The Experiences of Parents of Adolescents in Family Therapy: A Qualitative Investigation

While understanding clients’ experiences in family therapy is becoming increasingly important, we know very little about how the parents of adolescents in family therapy perceive and experience this process. The current study uses a multicase qualitative design and constructivist theoretical framework to describe the experiences of 15 parents of adolescents attending family therapy in private practices. Constant comparative analysis revealed four core categories that described parents’ therapeutic experiences: (a) pretherapy presentation, (b) supportive therapeutic climate, (c) family therapy process, and (d) reflections on the therapy experience. The implications of study findings for clinicians and researchers are presented and discussed.     

Telegraphic Personalized Instructional Packages for Students

This paper draws together four different teaching-learning constructs into a unified package making use of the instructional module as a vehicle for assisting students to rapidly acquire a knowledge, value, and skill base in social work. This model identifies a process in which telegraphic prose is utilized to convey content in an abbreviated form for the purpose of speeding up the learning process. The content is imbedded in instructional modules to identify the competency to be acquired. Humanizing the instructional process is attained by four positive concepts of learning.     

Estimation in High-Dimensional Analysis and Multivariate Linear Models

This article presents a new approach of estimating the parameters describing the mean structure in the Growth Curve model when the number of variables compared with the number of observations is large. An unbiased, consistent, and asymptotic normal estimator is derived as well as its.     

An Application of Bayesian Methods to Small Area Poverty Rate Estimates

Efforts to estimate various sociodemographic variables in small geographic areas are proving difficult with the replacement of the Census long-form with the American Community Survey (ACS). Researchers interested in subnational demographic processes have previously relied on Census 2000 long-form data products in order to answer research questions. ACS data products promise to begin providing up-to-date profiles of the nation’s population and economy; however, unit- and item-level nonresponse in the ACS have left researchers with gaps in subnational coverage resulting in unstable and unreliable estimates for basic demographic measures. Borrowing information from neighboring areas and across time with a spatiotemporal smoothing process based on Bayesian statistical methods, it is possible to generate more stable and accurate estimates of rates for geographic areas not represented in the ACS. This research evaluates this spatiotemporal smoothing process in its ability to derive estimates of poverty rates at the county level for the contiguous United States. These estimates are then compared to more traditional estimates produced by the US Census Bureau, and comparisons between the two methods of estimation are carried out to evaluate the practical application of this smoothing method. Our findings suggest that by using available data from the ACS only, we are able to recreate temporal and spatial patterns of poverty in US counties even in years where data are sparse. Results show that the Bayesian methodology strongly agrees with the estimates produced by the SAIPE program, even in years with little data. This methodology can be expanded to other demographic and socioeconomic data with ease.     

Neuroticism,Negative Thinking,and Coping With Respect to Career Decision State

Using structural equation modeling, the present study investigated relationships between neuroticism, coping strategies, and negative career thoughts within the context of attaining a positive career decision state. Results from the initial model, based on a sample of college students (119 women, 113 men; M = 20.3 years) enrolled in a career development course, revealed that coping strategies were not a significant contribution to the model. The final model, without coping strategies, showed that neuroticism had a significant indirect effect on career decision state through negative thinking and that the relationship between neuroticism and career decision state was also significant. Findings also indicate that in the presence of negative career thoughts, neuroticism becomes associated with a more positive career decision state. Practical implications include suggestions that counselors intervene on clients' negative career thoughts to potentially render their neurotic tendencies more productive in reaching a desired career decision state.     

Increasing aging and advocacy competency: the intergenerational advocacy pilot project

The Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) Strengthening Aging and Gerontology Education for Social Work (SAGE-SW) project, funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation partnered with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) to develop an Intergenerational Policy and Advocacy Project (IAP). This curriculum pilot project, based on a community organization model, was conducted with 13 baccalaureate social work (BSW) and master's social work (MSW) programs across the country and 122 students. The project was one method to pursue CSWE SAGE-SW's efforts to infuse aging content into social work foundation curricula, to support intergenerational teaching, to strengthen social work advocacy skills, and to provide social work students with positive experiences working with older adults. Pilot sites were asked to carry out the project as part of an existing course foundation or field practicum course. Project activities included collaboration with a variety of community agencies, holding issues or "town hall" forums in order to educate community members about critical policy issues affecting older adults; making contacts and establishing relationships with local, state and/or federal legislators; and conducting assessments of the service needs of older adults in the students' communities. Questionnaires, feedback, pre-post evaluations as well as brief accounts of each project are presented. Participants considered the IAP to be a successful project in terms of the objectives of increasing awareness and competency among social work students of aging issues and of promoting intergenerational linkages between older people and social work students.     

Rank covariance matrix estimation of a partially known covariance matrix

Classical multivariate methods are often based on the sample covariance matrix, which is very sensitive to outlying observations. One alternative to the covariance matrix is the affine equivariant rank covariance matrix (RCM) that has been studied in Visuri et al. [2003. Affine equivariant multivariate rank methods. J. Statist. Plann. Inference 114, 161–185]. In this article we assume that the covariance matrix is partially known and study how to estimate the corresponding RCM. We use the properties that the RCM is affine equivariant and that the RCM is proportional to the inverse of the regular covariance matrix, and hence reduce the problem of estimating the original RCM to estimating marginal rank covariance matrices. This is a great computational advantage when the dimension of the original data vector is large.     

Disclosure among victims of elder abuse in healthcare settings: a missing piece in the overall effort toward detection

Elder abuse remains a largely hidden problem in our society and only a small minority of victims are connected to formal support/protective services. Healthcare settings have been identified as a critical milieu to uncover cases of elder abuse; however, under-detection in these settings is a major issue. Victimization disclosure is an important component within the overall detection effort, yet it has received little attention in the elder abuse literature. Drawing on relevant literature from other domains of family/interpersonal violence, this article highlights the disclosure process, as well as disclosure barriers, facilitators, and competencies to consider when working with older adults.