Redefining Success: A Qualitative Investigation of Therapeutic Outcomes for Noncompleting Drug Court Clients

ABSTRACT

Utilizing a convenience sample from a drug court program, the authors investigated the benefits of treatment for noncompleting drug court clients (n = 30). Using an as-treated design, the qualitative investigation assessed whether noncompleters received any benefit from their drug court experience. In-depth interviews were conducted to determine both benefits gained and reductions in harm that occurred as a result of drug court participation. Data analysis was guided by the grounded theory method. Outcomes of coding indicated that participants' motivation and self-efficacy were enhanced through the intervention. Further, participants reported that their relationships with family, therapists, or peers were improved as a result of their involvement with drug court. Individuals in the study sample reported abstinence or decreased substance use, as well as improvements in employment and/or educational attainment. Participants’ perceptions of barriers to program completion were also noted. Study outcomes suggest that expansion of a harm reduction approach in social service practice may have utility for drug-abusing populations. Limitations of the research, including lack of generalizability, are discussed. Further research of harm reduction effects with a larger, heterogeneous sample size is recommended.     

Using Student Task Groups to Teach Group Process and Development

This article discusses an experiential assignment used in a group work course. Student groups meet throughout the semester with the task of developing a major group presentation. The assignment has the dual purpose of increasing student knowledge of diverse group approaches and providing opportunities to experience, identify, and apply group work concepts to their small-group experiences. The article uses excerpts from students' discussions about their group experiences to demonstrate the effectiveness of the assignment. Three primary themes are explored: (1) group development and emerging norms and roles, (2) issues of leadership, and (3) the role of conflict in the groups.     

Interstate migration of the US poverty population: Immigration “pushes” and welfare magnet “pulls”

This study evaluates the social and demographic structure of poverty migration during the 1985–90 period based on an analysis of recent census data. Particular attention is given to the roles of two policy-relevant factors that are proposed to be linked to poverty migration. The first of these is the role of immigration from abroad and its effect on the net out-migration of longer-term residents with below-poverty incomes, from States receiving the highest volume of immigrants. Such a response, it is argued, could result from job competition or other economic and social costs associated with immigration. The second involves the poverty population magnet effect associated with State welfare benefits (AFDC and Food Stamp payments) which has come under renewed scrutiny in light of the impending reform of the federal welfare program. The impact of both of these factors on interstate poverty migration is evaluated in a broader context that takes cognizance of other sociodemographic subgroups, and State-level attributes that are known to be relevant in explaining internal migration. This research employs an exceptionally rich data base of aggregate migration flows, specially tabulated from the full migration sample of the 1990 US census (based on the residence 5 years ago question). It also employs an analysis technique, the nested logit model, which identifies separately the push and pull effects of immigration, welfare benefits, and other State attributes on the migration process. Our findings are fairly clear. The high volume of immigration to selected US Statesdoes affect a selective out-migration of the poverty population, which is stronger for whites, Blacks and other non-Asian minorities as well as the least-educated. These results are consistent with arguments that internal migrants are responding to labor market competition from similarly educated immigrants. Moreover, we found that the impact of immigration occurs primarily as a push rather than a reduced pull. In contrast, State welfare benefits exert only minimal effects on the interstate migration of the poverty population—either as pulls or pushes, although some demographic segments of that population are more prone to respond than others. In addition to these findings, our results reveal the strong impact that a State's racial and ethnic composition exerts in both retaining and attracting migrants of like race and ethnic groups. This suggests the potential for a greater cross-state division in the US poverty population, by race and ethnic status.Data Used: 1990 US census tabulations of full migration (residence 5 years ago) sample. Note: Detailed 1990 census statistics on migration of the poverty and nonpoverty populations for individual states can be found in: William H. Frey Immigration and Internal Migration for US States: 1990 Census Findings by Poverty Status and Race, Population Studies CenterResearch Report No. 94-320.This research is supported by the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty Small Grants Program and by NICHD grant No. R01 HD29725. The migration data for this paper were prepared at the Population Studies Center, University of Michigan from 1990 US Census files. The authors acknowledge Cathy Sun for computer programming assistance, and Ron Lue-Sang for preparing maps and graphics.     

"Couples as Partners and Parents over Children's Early Years"

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how couple relationship quality and parental engagement are linked over children's early years-when they are infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Our sample included 1,630 couples that were coresident over years 1 to 3 and 1,376 couples that were coresident over years 3 to 5 (1,196 over both periods). Overall, we found that better relationship quality predicted greater parental engagement for both mothers and fathers-especially in the infant to toddler years; in contrast, we found little evidence that parental engagement predicted future relationship quality. Married and cohabiting couples were generally similar in how relationship quality and parenting were linked.     

