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.     

Female ejaculation: A case study

This case study provides objective evidence supporting the hypothesis that female ejaculation, a partial, infertile homologue of male ejaculation, exists. A karyotypically normal, multiparous woman suffered for a decade with urinary stress incontinence. During that time she had learned to inhibit an orgastic response which led to bedwetting. Although the liquid produced did not appear to be urine, she falsely concluded that her orgasmic expulsion was a manifestation of urinary incontinence. Using feedback from a Vaginal Myograph, she learned to do Kegel exercises properly, and the urinary stress incontinence soon disappeared. Around this time she became aware of the concept of female ejaculation and its possible association with an erotically sensitive area that could be stimulated through her anterior vaginal wall. Stimulation of this area, the “Grafenberg spot,” produced what she described as orgasm which felt “deeper” than orgasms in response to vulvar stimulation. Such an orgasm was often accompanied by expulsion of liquid from the urethra. Chemical analysis indicated that the expulsion was not urine. It contained prostatic acid phosphatase, an enzyme characteristically found in prostatic secretion.     

Cross-cultural Child Development for Social Workers: An Introduction

Abstract

The transgender community represents a highly marginalised portion of the Australian population, frequently experiencing discrimination, social isolation, and harm. This review explores literature informing Australian social work with transgender people. It highlights the importance of generating a transgender-positive discourse within Australian social work to effectively engage with and advocate for individuals with nontraditional gender identities. Key themes emerged from reviewing the literature related to the medical model, the mental health of transgender people, interdisciplinary and alternative transgender literature, minority status of transgender people, existing social work approaches to transgenderism, and Indigenous transgender literature. The views of transgender Australians are largely absent from the literature. However, the Australian transgender community's emerging voice and political activism highlights the potential for collaboration to play a significant role in the process of building a working knowledge base for social work. Based on the identified gaps in literature, in this paper we call for continued progress in developing a theoretical and practical knowledge base that incorporates the lived experiences of transgender Australians. We argue for the development of an approach to practice that is responsive to gender diversity. Highlighted in the review are the conditions that promote greater engagement with the transgender community.     

Social connectedness and life satisfaction: Comparing mean levels for 2 undergraduate samples and testing for improvement based on brief counseling

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Comparing the mean levels of social connectedness and life satisfaction, and analyzing their relationship for 2 undergraduate samples, and testing for an increase in their means for a brief counseling sample. Participants: Between October 2013 and May 2015, 3 samples were collected: not-in-counseling (NIC; n = 941), initial counseling session (ICS; ie, triage session only; n = 168), and brief counseling (BC; ie, median of 4 additional counseling sessions; n = 28). Methods: Online surveys measuring demographic and background control variables, social connectedness, and life satisfaction. Results: NIC students exhibited higher social connectedness and life satisfaction than ICS students. Social connectedness significantly explained life satisfaction beyond controlled-for variables for both samples. There was a significant increase in social connectedness and life satisfaction for the BC sample. Conclusions: Social connectedness is an important antecedent of life satisfaction for undergraduates. Brief counseling can increase transition students' social connectedness and life satisfaction.     

Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention in a Rural Native American Community

Nationally, the United States has a higher rate of teen pregnancy than any other industrialized nation. Native American youth have a higher birth rate than the national rate. A full-year healthy relationship program, based on Native American teachings, traditions, and cultural norms, was delivered to all eighth-grade students at a rural tribal school and a new group of eighth graders every year for 5 years, to teach healthy relationships and encourage abstinence. This article summarizes the Discovery Dating curriculum and compares the participants in the healthy relationship program to the comparison group, at the end of 5 years, in regards of the number of pregnancies as well as self-reported sexual behavior. The comparison group comprises students in the same community who attended a public middle school, rather than the tribal middle school, but the same public high school. All students had a similar age, socioeconomic status, culture, and ethnicity. Students who received the healthy relationship program (treatment group) had fewer pregnancies than the students who did not receive the healthy relationship program (comparison group). Of those who reported that they were sexually active, the students who received the healthy relationship program (treatment group) reported higher condom use than the students who did not receive the healthy relationship program (comparison group).     

Child Sexual Abuse Disclosure: Maternal Response and Other Variables Impacting the Victim

Disclosure of childhood sexual abuse is a process unique to each victim and may be influenced by factors of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and gender, as well as by abuse specific factors. The response by caregivers and professionals effects disclosure and can be responsible for recantation. Maternal responses that convey protection and support have been found to be associated with victims' improved mental health and social functioning. Non-abusive caregivers are often marginalized by the child welfare system in its attempt to secure physical safety for the child. This article summarizes the literature regarding sexual abuse disclosure and maternal response. Areas for future research are discussed.     

Post-Katrina Hazard Mitigation on the Gulf Coast

The article reviews the major hazard mitigation measures considered for the Gulf Coast following hurricanes between 2005 and 2008, especially Hurricanes Katrina and Ike. Basic similarities among and between the hazard events are noted, along with a wide variety of efforts to eliminate or reduce risks from natural hazards in establishing mitigation as the major protector of affected areas. Intergovernmental collaboration, insurance reform, and public risk perception are included. Both the processes used and substantive policy options are examined. This includes attempts at system-wide solutions in dealing with the mullti-state region for recovery from devastation and providing greater resiliency toward further hazard events. Such themes as a comprehensive system approach and the use of risk informed decision making, communication of risk to the public, and the use of professional and technical expertise, are being used on the Gulf Coast. Risk informed decision making uses techniques and methods from risk analysis, scenario planning, and multi-criteria decision analysis. Stakeholders are incorporated into the development of alternatives conveyed to the public. Policy alternative include coastal restoration measures such as barrier island and shoreline restoration, structural engineering such as floodwalls and levees, and nonstructural options such as buyouts, relocation, and effective zoning and building codes. The most comprehensive approaches follow a multiple lines of defense strategy to combine the various types of risk reduction measures.     

Kübra Gümüşay,Muslim digital feminism and the politics of visuality in Germany

abstract

Muslim women’s digital activism exists in complexly racialized visual contexts. This is exemplified in the journalism and activism of Kübra Gümü?ay, who first gained public attention as the purportedly first “hijabi columnist” in Germany. This essay draws on her series “50 Thoughts” as an entry point into her digital activism. I suggest that Gümü?ay uses this series to reveal the larger visual dilemmas with which she engages. Her digital activism functions by taking the risk to both expose and reconfigure the very conditions under which she is visible and comprehensible to her publics. In particular, I consider her activism as using digital spaces for self-poiesis (an imaginative remaking of self) as well as teleopoiesis (an imaginative reaching out to the other). This latter move functions both to gesture to an anti-racist community as well as to alliances among multiple feminisms.