Resilience Within the Family Networks of Lesbians and Gay Men: Intentionality and Redefinition

This article reviews the literature on gay and lesbian family networks as a way to identify the resilience processes that enable members to create and strengthen their family networks. Two processes, intentionality and redefinition, were identified. Intentionality refers to behavioral strategies that legitimize and support relationships. Redefinition refers to meaning making strategies that create linguistic and symbolic structures to affirm one's network. Brief comparisons are made to the literature on resilience in ethnic minority families, and careful study of the similarities and differences between gay and lesbian family networks, and other marginalized families, is urged.     

Elders with Serious Mental Illness: Lost Opportunities and New Policy Options

This article reviews key federal Medicaid policies affecting older adults with serious, long-term mental illness: (a) the Medicaid exclusion of coverage for Institutions for Mental Diseases, (b) the Preadmission Screening and Resident Review Process, and (c) the Medicaid Home and Community Based Services waiver policy. Documenting the incentives and restrictions in these policies provides an historical context for understanding the current gaps in treatment for elders with mental illness. New federal options under the Deficit Reduction Act may provide opportunities for reducing the institutional bias for older adults with mental illness and for improving mental health services for elders under Medicaid.     

Song to Self: Promoting a Therapeutic Dialogue with High-Risk Youths Through Poetry and Popular Music

This article presents the implementation of a specialized poetry therapy intervention that incorporated hip-hop and rap music with high-risk youths. The use of this popular musician group work supported these young people's use of self-disclosure. The intervention also involved creative writing as a means of encouraging connection and self-expression among an often difficult-to-engage population.     

Contextualizing LMX within the workgroup: The effects of LMX and justice on relationship quality and resource sharing among peers

While leader–member exchange (LMX) has evolved, a richer understanding continues to evade scholars due to the sustained focus on the leader–member dyad. We argue that LMX theory remains incomplete until contextual factors surrounding these pivotal relationships are accounted for including the impact of coworker exchange relationships, peer exchange, and perceptions of justice regarding individual LMX relationships. A fully crossed experimental design manipulating participant LMX and distributive justice and coworker LMX and distributive justice was employed to understand how these constructs affect coworker exchange relationships. Support was found for a causal model which specifies that justice moderates the causal relationship between LMX similarity and CWX, which subsequently leads to increased sharing of resources among coworkers. The data suggest that workgroup members are savvy to differences within individual leader–member relationships, where the sharing of resources among peers is determined by their own LMX, the LMX of their coworker and perceptions of justice of their respective LMX levels. These findings are contextualized in extant leadership research and practice.     

COVID‐19 and the gender gap in work hours

School and day care closures due to the COVID‐19 pandemic have increased caregiving responsibilities for working parents. As a result, many have changed their work hours to meet these growing demands. In this study, we use panel data from the US Current Population Survey to examine changes in mothers’ and fathers’ work hours from February through April 2020, the period of time prior to the widespread COVID‐19 outbreak in the United States and through its first peak. Using person‐level fixed effects models, we find that mothers with young children have reduced their work hours four to five times more than fathers. Consequently, the gender gap in work hours has grown by 20–50 per cent. These findings indicate yet another negative consequence of the COVID‐19 pandemic, highlighting the challenges it poses to women’s work hours and employment.     

Go to the Hospital or Stay at Home? A Qualitative Study of Expected Hospital Decision Making Among Older African Americans With Advanced Heart Failure

To address the need for more information concerning hospital decision making, we conducted in-depth interviews among African Americans with heart failure and their family caregivers (n?=?11 dyads). Using a case scenario, we asked participants about their anticipated hospitalization decisions. Most patients indicated that they would seek care to avoid further deterioration or death from their worsening condition. Many family caregivers anticipated having an active influence on hospitalization decisions. Findings suggest that social workers should encourage the development of adequate home-based services, recognize diverse communication styles, and use this information to facilitate medical decision making by these patients and their caregivers.     

Systematic review of functional training on muscle strength,physical functioning,and activities of daily living in older adults

Exercise programs are often recommended for preventing or delaying late-life disability. Programs that incorporate functional training, which uses movements similar to performing activities of daily living, may be suitable for such recommendation. The purpose of this systematic review was to examine the effects of functional training on muscle strength, physical functioning, and activities of daily living in older adults. Studies in three electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, and SPORTDiscus) were searched, screened, and appraised. Thirteen studies were included in the review. These studies vary greatly in participant recruitment criteria, functional training content, and selection of comparison groups. Mobility exercises were the most common element in functional training across studies. Results show beneficial effects on muscle strength, balance, mobility, and activities of daily living, particularly when the training content was specific to that outcome. Functional training may be used to improve functional performance in older adults.