Interpretative phenomenological analysis of young people's lived experiences of therapeutic residential care

Concerns of maltreatment and poor outcomes persist in residential care despite numerous government inquiries and recommendations. Young people in residential care continue to be the most vulnerable and marginalized group in the out‐of‐home care population. Young people's voices are also underrepresented in research. Existing studies predominantly focus on service evaluations in which individual voices of young people are overshadowed by adults' perspectives. Other studies examine the perspectives of young people in out‐of‐home care as a homogenous population, limiting understandings of the subjective experiences of young people in residential care. This study focused exclusively on young people's lived experiences in Australian therapeutic residential care, utilizing interpretative phenomenological analysis. The young people in this study revealed experiences of peer victimization, ambiguous loss and uncertainty during transitions. These findings suggest that more work is required in order to provide safe and healing environments and experiences for young people in therapeutic residential care. Each individual voice captured in this study offers valuable insights into how residential care practitioners can strengthen practice to enhance protection, engagement, connection with families and leaving care support.     

Health insurance coverage of Hispanic adults: An assessment of subgroup difference and the impact of immigration

This research explores the health insurance coverage of various Hispanic subgroups in comparison to non-Hispanic whites and blacks. The impact of immigration status is also considered as we hypothesize that nativity, duration, and naturalization tap a possible process of structural acculturation that increases access to insurance coverage for Hispanic groups. We find that the immigration variables impact the type of insurance reported. However, race/ethnic disparities continue to exist, with the various Hispanic subgroups more likely to report miscellaneous government health insurance or no health insurance coverage as compared to non-Hispanic whites.     

Parent Marital Quality and the Parent–Adolescent Relationship: Profiles of Relationship Quality

Rigorous studies repeatedly have demonstrated the negative effects of parental divorce on outcomes for families. However, very few studies have examined the quality of the marital relationship within intact families or how the quality of the marital relationship interacts with the quality of the parent–adolescent relationship. The present study examines how aspects of parent marital quality, such as marital support and conflict between the couple, existed within married families and examines how patterns of mother–adolescent and father–adolescent relationships quality varied longitudinally from 1997 to 1999. The study uses data from the NLSY97 cohort, a nationally representative sample of adolescents who are being followed into adulthood. Four profiles of parent marital quality were developed using latent class analyses. Four growth profiles for the mother–adolescent relationship and for the father–adolescent relationship were created using latent growth class analysis in Mplus. To examine how the parent marital quality profiles and the parent–adolescent relationship quality interact, we examined how they overlapped. Six distinct groups were evident from this examination: (1) high marital quality and good relationships with both parents, (2) high marital quality and a good relationship with only one parent, (3) high support and high conflict marital quality and a good relationship with at least one parent, (4) low marital quality and a good relationship with at least one parent, (5) high marital quality and bad relationships with both parents, and (6) low marital quality and bad relationships with both parents.     

Marital and Parental Relationship Quality and Educational Outcomes for Youth

This research examines the effects of parental marital quality and the quality of the parent–child relationship on the educational progress of adolescents. Previous research indicates that family structure and economic capacity have significant effects on educational achievement and high school graduation rates. Few studies, however, examined the effects of the quality of the parental relationship on the educational outcomes of their children. This study is built on bioecological and social capital theories of human development suggesting that the capacity for child and youth development is enhanced when their primary relationships are supportive and provide them with social assets that encourage human capital development. The study uses data from the NLSY97, a nationally representative sample of adolescents who are being followed into adulthood. The findings indicate that family stability and living with two biological parents is a stronger predictor of high school graduation than parent marital quality and the quality of the parent–child relationship. But the data also indicate that parent marital quality and the quality of the parent–child relationship have a strong and positive effect on postsecondary education access among those who do graduate from high school. These findings are interpreted in light of the contribution of relationship quality to further educational involvement and the implications this has for workforce development and successful labor force competition in a global economy.     

