with Children Living in Foster Care

This article discusses practice-based research that is exploring the helpfulness of holistic arts–based group work for the development of self-awareness and self-esteem in children living in foster care. The group program is arts based and encourages children to explore their beliefs, feelings, and behaviors. Examples of group exercises are provided, challenges in developing this group program are discussed, and qualitative research findings are presented, which are based on the analysis of fifteen 6-week groups. Findings indicate that children learned new skills, improved coping abilities, connected with feelings, and felt more positive. Practitioners are encouraged to consider how arts-based group work can help children in care.     

Managing in the Trenches of Consumer Care: The Challenges of Understanding and Initiating the Advance Care Planning Process

To better understand how community-based long-term care providers define advance care planning and their role in the process, we conducted 8 focus groups with 62 care managers (social workers and registered nurses) providing care for Ohio's Medicaid waiver program. Care managers shared that most consumers had little understanding of advance care planning. The care managers defined it broadly, including legal documentation, social aspects, medical considerations, ongoing communication, and consumer education. Care managers saw their roles as information providers, healthcare team members, and educators/coaches. Better education, resources, and coordination are needed to ensure that consumer preferences are realized.     

Optimizing Geriatric Social Work Education: Program and Individual Characteristics That Promote Competencies

Since 1998, the Hartford Partnership Program in Aging Education (HPPAE) has been implemented in over 70 graduate social work programs. This study examined whether program and individual student characteristics are associated with students' knowledge, skills, and values in aging. We conducted a secondary analysis of national program evaluation data. Results from hierarchical linear models indicated greater gains in knowledge of aging among full-time students, as well as students in programs that had defined field rotation models and/or that made greater use of geriatric social work competencies. Implications for efforts to enhance graduate social work education in aging are discussed.     

One-sided commitment in dynamic insurance contracts: Evidence from private health insurance in Germany

This paper studies long-term private health insurance (PHI) in Germany. It describes the main actuarial principles of premium calculation and relates these to existing theory. In the German PHI policyholders do not commit to renewing their insurance contracts, but insurers commit to offering renewal at a premium rate that does not reflect revealed future information about the insured risk. We show that empirical results are consistent with theoretical predictions from one-sided commitment models: front-loading in premiums generates a lock-in of consumers, and more front-loading is generally associated with lower rates of lapse. Due to a lack of consumer commitment, dynamic information revelation about risk type implies that high-risk policyholders are more likely to retain their PHI contracts than are low-risk types.     

A Measure of Justice: The Rabinal Human Rights Movement in Post-War Guatemala

This article explores one region’s struggle for human rights and legal justice in post-war Guatemala. Rabinal—a target of state-directed genocide in the 1980s—suffered one of the highest fatality levels of the war. In the post-war era, Rabinal human rights activists have led the struggle to demand exhumations of mass graves, build memorials, and push for criminal investigations and trials. Despite some important local victories, few of those responsible for the violence have received punishment. But that does not mean this movement is a failure. Instead, this article highlights the cultural, expressive and inprocess benefits of mobilization. Rabinal activists have restored their sense of agency and confirmed their collective identity as fighters for legal justice. Meanwhile, this local mobilization has contributed to Guatemala’s uneven process of democratization.

The Distributive Impact of Reforms in Credit Enforcement: Evidence From Indian Debt Recovery Tribunals

It is generally presumed that stronger legal enforcement of lender rights increases credit access for all borrowers because it expands the set of incentive compatible loan contracts. This result relies on an assumption that the supply of credit is infinitely elastic. In contrast, with inelastic supply, stronger enforcement generates general equilibrium effects that may reduce credit access for small borrowers and expand it for wealthy borrowers. In a firm‐level panel, we find evidence that an Indian judicial reform that increased banks' ability to recover nonperforming loans had such an adverse distributive impact.