Initial moves with school-family conflict: Entering,engaging and contracting

When beginning with a situation involving the dysfunction of a child, the clinical social worker should take care to enter and engage the relevant family and school systems in a manner that gives the best chance for effective treatment. Using an ecological-systems perspective, the authors discuss problem development as a process, and present a model that searches for accessible variables and establishes an early narrow contract. These moves earn the clinician a place in the system, credibility, and the leverage to work for change.The model of practice presented here is partially based upon work done in 1977–1983 with students of the Columbia University School of Social Work in a student unit based at the Kings County Hospital Center, Brooklyn, New York. The unit was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health Community Mental Health M.S. Program (Grant#5T01-1389505).     

Working for families with dysfunctional children: An approach and structure for the first family therapy interview

A preplanned and structured format for conducting the first family treatment interview is presented in which the assessment task is seen as an opportunity to help a family succeed in constructively, coherently, and logically looking at itself, the problem child, and the problems with which it is attempting to deal. Strategies of modelling openness and competence are suggested. Building on the family's perceptions and plan in the empathic and respectful way is postulated as a way of avoiding power struggles and setting the stage for collaboration. The model is designed to provide a successful first session for the family and therapist, during which they complete a challenging task.     

Narrative, organizations and research

Given the rapid expansion of narrative approaches in management and organization theory in recent years, this paper investigates the contribution of this literature to the understanding of organizations and processes of organizing. The paper tells the story of the development of narrative approaches in organizational theory. Narrative's contribution to substantive areas of organization theory is evaluated. These developments are then reviewed in relation to an ongoing tension between story and science. We conclude by contemplating some of the criticisms, and the future, of narrative research.     

Military Brides and Refugees: Vietnamese American Wives and Shifting Links to the Military, 1980 – 2000

Since the immigration legislation of 1965, marriage to American citizens and resident aliens has been one of the primary paths for migration to the United States. Despite the rapid growth of the Asian American population over the course of the late twentieth century, Asian Americans had still reached only 3 per cent of all Americans by 2000, meaning that Asian marriage migration to the United States has been largely through marriage to non‐Asians. In this study, we look at exogamy among Vietnamese Americans using U. S. Census data (1980, 1990, and 2000) from 5 per cent PUMS sets made available through the IPUMS project. We ask: (1) What are the predictors of exogamy among Vietnamese Americans? (2) How do the rates of exogamy of Vietnamese American women compare to those of Vietnamese American men? (3) How have the predictors of exogamy and the apparent characteristics of the exogamously married changed over the decades of refugee movement from Vietnam to North America? We review data from the years 1980, 1990, and 2000. In the assimilationist view of immigration associated with the classic work of Milton M. Gordon, exogamy is the final stage of immigrant incorporation into a host country. Migration through marriage, which has become a major source of immigration to the United States since the Immigration Act of 1965, reverses this assimilationist pattern, placing marriage before immigration and incorporation, or at the earliest stages of immigration and incorporation. Our findings are relevant to understanding the specific Vietnamese experience in the United States. They highlight the continuing but declining importance of the Vietnam War in creating close connections between Vietnamese and other people in the United States, even after the war had ended. The findings also suggest how these connections changed as a result of Vietnamese mass migration to America.     

What next? Volume 1. Setting the context. Special issue of development dialogue

In 1976, the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation sponsored a symposiumresulting in the publication titled What Now? Another Developmentthat presented diverse, authoritative, critical perspectiveson the ways countries, organizations, and individuals in theindustrialized world could foster social and economic developmentin less wealthy countries, most of them in the South. The suggestionswere striking for their emphasis on large development projects,encouragement of development of civil society and democratizationof societies, and centralized interventions. The present volumeprovides a follow-up on this first effort thirty years later. One of the most striking ‘findings’ of the presentvolume is how misguided the earlier volume seems from the standpointof a similar panel of experts today. What Now? was built ona model of exporting social, political, and     

Who supports physicians in malpractice cases?

Malpractice suits have a devastating emotional impact on physicians. Learn about a unique service offered by the HealthTexas Provider Network to help doctors deal with the shock and sadness.     

Measurement of risk and protective factors for drug use and anti-social behavior among high school students in South Africa

The study sought to examine, for South African adolescents: 1) the reliability of sub-scales of the Communities that Care Youth Survey (CTC Youth Survey) of risk and protective factors for drug use and anti-social behavior; and 2) the extent to which tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use can be predicted from community, family, school, and peer-individual factors based on sub-scales of the CTC Youth Survey. On two occasions, 92 male and 31 female, Grade 8 and 11 students completed measures concerning: 1) their past month tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use; and 2) various community, family, school, and peer-individual factors. Cronbach alpha coefficients of sub-scales of the questionnaire ranged between .60 and .94. Kappa values were at least moderate (above .40) on 19 sub-scales, and on the remaining sub-scales observed agreement levels ranged between .49 and .94. Each domain predicted tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that alcohol use was most strongly accounted for by the peer domain, tobacco use by the school domain, and marijuana use by the peer and community domains. The findings support use of the CTC Youth Survey, with slight revisions, among South African high school students.