Co-ordinating learning: The future of practice teaching

Traditional models of practice teaching have usually assumed the superiority of a one-to-one arrangement. However, ‘long-arm supervision’, often used in group care and other settings as a way of providing placements in units without qualified practice teachers, could provide the basis for future models where the accredited practice teacher takes a management responsibility for planning and co-ordinating a range of learning experiences involving a variety of staff. Some of the issues and advantages of this model are briefly explored.     

Evaluation of a Seven State Criminal History Screening Pilot Program for Long-Term Care Workers

This article summarizes results from an evaluation of a federally sponsored criminal history screening (CHS) pilot program to improve screening for workers in long-term care settings. The evaluation addressed eight key issues specified through enabling legislation, including efficiency, costs, and outcomes of screening procedures. Of the 204,339 completed screenings, 3.7% were disqualified due to criminal history, and 18.8% were withdrawn prior to completion for reasons that may include relevant criminal history. Lessons learned from the pilot program experiences may inform a new national background check demonstration program.     

Part II: Differences between Sexually Victimized and Nonsexually Victimized Male Adolescent Sexual Abusers and Delinquent Youth: Further Group Comparisons of Developmental Antecedents and Behavioral Challenges

In order to determine the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse among gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals, we conducted a meta-analysis that compiled the results of 65 articles across 9 countries. The results revealed no significant difference in the prevalence of child sexual abuse between homosexual and bisexual people for both sexes. The prevalence of child sexual abuse among female sexual minorities was significantly higher than that among male sexual minorities. The lowest prevalence was found in South America, followed by Asia. The definition of child sexual abuse, dimension used to measure sexual orientation, year of data collection, and the mean age of participants at the time of assessment influenced the estimated prevalence of child sexual abuse. We conclude that many variables influence the reported prevalence of child sexual abuse among sexual minorities.     

The British Chinese Adoption Study: planning a study of lifecourse and outcomes

Follow-up studies of adopted adults are very important in contributing to the development of policy and practice when placing children in families following early adversity. This article describes the development of a methodology for one such study due to be completed in 2012. The files of 100 ethnic Chinese girls adopted from Hong Kong into British families in the 1960s were made available and originally analysed in 2007. As the files recorded data on the children's pre-adoption experiences including orphanage care, this provided an opportunity to explore a well-established hypothesis that early orphanage experience has an enduring effect on later outcomes. However, given this group of women are now in their 40s and 50s, identifying these outcomes may offer a much longer term perspective to that usually available in research studies of this kind. This article reports the findings from an analysis of the information held on these files. It then discusses the benefits and challenges of developing a robust methodology for a follow-up study that compares this group of women with other adopted and non-adopted groups of a similar age and in particular explores how post-adoption experiences across the lifespan might moderate the effects of early adversity. Following up this group of women into their middle years and using data available about their early experiences provides a unique opportunity to test and challenge existing theories about the long-term consequences of international adoption. This will help to inform both policy and direct social work practice when children are being considered and placed through international adoption today.     

Rising to the Challenge of Treating OEF/OIF Veterans with Co‐occurring PTSD and Substance Abuse

This article reviews data on the relatively high incidence of Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans reporting mental health and substance abuse problems, and some perceived barriers that may account for low rates of their engaging in treatment. Treatment outcomes for veterans with co‐occurring posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorder (SUD) are generally poorer than for those with PTSD or substance abuse alone. Several evidence‐based individual therapy approaches offered by VA Medical Centers are described along with how they conceptualize the relationship of substance abuse to PTSD. Problems with sequential treatment for persons with PTSD and substance abuse in specialized programs are discussed, including notably the practice of requiring veterans to be completely drug and alcohol free for a month or longer prior to entering PTSD treatment. Several integrated treatment programs are described along with a brief summary of evidence supporting their effectiveness. Some recent policy changes from the Department of Veterans Affairs that bode well for the future of PTSD/SUD treatment are described. Differences between younger and older veterans were cited along with their implications for treatment. Recommendations regarding how to better engage and retain OEF/OIF veterans with PTSD/SUD in treatment are presented together with examples of their implementation. The author concludes that to rise to the challenge of treating this difficult population it is necessary to adapt treatment to meet their needs rather than requiring them to adapt to therapies that may not be a good fit.     

COUNTRY PORTFOLIOS IN OPEN ECONOMY MACRO‐MODELS

This paper develops a simple approximation method for computing equilibrium portfolios in dynamic general equilibrium open economy macro‐models. The method is widely applicable, simple to implement, and gives analytical solutions for equilibrium portfolio positions in any combination or types of asset. It can be used in models with any number of assets, whether markets are complete or incomplete, and can be applied to stochastic dynamic general equilibrium models of any dimension, so long as the model is amenable to a solution using standard approximation methods. We first illustrate the approach using a simple two‐asset endowment economy model, and then show how the results extend to the case of any number of assets and general economic structure.     

Direct density estimation of L-estimates via characteristic functions with applications

In this note we propose a new and novel kernel density estimator for directly estimating the probability and cumulative distribution function of an L-estimate from a single population based on utilizing the theory in Knight (1985) in conjunction with classic inversion theory. This idea is further developed for a kernel density estimator for the difference of L-estimates from two independent populations. The methodology is developed via a “plug-in” approach, but it is distinct from the classic bootstrap methodology in that it is analytically and computationally feasible to provide an exact estimate of the distribution function and thus eliminates the resampling related error. The asymptotic and finite sample properties of our estimators are examined. The procedure is illustrated via generating the kernel density estimate for the Tukey's trimean from a small data set.     

An examination of the relative impact of type I and type II error rates in phase II drug screening trial queues

In this note, we highlight the fact that the choice of type I and type II error rates should not simply be set at traditional levels in the phase II clinical trial setting when considering the relative success rate of previous trials in a given disease setting. For diseases in which it is rare that a new compound is active, we argue that more stringent type I error rates in the phase II setting may be more important relative to relaxing the type II error rates. The paper itself is more of a 'thought' experiment on this topic such that specific clinical trial settings will require specific applications of this approach. This is due in part to the fact that the real-world setting is more complex relative to overall decision process in terms of moving from phase II to phase III trials than our basic illustrative model.