Theoretical Support and Other Considerations in Using Simulated Clients to Educate Social Workers

This article builds on literature from many helping disciplines supporting the use of simulated clients (sometimes referred to as standardized patients) in training professional students, explaining why the use of simulated clients is more effective in developing clinical skills as compared with student-to-student role-plays. Psychodynamic and Bowen intergenerational family theory, critical to the development of social work knowledge, is used to support the use of simulated clients to portray clients with challenging and complex lives. Risks and benefits of using simulated clients is discussed, along with recommendations to educational programs regarding ways to effectively use this experiential learning method.     

Unequal Exchange? Recent Transfers of Agricultural Resources and their Implications for Developing Countries

Plant genetic resources constitute the biological basis for plant breeding and future agricultural development. Their transfer from developing to developed countries over centuries has sometimes been viewed as an example of exploitation, if not ‘biopiracy’. Modern gene flows are different in character and magnitude from historic exchanges, however. This article examines current patterns and finds that developing countries are major net recipients of germplasm samples from CGIAR centres, particularly if ‘improved materials’ are considered. Potentially problematic, intellectual property rights do not currently present major barriers to the availability and use of genetic resources by developing countries. Proposals to restrict flows and redress perceived injustices may reduce the benefits accruing at present to developing countries from germplasm exchanges.     

Narrating Adoption: Resisting Adoption as “Second Best” in Online Stories of Domestic Adoption Told by Adoptive Parents

Framed in narrative theory and relational dialectics theory, one hundred online stories of domestic adoption told by adoptive parents were qualitatively analyzed, revealing four primary discourses of adoption that challenge the idea that adoption is a second-best way to parent. Narrative beginnings were dominated by a discourse of adoption as a valuable alternative to pregnancy. Narrative middles-and-ends featured two discourses of how the adoption process unfolds: adoption as a worthwhile struggle guided by destiny and adoption as a smooth and predictable process. Intertwined with these process-oriented constructions of adoption was a discourse of adoption as communal kinning, which emphasized a hybrid family form comprised of both biological and nonbiological ties.     

The Australian child support reforms: a critical evaluation

The Australian Child Support Scheme aims to ensure that children continue to be supported financially should their parents separate or never live together. Sweeping changes to the Australian Child Support Scheme were introduced between 2006 and 2008, featuring a dramatically different system for the calculation of child support and a more rigorous enforcement regime. The reforms were intended to respond to ongoing concerns about equity, and to changes in social expectations and practices in gender, work, and parenting. In this article we summarise key findings from a large cross‐sequential study of the child support reforms. Although the new formula initially led to lower child support payments, and an increase in the proportion of separated mothers experiencing income disadvantage, payments two years later had increased slightly. More broadly, the new scheme appears to have resulted in little change in separated parents' policy knowledge, parenting arrangements, perceptions of fairness, and child support compliance. Taken together, these findings suggest that Australia may not have made as much progress as it would have liked in this thorny area of social policy – especially in relation to compliance and perceptions of fairness.     

A comparison of three maximum likelihood models for stage-frequency data

Summary A comparison has been made between the estimates obtained from maximum likelihood estimation of gamma, inverse normal, and normal distribution models for stage-frequency data. Results have been compared for six of sets of test data, and from many sets of simulated data. It is concluded that (1) some estimates may differ substantially between the models, (2) estimates from the correct model have little bias, and estimated standard errors are generally close to theoretical values, (3) there are problems in determining degrees of freedom for chi-squared goodness of fit tests, so that it is best to compare test statistics with simulated distributions, and (4) goodness of fit tests may not discriminate well between the three models.     

The Adoption of the Corporate Governance Model by Nonprofit Organizations

This article examines the circumstances under which nonprofit organizations adopt corporate governance practices. In the study reported here, the authors found that adoption of corporate governance practices depends primarily on the presence of a supportive institutional (that is, value) context as well as available resources to support governance restructuring. These findings strongly suggest that the adoption of structures and practices from the for-profit sector is neither a feasible nor even a desirable solution to problems facing many nonprofit organizations.