ASSESSMENT OF INTERPERSONAL FUNCTIONS: DEVELOPING MEASURES TO AID THE FUNCTIONAL FAMILY THERAPIST

One of the cornerstones of the functional family therapy model proposed by Alexander and Parsons (1982) is the assessment of interpersonal functions, which has traditionally been accomplished through intuition and clinical judgment. In this study, 109 college freshmen were recruited to evaluate the test-retest reliability of a videotaped scenario measure and a questionnaire designed to assess interpersonal functions. Subjects responded to both measures during an initial assessment phase and then again, during a second assessment phase, 2 weeks later. Pearson product-moment correlations and average agreement percentages indicate that both measures have adequate reliability. There were no sex differences, nor were subjects' responses related to a measure of social desirability.     

A rural road: exploring opportunities,networks, services,and supports that affect rural families

The Great Plains Rural Collaborative project explored rural poverty through the experiences of people living at or below 185% of poverty. Researchers collected information through qualitative and quantitative research methods. They designed focus group questions to identify obstacles rural families face when trying to access economic opportunities, social networks, and services and supports. The article highlights the salient findings.     

Women and Economic Security in Retirement:Implications for Social Security Reform

Gender-related parenting roles lower incomes of women during the working-age years and in retirement years. National retirement income programs contribute to this gender-related difference in retirement income to the degree that they consider lifetime earnings in calculating benefits. This article examines two national pension systems: those of Australia and Sweden. The pension systems of these two countries often are considered as the extremes of pension generosity, and they are based upon different philosophies about the role of government in insuring against economic risk. Due to fiscal issues and the changing roles of women in the labor market, both have reformed their systems. How system reforms can balance the role of the government in insuring against income risk and the growing financial independence of women in the work force are discussed.     

A Cognitive Career Course: From Theory to Practice

A university career development course based on cognitive information‐processing theory was assessed. Students who took the course showed a significant decrease in their negative career thoughts when the Career Thoughts Inventory (J. P. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1996a) was used as a pretest and posttest measure. The greatest decrease in negative thinking was found in students with the highest level of negative thinking at the beginning of the course. The specific components of negative career thinking—decision‐making confusion and commitment anxiety—contributed significantly to the main effect. There were no significant interactions with ethnicity or sex.     

Informing Debate or Fuelling Dispute? Media Communication of Reconfiguration in Scotland's Rural Maternity Care

Public reaction to the UK's ongoing health sector reform often results in dilution of policy‐makers’ goals. Public participation in health service decision‐making is advocated in policy, but precisely how to do it and what role public opinion should have in formulating reform strategy is ambiguously described. Public opinion is formed through many influences, including media reporting. This paper examines how reconfiguration at a rural maternity unit at Caithness General Hospital in Wick, Scotland, was communicated in national and local media and considers potential implications of media communication on public participation in policy decision‐making. Content analysis of arguments for and against change revealed a high level of reporting of commentators against change in regional newspapers. Qualitative analysis identified emergent themes about how maternity service reconfiguration was portrayed. These included framing opposition between management and local people, and change drivers receiving superficial coverage. Findings suggest that media portrayal of the public role in change may promote an adversarial rather than a participative stance. More finely tuned understanding of the relationship between the reporting of change and public reaction should be attained as this could affect how planned social policy evolves into actual practice.     

Private violence/private transport: the role of means of transport in women’s mobility to escape from domestic violence in England and Wales

ABSTRACT

This article highlights a gendered and forced mobility which has been under-recognised in the literature on mobility. It explores the hidden relocations of women (often with children) due to intimate partner abuse; presenting findings from mixed methods research on women’s journeys to escape domestic violence, including analysis of over 80 journey segments made by 20 women within England and Wales, and from abroad. Focusing on means of transport, the research found that under a third of journey segments were made by public transport, and these tended to be longer distances; that journeys by disabled women were more likely to be by private transport, and that journeys from rural areas were more likely to be with the assistance of others. Thematic analysis of interviews at different stages of women’s journeys is used to explore their experiences of different means of transport in terms of degrees of control and agency, in terms of losing or retaining personal possessions on the move; and in highlighting the role of others’ assistance in compounding or counteracting the implications of abuse. Women’s domestic violence journeys are thereby contextualised within wider mobilities research, uncovering the inequalities and implications of this hidden internal displacement in the UK.