Public Perceptions of the Risks and Benefits of Technology1

This study attempted to verify and extend previous research on people's perceptions of the risks and benefits of technology and their judgments concerning the acceptability of technology safety regulations. The study addressed several limitations of prior work, in that: (1) it was the first “expressed-preference” study to collect data from large, representative samples of Americans; (2) the research design made “person,” rather than “technology,” the unit of statistical analysis; and (3) the study employed an expanded set of independent variables, including three qualitative benefit characteristics. The results confirmed several major conclusions of prior expressed-preference research, the most important being that members of the public tend to define “risks,”“benefits,” and “acceptability” in a complex, multidimensional manner; and that their definitions differ significantly from those used by professional risk-managers and other technical experts in quantitative assessments of risk and acceptability. The results also indicated that people's stances toward technology regulation tend to cut across traditional sociodemographic lines.     

Supervision of trainees: Tending the professional self

This article seeks to demonstrage how self psychological concepts can be applied to the process of training psychotherapists in a variety of clinical and community settings. The author examines the role of clinical supervision in the development, consolidation, and maintenance of a cohesive professional self. The role of selfobject experience, needs, transference, and countertransference as manifested in the supervisory relationship is elaborated. Supervisor and supervisee form a self-selfobject unit, through which the trainee's anxieties and vulnerabilities can be managed. This selfobject matrix enables maintenance of self-esteem, expansion of cognitive understanding, and structure building in the arena of the professional self. To achieve these ends, the supervisor forms an empathic alliance with the internal, subjective experience of the therapist. The importance of focusing on the self experience and selfobject needs of the therapist in training via an empathic mode of observation is illustrated by several examples and vignettes. The application of theory to practice is emphasized, with examples chosen from a variety of clinical settings and modalities.     

Can Organized Youth Activities Protect Against Internalizing Problems Among Adolescents Living in Violent Homes?

Using longitudinal data from a subsample of Hispanic, African American, and White youth enrolled in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (N = 1,419), we examined the effects of both parental involvement in domestic violence and youth participation in organized out‐of‐school‐time activities on internalizing symptoms during adolescence. We also examined the extent to which participation in organized activities protected youth against the internalizing consequences of domestic violence. We found that intensive participation in either afterschool programs or extracurricular activities was inversely associated with youth internalizing problems. Moreover, we found that intensive participation in afterschool programs weakened the association between parents' domestic violence and youths' internalizing problems.     

Ageing Siblings: Supporting New Care Partnerships

Through the lens of a case study of a sibling caring for an unmarried sister affected by dementia, the article explores a phenomenon of growing social importance, late life care for those ageing without a spouse, partner or adult children. The purpose of the article is to describe the experience of sibling care partnering, to highlight the needs of sibling care partnerships and discuss how the support group model can address some of the challenges faced by this population. This article addresses the caregiving sibling's experience of participating in a support group of adult children caregivers of parents with Alzheimer's. Ultimately, the article argues for the development of services geared specifically for older adult siblings caring for each other for the first time in later life.     

Multicriteria Decision Analysis: A Comprehensive Decision Approach for Management of Contaminated Sediments

Contaminated sediments and other sites present a difficult challenge for environmental decisionmakers. They are typically slow to recover or attenuate naturally, may involve multiple regulatory agencies and stakeholder groups, and engender multiple toxicological and ecotoxicological risks. While environmental decision-making strategies over the last several decades have evolved into increasingly more sophisticated, information-intensive, and complex approaches, there remains considerable dissatisfaction among business, industry, and the public with existing management strategies. Consequently, contaminated sediments and materials are the subject of intense technology development, such as beneficial reuse or in situ treatment. However, current decision analysis approaches, such as comparative risk assessment, benefit-cost analysis, and life cycle assessment, do not offer a comprehensive approach for incorporating the varied types of information and multiple stakeholder and public views that must typically be brought to bear when new technologies are under consideration. Alternatively, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) offers a scientifically sound decision framework for management of contaminated materials or sites where stakeholder participation is of crucial concern and criteria such as economics, environmental impacts, safety, and risk cannot be easily condensed into simple monetary expressions. This article brings together a multidisciplinary review of existing decision-making approaches at regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe and synthesizes state-of-the-art research in MCDA methods applicable to the assessment of contaminated sediment management technologies. Additionally, it tests an MCDA approach for coupling expert judgment and stakeholder values in a hypothetical contaminated sediments management case study wherein MCDA is used as a tool for testing stakeholder responses to and improving expert assessment of innovative contaminated sediments technologies.     

'We're not asking for anything special': direct payments and the carers of disabled children

1997 saw the introduction of the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act in the UK. This piece of legislation introduced a mechanism that enabled local authorities to make cash payments to disabled people aged between 18 and 64 in lieu of directly provided services. The years since 1997 have seen the introduction of additional legislation resulting in direct payments now being an option for many more groups of people, including the carers of disabled children. Following the changes in the legislation, government now wishes to see local authorities significantly increasing the numbers of families that receive direct payments. This paper will report on a research project carried out within one local authority in the north-west of England that has one of the largest numbers of carers of disabled children receiving direct payments in the UK. Using a variety of methods this paper explores how the local authority has made direct payments so widely available to carers and the effect that this has had on their own and their children's lives.