The Conjoint Session as a Tool for the Resolution of Separation-Individuation in the Adult Mother-Daughter Relationship

In the present article, two case reports are used to examine the adult mother-daughter relationship from the point of view of the mother. The two mothers, in midlife, looked to their adult daughters to perform selfobject functions. The daughters of these patients felt threatened by their mother's desire for emotional dependence and had emotionally distanced themselves from their mothers. Emotional estrangement from their daughters had caused these patients to experience feelings of depression severe enough to seek treatment. The article describes the use of a conjoint mother-daughter session within the context of the mother's individual treatment to help these mothers to recognize the unresolved separation-individuation in their relationships with their daughters and to promote a healthier connection in the mother-daughter relationship.     

A competency approach to curriculum building: a social work mission

This article discusses The John A. Hartford Foundation CSWE SAGE-SW Project through an historical reflection of curriculum development within the profession. The project's relationship to several curriculum building models is also explored. A curriculum development tool for combining the Hartford Competencies with theCSWEEPAS requirements is provided.     

The Psychodynamics of a Clinician's Hope: A Delicate Balance

A clinician's sense of hope is not easily maintained in the therapeutic situation. Exploring the psychodynamics of hope in two interviews—one focusing on a community mental health psychotherapist and the other on a school social worker—this paper proposes that maintaining hope requires an intense affect state, an active blend of emotional and intellectual reflections in the mind of the clinician. Ongoing hope is the product of a delicate balance between a clinician's tolerance for the tragic in life and the expectations of positive treatment outcome. These reflections occur in an intrapsychic space, a point of juncture between the clinician's primary process longings/fears and secondary process thoughts. Hope is constructed in this space. It gains its language, form, and substance from the integration of personal experience, client observation and clinical theory. Reflective activity helps a clinician avoid disabling transference to a client and promotes identifications that lead to realistic treatment goals.     

How much do we count? interpretation and error-making in the decennial census

Following a critique of the 1990 decennial census procedures, we conducted a field study among low-income, inner-city residents in 1991 to examine how they conceptualized and managed the civic task of census response. Interpretations about the purpose and meaning of the census, about commitment to the task, and about connection to government, singly and together with literacy skills (e.g., reading and general literacy competence), were associated with errors that are not detectable by evaluative methodologies used regularly by the Census Bureau. The validity and reliability of census data, and possibly other self-administered survey research, will be increased by greater use of knowledge about both interpretation and literacy skills in formulating data collection procedures.     

SMEs and Marketing: A Systematic Literature Review

This paper presents a systematic review of recent academic literature analysing the role, organization and management of marketing activities in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). To this end, 310 articles published between 2006 and 2015 in 69 main journals devoted to small firms/entrepreneurship and management/marketing fields were analysed. This review shows that SMEs’ marketing has received great attention in both management and marketing literature in recent years. Findings reveal, on the one hand, the emerging role of networks and information and communication technologies in marketing behaviour by SMEs, and on the other hand a research gap in terms of specific marketing practices. Entrepreneurial marketing has been used as the main conceptual framework in reviewed studies, even if findings overall still point out a distance between the theoretical bases of reviewed contributions and the study of SMEs’ marketing behaviour and practices. Therefore, future research on the role of resources, relationships and networks could benefit from the combination of theories developed within the field of entrepreneurship with other approaches such as the resource‐based view, the dynamic capabilities theory and the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) framework.     

Migrant Health Policies. Actors and Levels in a Multi‐Level Perspective

Until recently, migrant health policies have been overlooked as a topic of policy analysis. Although interest in the issue has developed in parallel with the progressive acknowledgement of the presence of unhealthy migrants and the transformation of welfare states and policy dynamics in Europe, studies on migrant health policies have often focused on the state as a unique unit of observation while hindering the role played by other institutional and non‐institutional actors taking part in the migrant health multi‐level governance. This contribution will bridge this gap, deconstructing the various actors and levels involved in migrant health policymaking from a multi‐level perspective. By critically reviewing migrant health policy research and discussing it with the new MIPEX Health Strand, this contribution suggests a more encompassing perspective in the analysis of migrant health policies and processes, looking at the different players at stake in this multifaceted policy field.     

Social work online: a recognition of experiences and practices in Italy

ABSTRACT

‘The Internet is the fabric or our lives’ [Castells, M. (2001). The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 1] – but which are the weaves that nowadays connect Italian social workers into such a fabric? Herein we aim at answering this question through a survey of on-line resources, nodes and practices of e-Social Work in Italy. We shall be discussing ICT impact on the Italian context, and the utilization of ICT by Italian social workers, in order to build up the internal and external factors that determine the current utilization levels of these emerging tools within the professional community. A review of the major on-line social work portals will identify their key features and peculiarities and aim to provide an overview of the substance and current on-line functions of Italian social work, with a summing-up of criticalities and opportunities that might prompt reflection on possible future developments.     

What Adolescents Seeking Help Teach us About a School-Based Counseling Service

Adolescents are reluctant to seek help, especially those at psychopathological risk. School may represent the ideal setting to intercept teens in trouble by reducing some barriers to help-seeking behavior; despite this, some obstacles remain difficult to overcome. The present study, involving a large sample (N?=?2235) of secondary school students, aims to investigate the effectiveness of a counseling service as part of a multifaceted school-based prevention program. The counseling service is assessed by comparing students who asked for help with their peers in terms of their psychosocial characteristics, risk profiles and perceptions of the strategies that professionals adopt in order to reduce the barriers to individual counseling. Our findings reveal the capacity of individual counseling to serve the most vulnerable adolescents, with the exception of students who might be at risk of school drop-out. The effectiveness of the program implementation theory and the strength of particular strategies used to reduce barriers are discussed.     

Perceptions of Physical Sexual Health Among Young Men Who Have Sex with Men with a Previous History of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been reported to be disproportionately higher among young men who have sex with men (YMSM) than among heterosexual men. Most research and public health programs among YMSM CSA survivors have been mainly infectious disease-based, and research on the physical sexual health among this group is limited. This study sought to further understand components of physical sexual health among YMSM with CSA histories. Sixteen participants were recruited, and through a phenomenological approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Four themes were found, participants (1) reported a one-dimensional definition of sexual health; (2) had limitations in health insurance hindering preventative care; (3) described reoccurring anal pain during sexual intercourse; and (4) conveyed a positive perception of sexual satisfaction. These findings indicate a need for healthcare providers, health educators, and researchers to increase awareness about the comprehensive needs of YMSM with CSA histories.     

Governing agricultural migrant workers as an “emergency”: converging approaches in Northern and Southern Italian rural towns

Rosarno and Sermide are two small towns in Southern and Northern Italy, which are both part of a manual‐labour circuit of agricultural work. The article presents an analysis of governance structures in these towns and, by bringing together the literature on migrants' agricultural labour and local policy‐making, explores how public actors address migrant seasonal agricultural workers' needs to investigate outcomes of inclusion and exclusion. The article builds on qualitative research, conducted between 2012 and 2015, to propose a North‐South intra‐country comparison of local policy‐making. The findings show the emergency nature of local administrations' approaches and the critical role of civil society. They highlight the extent to which responses diverge or converge in means and scale, while stressing their convergence in scope to limit migrants' visibility.