Parental substance misuse and child care social work: findings from the first stage of a study of 100 families

Parental misuse of drugs or alcohol is known to be a common issue for child care social workers, yet there has been surprisingly little British research on the topic. The study reported here attempts to address this gap. All files going for long‐term allocation in four London boroughs over on average 1 year were examined (290 files). Parental substance misuse (PSM) emerged as a major feature of social work caseloads. Of the 290 cases, 100 (34%) involved concerns about parental substance misuse. The families involving substance misuse were more vulnerable on a variety of measures: the children were younger, the parents had more individual problems and the families lived in more difficult social situations. PSM cases tended to be ‘heavy end’ at the point of allocation: they accounted for 62% of all children subject to care proceedings and 40% of those placed on the child protection register. There was a fairly even spread between alcohol and drug misuse, and a number of cases involved both. Substance misuse specialists were rarely involved in working with families, primarily because parents said that they did not think that they had a problem. Suggestions for ways in which policy and practice with PSM might be improved are made in light of these findings.     

Beyond the Binaries: Depolarizing the Categories of Sex,Sexuality, and Gender*

Most sociological research designs assume that each person has one sex. one sexuality, and one gender, congruent with each other and fixed for life. Postmodern feminists and queer theorists have been interrogating bodies, desires, and genders, but sociology has not. Deconstructing sex, sexuality, and gender reveals many possible categories embedded in social experiences and social practices. As researchers, as theorists, and as activists, sociologists have to go beyond paying lip service to the diversity of bodies, sexualities, genders. The sociologist's task should be to deconstruct the conventional categories of sex, sexuality, and gender and build new complex, cross-cutting constructs into research designs. There are revolutionary possibilities inherent in rethinking the categories of gender, sexuality, and physiological sex. Sociological data that challenge conventional knowledge by reframing the questions could provide legitimacy for new ways of thinking. Data that undermine the supposed natural dichotomies on which the social orders of most modern societies are still based could radically alter political discourses that valorize biological causes, essential heterosexuality, and traditional gender roles in families and workplaces.     

Canonical correlation analysis of residential and vocational outcomes following psychiatric rehabilitation

This analysis uses canonical correlation techniques to explore client outcomes following psychosocial rehabilitation services in two rehabilitation areas: vocational and residential. At issue are the ways in which these two outcomes are affected by a series of eight client characteristics and service delivery features. The overarching question is the effectiveness of the program in establishing independence vocationally and residentially, and whether the same set of factors influences these two outcomes for persons with mental illness. Subjects were 212 ex-clients of a psychosocial rehabilitation agency who were working six months after leaving the program. The analysis derived two canonical functions both of which were significant. Canonical loadings and cross loadings indicated that client level of functioning and program tenure loaded most strongly with residential status on the first canonical variate while education loaded most strongly with salary on the second. These results support the notions that different predictors account for the variance associated with different outcomes following psychosocial rehabilitation. Discussion of the relevance of strong predictor variables highlights ways they can impact program design. Finally, the usefulness of canonical correlation in longitudinal program evaluation research is explored.     

Inhibition of play in adulthood: An outcome needing childhood intervention for the learning disabled

Remediation of the functional problems associated with childhood learning disabilities may still leave deficits in the capacity for creative play in work and relationships. Treatment of children, to avoid this inhibition of play in adulthood, requires innovative forms of exploration, including playfulness in the clinician that go beyond coaching and support. Object relations theory provides a model for joining, and not impinging upon, the learning disabled client to reactivate the capacity for play, necessary to fulfillment in relating and in work.Dr. Rosenberger is a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. She is chairperson of the Human Behavior and Social Environment Sequence at Hunter College School of Social Work.     

Threat, Group Identification, and Children's Ethnic Prejudice

This experiment tested predictions from social identity development theory (SIDT, Nesdale, 1999 ), that children's tendency to show out‐group prejudice depends on the strength of their in‐group identification and/or their perception of threat from the out‐group. Anglo‐Australian children (N= 480) aged 6, 7, or 9 years were assigned to a high‐status team and their identification with the in‐group (high vs. low) was manipulated together with threat from the out‐group (present vs. absent). The members of the out‐group were revealed to be of the same (Anglo‐Australian) or different (Pacific Islander) ethnicity to the in‐group. Results supported the SIDT predictions. In addition, consistent with socio‐cognitive theory (ST, Aboud, 1988 ), dislike for the out‐group at 6 years gave way to increasingly neutral reactions by 9 years of age. Ethnic composition of the out‐group did not impact differentially on liking but it did affect the children's desire to change groups. Strongly identified children were reluctant to leave their group regardless of the ethnicity of the out‐group, whereas children with low in‐group identification were more willing to change into a same‐ than into a different‐ethnicity out‐group. It is concluded that both social identity and social cognitive processes are implicated in the development of prejudice in middle childhood.     

Gypsy Justice versus Gorgio Law: Interrelations of Difference

Resonating with Frankenberg, this article explores the role of the individual stranger/outsider. The non‐Gypsy (gorgio) individual or system is often used to settle internal disputes among Traveller‐Gypsies, although rarely in the relatively benign role, as in Frankenberg's study. The outsider's system, while representing centuries of sedentarist and racist persecution, may also be open to manipulation. While popular discourse represents the Gypsies’ non‐literate system as an isolate in some potential evolution, the few studies of Gypsies’ resolution of conflict have attracted attention in other disciplines because they raise questions about alternative controls and local cooperation in post‐industrialist societies. Rather than any classical contrast and comparison, the article demonstrates inter relations of differences with emphasis on agency and institutions of law enforcement as a resource. My ethnographic material emerges not from former colonies but the once centre of the British Empire. The Traveller‐Gypsies also have relatively independent, appropriate means of settling conflicts. Hitherto, this detailed material from localized fieldwork rather than from afar, has been withheld for a safe passage of time. It may have become even more relevant.     

Criteria for selecting treatment interventions with adolescents

In contrast to the current trend in clinical settings of dispensing with the diagnostic process, the view advanced in this essay is that assessment constitutes the basis for prognosis and for planning any, and all treatment interventions. The reader is offered a spectrum of treatment modalities, specifically, psychoanalysis, individual, family, group, and hospitalization. The discussion delineates the therapeutic needs in accord with the adolescent's depth of disturbance and age (e.g., early, middle, or late adolescence). Too frequently, adolescents of all ages are viewed as a homogeneous group. Individual therapy, the intervention most suitable for the largest range of adolescents, is presented in detail.is the author of several books, includingClinical Work with Children. She maintains a parttime private practice at 225 W. 88th St. New York, NY 10024.