Impact of client suicide on social workers and counselors

Recent studies on the impact of client suicide on mental health professionals focus on psychiatrists and psychologists, while,in the current mental health system in our country, most clients receive services from other clinicians. This research focuses on the impact of client suicide on social workers and counselors as well as organizational responses to client suicide/attempt. Data were collected via interviews and survey of 121 clinicians. Client suicide impacts clinicians adversely in many ways. Many participants felt their agency/practice could have done more to support them during post-suicide management. Data presented in this report have the potential to aid in the creation of needed workforce development initiatives.     

Undercounting Medicaid Enrollment in Maryland: Testing the Accuracy of the Current Population Survey

The U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey is the most commonly cited source for estimates of the insurance status of Americans, but there are concerns that the data may undercount participation in public programs such as Medicaid. Such a Medicaid undercount may result from survey respondents not acknowledging Medicaid coverage because they are unaware that they are enrolled in Medicaid, because they have not recently received health services, due to the stigma associated with receiving public assistance programs, or due to simple recall bias. This paper estimates the extent to which the Current Population Survey undercounts Medicaid participation in a single mid-Atlantic state, Maryland. We administered the Current Population Survey questionnaire to a random selection of known Medicaid participants. We find evidence that the Current Population Survey significantly undercounts Medicaid participation in Maryland and that much of the undercount could be corrected if the survey better identified the Maryland Medicaid program. We also find that recall bias may contribute to the undercount as well. There was no indication that stigma contributed to any undercount. Though not an aim of this study, we find that the Medicaid undercount may contribute to an over count of the number of uninsured.

Bayesian hierarchical duration model for repeated events: an application to behavioral observations

This article presents a continuous-time Bayesian model for analyzing durations of behavior displays in social interactions. Duration data of social interactions are often complex because of repeated behaviors (events) at individual or group (e.g. dyad) level, multiple behaviors (multistates), and several choices of exit from a current event (competing risks). A multilevel, multistate model is proposed to adequately characterize the behavioral processes. The model incorporates dyad-specific and transition-specific random effects to account for heterogeneity among dyads and interdependence among competing risks. The proposed method is applied to child–parent observational data derived from the School Transitions Project to assess the relation of emotional expression in child–parent interaction to risk for early and persisting child conduct problems.     

Experimental partnering: interpreting improvisatory habits in the research field

This paper proposes that established research techniques can be developed in new directions by becoming attentive to the ways in which novel epistemological and ontological frameworks can shape the production of research knowledges. Drawing upon ideas from performance theory and science studies, and two brief fieldwork examples – archival research on the MRC’s Common Cold Unit and participant observation of the challenge of moving a herd of cattle – we argue that habits are also always to extent improvised; shaped by the capacities of human bodies to sense and respond to the nonhuman agentive world around them, including methodological habits. We propose a new term, ‘experimental partnering’ to define an interpretative approach that is attentive to how practice can illuminate the improvisatory or unstable temporary alignments that underlie some habits. ‘Experimental partnering’ is not offering a new way to access the research field, but a term to express a particular interpretative mode that draws attention to human-nonhuman relations and assemblages, fostering new apprehensions of how these more than social relations modify and interrupt the habitual.     

Barriers and Facilitators to Implementing Functional Family Therapy in a Community Setting: Client and Practitioner Perspectives

While Functional Family Therapy (FFT) is known to be effective in addressing adolescent behavioral problems, there has been little exploration of issues relevant to its transport from the tightly controlled setting of clinical trials into routine service delivery. This study sought the views of key stakeholders, clients, and practitioners, on barriers and facilitators to the successful implementation of FFT. Undertaken in a community setting in Scotland, interviews were carried out with 12 adolescents, 14 parents/caregivers, and 6 practitioners. Results focus on: Referral process and pre‐intervention contact; Engagement of families; Structure and delivery; Organizational factors. Although barriers to engagement were identified, FFT was viewed as an acceptable, appropriate and feasible intervention with the potential to improve adolescent wellbeing in ‘real‐world’ settings.     

DO RACIAL AND ETHNIC STEREOTYPES DEPEND ON THE SEX OF TARGET GROUP MEMBERS? Evidence from a Survey‐Based Experiment

Several social scientific perspectives suggest that racial and ethnic stereotypes vary by the sex of minority group members. However, prior research has not used survey data to test the hypothesis that the public holds strong gendered racial/ethnic stereotypes. We exploit a between-subjects experiment in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality to investigate the extent to which respondents' beliefs about seven attributes of four racial/ethnic target groups depend on the sex of target group members. Consistent with the "contingent" perspective of intersectionality theory, we find that effects of target group sex depend upon the extent to which particular racial/ethnic stereotypes have been gendered in American culture. However, we also find that effects of target group sex are consistently much smaller than those of race/ethnicity. We conclude by discussing implications for survey research on stereotypes across multiple status dimensions.     

Resilience as adaptation in older women

This article discusses factors that contribute to resilience in older women. Face-to-face audio taped interviews with seventeen women between the ages of seventy and eighty were the primary data source. Open-ended questions related to the experience of advantage and adversity across the life span comprised the interview guide. Paths to resilience were variously affected depending on developmental, social- structural, historical, and individual life story influences. Among seven factors that emerged as salient to resilience in the sample are the external resource of social connectedness and internal resources, including a head-on approach to challenge and spiritual grounding. Pivotal in the women's lives were curiosity and extending self to others. Moving forward with life following adversity and maverick (nontraditional) behavior facilitated preservation of the self in these resilient women.