Sibling kinnections: a clinical visitation program

The growing literature on sibling relationships throughout their lifespans is of great importance to those working in the child welfare system, and in adoption services in particular. Sibling bonds are important to all of us, but they are particularly vital to children from disorganized or dysfunctional families. These relationships assume even greater importance when children from these families enter the care system. Supporting and sustaining these sibling bonds should be, and most often is, a priority throughout the child welfare system, with practice literature providing guidelines for arranging and sustaining sibling contact. However, children in the care system may also have dysfunctional sibling relationships as a result of their early experiences, and sibling visitation alone may not be enough to ensure a healthy, long-lasting relationship among siblings. Some form of sibling therapy, or 'clinically supervised visitation,' may be required to help children remove the barriers to form mutually satisfying relationships and to reinforce life-long relationships with each other.     

Women's financial planning for retirement: the impact of disruptive life events

Providing care for an aged parent has immediate financial, emotional, psychological, and physical consequences for the primary caregiver. This pilot study of 138 middle aged and older females analyzes the long term financial consequences of providing care to aged relatives for female caregivers. The impact of this disruptive life event (e.g., caring for an aged relative) on retirement planning among middle aged and older adult women was analyzed using quantitative data collected from women residing in the Midwest region of the United States.     

服食异物:以葛洪为例看修行者与自然的关系

通过彰显葛洪对自然的复杂态度,作者认为不管是自然环境,还是社会环境,葛洪及其信徒都不可能超越这个世界,最多是短时间摆脱尘世。相反,在向其目标迈进的每一步,都要感谢这个世界。所有超越这个世界的道路都只能在这个世界找到;通向彼岸的路始于此岸。由此,我们解除生态危机的最大希望是在政治行为的指导下,谨慎、周密地使用技术,从而折回到把我们带入这场危机的道路上去。     

The FACES Project: an academic-community partnership to improve end-of-life care for families

This article reports on a research partnership between a community-based hospice and a graduate school of social work. The purpose of the collaboration was to design and test a tool for assessing caregiver strain and resources in families caring for older adults receiving hospice home care services. Eighteen hospice home care social workers interviewed 162 caregivers for the study and provided their own assessment of the tool's clinical utility. Both strengths and challenges of the collaboration are evaluated and implications are discussed for social work practice and research, particularly academic-community research partnerships.     

Reports of Conferences,Institutes, and Seminars

This quarter's column features a report from the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Conference, held March 25–28, 2015, in Portland, OR; a couple of reports from the Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians (OVGTSL) Conference, held May 18–20 in Terre Haute, IN; one report from NASIG, held May 27–30 in Washington, DC; and several reports from the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, held June 25–30 in San Francisco, CA. Topics discussed range from scholarly publishing, copyright and authors’ rights—including as they relate to zines—privacy and analytics, and linked data.     

THE EFFECTS OF TWO NORMATIVE STRUCTURAL INTERVENTIONS ON ESTABLISHED AND AD HOC GROUPS: IMPLICATIONS FOR IMPROVING DECISION MAKING EFFECTIVENESS1

This paper focuses on a direct comparison of consensual, nominal, and conventional decision making techniques in established and ad hoc groups. The impact of the structural interventions on group decision quality and group attitudes is examined, and the appropriateness of the techniques in various situations is discussed.     

A Little Representation Goes a Long Way: Minority Teacher Representation and District Performance in a Highly Homogenous Context

In this article data from Wisconsin school districts is used to test and expand upon the theory of representative bureaucracy. The author first develops a metric measuring representativeness, and then uses three years of data to test the link between representativeness and school district performance. The analysis reveals that school districts with more representative teaching staffs exhibit higher levels of student performance. The results illustrate the link between representation and performance, the need for a broader conceptualization of minority when studying representation, and the potential benefits of representation for non-minority populations.