Canada's Social Security Review

Canada's social security system is a patchwork quilt of relatively discreet and uncoordinated programs built up over many decades. While constitutional responsibilities for income security and social services rests with the provinces, federal program initiatives were seen to be eroding the provincial responsibilities and causing confusion between federal and provincially financed programs. The Review of Social Security attempted to comprehensively evaluate the ‘system’ of programs in Canada to correct deficiencies. Financing and respective government responsibilities were also examined. The three year review did not result, in the author's opinion, in sufficient changes in the social security system ‘for the benefit of all Canadians’. The failure to adequately confront employment (unemployment) issues was one gap. Another was the failure to implement changes in income supplementation for the working poor. Tangible results included the introduction of a new Social Service Act which permits cost sharing, and increased cooperation between and among departmental officials and ministers. The Canadian experience contains lessons for the development of joint social policies between state and commonwealth governments in Australia.     

Black and White Thinking? Understanding Negative Responses to Transracial Adoptive Families

Many view adoptive families as less legitimate than birth families. Because of dissimilar appearance and racism, transracial adoptive families may be particularly devalued. White American undergraduates (N = 167) were randomly assigned to view an adoptive family photograph of White parents holding either a Black or White infant. Viewing a transracial family elicited less favorable adoption attitudes and greater negative emotions than viewing a same-race family. Participants’ own racism amplified the effect of the transracial family on negative emotions. Results suggest that transracial adoptive families are devalued due to negative feelings elicited by both dissimilar appearance and individual racism.     

Multivariate Failure Time Analysis when only the Time to First Failure is Observed

We propose a log-linear mixed model to assess covariate effects on the unobservable, catheter-related time-until-infection (TUI), utilizing the observable time-until-first-infection (TUFI). The model assumes that both log (TUI) and the common (random) patient effect follow an extreme value distribution, and TUIs of the same patient are conditionally independent. This model enables the assessment of covariate effects on TUI, accounting for both patient-level (age) and catheter-level (e.g., difficulty of insertion) covariates and the within-patient correlation. The efficient likelihood estimators of fixed-effects and scale parameters of random effects are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal and appear to perform well in simulations. The methods are illustrated using an example.     

Research Note—Program Evaluation: Enhancing Academic Quality and Program Integrity During Rapid Off-Campus Growth

By creating a program evaluation model that assesses multiple components from several perspectives, a social work division is able to determine the quality, effectiveness, and integrity of its offerings and support its mission to develop social work students for practice. This task is critical in supporting an off-campus program’s ability to navigate change and uncertainty in higher education. This research note discusses how a small, bachelor of social work program with a dual-delivery system (traditional and community-site) used the Council on Social Work Education reaccreditation process to adapt its program evaluation to ensure academic quality and program integrity during a period of rapid growth.     

Stilling the tremors: Resurrecting HIV services in Haiti's post‐earthquake tent cities

The January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti severely undermined HIV service provision in the country. Almost 10 percent of Haitians were displaced and now live in temporary tent communities. Little is known about how HIV services are being provided to Haitians with HIV in these encampments. This study addresses this lacuna by conducting a process evaluation of the manner in which a collaboration among Haitian community‐based HIV service providers, a US‐based HIV service provider, and a US‐based academic research team resurrected HIV services in the encampments. Efforts to set up HIV services in the encampments proceeded through three stages: (i) an initial crisis response that activated established networks and identified feasible goals; (ii) the development of services by building research capacity, conducting needs assessments, addressing logistical challenges, and establishing community‐based services; and (iii) the sustaining of the initiative by targeting resources and negotiating in the political arena. Implications of the protocol for future efforts are discussed. Key Practitioner Message: ● Resurrecting HIV services in post‐disaster zones; ● Utilizing cross‐country, provider–academic partnerships to develop service capacity; ● Targeting structural barriers to establish HIV services in resource‐poor settings.     

Comparing products using data envelopment analysis

Using an application of linear programming known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a method is described to compare products which vary in excellence along a number of dimensions, and for each of which there might be a number of associated “costs”. The method is illustrated by comparing published benchmarks of 37 computer printers. Potential uses of a DEA analysis of products might be: to assist corporate buyers who may need to reconcile a diversity of present and future uses in one standardised purchase; in competitor analysis; in determining unexplored market niches; and as a normative model of product excellence against which product purchasing behaviour could be compared.     

Treating Chronic Crisis Bearers and Their Families*

This article presents a method for family crisis intervention, utilizing a case history approach. The goal is extended from restoring the crisis bearing unit to its pre-crisis level of coping to a basic restructuring of maladaptive pre-crisis behaviors. It is aimed at general behavior change as well as resolution of the immediate situation. It adapts crisis intervention theory to intervention involving chronic crisis bearers and their families. It eliminates the tendency to identify one member of the family unit as the patient without considering the impact of the other members. This approach consists of short term intensive treatment combined with selected traditional techniques.