Faith-based organizing for youth: one organization's district campaign for small schools policy

Oakland Community Organizations (OCO) has worked for over ten years to improve educational opportunities in low-income neighborhoods in Oakland, California. The work of thousands of parent, teacher, youth, and community leaders has resulted in the formation of nearly fifty new small schools and more than ten charters, creating settings for individualized learning environments and the opportunity for quality choices for many of Oakland's low-income families. In this article, OCO's executive director, Ron Snyder, outlines a four-phase organizing process undertaken by OCO, based on a set of organizing principles that have sustained community-led education reform despite constant changes in the political and school district environment: the centrality of love (self-interest) as a motivator for advocacy; the importance of quality research and powerful ideas (vision) as alternatives to the status quo; application of a model that creates a common structure, language, and experience to sustain leaders; the need for institutional and network power to apply leverage; the flexibility to seize opportunity when the window is open; and faithfulness to the object of our love: our children.     

BEYOND THE CLINIC: IN-HOME THERAPY WITH HEAD START FAMILIES

Social workers and case managers have provided in-home services to families for some time. The field of Marriage and Family Therapy, however, has begun to do in-home work only recently. This paper describes the experiences of MFT interns who worked with families in their homes. Two university graduate MFT training programs conceptualized and practiced in-home therapy with families who had at least one child enrolled in the local Head Start program. This collaborative effort was part of the AAMFT-Head Start Training Partnership Project that had the goal of funding projects that demonstrated successful partnerships between MFT and Head Start. Six interns worked with 27 Head Start families in their homes. A model of the interns' transition from clinic-based to home-based therapy is discussed and applied to working with Head Start families. The framework of in-home therapy is expanded to conceptualizing larger systems and community-based interventions, and recommendations for family therapists in private practice and agency settings are made.     

Seeing systems in health care organizations

"Systems" in health care organizations are difficult to visualize and understand by people across the organization. Systems exist as behaviors that have reasons and consequences rather than strict, linear cause and effect relationships. Learn how to sketch and see the systems at work in health care, and how to change them to help end the blame game.     

Neural Correlates of Encoding Predict Infants’ Memory in the Paired‐Comparison Procedure

The present study used event‐related potentials (ERPs) to monitor infant brain activity during the initial encoding of a previously novel visual stimulus, and examined whether ERP measures of encoding predicted infants’ subsequent performance on a visual memory task (i.e., the paired‐comparison task). A late slow wave component of the ERP measured at encoding predicted infants’ immediate performance in the paired‐comparison task: amplitude of the late slow wave at right‐central and temporal leads decreased with stimulus repetition, and greater decreases at right‐anterior‐temporal leads during encoding were associated with better memory performance at test. By contrast, neither the amplitude nor latency of the negative central (Nc) component predicted infants’ subsequent performance in the paired‐comparison task. These findings are discussed with respect to a biased competition model of visual attention and memory.     

Ratings checklist for warnings: a prototype tool to aid experts in the adequacy evaluation of proposed or existing warnings

In the field of forensic human factors, experts are often called upon to assess and evaluate the adequacy of new or existing products' warnings or warnings systems. The usual goal of this evaluation is to arrive at a simple binary decision regarding the warning in question (i.e., does it "pass/fail", or is it "adequate/inadequate"). However, such a warning assessment process may in fact be quite complex and multidimensional in its execution. The existing warnings research literature has identified a fairly large number of warnings features or factors likely to have an impact on a given warning's effectiveness or adequacy. The tool addressed in this article is intended for use by a warnings expert (as opposed to one less knowledgeable and informed about complex warnings issues), and can serve as a reminder checklist to help ensure that the expert has taken into consideration the most relevant features or factors during such a warnings adequacy assessment.     

Death Education in the Helping Professions

Ours has been described as a death denying society. The removal of death taboos may be expected to help us control and modify pathological fears of our own death and the death of others. More positively, attempts to understand and accept the reality of death may promote richer appreciation of dimensions of living. Professional workers committed to helping others during such crises as dying and bereavement seem to have a special need to resolve their own fears and develop an understanding of the meaning of death as a psychosocial as well as a biological event. Yet little or no provision is made to meet such needs during professional education and training. This paper discusses the importance of death education in the helping professions, explores the content of death education courses, and makes suggestions regarding teaching and resource aids.     

Concerns About Identity and Services Among People with Autism and Asperger's Regarding DSM–5 Changes

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed. [DSM–5]; American Psychiatric Association, 2012 American Psychiatric Association. (2012). DSM–5 development . Retrieved from www.dsm5.org  [Google Scholar]) now includes a new autism spectrum diagnosis (ASD) with previous separate diagnoses of autism removed. This study explores the concerns of people with Asperger's syndrome (AS) and autistic disorder (AD). Discussion forum data of people with AS and AD (N = 76) were analyzed using phenomenological, inductive-content analysis to gather qualitative data about the concerns of people with AS and AD regarding the changes in the DSM–5. People with AS and AD were concerned about identity, community, the cure movement, and services. They also discussed using advocacy and solidarity to address their concerns.     

Do beliefs about psychologists’ political biases matter? Perceived political ideology moderates how laypeople construe research on wrongdoing

Two studies examine a possible consequence – namely, unwanted reactions to psychological research on wrongdoing – if laypeople perceive psychologists to have liberal tendencies. Study 1 replicated previous research by showing that when psychologists presented findings demonstrating situational (compared to dispositional or interactionist) influences on wrongdoing, they were perceived as assigning less responsibility to perpetrators. Further, this effect was stronger among participants who perceived psychologists to be politically liberal. Study 2 revealed that when psychologists were explicitly identified as liberals, participants believed they would downplay perpetrator responsibility across the board, but particularly when the responsibility attributional account was situational. Psychologists should be aware that laypeople’s perception of their political leanings could lead to discrepant construal of psychologists’ actual perspectives on human behavior.