Sources of parenting support in early fatherhood: Perspectives of United States Air Force members

We conducted semi-structured focus groups with men in the United States Air Force (N = 39) to examine fathers' access to parenting information during the transition to parenthood, and to determine methods for engaging fathers in intervention. Results of content analysis highlight fathers' motivation to develop and maintain positive relationships with their partners and children despite substantial challenges, including multiple deployments, family moves, and demanding work responsibilities. Fathers emphasize the importance of information in facilitating the transition to parenthood, especially in the key domains of effective co-parenting and communication, children's developmental milestones, and appropriate use of discipline. Results underscore that men tend to rely more on informal sources of parenting information (e.g., spouse/partner, family members, friends) than on formal sources of information (e.g., pediatricians, social workers).     

The Promise of an Accumulation of Care: Disadvantaged African-American Youths’ Perspectives About What Makes an After School Program Meaningful

African-American youth growing up in dangerous, deprived homes and communities are at great risk of developing impaired relationship capabilities, which disadvantages them further in the workplace and in their personal lives. While after-school programs have well-documented positive effects, researchers have called for better understanding of improving youths’ engagement in services and their constructive relationship skills. Here, we report on a project using participatory action methods to engage poverty-level African-American youth in developing a leadership development program they would find most meaningful. Stand Up Help Out (SUHO) gave youth three layers of caregiving experience: receiving care from instructors, giving and receiving care from peers, and providing care through constructive community action initiatives and mentoring elementary school children. Findings were that: (1) participation and retention of youth in SUHO were considerably higher than national averages; (2) youth reported that SUHO made it possible for them to have better relationships as friends, romantic partners, and in academic settings, and they looked forward to being better parents, (3) youth developed positive peer relationships despite a context of mistrust and gang violence, (4) youth actively sought out relationships with caring adults and identified what was most meaningful in those relationships, and (5) youth deeply valued the opportunity to develop their ability to care for others.     

Past and new victimization among African American female drug users who participated in an HIV risk‐reduction intervention

This study examined to what extent a culturally and women‐specific sexual risk reduction intervention resulted in a decline of new victimization. Additionally, we sought to identify factors associated with new victimization, defined as victimization during the 6 months after enrollment in the study. Female African American drug users (N = 333, ages 18–59 years) completed questionnaires. Past victimization was a major predictor of new victimization. The likelihood of new victimization, however, declined significantly when compared to past victimization. Factors associated with victimization included enhanced intervention assignment, frequency of drug use, and lifestyle factors such as criminal behavior, drug use in a public setting, and living in an unstable situation. Results indicate the need to incorporate strategies to reduce victimization in HIV/AIDS and other health‐related prevention and intervention programs.     

Common Beliefs About Child Sexual Abuse and Disclosure: A College Sample

ABSTRACT

Adults’ common beliefs about child sexual abuse and disclosure were explored. Participants (N = 670) were questioned about key areas of child sexual abuse that could affect decision-making processes of jurors evaluating child sexual abuse cases. These areas included victim and perpetrator characteristics, medical and behavioral indicators of child sexual abuse, memories for the event, and disclosure of the event. The scientific literature pertaining to these same areas are reviewed. While individual beliefs were consistent with some areas of the scientific literature (e.g., victim and perpetrator characteristics), they strongly contrasted the literature in other important areas (e.g., memories for the event, indicators of child sexual abuse, and the likelihood of denial and recantation). Implications, including the option of providing expert testimony to reduce discrepancies, are discussed.     

Victims’ Retrospective Explanations of Sibling Sexual Violence

ABSTRACT

While sibling sexual abuse may be the most common form of sexual violence within the family, relatively few studies have been conducted on this topic. The current study addresses this gap in the literature through analyses of thematic categories in narratives gathered from an online survey of sibling sexual violence. Survivors were asked to report why they believed their siblings had become sexually abusive toward them. Participants believed that their abusers had learned to be abusive due to their own victimization or exposure to pornography, were abusive to establish dominance over them, or had some undisclosed mental illness. While the study does not claim to test these explanations or include abusers’ own narratives, it offers insight as to how sibling sexual violence survivors make sense of their experiences and assign blame to abusers and their families. It also offers insights into future inquiries about sibling sexual abuse.     

Multiple Ways of Coordinating Volunteers With Differing Styles of Service

Volunteerism is changing, and traditional ways of coordinating volunteers need re-examination in order for human service programs to survive. Our practitioner/academician team has been using well-known frameworks to reveal deep-seated assumptions about how people volunteer at the dawn of the 21st century and how changes in volunteering influence the organization and coordination of those efforts. The different styles of volunteering demand that coordinators' engagement strategies vary when different worldviews are held. In this article, four types of volunteer programs are identified: traditional, social change, serendipity, and entrepreneurial. Examples of each program type are provided, along with guidelines for their oversight. We conclude with a call for research that examines the important differences in how to appropriately use the talents of increasingly diverse types of volunteers in community practice.     

“I always expected to have grandchildren some day”: The long road from sense of loss to gradual acceptance

ABSTRACT

This paper explores, through the use of narrative data, ways in which older parents respond to the realization that they never will become grandparents. Stated reactions range from unresolved grief and anger to happily finding substitute ties to relief in having a retirement free of caretaking and gift giving expectations. While the research literature and popular media focus on the importance of grandparent roles from the perspective of the child, little attention is paid to either the importance of this role to the grandparents themselves or the magnitude of grandparent deprivation of this role in the lives of older adults.     

Knocking on doors: recruitment and enrichment in a qualitative interview‐based study

This paper describes the process of recruiting participants for a qualitative interview‐based study by leafleting and door knocking. It is argued that door knocking can enrich and thicken research that usually takes place ‘behind closed doors’, enabling researchers to engage their ethnographic imaginations by observing neighbourhood interactions, familiarising themselves with the places their participants inhabit and through the embodied, sensory experience of walking itself. By treating the recruitment process as data, it is suggested that the door knocking researcher can ensure his/her individual participants are understood as connected to the wider social, physical and sensory environment they inhabit. Door knocking is also seen as enabling researchers to find interest in an element of the research process often viewed as a somewhat irksome means to an end.     

Fathers' involvement and the impact on family mental health: evidence from Millennium Cohort Study analyses

This paper reports evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) on the relationship between fathers' involvement and the mental well-being of mothers, fathers and children. Drawing on previous research, we use a tripartite definition of father involvement: engagement, accessibility and responsibility. After searching 14 databases and websites, we screened for applicability, coded, quality assessed and synthesised the evidence. The majority of studies focused on ‘accessibility’ in terms of family structure or on ‘responsibility’ in terms of father employment. Overall, the studies suggest that aspects of fathers' involvement can positively influence both maternal and child mental well-being; fathers' mental health was only analysed in relation to one aspect of involvement: parental or father employment was found to influence fathers' mental well-being positively. Further MCS-based research is recommended to examine the impact of fathers' involvement on their own mental well-being, as well as the broader impact of a more active or ‘modern’ fatherhood model encompassing engagement and an understanding of responsibility beyond the breadwinning role.