Caregiver–Adolescent Dyadic Disagreement and Problem Behaviors of Adolescents in the Child Welfare System

Parents and adolescents often provide different ratings of youths' behavior problems, yet few studies have examined such disagreement and its effect on later adjustment, especially among at‐risk adolescents. The purpose of this study was to investigate, among a sample of adolescents in foster care, whether the degree of caregiver–adolescent disagreement on adolescents' internalizing problems would be associated with adolescent externalizing problem behaviors over time. Two measures of adolescent caregiver agreement, the Pearson's r and intraclass correlations, were used with data drawn from a nationally representative study of children on foster care. Growth curve analyses of 180 adolescents revealed that the higher adolescent and caregiver agreement on adolescents' internalizing problems at Wave I, the slower the increase in externalizing problems over time.     

The story about theater organizations, the public's approval, and the actors' identity formation in Nordic disability theater

Nordic disability theater is a relatively new and interesting field of disability research. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the field of disability theater in a Nordic context. The article is based on a comparative analysis from 3 research projects conducted in Sweden and Norway. The projects used qualitative methods and were analyzed from different theoretical perspectives. Interviews were conducted at 4 different disability theaters involving actors with hearing impairments, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, and mental disabilities. The aim of this article is to illustrate how the organizational settings reflect different goals and aims at the political and artistic levels. The authors will also address the relationship between the theaters and the public opinion and media. Finally, they will illustrate in what way organization, recognition, and public approval play an important role for the actors' identity formation and sense of belonging.     

Geschlechterdemokratie und Arbeitsteilung. Aktuelle feministische Debatten

Recent transformations of societies as well as the erosion of the fordist welfare compromise raise the question of a reformulated concept of work and labor in gender critical terms. Moreover, this new concept of labor should include the opportunity not only to organize labor in democratic ways but also that work enables for democratic behavior and action. The concept of “sociable work” suggests such a gender sensitive perspective. The article combines the two perspectives: the democratic organization of labor as well as the labor sensitive reorganisation of democratic institutions and practices. The article reviews recent feminist theories of democracies and analysis how these theories conceptualize labor, inequality and democracy. Moreover the article shows how and if these theories are able to include the reorganisation of labor as a prerequisite for democratization in gendered terms.     

In-home family therapy: indicators of success

In this study, we explore how specific individual, family, and family-within-community characteristics, as well as aspects of in-home family therapy, relate to responses to treatment. The Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale scores and Global Assessment of Functioning scores were used as outcome measures. Results revealed significant differences between pre- and post-scores for clients receiving in-home family therapy services, providing an initial indicator of treatment success. In addition, primary family caregiver social support, role performance in school/work, and self-harmful behavior were indicative of successful outcomes. Clients with higher problem levels had the greatest rates of change, and clients receiving more hours of services fared better in therapy.     

Motivational Interviewing im Coaching

Motivational interviewing (MI) has proved itself empirically as an effective interviewing framework in various therapeutic contexts, in which establishing an intrinsic motivation to change is the most important goal. Using case studies, we show for which typical coaching requests MI can be useful. The combination of the spirit of MI and its specific interviewing techniques allows the coach to deal safely and helpfully with ambivalence and resistance of the coachee. It helps the coachee to resolve ambivalence and to make change-related decisions. Because of its complexity, we suggest an integration of MI in curricular coaching training and the empirical research of MI effects in the context of coaching.     

The relationship between extracurricular activities and delinquency of adolescents in foster care

This study examined the relationships between involvement in extracurricular activities and delinquency for adolescents in foster care. Using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a subsample of adolescents (n = 117) in long-term foster care was the focus of this study. Contrary to the hypotheses, results indicated that greater involvement in extracurricular activities was associated with higher levels of delinquency. Further analyses revealed that the type of placement and closeness with caregiver predicted delinquency above and beyond the frequency of participation in extracurricular activities. Implications are discussed.     

Services for substance abuse-affected families: The project connect experience

With more families entering the child welfare system with problems of substance abuse, there is an increasing need for programs that can respond effectively to these families' needs. This article describes one community-based program designed to support and strengthen families with an identified problem of substance abuse. parents' progress in addressing their problems with substance abuse, reduction of risk in Project families. children's placement experiences, and client satisfaction are discussed. The article concludes with implications for practice with substance abuse-affected families.Project Connect is funded by a grant from the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, U. S. Department of health and Human Services. It is administered by the Rhode Island Center for Children-at-Risk, which is a program of Children's Friend and Service, Providence, Rhode Island. Project Connect is operated under contract from the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families. The author wishes to acknowledge the staff of Project Connect and the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families without whose contributions this work would not have been possible.     

Delineating bird populations using ring recoveries

We delineate bird populations using cluster analysis to group ringing sites based on pairwise comparisons of recoveries. Clustering provides a quantitative (but non-unique) grouping that can be used to examine the relationships of bird distributions at both local and regional geographic scales. Clustering is based on similarity matrices composed of pairwise comparisons of recovery distributions from ringing sites. We demonstrate the method using mallard ( Anas platyrhynchos ) ring recoveries to group ringing sites in south-central Canada, and discuss the possibilities for these analyses for non-hunted species with few recoveries.