Enabling social support and resilience: outcomes of Family Group Conferencing in public mental health care

Family Group Conferencing (FGC) is a decision-making model where clients with their social network formulate their own plan. There is little experience with FGC in mental health care. We studied the outcomes of 41 conferences in a public mental health setting in the north of the Netherlands. We interviewed 312 respondents out of a total of 473 conference participants. In 33 cases, it was possible to obtain scores from 245 respondents on scales ranging from 0 to 10 about the situation prior and after the conference on three outcome measures, namely the quality of: (1) social support, (2) resilience and (3) living conditions. In the 33 cases, t-tests and multilevel analyses indicate on all of the three outcomes measures significant positive changes after the conferences. On average, the scores on the quality of social support (5.04–6.73), resilience (4.09–6.32) and the living conditions (3.73–6.64) had been increased since the conferences were organised. The results are modest but remarkable. That the impact of FGC is not more substantial can be explained. The clients referred to a conference in this particular study, mostly had a limited network and few recourses from whom little support could be expected.     

Group Career Construction Counseling: A Mixed‐Methods Intervention Study With High School Students

This study investigated the value of group career construction counseling in a high school context. The author used purposive sampling to select participants who had sought career counseling. A mixed‐methods intervention study design was also used. Participants (N = 57) completed the Career Adapt‐Abilities Scale–South Africa (CAAS‐SA) before the 1st and after the 2nd intervention. The Career Interest Profile and the Maree Career Matrix were used to facilitate the intervention, and the CAAS‐SA was used to test the research hypotheses. The findings revealed that the boys’ and the girls’ career adaptability had improved meaningfully on all of the CAAS‐SA subscales. No gender‐based differences were found. However, differences were detected between both the boys’ and the girls’ pre‐ and posttest Control and Confidence subscale scores. The findings demonstrate the value of career construction counseling in group settings. More longitudinal research with diverse participants is needed.     

Simple diagnostic tools for inverstigating linear trends in time series

This paper presents a simple diagnostic tool for time series. Based on a coefficient α that veries between 1 and 0, the tool measures the approximation of a time series to an arithmetic progression (i.e., a linear function of time). The proposed α is based on the ratio of the average squared second difference to the average squared first difference of the ginven series. As such, α reduces to the Von Neumann ratio η of the series of first differences, namely, α = 1-η/4. For an arithmetic progression α = 1, and deviations therefrom cause it to decrease. Unlike the correlation coefficient (between the entries and the indics), α is sensitive to local, or piecewise, linearity. Here α is evaluated for an assortment of simple time series models such as random walk, AR(1) and MA(1). Large-sample distribution yields a number of commonly used stochastic models including non-normal process. For most standard deterministic and stochastic models, α stabilizes as n approaches infinity, and provides a statistic that is capable of distinguishing between many different standard random and deterministic models. A further measure τ, which together with α distinguisches between random walks and deterministic trend plus i.i.d., is also suggested. Some examples based on empirical data are also studied.