Family crisis intervention

Family crisis intervention is based on crisis theory and involves the use of individual crisis intervention techniques with one or more family members starting with the person who initiates the request for help. In addition, the relationship between the crises of the individuals involved is formulated and articulated, including the identification of distinct and common hazards and themes. The usual emphasis with children and young adolescents in crisis is on helping their parents to help them. The paper does, however, treat the issue of direct work with children. As in individual crisis intervention, the treatment contact is limited to six weeks, clients are self-selecting, and the goal is the most adaptive resolution of an immediate problem that is possible given the existing inner and outer resources of the family and its members. This implies that the resolution should not impair the functioning or well-being of any individual family member.     

Crisis intervention and social casework: Similarities and differences in problem-solving

Summary The similarities and differences between the traditional psychosocial approach to casework and that of crisis intervention have been discussed with the use of illustrative case material. It is important to recognize that while crisis intervention is justifiably subsumed under the generalist concept of social work theory and practice on the basis of their striking similarities, it is necessary for the sake of professional clarity to differentiate between the two forms of problem-solving treatment methodologies in terms of goals, process, and structure.     

Making visits better: the perspectives of parents,foster parents,and child welfare workers

Mothers of children recently placed in foster care, foster mothers, and child welfare workers participated in semistructured, clinical interviews focusing on the challenges of parent visitation with young children. Mothers described their feelings of grief, trauma, and rage about the forced separation from their children and stressed the importance of emotional expression and communication during visits. Child welfare workers described the complexities of supporting emotionally close parent-child interactions while monitoring and assessing parental behavior during visits. Foster mothers described the importance of preparing children for visits and the difficulties of supporting the children afterward. Implications of understanding mothers', foster mothers', and child welfare workers' perspectives on enhancing the quality of visits with young children are discussed.     

Psychological factors and the sexuality of pregnant and postpartum women

This study examined the influence of role quality, relationship satisfaction, fatigue, and depression on women s sexuality during pregnancy and after childbirth. Questionnaire data were obtained from 138 women pregnant with their first child, of whom 104 responded at 12 weeks postpartum, and 70 responded at 6 months postpartum. Women reported significant reductions in sexuality during pregnancy and postpartum. Relationship satisfaction explained levels of sexual satisfaction during pregnancy, and was a predictor of sexual desire in the postpartum. Depression was an important predictor of reduced sexual desire and sexual satisfaction during pregnancy, and of reduced frequency of intercourse at 12 weeks postpartum. At 6 months postpartum, the quality of the mother role strongly related to measures of sexuality. Throughout the perinatal period, fatigue impacted on measures of sexuality, either directly or/and indirectly. The implications of these results in terms of the impact of pregnancy and childbirth on relationships and sexuality are discussed.     

School readiness of low-income children at risk for school failure

The goal of this research project was to gain information about the readiness skills of kindergarten children in 11 inner city schools with the highest poverty rates in the Salt Lake City School District. Kindergarten teachers and principals in these schools were interviewed regarding their perceptions of the readiness skills needed for these children to be successful in their schools. A summary of the readiness skills of the kindergarten children was derived from a state mandated Pre-Kindergarten Assessment. Most principals stressed children's social and emotional development as a priority in school readiness. The majority of teachers emphasized literacy as a prerequisite for school success. Yet, the Pre-Kindergarten Assessment revealed that one fourth of the children could not identify the front of a book and two thirds of the children did not know where to start or which direction to go when reading. Half of the parents of these children reported that they rarely read to their children and that they had only visited a library once or not at all. The gap between the readiness skills educators think these children need and the skills children enter school with presents a serious problem for educators and policy makers. Multiple intervention strategies are recommended including providing education and home activities to enhance children's readiness skills, coordinating access to early childhood programs, and educating parents on available community resources.     

Language and power in Japanese transplants in Scotland

Previous research into Japanese owned and managed enterprises in western countries has been alert to problems in cross‐cultural communication but there has been little research into the linguistic patterns accompanying these activities. This study of seven such plants in Scotland illustrates key features of the linguistic patterns evident in them. Forms of pidgin develop in co‐operative working environments but unusually they are based on the language of the formal subordinates, local English speaking managers and workers. In contrast, and more in line with expectations from socio‐linguistic theory, the local dialect is used as a device to promote local workforce solidarity against expatriate management. The former discrepancy between material and cultural power, which is not expected on the basis of Bourdieu's and related theories of cultural behaviour, is explained in terms of the differing career paths of Japanese and non‐Japanese personnel, the marginal involvement of Japanese management in the local society and their reticence in asserting cultural power commensurate with their economic power. However, these lingusitic developments were local phenomena that did not challenge Japanese managerial control, both local and corporate, of decisions on development and investment. Hence, the opposition between cultural and material power may be permitted to persist because of these limited effects.