Implementing the family preservation program: Feedback from focus groups with consumers and providers of services

There is a growing understanding that preventative child welfare efforts can be both more cost effective and are more desirable philosophically than strictly remedial programs. The Family Preservation Act provides funds to assist communities in strengthening and preserving at-risk families. In order to implement this program effectively, local communities must design new programs and procedures which will be both attractive to consumers and effective in meeting their needs. This study it identifies problems with contemporary child and family services and suggests solutions to those problems. This study uses a focus group format and presents ideas generated by those individuals who will be most directly affected by this legislation; front line service providers and service consumers. Several areas of weakness in the current service delivery system are identified, including bureaucratic barriers, limited resources, problematic consumer/provider relations and a range of collaborative issues, both within and between agencies and the communities they serve.     

Free agents’ impact on the labor market for baseball players

This paper evaluates the 1976 free agent rule’s impact on the labor market for baseball players. Free agency has specific consequences for monopsonistic exploitation and racial discrimination in salary determination. It reduces monopsonistic exploitation for all players and increases salary opportunities for black and Latino players. However, this change in a player’s status vis-à-vis a team has generated salary disparities among players based, not on race, but bargaining position. I would like to thank Linda Kammann, Mary O’Brien, and Benjamin Preston for their research assistance. Also I wish to thank John Siegfried and an anonymous referee for their comments. I remain solely responsible for the contents of this paper.     

FAMILY STRUCTURES OF ASSAULTIVE ADOLESCENTS

This study compared 17 assaultive adolescents and 12 nonassaultive adolescents on a measure of family structure which assesses the family's perceptions of the authority hierarchy and the amount of closeness and distance between family members. The results demonstrated that the experimental group significantly more often perceived the presence of a reversal in the generational hierarchy of authority. The authors discuss the meaning of these results as they relate to violent teenagers and their family interactions.     

THINKING LIKE A FAMILY THERAPIST: A MODEL FOR INTEGRATING THE THEORIES AND METHODS OF FAMILY THERAPY*

We present a classification system which presumes that information about families can be seen from three different perspectives (historical, interactional, and existential) and that treatment proceeds from three approaches (understanding, transformation, and identification). Using this scheme, we discuss how theories from different schools of thought are substantially overlapping, show that families may respond according to principles other than those the therapist had in mind, indicate how traditional links between certain evaluation perspectives and approaches are unnecessarily limiting, and define two current poles or modes in family therapy (the “ingenious” and the “involved”), suggesting indications for the use of each mode. Various teaching benefits of the scheme are outlined.     

Optimal coalition size when making proposals is costly

Though some costs of proposing legislation are borne by individual congressmen, the benefits accrue to many. To encourage legislators to incur these costs, members may wish to form coalitions which are larger than a minimum majority, and they may want to allow the proposer of a policy to incorporate private benefits into his proposal.We gratefully acknowledge the comments of anonymous referees, N. Baigent, A. DeVany, B. Grofman, and N. Stoughton. We are solely responsible for any remaining errors. The Securities and Exchange Commision, as a matter of policy, disclaims responsibility for any private publication or statement by any of its employees. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission or the authors' colleagues on the Staff of the Commission.