Grandparents' Education and Infant Health: Pathways Across Generations

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing survey linked to respondents' medical records (N = 2,870), this study examines the association between grandparents' education and birth outcomes and explores potential pathways underlying this relationship. Results show that having a grandfather with less than a high school education was associated with a 93 gram reduction in birth weight, a 59% increase in the odds of low birth weight, and a 136% increase in the odds of a neonatal health condition when compared with having a grandfather with a high school education or more. These associations were partially accounted for by mother's educational attainment and marital status as well as by prenatal history of depression, hypertension, and prenatal health behaviors, depending on the specific outcome. The findings from this study call for heightened attention to the multigenerational influences of educational attainment for infant health.     

Media and Families: Looking Ahead

Digital natives and digital immigrants live and grow together navigating a world of media devices and inventing new media practices. As such, it is increasingly important to know about the role of media in the lives of families. Although much is known about the impact of media on children as individuals, far less attention has been given to the impact of media on the family as a whole. A great deal of the research on the family and media focuses on parent-child interactions, relationships, and media practices. While parenting is a key element in family life, other members of the family contribute to family practices and interactions, particularly siblings. This article proposes future directions for research about media and families, turning attention to expanding parenting research beyond media mediation, employment of more observational and ethnographic studies of families and media, and exploring media uses with siblings which continues to be an area of limited focus within the field. Moreover, future research should examine families with different lived experiences both in how their media practices and how they are portrayed within the media. Through research, scholars can serve families as media mentors—supporting families in their media practices in an informed way. We have the ability to be excellent media mentors to families and a key component of that is to continue to find answers to questions for families through research.     

An exploratory study of early professional experiences and job burnout among BSW graduates in China

Although previous studies have addressed turnover issues among social workers in Western countries, this study explores the early professional experiences (during the first 3 working years) and job burnout among BSW graduates in China and identifies factors influencing their decisions to leave social work jobs. Using semi-structured interviews with 15 BSW graduates in the Shenzhen metropolitan area, this research identifies the primary reasons new social workers leave the profession. Data analysis revealed three themes: personal struggles, work environment issues, and social support factors. This exploratory study highlights the professional experiences and burnout among BSW graduates in China and has implications for social work education and professional practices.     

Social Background Differences in Early Family Behavior

Social background has historically been recognized as a major factor influencing family behavior, though recent work has largely emphasized racial/ethnic influences. Here we use 1994 – 1995 and 2001 – 2002 Add Health data to examine the cohabitation, first marriage, and first birth experience of young women. In a multistate life table context, hypothetical cohorts specified in terms of race and mother’s education are followed, from age 11 to age 24, as they move through 6 family‐related statuses. The results indicate that, for both Black and White women, a higher level of maternal education is generally associated with less cohabitation, less marriage, fewer first births, and a higher percentage of women who experience none of those transitions before age 24. Racial and social background differences are conceptually and empirically distinct. Because mother’s education is associated with substantially different trajectories of early family behavior for both Blacks and Whites, we argue that social background merits increased attention in research on contemporary American family patterns.     

Relation Between Maternal Contingent Responsiveness and Infant Social Expectations

This study investigated the relation between maternal contingent responsiveness and 4‐ and 5‐month‐old infants' (N = 64) social expectation behavior in a still‐face procedure. Mothers were asked to interact with their infants for 2 min (interactive phase), remain still‐faced for 1 min (still‐face phase), and resume interaction for 2 min. Mother and infant behavior was assessed for the frequency of infant and mother smiles, mother smiles that were contingent to infant smiles and infant smiles were contingent to mother smiles during the interactive phase, and infant social bids to mother during the still‐face phase. Hierarchical regression showed that mother contingent smiles during the interactive phase accounted for unique variance in infant social bids during the still‐face phase beyond that accounted for by the frequency of mother and infant smiles during the interactive phase. These results support the view that young infants' social expectations and sense of self‐efficacy are formed within their interactions with their caregivers.     

Predicting What Will Happen When You Intervene

This paper offers some rules of thumb that practicing social workers can use for case studies that aim to construct, albeit not fully and never entirely reliably, models designed to help predict what will happen if they intervene in specific ways to help this particular client, here and now. We call these ’ex ante case-specific causal models’. ’Ex ante’ because they are for before-the-fact prediction of what the likely effects of proposed actions are. ’Case-specific’ because we are not concerned with studies that provide evidence for some general conclusion but rather with using what general and local knowledge one can get to predict what will happen to a specific client in the real settings in which they live. ’Causal’ because this kind of case study aims to trace out as best possible the web of causal processes that will be responsible for what happens. In this sense our case studies resemble post facto realist evaluations.     

‘We’re Civil Servants’: The Status of Trauma-Informed Care in the Community

ABSTRACT

Trauma-informed care (TIC) in social service organizations means that the organizations operate with the understanding that everyone involved has possibly experienced trauma in their lifetime. This qualitative study examined local service organizations’ usage of the 5 main principles of TIC: safety, trustworthiness, collaboration, empowerment, and choice (as developed by Fallot & Harris, 2006). Ten focus groups (n = 69) and 6 individual interviews (n = 6) with employees from administration through management were interviewed such that almost all facets of each agency were represented. The participants were asked about their agencies’ policies and practices for utilizing the 5 principles of TIC. The results suggest that the vast majority of organizations in this study implemented many of the principles of TIC with clients, though they had not labeled their practices as “trauma-informed.” However, although clients were receiving TIC, some of the principles were neglected as they pertain to staff, such as choice and empowerment. The findings of this study suggest that agencies are unaware of the relevance of TIC as it relates to staff. It is recommended that future research examine whether the use of TIC in agencies prevents “burnout,” high turnover rates, and vicarious traumatization of staff.     

A further examination of antecedents of correctional staff life satisfaction

Working in corrections is not only a demanding job, but a socially important one. While a growing number of studies have examined how the work environment impacts the job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment of staff, very few studies have examined how working in corrections impacts the life satisfaction of workers. The current study utilized OLS regression to examine the antecedents of life satisfaction among staff at a Midwestern private prison. Job satisfaction had a positive relationship with life satisfaction, while age, work on family conflict, family on work conflict, and job involvement all had statistically significant negative effects. Finally, perceptions of the level of financial rewards, job stress, organizational commitment, gender, race, educational level, tenure, supervisory status, position, marital status, and having children, all had non-significant associations with overall satisfaction with life.