Child day care and the employment of AFDC recipients with preschool children

In the context of recent federal initiatives to increase the affordability, accessibility, and quality of child care for the working poor, this article examines the degree to which expanding the supply of publicly subsidized child care in local communities may promote, through employment, the independence from welfare and economic self-sufficiency of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients with preschool-aged children. In a telephone survey of a random sample of 232 AFDC recipients who participated in a larger federally sponsored demonstration project in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, many respondents reported the lack of available child care as a barrier either to employment or to the attainment of a preferred job. Although it is concluded that increases in the availability of subsidized child care should be a component of any strategy to increase the level of employment participation, continuity, and success for this population, the results underscore the need for a multi-faceted intervention strategy to reduce the welfare dependency and to increase the economic self-sufficiency of these parents. Implications for further research are suggested.The data for this investigation were collected under Authorization No. 89-3-WR-NC-008 to the North Carolina Department of Human Resources from the Division of Program Evaluation, Office of Family Assistance, Family Support Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. Additional support was provided under Grant No. 5-44232 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University Research Council, Office of Research Services. The views and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the North Carolina Department of Human Resources.He received his Ph.D. in Family Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1981. He is a specialist in work and family linkages, policy analysis and evaluation, and survey research methodology. He served as principal investigator on the child care evaluation study that is the basis for this article.He received his Ph.D. in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin in 1982. He is a specialist in evaluation and research methodology, information dissemination and use patterns in public sector agencies, and welfare policy and initiatives. He served as project director for the study described in this article.     

Effects of repeated multi-source feedback on the influence behavior and effectiveness of managers: A field experiment

Despite the widespread use of multi-source behavioral feedback as a method of leadership development, little research has been conducted to identify facilitating conditions that can make the feedback more effective. This article reports results from a longitudinal field experiment on the effects of providing feedback about influence behavior to middle managers in the corporate office of a supermarket chain. Managers who only attended a single feedback workshop were compared to managers who attended a second feedback workshop several months after the initial one. A significant increase in the use of “core” influence tactics with subordinates and peers was found only for the managers who received repeated feedback, and they were also rated higher in overall effectiveness by their bosses. Practical implications for leadership development and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The potential for successful family foster care: conceptualizing competency domains for foster parents

The potential to foster successfully starts with developing and supporting competency in 12 domains: providing a safe and secure environment, providing a nurturing environment, promoting educational attainment and success, meeting physical and mental healthcare needs, promoting social and emotional development, supporting diversity and children's cultural needs, supporting permanency planning, managing ambiguity and loss for the foster child and family, growing as a foster parent, managing the demands of fostering on personal and familial well-being, supporting relationships between children and their families, and working as a team member. This article describes each domain and reviews relevant research to help guide the assessment of practicing and future foster parents.     

The modified cognitive constructions coding system: reliability and validity assessments

The cognitive constructions coding system (CCCS) was designed for coding clients' expressed problem constructions on four dimensions: intrapersonal-interpersonal, internal-external, responsible-not responsible, and linear-circular. This study introduces, and examines the reliability and validity of a modified version of the CCCS-a version that involves coding clients' problem constructions at the level of speech turn. Results indicate that the modified CCCS generated reliable ratings of clients' problem constructions in 15 sessions of family therapy. Validity was established by comparing 71 subjects' own ratings of over 250 self-generated problem constructions to the ratings of trained CCCS coders. The modified CCCS allows for identifying moment-to-moment changes in clients' problem constructions and, ultimately, examining the impact of therapist behaviors on such changes.     

Educational needs of inpatients with severe & persistent mental illness: a partial replication

Although a great deal has been written about the importance of patient education, few replications of past research have been conducted to increase clinicians' confidence in the conclusions of previous studies. This is especially true of studies conducted in clinical settings where findings may or may not be generalizable to other institutions. This partial replication study tested whether previous findings about patient education in an outpatient setting were applicable to an inpatient setting using a modified version of the instrument. A 1998 study published in this journal suggested that differences may exist between the perceived health education needs of outpatients and their health care providers. In this partial replication, we examined the differences between the educational needs of inpatients and those perceived by their attending nurses. As in the original study, we found discrepancies between patients' actual needs and nurses' perceptions of those needs, supporting the importance of assessing patients' health educational needs in the treatment planning process.     

Binary Response Models for Panel Data: Identification and Information

This paper considers a panel data model for predicting a binary outcome. The conditional probability of a positive response is obtained by evaluating a given distribution function (F) at a linear combination of the predictor variables. One of the predictor variables is unobserved. It is a random effect that varies across individuals but is constant over time. The semiparametric aspect is that the conditional distribution of the random effect, given the predictor variables, is unrestricted. This paper has two results. If the support of the observed predictor variables is bounded, then identification is possible only in the logistic case. Even if the support is unbounded, so that (from Manski (1987)) identification holds quite generally, the information bound is zero unless F is logistic. Hence consistent estimation at the standard pn rate is possible only in the logistic case.     

Operating Characteristics of a Subset Selection Procedure Applied to a Hybrid Randomized Response Model

The operating characteristics (OCs) of a subset ranking and selection procedure are derived for the hybrid randomized response model developed by Jia and McDonald (2009 Jia, F., McDonald, G. (2009). Analyzing hybrid randomized response data with a binomial selection procedure. Commun. Statist. Theor. Meth. 38:784807.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The OCs include the probability of a correct P(CS), the individual selection probability γ_i, and the expected subset size E(S), under the slippage configuration or the equi-spaced configuration. An example comparing failure rates of contraceptive methods is used to illustrate the use of these new results.     

Statistical methodology for binary data from a set of partially structured two-way random cross-classifications

A complete two-way cross-classification design is not practical in many settings. For example, in a toxicological study where 30 male rats are mated with 30 female rats and each mating outcome (successful or unsuccessful)is observed, time and resource considerations can make the use of the complete design prohibitively costly. Partially structured variations of this design are, therefore, of interest (e.g., the balanced disjoint rectangle design, the fully diagonal design, and the "S"-design). Methodology for analyzing binary data from such incomplete designs is illustrated with an example. This methodology, which is based on infinite population sampling arguments, allows the estimation of the mean response, among-row correlation coefficient, among-column correlation coefficient, and the within-cell correlation coefficient as well as their standard errors.