Accountability and Risk Assessment: Members’ and Leaders’ Perspectives about Psychoeducational Batterers’ Group

This study reports group leaders’ assessment of group members’ risk for reassault and level of accountability during a psychoeducational group intervention with male domestic violence perpetrators. It also examines members’ assessment of their own risk for reassault and level of accountability over the 18-week program. Group leaders and group members completed surveys every 2 weeks. Bivariate analyses examining differences in accountability rating and risk assessment between group leaders and group members show little agreement between leaders and members and few changes over time. Group leaders assessed group members as showing some increases in level of accountability near the end of the group. These findings suggest group leaders perceived increased accountability among group members, but they were rarely able to fulfill their goal of educating members about the connection between accountability and risk of reassault.     

Fostering Solutions: Bringing Brief-Therapy Principles and Practices to the Child Welfare System

This article describes a 15-month university-community collaboration that was designed to fast-track children out of foster care. The developers of the project initiated resource-oriented "systems facilitations," allowing wraparound professionals and families to come together in large meetings to solve problems and find solutions. Families also participated in strength-based brief-therapy sessions. The authors describe the history, structure, and process of the project, and they provide a case study to illustrate the approach and exemplify the kinds of changes that occurred throughout the system. In the final section of the article, the authors reflect on what they learned about their university-community partnership, what they would do differently the next time, and the implications of such larger-system involvements for American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy's Core Competencies.     

Addressing Elder Abuse: The Waterloo Restorative Justice Approach to Elder Abuse Project

The Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) of Waterloo Region, in partnership with a number of other social service agencies, designed and implemented a restorative justice model applicable to older adults who have been abused by an individual in a position of trust. The project was very successful in building partnerships, as many community agencies came together to deal with the problem of elder abuse. The program also raised the profile of elder abuse in the community. However, despite intensive efforts, referrals to the restorative justice program were quite low. Because of this, the program moved to a new organizational model, the Elder Abuse Response Team (EART), which has retained the guiding philosophy of restorative justice but has broadened the mandate. The team has evolved into a conflict management system that has multiple points of entry for cases and multiple options for dealing with elder abuse. The team has developed a broad range of community partners who can facilitate referrals to the EART and also can help to provide an individualized response to each case. The transition to the EART has been successful, and the number of referrals has increased significantly.     

Addressing elder abuse: the Waterloo restorative justice approach to elder abuse project

The Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) of Waterloo Region, in partnership with a number of other social service agencies, designed and implemented a restorative justice model applicable to older adults who have been abused by an individual in a position of trust. The project was very successful in building partnerships, as many community agencies came together to deal with the problem of elder abuse. The program also raised the profile of elder abuse in the community. However, despite intensive efforts, referrals to the restorative justice program were quite low. Because of this, the program moved to a new organizational model, the Elder Abuse Response Team (EART), which has retained the guiding philosophy of restorative justice but has broadened the mandate. The team has evolved into a conflict management system that has multiple points of entry for cases and multiple options for dealing with elder abuse. The team has developed a broad range of community partners who can facilitate referrals to the EART and also can help to provide an individualized response to each case. The transition to the EART has been successful, and the number of referrals has increased significantly.     

Nikos Kazantzakis’s phenomenology and its relevance to the study of organizations

ABSTRACT

This paper examines Morgan’s theorization of images of organizations from a phenomenological perspective using the works of Nikos Kazantzakis. The paper argues that Morgan’s representation of metaphors currently favours an entitative interpretation of influence and control, undermining novel processes deeply embedded within existential nuances situated in the realm of the human experience. By focusing on Kazantzakis’s phenomenology, the paper proposes that a theorization of transitionality demonstrates that a content–process struggle is rooted within a permanence–temporality struggle constantly conditioned against individuals’ transitoriness of existence. Relatedness, affirmation and temporality represent three interdependent process states and each exposes self-existential tensions that regulate the directionality of one’s transitions. Such transitions are thought to challenge the entitative form with which organizations are portrayed in the individual. The paper shows that a conceptualization of transitionality through Kazantzakis provides a new scope for understanding the structure of movements situated in the self and for customizing the forces of permanence and temporality.     

The Forum: Therapeutic Politics—An Oxymoron?

In this essay, I explore the connections between the personal and the political, and what those connections suggest for discourse, action, and meaning.     

The Fine Points of Giving Money Away—and Trying to Do It Right

Qualitative Sociology -     

Latino Children's Integration into American Society: The Dynamics of Bilingual Education

Abstract

The Latino population has grown in recent decades due to increased immigration. This group is largely urban, disproportionately young, and typically enters American society with a low socioeconomic status, which has implications for urban schools. Using data from a three-year investigation of the bilingual education program at Maya Angelou Elementary in Texas, this study examines the integration of Latino students into the educational system. More specifically, I utilize a sociological framework which incorporates structural and sociocultural factors of immigrant adaptation to investigate bilingual education at Angelou and the broader context of educating Latino English Language Learners (ELLs). At Angelou, I find evidence of commitment to bilingualism, yet structural constraints in the school undermine this commitment. However, these challenges are minimal in comparison to the broader policy environment concerning the ELLs' education. On this front, Angelou must confront teacher shortages, scarcity of materials, and high-stakes standardized testing. Conclusions indicate the treatment of Spanish language and Latino culture as subordinate despite the school's efforts to serve their students.