Etiology of School Shootings: Utilizing a Purposive,Non-Impulsive Model for Social Work Practice

Many schools have introduced violence prevention measures that aim to combat acts such as bullying and carrying weapons on school premises. Despite these attempts, students and faculty live in fear of a school shooting happening in their community. This article reviews the factors that are most prevalent in those who follow through with school violence and the most prevalent cluster of variables seen in cases of school shootings. Next, the etiology of school shootings and the stages-of-change model, applied to school violence, is discussed. The analyses are then followed by implications for social work and how to augment existing practices through practice and policy changes.     

A heuristic model for the sequence-dependent lot scheduling problem

This paper presents a heuristic algorithm for finding a good solution for the sequence-dependent lot scheduling problem. Unlike available methods, the algorithm eliminates the need for creating new artificial problems and implementing feasibility tests. It also eliminates the tedious task of translating setup relationships into a mathematical programming formulation. The result is a conceptually simple solution technique that is practically motivated and easily implemented for use on the shop floor. Comparison of algorithm performance with published results demonstrates the efficacy of the approach.     

An abused child's use of sandplay in the healing process

In 1939, Margaret Lowenfeld, a child psychiatrist in London, created a therapeutic medium with which children could freely communicate and express themselves. Through the influence of Jungian, Dora Kalff, and the Jungian theories she applied to it, this new technique spread throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. Termed Sandplay by Kalff, it is recognized as a highly effective and creative modality used mostly in child therapy, but also in Jungian analysis with adults. As a sandplay therapist who specializes in sexual abuse treatment, I have experienced the healing power of sandplay in the treatment of traumatized children, especially those who were sexually abused. The focus of this article is on the inner world expression and process of a boy I call Adam, who was a participant in my doctoral dissertation study on sandplay with sexually abused children. The article describes Adam's twelve-tray sandplay process and the theories behind the assessments that I made, based on Jungian psychology, Kalffian sandplay theory, and previous research.     

Intensive child case management: Work roles and activities

This paper presents findings from a project undertaken to explore the implementation of one rural state's intensive child case management program for families with children with severe emotional and behavioral disabilities. Interviews with 20 child case management staff were conducted for the purpose of describing perceived work roles and activities. Thematic and content analysis of staff interviews revealed differences in staff perceptions regarding the role of the case manager, the ideal work activities of the case manager, and the barriers to achieving the ideal work activities. The discussion focuses on social work practice and policy implications for the provision of intensive child case management programs, and provides recommendations for areas of further inquiry.     

Proud to be poor? Untangling identity politics with the families portrayed in the photobook Courage (1998)

In the early 1990s, several European welfare states embraced the idea that the voice and life knowledge of people in poverty should be recognised in policymaking. In that regard, many authors proclaimed a paradigm shift from advocacy to self-advocacy, emphasising the agency of people in poverty to speak for themselves. Emblematic in these developments in Belgium was the photobook Courage, published in 1998 by an NGO called Movement for People with a Low Income and Children (BMLIK). Through documentary family photography and oral testimonies, Courage develops a visual rhetoric on the citizenship of people in poverty while reframing poverty as a violation of human rights. Historical research demonstrates, however, that Courage was produced by middle-class volunteer allies and is therefore a rhetorical tool for self-advocacy but certainly not a product of self-advocacy. Moreover, many authors have been highly critical of identity politics, since positive imagery can equally be disempowering in reinforcing neo-philanthropical principles of self-help and willpower which ultimately lead away from redistributive policies. This article therefore examines, through oral history with photo elicitation, how the people involved experienced being portrayed as the protagonists of self-advocacy on the poverty problem. The findings show how the portrayed people fluidly (dis)identified over the past 20 years through three intertwined subjective processes involving Courage as an artefact: for remembering (historical function), for assessing (evaluative function) and for advocacy (persuasive function). As such, they appear not as passive objects of others’ campaigning strategies, but as active co-constructors of self-advocacy rhetoric. Some of the pitfalls and potentials of identity politics in the struggle against poverty are discussed.     

The influence of the interviewing style and the historical context on positioning shifts in the narrative of a Second World War Resistance member1

This article involves a study of the narrative of a Second World War Resistance member by means of an interview in which the interviewer explicitly inserts the historical context by selecting the topics for discussion and asking critical questions. The interview deals with three periods: the Wartime period; the First Wave of Reprisals; and the Second Wave of Reprisals. The analyses show that the interviewee's first and second‐level positionings shift along with changes in historical period and that they mirror the general historical image of the Resistance. These different positionings are highly consistent in themselves and this consistency is also present on the third level of positioning, because of the interviewee's fairly muted style of narrating, by which blatant inconsistencies are avoided and a general, ‘good’ identity is constructed. The article also demonstrates that the interview style adds another, important dimension to the analysis of identities in life stories.     

Severe borderlines and self psychology

This paper will discuss work with a woman diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder because of classic symptoms of intense unstable affect, recurrent suicidality, self-mutilation, and primitive defensive organization. Once a selfobject transference tie was established, the borderline symptoms remitted. Discussion of this case will focus on the clinical application of concepts from the field of psychoanalytic self psychology, particularly the concepts of self-object functions and intersubjectivity, in work with patients diagnosed as borderline.     

Utilization of counseling and supportive services by female victims of domestic abuse

Increasing attention to the high prevalence of domestic violence (DV) and its impact on women's physical and mental health has resulted in expanded services for abused women. Abused women appear to underutilize the formal counseling services available in many communities, however, and further research is needed to identify factors related to service utilization. In the present study, 1,746 women assaulted by a male intimate partner were identified from a larger pool of women interviewed by Pretrial Services following the arrest of their spouse/partner on domestic abuse charges. The women were selected for the current study if they reported prior physical assaults perpetrated by the same spouse/partner listed in the instant offense. In addition to describing previous physical assaults and psychological abuse by their current spouse/partner, women were also asked whether they had ever sought "formal counseling/supportive services" to address the abuse. Consistent with the prior literature, only a minority of the victims reported prior use of these services (14.9%). Additional analyses indicated that the likelihood of having accessed services varied as a function of victim demographic factors (race, relationship to the offender, income), characteristics of the prior DV (prior injury by partner, forced sexual activity, prior psychological abuse), and whether the victim's children witnessed the fighting. Limitations of the study and implications for service providers and the courts are discussed.