Reclaiming Futures considers an anti-oppressive frame to decrease disparities

The Reclaiming Futures mandate is to improve substance abuse service interventions within the juvenile justice system, and concurrently to ensure that racial disparities are avoided. But traditional efforts to reduce disparities have not been adequate to preclude these almost universal trends from reappearing in the initiative. In response, the authors have introduced anti-oppressive practice (AOP) to the initiative, beginning first with workshops at the national gatherings, and following up with webinars, discipline-specific training for judges, probation professionals, alcohol and drug treatment professionals, community members, and project directors, and finally, an in-depth course to advance the approach more deeply into the initiative. This paper begins with a review of the status of racial disparities in the United States, and shares details of the evolution of Reclaiming Futures to consider an innovative response to such disparities, namely anti-oppressive practice. We detail the ways in which AOP has been incorporated into Reclaiming Futures. The paper then discusses two key elements of our initiative: the theoretical and conceptual elements of AOP that make it a desirable approach to reducing disparities, and an introduction to the core competencies that are affiliated with AOP. We anticipate that this paper will be of interest to program administrators and service providers who are searching for practice innovations that offer a positive prognosis for reducing racial disparities.     

Demand for health risk reductions: A cross-national comparison between the U.S. and Canada

Using a large stated preference survey conducted across the U.S. and Canada, we assess differences in individual willingness to pay (WTP) for health risk reductions between the two countries. Our utility-theoretic choice model allows for systematically varying marginal utilities for avoided future time in different adverse health states (illness-years, recovered/remission years, and lost life-years). We find significant differences between Canadian and U.S. preferences. WTP also differs systematically with age, gender, education, and marital status, as well as a number of attitudinal and subjective health-perception variables. Age profiles for WTP are markedly different across the two countries. Canadians tend to display flatter age profiles, with peak WTP realized at older ages.     

Now What Do People Know About Global Climate Change? Survey Studies of Educated Laypeople

In 1992, a mental‐models‐based survey in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, revealed that educated laypeople often conflated global climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion, and appeared relatively unaware of the role of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in global warming. This study compares those survey results with 2009 data from a sample of similarly well‐educated laypeople responding to the same survey instrument. Not surprisingly, following a decade of explosive attention to climate change in politics and in the mainstream media, survey respondents in 2009 showed higher awareness and comprehension of some climate change causes. Most notably, unlike those in 1992, 2009 respondents rarely mentioned ozone depletion as a cause of global warming. They were also far more likely to correctly volunteer energy use as a major cause of climate change; many in 2009 also cited natural processes and historical climatic cycles as key causes. When asked how to address the problem of climate change, while respondents in 1992 were unable to differentiate between general “good environmental practices” and actions specific to addressing climate change, respondents in 2009 have begun to appreciate the differences. Despite this, many individuals in 2009 still had incorrect beliefs about climate change, and still did not appear to fully appreciate key facts such as that global warming is primarily due to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the single most important source of this carbon dioxide is the combustion of fossil fuels.     

Brain Electrical Activity Associated With Cognitive Processing During a Looking Version of the A‐Not‐B Task

This work was designed to investigate individual differences in brain electrical activity during a looking version of the A‐not‐B task. It was proposed that this spatial task required the cognitive skills of working memory and inhibitory control, each associated with frontal lobe function. Electroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded from 54 8‐month‐old infants during baseline and task. Only high performers on the looking task exhibited increases in 6‐ to 9‐Hz EEG power from baseline to task. These task‐related changes were evident at frontal and posterior scalp locations. High performers on the looking task exhibited lower EEG coherence values at right hemisphere frontal locations relative to the low performers. These lower coherence values were evident during baseline and task. All infants showed increased frontal‐parietal coherence during the spatial working memory task relative to baseline values. These data confirm previous cognitive neuroscience work associating frontal lobe function with cognitive performance levels during infancy.     

Managing the Care Home Closure Process: Care Managers' Experiences and Views

This paper reports case study research that set out to identifywhat care managers do during independent care home closures.Little research has focused on the way in which care homes forolder people are closed in England, or what those involved thinkabout the process. This paper reports the activities and viewsof care managers directly involved in helping older people relocatefrom care homes that were closed by their owners. During suchclosures, residents and their families have no choice but tomove, usually to a deadline, and with little control over theprocess. Care managers have a responsibility to help arrangealternative care for those current residents who are publiclyfunded, and to offer information and support to those fundingtheir own care (the ‘self-funded’). Closure relatedactivities could involve considerable staff time. Care managementarrangements, including the organization of teams and provisionof needs assessments, varied across authorities. The care managersdescribed drawing on emotional counselling and inter-personalskills, as well as practitioner knowledge and experience, particularlywhen offering support and advice about finding appropriate newhomes. Tensions between aims, constraints on their actions andviews of good practice are identified.     

Evaluating Risk Communications: Completing and Correcting Mental Models of Hazardous Processes, Part II

We propose a decision-analytic framework, called the mental models approach , for evaluating the impact of risk communications. It employs multiple evaluation methods, including think-aloud protocol analysis, problem solving, and a true-false test that allows respondents to express uncertainty about their answers. The approach is illustrated in empirical comparisons of three brochures about indoor radon.     

Religious Identity and Family Ideologies in the Transition to Adulthood

This article examines how religion shapes family ideologies in young adulthood. Using the 31‐year Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children (N= 909), we find relationships between mother’s religious characteristics when her child was born and the child’s own family ideologies in young adulthood. Further, multiple dimensions of young adults’ religious identities are independently related to their family ideologies, suggesting unique influences of both religious service attendance and the importance of religion. Our results vary across time and family ideologies in interesting patterns, but relationships between religion and attitudes are remarkably consistent. From early in life, mothers’ and children’s religious characteristics shape family ideologies in ways likely to help explain relationships found between religion and family behaviors.