Information sharing between the child welfare and behavioral health systems: Perspectives from four stakeholder groups

This qualitative study articulates the challenges, best practices, and facilitators to information sharing when addressing the behavioral health needs of children in out-of-home care. 13 interviews and nine focus groups were conducted to illuminate the perspectives of foster parents, mental health clinicians, provider agency social workers, and city-employed child welfare professionals. In total, 65 individuals participated in this qualitative study and data were analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach. Results indicate that challenges and best practices in cross-system information sharing articulated across the four stakeholder groups are attributed to variation in information accessibility, clarity in roles and protocols, ability in obtaining signatures for consent/release forms, and attitudinal differences towards collaboration. Implications to improve policy and practice are discussed.     

Performance Concern,Contingent Self‐worth,and Responses to Repeated Achievement Failure in Second Graders

Individual differences in emotion, cognitions, and task choice following achievement failure are found among four‐ to seven‐year‐olds. However, neither performance deterioration during failure nor generalization after failure—aspects of the helpless pattern in 10‐year‐olds—have been reliably demonstrated in this age group. In the present study, 78 second graders worked on a series of unsolvable and solvable puzzles and then on a figure‐matching task. We assessed levels of performance concern and performance‐contingent self‐worth, and their relations to performance during and after failure. As predicted, performance concern and performance‐contingent self‐worth were independent self‐regulatory processes. Performance concern was related to strategy use during and after failure and performance‐contingent self‐worth was related to postfailure performance. These results provide empirical support for Burhans and Dweck's model of the origins of individual differences in motivation. Similarities in behaviors and mechanisms of effect for children's and adults' responses to failure are discussed.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Author: Jacquelin Tivers and Michael Day Title: The Viking Children's World Atlas Publisher. The Viking Press-Junior Books 40 W. 23rd St. NY, NY 10010 Date of Publication: 1983 Price: $6.95 Audience: Ages 5 to 12 Introductory Atlas Reviewed by Tom Collins.

Title: Preserving America's Past. Publisher: National Geographic Society Date of Publication: 1983 Price: $6.95 Audience: Middle School to Adult Reviewed by Barbara Harris.     

“Taking Mama Steps” Toward Authority,Alternatives, and Advocacy

Ten years ago, the task of blending work and motherhood was arduous, lonely, and painstaking. Most settled for face-to-face interactions or phone calls to friends and family for support. Sadly, frustrated conversations are still happening due to a lack of cultural acceptance, policies, and laws focused on blending work and family life. However, some women are turning to online spaces for social support. In 1991, Donna Haraway posited that online, affinity-based groups contain the potential for activism. Buoyed by digital social media possibilities for social support, we assessed feminist activism within a motherhood support group populated by women from various countries around the world. We found that consciousness-raising can further feminist activism within an online motherhood Facebook group by helping others learn to negotiate their choices, but economic stratification and educational divides still constrain social support; this suggests that digital connections influence affinity-based identities and feminist activism.     

Forecasting the market demand for waste paper

In a recent article in this journal, Livesey and Barcena supplied an interesting but necessarily superficial analysis of the market for waste paper. Their essential conclusion was that, faced with future shortages, and hence increased prices of wood pulp, the paper and board industry would be forced to rely more heavily on secondary fibre. In turn, they felt that ‘in order to ensure an adequate supply of waste paper, governments may need to exert a greater degree of influence over the market than they do at present’.This paper seeks to provide a more rigorous analysis of the ‘waste paper problem’ in terms of future demand and fluctuations in that demand. It also corrects some misconceptions in the paper by Livesey and Barcena as to the likely sources of future supply and the economics of securing those supplies.     

Visual and textual narratives of conflict-related displacement in Northern Ireland

Combined textual and visual narratives and counternarratives illustrate a range of experiences in Northern Ireland’s conflictual, spatial landscape. In this article, I argue that combined textual and visual narratives about conflict-instigated displacement create and articulate community-specific experiences of disadvantage, with the intention of gaining political recognition and/or advantage over other communities in ongoing processes of conflict transformation. I expose the multiple, contextualised meanings of selective narratives that are accessible in language and image but, that are rarely questioned because of the political influence of their tellers or, because of their scale. Their meanings and intentions exist alongside counternarratives about intra-community displacement and displacement against other groups and are concurrent with public apathy, which serve to minimise their effectiveness as political tools to gain community-specific, social and political advantage. These narratives and counternarratives persist as key spatial markers and as sites on which conflict, and its effective transformation, are played out.     

“Let's Talk about the Institution”: Same‐Sex Common‐Law Partners Negotiating Marriage Equality and Relationship Legitimacy

The 2005 Canada‐wide legalization of same‐sex marriage provided same‐sex couples with access to an institution they had previous been excluded from. Yet not all couples choose to marry. In this paper, we examine why this is the case, considering the role of personal, political, and historical factors. We draw on 22 interviews with people in common‐law same‐sex relationships in Toronto to examine how they understand their relationship within the new context of marriage equality. We find that participants feel they are held accountable to marriage as a default relationship legitimacy norm, indicating that this new institutional access is accompanied by a set of social expectations. Despite their awareness of the need to navigate a social context favoring marriage, participants individualize their relationship decisions as personal rather than political. Participants often contradict themselves as they articulate what marriage means to them, suggesting that, in this period of legal and social transition, people are negotiating multiple meanings, societal messages, and traditions when it comes to making sense of their relationship. We discuss the implications of these findings for LGBQ activism and the framing of sexuality‐based inequalities in Canadian society.     

Cash payments in context: (self-)regulation in the new social relations of assistance

Cash payments to meet social care needs offer the possibility for the direct employment of personal assistants using public funds. Empirical work internationally has identified the benefits of cash payments. However, there has been less interest in the relationships between employers and their employees. This article offers some reflections upon the employment relationship from the perspectives of employers who have learning difficulties and their personal assistants. The study involved eight employers, their supporters and their personal assistants in an English city. A grounded theory approach was utilised and interviews were analysed using a framework approach. This article argues that the relational aspects of direct employment arrangements have not been adequately considered in academic literature and the policy framework. These insights can add to debates around how social care support mechanisms can offer responsive assistance whilst questioning the assumed ‘empowering’ effect of an unregulated market.     

‘Wishing to go it alone’: the complicated interplay of independence,interdependence and agency

Some individuals with disabilities for whom verbal speech is not reliable use facilitated communication to express thoughts and ideas. While they may require intensive physical support initially, the goal is independent typing. However, this emphasis on fading support and independence bears consideration. We utilize a Disability Studies lens to frame practices around independence and the complicated interplay between interdependence, agency and voice. Based on qualitative analysis of communication training sessions, we present four findings: the complexity of the message versus fading of physical support, the emotional dimensions of independence, the facilitator’s navigation of multiple roles, and the importance of facilitating agency. We also share implications of reframing independence and facilitating agency for the communication training process.     

Examining Direct Service Worker Turnover in Three Long-Term Care Industries in Ohio

This is the first study to examine direct service worker turnover and its predictors across three provider types: nursing homes, home health agencies, and providers of services for the developmentally disabled. Stratified random sampling procedures were used to select provider types across five geographic regions in Ohio. Data were collected from administrative staff. Findings indicated that annual direct service worker turnover did not significantly vary by provider type (mean = 33%). Predictors of turnover related to job burnout, negative social support, and region. Policymakers can promote practices to lower direct service worker turnover such as addressing burnout and increasing support.