Housing first: paradigm or program?

Sobriety, treatment compliance and celibacy have traditionally been behavioral requirements for housing persons who are homeless, regardless of the circumstances leading to loss of home. This remnant of the British Poor Laws is based on the premise that personal and behavioral flaws lead to housing loss and must be remediated before a person can live in permanent housing. A recent approach has reversed this logic and predicates the ability to change based on first providing stable and long-term housing. Termed “housing first,” it is both a housing philosophy or paradigm that everyone deserves a home of their own, regardless of personal circumstances, prior to engaging in any rehabilitative efforts, it also describes specific program models. A review of the research indicates that the success of “housing first” relies more on political support than wide-spread scientific evidence of “best practices”. This report examines the development and scientific evidence for “housing first” programs in North America and suggests that future housing first research examine modifications necessary for distinct geographies and groups of homeless persons.     

Reputation and Mechanism Choice in Procurement Auctions: An Experiment

We experimentally study the role of reputation in procurement using two common mechanisms: price‐based and buyer‐determined auctions. While buyers are bound to buy from the lowest bidder in price‐based auctions, they can choose between bidders in buyer‐determined auctions. Only the latter buyers can consider the reputation of bidders. We find that bidders supply higher quality in buyer‐determined auctions leading to higher market efficiencies in these auctions. Accordingly, buyers prefer the buyer‐determined auction over the price‐based auction, while only half of the bidders do so. A more detailed analysis of buyers' and bidders' behavior and profits provides insights into their mechanism choice.     

Transition to parenthood: it does not get easier the next time. Exploring ways to support well-being among parents with newborns

Investing in parents is important because their well-being is positively related to the development and well-being of their children. This study investigated which factors predict two types of parents’ well-being: individual well-being and parenting-related well-being. Participants were 416 parents (90 fathers, 326 mothers) of a baby (younger than age 1 year old), both first-time parents and not-first-time parents. Relationship quality, life skills, parenting skills, and social support were taken into account. Results show that both types of well-being have different main predictors. Self-esteem, self-management, and interpersonal relationship skills contribute to both types of well-being, suggesting that interventions aimed at improving these skills could be very beneficial for parents in their transition to parenthood. Fathers and mothers differ significantly on several predictors—for example, self-esteem, self-management, parenting behavior, and empathy—suggesting they might have different needs for support in the transition to parenthood. Finally, results show that, though parents get better at providing basic care for their children, regarding well-being and relationship quality, not-first-time parents are not better off then first-time parents. Therefore, interventions aimed at easing the transition to parenthood should not only be aimed at first time parents, they might be more effective for parents who already have children.     

Linking Autonomy-Supportive Leadership to Volunteer Satisfaction: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective

This study examines the development of volunteer satisfaction within the framework of self-determination theory (SDT). Therewith, autonomy-supportive leadership—as an influential part of the organizational context—is studied as an antecedent of volunteer satisfaction. The hypothesized model suggests that the link between autonomy-supportive leadership and volunteer satisfaction is serially mediated by general need satisfaction and autonomous motivation. Volunteers (N = 113) working closely together with their supervisors completed a paper-based questionnaire. As predicted, both general need satisfaction and autonomous motivation serially mediated the link between autonomy-supportive leadership and volunteer satisfaction. The results indicate that autonomy-supportive leadership is an important factor of the organizational context, increasing both volunteers’ autonomous motivation and satisfaction. Practical implications for volunteering organizations, as well as implications for further research, are discussed.     

Training foster parents in loyalty conflict: A training evaluation

Fifty two foster parents participated in one of seven offerings of a two-and-a-half hour training on the issue of children caught in a loyalty conflict. Prior to the training foster parents completed a measure of their demographics, receptivity to learning about the issue, and their knowledge about the issue. Following the training the participants completed a measure of their perception that the training was helpful, their intent to change based on the training, and their knowledge about loyalty conflicts. They also participated in a focused discussion about loyalty conflicts. In this sample foster parents were found to have high levels of receptivity to training, high rates of perceived helpfulness of the training, and high levels of intent to change after the training as well as an increase in knowledge regarding loyalty conflict from before to after the training. Despite limitations in sampling strategy and sample size, the data support the belief that foster parents want to learn about this issue and can benefit from a single training on it.     

生物多样性保护的新概念：参与性自然资源监测

参与性自然资源监测是一种新理念下以村民为主体的对社区所依赖资源进行监测的系统。它以掌握自然资源的丰富程度和利用及其变化情况，增强村民环境意识并改善村民和自然保护区之间关系为目的，具有简便易行、应用乡土知识、资源投入低、决策透明的优点，能够促进森林资源保护、监测和管理，进行意识教育、冲突管理、野生动物肇事管理和促进当地经济发展。     

Statutory Bodies and Performance Reporting: Hong Kong and Singapore Experience

Performance reporting involving performance indicators has been adopted by statutory bodies in Hong Kong and Singapore as a means of improving their accountability. This development has considerable promise, but how has it affected the autonomy of statutory bodies and has it benefited other stakeholders? On the bases of a questionnaire survey and a content analysis of relevant websites, this article finds that any increased operational autonomy enjoyed by statutory bodies as a result of performance reporting arrangements has had only a negligible impact on the participation of citizens in the affairs of those bodies and on their accountability to citizens.     

Human rights at the heart of the social work curriculum

ABSTRACT

Social work policy and practice all over the world continue to face the impact of the neoliberal agenda. Similarly, social work education has been subject to the economic and political changes, with an increasing emphasis on a discourse of ‘evidence-based practice’. However, it is the core of social work programs in higher education to initiate students in the fundamental values of social work, as they are recognized in the global definition of social work. In order to prepare future social workers for their assignment, human rights should be given an explicit place in the social work curricula at Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences.

For human rights to gain more attention in social work programs in higher education, a Manifesto was written by lecturers’ social work in the Netherlands and Flanders, with a 5-point program to include human rights in the social work curricula. In this article, we elaborate on the five objectives that are presented in the Manifesto. Throughout the paper, we introduce small ‘case examples’ of how human rights can be integrated in education. These experiences show the importance of developing a particular social work perspective on human rights that is found in the idea of ‘human rights from below.’     

Capital and Mining Property Relations: Reconsidering Marxist Understanding of Feudal Mining Land

Marxism holds that feudal mining land was characterized by production relations that gave lords the upper hand. Lacking productive capital, mining land was generally a site of coercive feudal-property relations. The idea is indefensible, as evidence shows that mining lands triggered property arrangements antagonizing lordly power. This article discusses the labor and capital relations that transformed feudal land into mining land. It argues that this transformation challenged the supremacy of feudal lords by triggering property relations relatively unconstrained by feudal lordly power. The article concludes that mining lands were sites of antagonistic relations, were capital confronted feudal landed property, aiming at isolating lords from the gains of mines.