Whose Wishes and Feelings? Children's Autonomy and Parental Influence in Family Court Enquiries

The importance of the child’s right to be heard and fortheir wishes and feelings to be taken notice of is now acceptedacross a broad professional and research terrain. Increasingly,children are being treated as active participants in the processesand decisions that affect them. In cases of divorce and separation,especially where parental relationships are conflicted, theaccepted wisdom in the UK for many years has been for childrento be protected rather than empowered. More recently, practitioners,policy makers and researchers have looked for ways to involvechildren, although the ‘welfare’ of the child hasremained paramount. In this context, the question of how toensure that wishes and feelings expressed are those that authenticallybelong to the child, rather than to their parent, sibling orother, has achieved a new significance. This article presentsfindings from recent research to illustrate how the tensionbetween protection and empowerment is being played out in thisaspect of welfare report enquiries carried out by CAFCASS (Childrenand Family Court Advisory and Support Service) private law practitioners.     

Gender,Turning Points,and Boomerangs: Returning Home in Young Adulthood in Great Britain

The idea of a generation of young adults “boomeranging” back to the parental home has gained widespread currency in the British popular press. However, there is little empirical research identifying either increasing rates of returning home or the factors associated with this trend. This article addresses this gap in the literature using data from a long-running household panel survey to examine the occurrence and determinants of returning to the parental home. We take advantage of the longitudinal design of the British Household Panel Survey (1991–2008) and situate returning home in the context of other life-course transitions. We demonstrate how turning points in an individual’s life course—such as leaving full-time education, unemployment, or partnership dissolution—are key determinants of returning home. An increasingly unpredictable labor market means that employment cannot be taken for granted following university graduation, and returning home upon completion of higher education is becoming normative. We also find that gender moderates the relationship among partnership dissolution, parenthood, and returning to the parental home, reflecting the differential welfare support in Great Britain for single parents compared with nonresident fathers and childless young adults.     

Exploring Antecedents of Charitable Giving and Their Impact on Subjective Well-Being in Singapore

There is a declining number of donors and increasing number of charities competing for donations in Singapore. In this study we explore the values and attitudes (i.e. empathy, individualism and materialism) associated with donation behaviour and their consequences on the donor’s subjective well-being among 226 Singaporeans from a cross-section of society. We found individuals who value warm relationships with others are more likely to have an empathetic attitude and donate money to charities. However, we did not find a relationship between individualism and donation behaviour nor materialism and donation behaviour. Moreover, helping those in need (donation behaviour) did not influence the donor’s subjective well-being. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed and suggestions for future research provided.     

‘What is left…?’: The implications of losing Maintained Nursery Schools for vulnerable children and families in England

This TACTYC funded research highlights the role that Maintained Nursery Schools (MNS) play in supporting families within areas of extreme social deprivation in the UK. Data collected through survey and interview demonstrated the positive impact that these schools have upon disadvantaged children and their families, providing a breadth and depth of ongoing care, against a backdrop of ongoing fiscal cuts and uncertainty. Often this provision was in lieu of the reported minimisation of other social services support for struggling families. We argue in this paper that the loss of these state institutions could be highly detrimental to the families that they currently support.     

Healing components of a bereavement camp: children and adolescents give voice to their experiences

This qualitative study is the follow-up to a quantitative controlled study which showed a decrease in childhood traumatic grief and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in parentally bereaved children participating in a bereavement camp. The purpose of this study was to identify the healing components of this camp model. Semi-structured interviews with 19 children and 13 parents/guardians were conducted 3 to 9 months after participation in the bereavement camp. Therapeutic Interventions and Traditional Camp Activities emerged as themes. The themes are discussed in relation to previous research as are limitations of the study and the implications for theory, practice, and future research.     

Comparison of exercise attitudes and behaviors of urban older adults with AARP's national sample results

This study assessed perceptions about exercise among a convenience sample of low-income, urban, older adult patients at a publicly operated ambulatory primary-care clinic, and results were then compared with the findings of a national study. Although it was expected that the predominantly minority and economically disadvantaged participants in this study would trail significantly behind their White counterparts in their perceptions and behavior regarding exercise, findings demonstrated otherwise. Specifically, when physicians encourage moderate exercise, when patients believe that they can overcome barriers to exercise, and when the environment supports moderate exercise through the availability of community exercise classes, inequities in health behaviors can be reduced. Interventions designed to increase exercise for this population should be developed with an understanding of the many barriers that they will have to overcome, a focus on building confidence, and communicating the many benefits of this behavior.     

Screening Experiments with Many Factors

A new procedure is introduced for conducting screening experiments to find a small number of influential factors from among a large number of factors with negligible effects. It is intended for experiments in which the factors are easily controlled, as in simulation models. It adds observations sequentially after conducting a small initial experiment. The performance of the procedure is investigated using simulation, and evidence is presented that this and other procedures scale as the logarithm of the total number of factors if the number of influential factors is fixed. An investigation of the new procedure for 1–3 active factors shows that it compares favorably with competing methods, particularly when the size of the nonzero effects is 1–2 times the standard deviation. A limited look at the procedure for up to 6 active factors is also presented.     

Bispectral-Based Goodness-of-Fit Tests of Gaussianity and Linearity of Stationary Time Series

Spectral domain tests for time series linearity typically suffer from a lack of power compared to time domain tests. We present two tests for Gaussianity and linearity of a stationary time series. The tests are two-stage procedures applying goodness-of-fit techniques to the estimated normalized bispectrum. We illustrate the performances of the tests are competitive with time domain tests. The new tests typically outperform Hinich's (1982 Hinich , M. J. ( 1982 ). Testing for Gaussianity and linearity of a stationary time series . J. Time Ser. Anal. 3 : 169 – 176 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) bispectral based test, especially when the length of the time series is not large.     

The Revenue Effects of the Kennedy and Reagan Tax Cuts: Some Time Series Estimates

Univariate time series models are estimated for sample periods ending with the enactment of major tax reductions in 1964 and 1981. These models are used to forecast government revenue for the period following the tax cut, and the pattern of forecast errors is examined. Unforecast revenue is negative and large relative to its standard error following the 1981 tax cuts but is close to zero following the 1964 cuts. This disparity occurs because national output behaved differently in the two cases, suggesting that short-run movements in output are dominated by factors other than tax rate changes.