Reunification in a complete entry cohort: A longitudinal study of children entering out-of-home care in Tasmania,Australia

The aim of this study was to examine the nature and predictors of family reunification patterns in Australia. Using a large representative sample, this study extends previous studies based on older, often smaller samples and encompasses a period in which kinship care comprised a substantial proportion of out-of-home care placements. Analyses were based on a sample of 468 children who entered care for the first time in the State of Tasmania between January the 1st 2006 and December 31st 2007. Administrative data and case-worker interviews were used to obtain information concerning children's demographics, family backgrounds and placement movements over 2–4 years. The results showed that around 50% of children had gone home after 2 years, but that 79% of returns occurred in the first 6 months. Reunification was slower for younger children, those in kinship care, and amongst children from families affected by poverty, substance abuse and for a cluster children with the highest prevalence family risk factors. The study contributes to international knowledge concerning the importance of assessing the multiplicity of risk factors in family reunification research and the implications of kinship care for the increased stability, but higher retention, of children in out-of-home care.     

Effort-Shape Characteristics of Emotion-Related Body Movement

The purpose of this study was to characterize the movement qualities of 5 target emotions during walking. We used an autobiographical memories paradigm for elicitation and observer judgments for emotion recognition. For each of the felt and recognized emotion portrayals, 6 Effort-Shape qualities were judged on a continuum between opposite qualities at the anchor points. Three general categories of movement style emerged, so that anger and joy shared anchor qualities at one end of the continuum, sadness had qualities at the opposite anchor, and content and neutral had qualities between the anchor extremes. The Effort-Shape profiles were unique for each target emotion, however, and mean scores were different between emotions even when emotions shared similar qualities. Emotions were classified using the Effort-Shape scores with accuracies ranging from 74–32 % for sad, anger, content and joy, respectively. For most of the target emotions, decoding accuracy was related to at least 4 Effort-Shape qualities, suggesting that decoding accuracy may be associated with a profile of movement qualities. This study highlights the importance of movement quality in bodily expression of emotion and demonstrates the effectiveness of Effort-Shape analysis in distinguishing among emotion-related movement styles.     

Randomized trial of Promoting First Relationships: Effects on maltreated toddlers' separation distress and sleep regulation after reunification

This study investigates the impact of an attachment focused intervention, Promoting First Relationships (PFR), on sleep problems among toddlers in child welfare recently reunified with their birth parent. Recently reunified parent–toddler dyads (n = 43) were drawn from a larger random control trial. Toddlers (11–36 months) and their parents were assessed in two-hour research home visits at enrollment (baseline), and a 6-month post-intervention follow-up. Measures included parental report of sleep problems and research visitor observation of separation distress (using the Toddler Attachment Sort-45). The PFR intervention predicted fewer sleep problems, adjusting for a baseline measure of sleep problems and other covariates. A path model showed evidence of an indirect effect of PFR on sleep problems through declines in separation distress. An attachment focused intervention like PFR that reduces infant separation distress can lead to reductions in sleep problems.     

Postmodern feminism: a theoretical framework for a field unit with women in jail

This article presents a postmodern, feminist framework as a foundation for a social work student field unit with women inmates in the corrections system. Feminist pedagogical methods were developed and implemented for this field unit and, once trained, the students utilized feminist social work skills within the jail environment. The case study illustrates the field unit design, student learning processes, and examples of student interventions. In addition to becoming skillful clinicians, student interns became social change agents within the corrections system. Implications for micro, meso, and macro levels of social work practice are discussed.     

Social and family patterns on the colonial Louisiana frontier

As the pendulum of historical scholarship swings toward the close of another century, momentum has propelled it toward the re‐establishment of a traditional relationship severed by professional historians at the turn of the last century. History and genealogy were inseparable until early 20th‐century humanists elevated the serious pursuit of history from the armchair to the university chair. In the generations since, a chasm of disdain has separated “real” history from so‐called family history in which untrained amateurs dabble with abandon.

Yet the family is the heart of society. To study a people's history without understanding the family structure from which it evolved is to confront a robot and pretend that one feels a pulse. Tardily, professional history is shifting from the “subjects' of broad national interest” to a study of society in microcosm, that is, the family, at the same time that academically oriented genealogists are upgrading their standards to prove that family history can be a legitimate field of scholarly inquiry.

This reunion of history and genealogy has produced outstanding re‐evaluations of society; but in the United States the emphasis to date has been on Anglo‐American culture. This article provides pioneer exploration of the nation's Latin heritage and finds significant differences in patterns of migration and settlement, marriage and morality. Such a study of French and Spanish borderlands in America upsets traditional, stereotyped conceptions of mobility, fertility, and family structure in colonial America.