Perceptions of fidelity to family group decision-making principles: examining the impact of race, gender, and relationship

This study explored the perceptions of fidelity to family group principles using comparative information from family, friends, and professionals, taking into account race and gender. White respondents felt there was a greater degree of fidelity than did the African American respondents, with other race respondents sometimes rating similarly to both white and African American respondents. Professionals generally perceived a greater level of fidelity and there were significant race by respondent interactions.     

Multiple family groups: an engaging intervention for child welfare-involved families

Differences between child welfare- and non-child welfare-involved families regarding barriers to child mental health care, attendance, program satisfaction, and relationship with facilitators are examined for a multiple family group service delivery model aimed at reducing childhood disruptive behaviors. Although child welfare-involved caregivers reported more treatment barriers and less program satisfaction than non-child-welfare-involved families, no significant differences exist between groups on average total sessions attended and attendance rates over time.     

Validity in an evaluation of Healthy Families Florida—A program to prevent child abuse and neglect

Evidence-based continuums have become a guide for identifying the level of evidence in evaluations of home visiting programs conducted to determine their effectiveness in preventing child abuse and neglect. While randomized controlled trials are required for the highest levels of evidence, quasi-experimental designs have also been specified as an appropriate alternative. Using a quasi-experimental evaluation of a home visiting program to prevent child abuse and neglect that adheres to the Healthy Families America model, this paper describes and illustrates how types of validity can be improved. More specifically, we address how threats to internal validity can be identified and reduced through statistical techniques; how construct validity may be strengthened using state records to measure the outcomes; and how external validity is affected by including or excluding study participants. After applying a variety of statistical adjustments to reduce selection bias, we found that the outcomes favored the home visiting program and increased after accounting for covariates that contributed to child abuse and neglect. This was true across the statistical techniques (traditional covariate and propensity score adjustment) used. For evaluations using quasi-experimental designs, recommendations relevant to the illustrations in the paper are also presented.     

Chiari type I malformations in young adults: implications for the college health practitioner

The authors describe 2 cases of Chiari type I malformation (CM-I) in students presenting to a college health center within a 6-month period. A review of CM-I, including epidemiology, typical presentation, evaluation, and management, is followed by a discussion of the clinical and functional implications of the disorder in an emerging adult population.     

A city within a city: A “snapshot” of aging in a HUD 202 in Detroit, Michigan

Because of a recent surge of aging in place literature, we know a considerable amount about how older adults wish to remain in long lived-in homes and communities. However, there are still gaps in our knowledge. What happens when older adults live in a community that does not support their everyday needs? This paper represents an initial attempt to explore how one group of poor, non-white, central city residents in Detroit, Michigan make sense of and organize a new age-segregated home. Findings presented in this article are based on 30 in depth and photographic elicitation interviews with African American, low-income, older adults living in one Housing and Urban Development 202 (HUD 202). Findings suggest that participants in this sample cultivated a new urban space within the facility to compensate for the deficiencies of a deteriorated inner-city neighborhood. I use these findings to encourage broader conceptualizations and consideration for the aging in place model to be more inclusive to the lived experiences of older adults who occupy oppressed places.     

Acculturative Stress Among Asian Students in Australia

When foreign students from Southeast Asia come to Australia, they encounter many problems of norm conflict and cultural misunderstanding. In some cases these stresses, together with academic failure, social isolation and the strains of living in lodgings away from the supportive family, lead to emotional disturbances. Students fall into a different category from migrants. They must make a selection from the host cultural norms and exercise restraint in identification with Australian ways because they face eventual return to their home sociocultural environment. Examples from a number of case histories have been chosen. They appear to follow a regular pattern of academic failure, inability to cope with relationships with the opposite sex, and eventual mental breakdown which required hospitalization.     

You Just Have to Ask Coproduction of Primary Healthcare in Ghana and Nigeria

Public Organization Review - The urgent need to improve the quality of healthcare provision in developing countries such as Nigeria and Ghana is caused in part by inadequate financial support for...