The KIND Program for Adolescent Family and Dating Violence

Adolescent relational violence has significant and pervasive impacts for young people's current and future relationships. It is known that there is a cross-over between adolescent family violence and other offending behaviour, meaning there is a need for youth justice systems to recognise and respond to these forms of violence. This paper outlines a pilot intervention, the KIND Program, run in Youth Justice South Australia, and aimed at intervening with adolescent family and dating violence. KIND aims to provide tailored systemic intervention to young people and their support network, reducing violence while increasing connection and strength within relationships. The pilot of KIND ran for seven months in 2017, and had eight families participating in the program. Participation in, feedback from, and impact of the program suggest that participation was worthwhile and useful for young people and their families. The KIND Program would benefit from a more extensive pilot period to explore the outcomes of this form of intervention.     

Lability of prenatal stress during the COVID-19 pandemic links to negative affect in infancy

The association between prenatal stress and children's socioemotional development is well established. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a particularly stressful period, which may impact the gestational environment. However, most studies to-date have examined prenatal stress at a single time point, potentially masking the natural variation in stress that occurs over time, especially during a time as uncertain as the pandemic. This study leveraged dense ecological momentary assessments from a prenatal randomized control trial to examine patterns of prenatal stress over a 14-week period (up to four assessments/day) in a U.S. sample of 72 mothers and infants. We first examined whether varied features of stress exposure (lability, mean, and baseline stress) differed depending on whether mothers reported on their stress before or during the pandemic. We next examined which features of stress were associated with 3-month-old infants' negative affect. We did not find differences in stress patterns before and during the pandemic. However, greater stress lability, accounting for baseline and mean stress, was associated with higher infant negative affect. These findings suggest that pathways from prenatal stress exposure to infant socioemotional development are complex, and close attention to stress patterns over time will be important for explicating these pathways.     

Understanding Leaders of Repressive Social Movements

Researchers studying right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) have discussed the need to distinguish authoritarian followers from leaders. Altemeyer's (2003) studies raise several issues about political leadership in the real world. First, are most leaders of authoritarian social movements high on both RWA and social dominance (SDO)? Second, is it possible to be an authoritarian leader of a repressive social movement without being high on SDO? Third, it would be useful to develop techniques to assess SDO at a distance. Fourth, what roles do the psychological motives of need for power, need for affiliation and intimacy, and need for responsibility play in motivating leadership behavior in high SDO leaders? Finally, does social dominance exist in countries with non–Western value systems? Understanding the psychology of leaders of repressive social movements may help us develop ways to limit access to the power they crave and to mitigate the damage that they do.     

厉练自身的政治才能

暗中行事、阴险狡猾、操纵别人。当你听到某位同事被称作“政治通”时，这些词是否便会跃然脑海？的确，有不少人跟你感受相同。Get Them on Your Side：Win Support，Convert Skeptics，Get Results一书的作者萨缪尔·巴卡拉克（Samuel Bacharach）认为，政治才能常被等同于马基雅维利主义。结果怎样？巴卡拉克说：“长久以来，政治才能成为禁区。人人都需要这种才能，但却无人加以谈论。”     

增强企业创造力

如果爱迪生坚持光线只能由火产生,他只能发明更好的煤油灯或者更好的蜡烛你一定听过这样的训戒:“如果我们想要继续保持竞争力,就必须加大创新力度。”开发新产品和服务固然重要,但如果你不同时增强企业的创造力,创新并不会令你有长足发展。波士顿咨询集团的合伙人卢克·德布拉邦德 (Luc de Brabandere)认为,改革和创新是两个全然不同的概念。     

The use of concept mapping for scale development and validation in evaluation

Evaluators often make key decisions about what content to include when designing new scales. However, without clear conceptual grounding, there is a risk these decisions may compromise the scale's validity. Techniques such as concept mapping are available to evaluators for the specification of conceptual frameworks, but have not been used as a fully integrated part of scale development. As part of a multi-site evaluation of family support programs, we integrated concept mapping with traditional scale-development processes to strengthen the creation of a scale for inclusion in an evaluation instrument. Using concept mapping, we engaged staff and managers in the development of a framework of intended benefits of program participation and used the information to systematically select the scale's content. The psychometric characteristics of the scale were then formally assessed using a sample of program participants. The implications of the approach for supporting construct validity, inclusion of staff and managers, and theory-driven evaluation are discussed.     

“Mapping Social Justice”: Integrating Policy Practice Across the Curriculum

ABSTRACT

The National Association of Social Workers and the Council on Social Work Education identify social justice as a guiding principle of the social work profession, yet there is little consensus in the field of what the term actually means and how it can be achieved. Master of Social Work programs are likewise struggling with how to educate students on social justice and prepare them to engage in macro-level advocacy after graduating. This article examines how one student-led social justice initiative at a school of social work is seeking to increase student engagement in macro-level social justice work through the use of targeted advocacy alerts. This article explores the project’s development, implementation, first-year feedback, and modifications made to provide other MSW programs a blueprint to adopt their own version of the project. Findings suggest that the targeted alert model may be successful in engaging clinical MSW students in social justice advocacy.     

U.S. Latinas' Knowledge and Attitudes toward Mammography: Meta-synthesis

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among Latinas in the United States. The primary purpose of this meta-synthesis was to integrate findings on qualitative studies related to Latinas' knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions regarding breast cancer and its prevention through mammography. After applying inclusion criteria, eleven studies were located. Results were organized around four areas of inquiry that cross-cut primary studies: 1) Latina participants' knowledge of breast cancer and its prevention; 2) barriers for regular mammography; 3) facilitators that encouraged such screening; and 4) recommendations on how to provide screening for Latina women.     

Family group decision making: Measuring fidelity to practice principles in public child welfare

This study describes the development and validation of a short, self-administered fidelity measure used to capture the perspectives of a range of individuals participating in a family group decision making conference. Exploratory factor analyses suggested either a two or a three factor solution. Findings from confirmatory factor analysis supported a three factor model that includes sets of practices yielding: (1) Productive Decision Making; (2) Family Group Inclusion; and (3) Professional Supportiveness. These results provide direction to public child welfare practitioners and policymakers about the importance and the feasibility of attending to multiple perspectives in assessing program delivery.