Deinstitutionalization and vocational rehabilitation for mental health consumers in Nova Scotia since the 1950s

In this paper we explore the broader policy determinants of the de-hospitalization of mental patients in Nova Scotia between the 1950s and 1980s and trace the background to the development of occupational rehabilitation programs in the community. For employment programs, the government chose to rely on non-profit NGOs as the suppliers of services. As a case study of such an organization, we examine the evolution of LakeCity Employment Services Association as a resource for people living with mental disabilities.     

How business associations use interorganizational networks to achieve workforce development goals: Implications for Human Resource Development

Abstract

This study uses data from a series of comparative case studies to analyse the interorganizational networks of business associations providing workforce development services in the United States. Three aspects of the networks were of particular interest, including (a) the form the partnerships took, (b) the trade-off to involving educational or community vs. business partners in providing workforce development services and (c) the strengths of associations in brokering services to adults or youth. The findings demonstrate that business associations work in intermediary networks or provide their services directly. The conclusions suggest that human resource development professionals should work more actively with local business associations to recruit, train and provide supports for workers in US firms.     

The State of American Boyhood

The existence of a “boy crisis” in the United States is a topic of public policy debate. This study examines the state of American boyhood, using not only the commonly reviewed indicators of school achievement but also mental health, premature death, injury, delinquency, and arrests. Boys are in trouble in many areas: low rates of literacy, low grades and engagement in school, high dropout from school, and dramatically higher rates of placement in special education, suicide, premature death, injuries, and arrests. Girls, however, suffer from other problems, especially depression, suicidal ideation and attempts, and eating disorders, and are less likely to achieve at the very highest levels in mathematics and science. This study argues that both boys and girls suffer from characteristic problems, but the issues affecting boys are serious and neglected.

Welfare and Work: Complementary Strategies forLow‐Income Women?

We examine the effects of mothers' strategies of combining employment and welfare receipt during the first 3 years of their child's life on the child's cognitive development, behavior problems, and home learning environment at ages 5 to 6. We compare the child outcomes of those mothers who were continuously employed and received no welfare with (a) those who worked some or all of the 3 years and also received public assistance and (b) those who were totally dependent on public assistance. We studied children in single‐parent families (N= 1271 ) living below 200% of the poverty threshold using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—Child Supplement. No negative association was found on most child outcomes with a mother's employment whether or not it was combined with public assistance. However, mothers' not working at all and receiving financial support solely from AFDC was associated with negative child outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for the possible effects of the new welfare laws on families and young children.     

Academic and Behavioral Outcomes Among the Children of Young Mothers

In this article, we use newly available data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate the effects of early motherhood on academic and behavioral outcomes for children born to early child bearers. We find that early motherhood's strong negative correlation with children's test scores and positive correlation with children's grade repetition is almost entirely explained by prebirth individual and family background factors of teen mothers themselves. However, early childbearing is associated indirectly with reduced children's test scores through its linkage to family size (and thus to child birth order). We find a different pattern in predicting fighting, truancy, early sexual activity, and other problem behaviors among adolescent and young adult offspring. For these behaviors, maternal age at first birth remains an important risk factor even after controlling for a wide range of background factors and maternal characteristics. These results highlight the diverse pathways through which teen parenting might influence subsequent child well‐being and social performance.     

Charting unexplored territory: Nonprofit funding relations and the nonprofit-market relationship

Understanding Nonprofit Funding: Managing Revenues in Social Services and Community Development Organizations, by Kirsten A. Grønbjerg. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993. 397 pp., $41.95 cloth. Nonprofit Organizations in a Market Economy: Understanding New Roles, Issues, and Trends, edited by David C. Hammack and Dennis R. Young. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993. 479 pp., $43.95 cloth.     

The exact risk performance of a pre-test estimator in a heteroskedastic linear regression model under the balanced loss function

We examine the risk of a pre-test estimator for regression coefficients after a pre-test for homoskedasticity under the Balanced Loss Function (BLF). We show analytically that the two stage Aitken estimator is dominated by the pre-test estimator with the critical value of unity, even if the BLF is used. We also show numerically that both the two stage Aitken estimator and the pre-test estimator can be dominated by the ordinary least squares estimator when “goodness of fit” is regarded as more important than precision of estimation.     

Cohabitation in the United States and Britain: Demography,kinship, and the future

Cohabitation is a rapidly changing aspect of family life in the United States and Britain. This article describes the demography of cohabitation, considers the place of cohabitation in the kinship system, and speculates on the future of cohabitation. I argue that three processes—cohort replacement, socialization that occurs when children live with cohabiting parents, and social diffusion—will foster continued increases in rates of cohabitation. These processes are also likely to increase variation in the types of cohabiting relationships that couples form. Understanding the meaning of cohabitation in the kinship system requires distinguishing between individuals' attitudes about their own relationships and the composition of cohabiting unions at the population level.