Characteristics of the homeless mentally ill in case management: Differentiation using major diagnostic categories

The homeless mentally ill are more disabled than other homeless people and require more services, but important variations exist. This study examined relationships between broad Axis I diagnostic clusters and demographic and service variables for 328 clients receiving case management at a community program for the chronic mentally ill homeless. Demographic characteristics, medical history, educational, psychological, and marital history, and case management variables were examined for psychotic, affective, and miscellaneous other clients. Differences were found in such areas as suicide attempts and current suicide status, psychiatric treatment history, education, overall impairment of functioning, length of time homeless, and time in case management but not in status at termination or number of services required. Psychotics had lower adaptive functioning, spent less time in case management, but had as successful outcomes as affective clients. Psychiatric diagnosis provides information that might assist case management for the homeless mentally ill.     

Traces of Norwegian influence in the development of social services in Minnesota, USA, 1890–1920

This article explores areas where Norwegian Americans contributed to the burgeoning social welfare system being established in Minnesota from 1890 to 1920. The array of services developed was due in part to the belief among native-born Americans that immigrant groups should establish their own helping networks and care for themselves. The Lutheran Church played a central part in this development by initiating and sponsoring new undertakings. Issues discussed during this period are found to be still central among both immigrant groups and 'natives' today. Concerns regarding mother tongue, religion, integration in schools and use of existing welfare systems continue to stir up 'natives' and 'settlers' alike.     

思想的历程:斯图亚特·霍尔、文化研究以及悬而未决的文化与“非文化”的关系问题

斯图亚特·霍尔几乎就是文化研究的同义词。通过回顾霍尔的思想历程,可以大致把握文化研究的发展蓝图:先是从文化主义到结构主义、再从结构主义的马克思主义到后结构主义,最终一路发展来到了后马克思主义。霍尔的思想历程展现了文化研究试图解决文化反映论问题的不懈努力,而本文最终认同霍尔这种放弃文化唯物主义且又旨在超越经济主义与唯心主义的立论方式。     

Development of a Model of Holistic Reflection to facilitate transformative learning in student midwives

Background

Reflective practice is considered an essential aspect of personal and professional development, and critical reflection is considered the cornerstone of being an accountable and autonomous practitioner. Tertiary education should lay the foundations of lifelong learning by ensuring students develop into critically reflective and reflexive practitioners, who demonstrate self-awareness and an ability to reflect on personal values and beliefs and their impact on the wider healthcare system. This level of reflective practice is essential to effect change at both an individual and societal level. Reflection should therefore be embedded into education programs as a learning, teaching and assessment strategy.

Maternity high-dependency care and the Australian midwife: A review of the literature

Background

Maternity high-dependency care has emerged throughout the 21st century in Australian maternity hospitals as a distinct sub-speciality of maternity care. However, what the care involves, how and why it should be provided, and the role of midwives in the provision of such care remains highly variable.

Providing perinatal loss care: satisfying and dissatisfying aspects for midwives

PURPOSE: There is limited midwifery research that focuses on midwives experiences and attitudes to providing care for women who experience the death of a baby. There is also limited research investigating care components, and evidence to inform the basis of clinical practice in Australia and internationally. This paper presents the qualitative findings of a small study that aimed to investigate midwives experience, confidence and satisfaction with providing care for women who experienced perinatal loss. PROCEDURE: Eighty-three Western Australian midwives responded to an open ended question asking them to describe the most and least satisfying aspects of their role when providing care to women who experienced a perinatal loss. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. FINDINGS: The analysis revealed that Australian midwives gained most satisfaction from providing skilled midwifery care that they considered made a difference to women. This was enabled when midwives were afforded the opportunity to provide continuity of midwifery carer to women throughout the labour, birth and early postnatal period. In terms of the least satisfying aspects of care, midwives identified that they struggled with the emotional commitment needed to provide perinatal loss care, as well as with how to communicate openly and share information with women. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Within the context of the study setting, midwifery care for women following perinatal loss reflects the care components espoused in the literature. There are, however, organisational issues within health care that require commitment to continuity of care and further education of practitioners to enhance outcomes for clients.     

Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words? Adolescent Interpretations of Parental Substance Use

Parents are powerful socialization agents for children and as children reach adolescence parental role models, among other sources of influence, become particularly salient in adolescents’ decision-making regarding initiation of substance use. Open parent-adolescent communication about substances is associated with less substance use by adolescents; however, it is unclear how youth interpret antidrug use messages from their parents, especially if the parents engage in legal and/or illicit substance use themselves. Framed by social learning theory and social constructionism, this study analyzed in-depth interviews with 108 adolescents about personal experiences with substance use, family communication about substance use, and adolescent interpretations of parental use. Emergent themes in the data include: positive parental influence, parental contradictions, and negative outcomes of use. Prevalence of parental use—regardless of legality, rarity of explicit communication about parental use, and various interpretations of parental use are discussed.     

A Place to Call Home: Cultural Understandings of Heir Property among Rural African Americans*

Abstract Heir property is land held communally by family members of a landowner who has died intestate. Because this informal arrangement does not fit neatly into the individualist‐centered, integrated property rights system of the United States, it is viewed by most as a hindrance to economic development and capitalism. We present an alternative framework for analyzing the significance of heir property in the African American community and its constraints. While the consequences of owning land with clouded title are clear‐ineligibility for housing programs, inability to secure a mortgage or sell timber, and vulnerability to land loss through partition and tax sales‐we argue that a culturally‐based understanding of heir property provides insight to why it persists among rural African Americans. Based on personal interviews with heir property owners, lawyers, housing counselors, and county officials, the authors illustrate how heir property is supportive of certain cultural values and meets the needs of a subset of rural populations in ways that other forms of property ownership cannot.