Comparison of Treatment Response among GLB and non-GLB Street Living Youth

Researchers have found that adolescents who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual (GLB) are at a higher risk for increased substance use and mental health symptoms. The current study is a secondary analysis of two clinical trials for street-living youth. This analysis examines self-identification as GLB as a moderator of treatment effects and addresses whether street-living GLB youth respond differently to a therapeutic intervention than non-GLB street-living youth. Comparisons were made of treatment outcomes on two categories of variables (drug use and mental health symptoms) among 244 homeless GLB and non-GLB identified adolescents. Overall, GLB and non-GLB adolescents showed similar reductions in drug use and mental health symptoms. However, compared to non-GLB adolescents, GLB adolescents showed greater improvement in reduction of drug use and internalizing and depressive symptom scores. While both groups reported less drug use and fewer mental health symptoms from baseline to post-intervention, GLB youth's scores improved more drastically. Implications of using the identified treatment intervention are discussed.     

Explaining educational influences on attitudes toward homosexual relations

Despite changing attitudes toward homosexual relations in the United States, college-educated individuals remain less disapproving of homosexual sex than less-educated persons. Using recent General Social Survey data, this study considers three alternative explanations for the established association between schooling and support for same-sex relations. First, education may promote tolerance of homosexual sex by teaching support of nonconformity. Second, schooling may promote greater cognitive sophistication and complex reasoning, thus enabling individuals to better evaluate new ideas. Third, the observed relationship between education and tolerance may be the spurious result of affluence of the parental home. We find that the relation of education and attitudes is not a spurious one. Rather, the liberalizing effect of education on attitudes toward homosexual relations is due, in part, to education’s association with support for civil liberties, and in part, to schooling’s correlation with cognitive sophistication.     

Focused participation in social work and social action

Focused participation proposes that total participation by clients of social work and communities involved in social action is no participation if it neglects the severe blocks on capacity to participate imposed by oppressed life experience and poverty. Workers should take on the responsibility for including a planned program of participation in every intervention focused on what is most important to the client or community members. Case examples in residential care for elderly people, a child advocacy service concerned with the closure of children's homes, cutting a voluntary organization's budget and family social work illustrate the main points of focused participation.     

The Big Freak Out: Educator Fear in Response to the Presence of Transgender Elementary School Students

Increased visibility of transgender children requires elementary school professionals to take on issues of gender diversity, sex and sexuality, which are considered taboo in elementary school spaces. School professionals who have worked with transgender children were interviewed about their experience with these students, perceptions of their school's success in supporting them, and recommendations for information and resources needed by schools to provide support. Findings indicate that fear and anxiety are common educator responses to the presence of a transgender child and the disruption of the gender binary, and these emotions are limiting the possibilities for schools to affirm transgender identity.     

St Christopher's and the future

The founding vision of St Christopher's Hospice was based on a recognition that permeating mainstream health care services would be essential and an emphasis on an adaptable philosophy rather than a building. Today, demographic and disease related changes mean that need and demand for end-of-life care will inevitably outstrip professional and financial resource. Hospices must engage with the development of cost-effective models of service delivery and rational planning. Only partnership working with the National Health Service, care homes, and others will ensure that appropriate care is available to everyone wherever the bed in which they die, regardless of diagnosis. Only collaboration and active engagement will ensure that future strategy in end-of-life care retains the original insight that its focus rightly includes not only patients but also the social context that will be affected by their death. Cost and patient choice dictate an emphasis on care at home. Health-promoting, public education and family-focused strategies will be essential. At a pivotal moment for the delivery of health care generally, hospices can play a vital part by marrying the role of "insistent conscience" of the health care service with continued cost-effective clinical innovation.     

The Role of the Facilitator in Couple Relationship Education

While much of the Couple Relationship Education (CRE) research has focused on participant factors, unexpectedly little research has considered how characteristics of those providing the programming shape its efficacy. The current study draws upon a diverse sample of 225 couples who received CRE from community educators to examine how facilitation alliance is related to relationship outcomes for men and women and whether having a facilitator with similar demographic characteristics is related to the alliance. Results suggest that the facilitation alliance is related to some—though not all—postprogram outcomes and these effects were uniform across gender and relationship status (married vs. unmarried). Having a facilitator of the same gender was associated with a stronger alliance. Implications are discussed.     

Measuring Constructed Preferences: Towards a Building Code

A “building code” for preference measurement is needed in a world in which many expressions of preference are constructed when people are asked a valuation question. Construction of preferences means that preference measurement is best viewed as architecture (building a set of values) rather than as archaeology (uncovering existing values). We describe potential faults in the process of preference construction, offer guidelines for measuring constructed preferences (a “building code”) to mitigate these faults, and discuss how the code must be sensitive to the purpose of the valuation (design vs. prediction).