How public relations executives perceive and measure the impact of social media in their organizations

Decisions about social media in organizations are not made lightly. Corporate executives are faced with an ever changing and in many cases, uncontrollable opportunity with social media. This study provides insights obtained from 25 interviews with communication and public relations executives to identify their opinions about what drives social media in organizations, what challenges they face, and what questions they have about social media and its measurement.     

Integrations,identity and conflicts: A cross-border perspective on residential relocation of Hong Kong citizens to Mainland China

This paper aims to test if traditional literature on both internal residential mobility and international migration hold up in explaining the driving forces behind the home-moving behaviours of Hong Kong residents to the Chinese Mainland, under a mixture of economic integrations, past connections along with present structural and identity differences. The multi-dimensionality of this behaviour, in comparison to other forms of residential movements in the literature, is shown as there is no single attribute, albeit all necessary conditions, sufficient enough to encourage such movement on its own. Instead, the cross-border residence is primarily a middle-class, middle-aged phenomenon, due to one’s past connections with Mainland China throughout his/her life course and the possession of financial resources insufficient to afford larger living space in Hong Kong yet enough to benefit from the remarkable living cost advantages on the other side of the border. It provides some directions for studying similar forms of residential mobility in the era of globalization when the functions of national borders have become more obscure than before. Implications from this residential behaviour are then discussed.     

Adolescent Career Development in Urban‐Residing Aboriginal Families in Canada

The purpose of this study was to understand how urban‐residing Aboriginal adolescent–parent dyads (n = 11) jointly constructed and acted on goals and strategies with their social supports (n = 17) to facilitate the adolescents' career development. A modified protocol following the qualitative action‐project method was used. A discrete joint project was identified for each family. These joint projects can be clustered into 3 joint career development projects: (a) navigating toward a safe future, (b) negotiating school continuance, and (c) intergenerational continuity through tradition of care. A 4th project emerging from the data was family survival. Family survival projects supplanted participants' efforts to engage in career development projects.     

POPULATION AGEING AND THE PUBLIC PURSE: AUSTRALIA IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

A comparative analysis of three decades of OECD public spending change is used to test propositions concerning the likely consequences of population ageing for public expenditure development in coming years. The World Bank and the OECD Secretariat suggest that population ageing has a direct impact on public expenditure through increased spending on pensions, health care and services for the elderly; and an indirect impact through increasing levels of public indebtedness. The analysis here suggests that only the pensions effect is supported by available comparative evidence and that, even here, the relationship is weaker than often implied in the population ageing literature. The vulnerability of different nations to problems arising from population ageing varies widely, with Australia among the least vulnerable.     

Coparenting and nonresident fathers’ involvement with young children after a nonmarital birth

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the association between coparenting quality and nonresident fathers' involvement with children over the first five years after a nonmarital birth. We find that about one year after a nonmarital birth, 48% of fathers are living away from their child, rising to 56% and then to 63% at three and five years, respectively Using structural equation models to estimate cross-lagged effects, we find that positive coparenting is a strong predictor of nonresident fathers' future involvement, whereas fathers' involvement is only a weak (but significant) predictor of future coparenting quality. The positive effect of coparenting quality on fathers' involvement is robust across several techniques designed to address unobserved heterogeneity and across different strategies for handling missing data. We conclude that parents' ability to work together in rearing their common child across households helps keep nonresident fathers connected to their children and that programs aimed at improving parents' ability to communicate may have benefits for children irrespective of whether the parents' romantic relationship remains intact.     

An Olympic‐sized Challenge: Effect of Organizational Pathology on Maintaining and Repairing Organizational Legitimacy in Sports Governing Bodies

Private organizations increasingly wield public authority, with substantial impact on the lives of individual persons. Such authority is often paired with enhanced public scrutiny and decreased trust in the relevant organization, leading to a loss of legitimacy. This paper uses sports governing bodies to contribute to the literature on governance by developing theory on the interaction between organizational legitimacy and pathological internal structures. It takes a nuanced view of legitimacy and extends a model of organizational pathology. While primarily conceptual, the paper uses the well‐documented cases of the International Olympic Committee and, to a lesser extent, FIFA to illustrate how organizational pathology can not only undermine an organization's legitimacy, but can also interfere with its ability to perceive a path to legitimacy repair, even when it recognizes the necessity of doing so. The paper concludes with recommendations for practice and suggestions for future research looking beyond sports governing bodies.