Domestic violence and child protection: issues in safety planning

There is strong evidence for the link between domestic violence and child abuse. Agencies' policies regarding domestic violence and child protection are critical in determining the dimensions of practitioner intervention, including safety planning for women and children. This paper explores the issues identified in research around safety planning where there are domestic violence and child protection concerns which was conducted with practitioners in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, in 2001. In particular, the paper focuses on three of the factors that influence practitioner intervention with women and children. These are: definitional understandings of domestic violence and child abuse; child protection legislative changes, including mandatory reporting and domestic violence as a child‐at‐risk category; and the NSW child protection statutory authority's response to domestic violence. The interplay between these factors results in complexities of practice for practitioners as they attempt to maximize women's strengths and minimize risks to children's safety. The resultant inconsistent response to domestic violence and child protection by government and non‐ government agencies suggests the need for domestic violence interagency guidelines. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Replacing revolving door: a collaborative approach to treating individuals in crisis

The Crisis Assessment and Psychiatric Emergency Services (CAPES) unit was designed to improve the quality of psychiatric treatment, contain costs, and provide relief to overburdened psychiatric inpatient and emergency services in Delaware. This innovative program is the result of collaboration between public and private agencies to treat individuals in crisis. The myriad factors that contributed to a broken system and instigated Delaware's search for a solution are discussed in this article. The CAPES unit has resulted in improved communication among providers, decreased committal rates, better linkage to appropriate levels of care, increased safety, and improved coordination of services. Clinical implications for nursing practice include providing more holistic care in a safer environment.     

A framework of operating models for interdisciplinary research programs in clinical service organizations

A framework of operating models for interdisciplinary research programs in clinical service organizations is presented, consisting of a "clinician-researcher" skill development model, a program evaluation model, a researcher-led knowledge generation model, and a knowledge conduit model. Together, these models comprise a tailored, collaborative approach to enhancing research-informed practice in community-based clinical service organizations. The models place different degrees of emphasis on the development of research-related skills in practitioners, the generation of knowledge tailored to clinical practice, and knowledge sharing. The nature, philosophical basis, roles of research staff members, outputs and impacts, and strengths and limitations of each model are described, in the context of a long-standing, interdisciplinary research program in a children's rehabilitation service organization. The use of the model framework as a tool for the design of interdisciplinary, community-based research programs is discussed.     

Forming an institutional culture with multinational administrators and teachers at Effat College,Saudi Arabia

This article describes the teaching and learning culture of a newly established women’s college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The academic culture at Effat College in 2002 included administrators and teachers from many nations, which created unique challenges in cross‐cultural communication. These challenges, in turn, affected the development and organization of the institutional culture at Effat. Using a cultural lens, archival data were used to analyze the expectations and relations between the multicultural faculty and administration at the college. Our research revealed that the faculty related to one another through their own cultural perspectives. Faculty from the western nations promoted more reflective and constructivist classrooms, while those from eastern nations were more authoritarian. With a diverse faculty from multiple nations holding significant differences in cultural expectations, it is important to acknowledge that all beliefs hold value and deserve respect. Whether or not people accept one another’s views, just having a more clear understanding of the differences may allow them to seek out commonalities and explain varying perspectives and actions. Therefore, we need to be conscious of the cultural assumptions faculty and administrators bring with them into higher education.     

Youth supervision while mothers work: a daily diary study of maternal worry

Using data from a daily diary study of hourly hotel employees in the US and their children, this study examined links between youth supervision arrangements and maternal worry while at work, examining both differences between individuals and day-to-day variation within individuals. Multilevel model analyses revealed both between- and within-person effects linking youth supervision to maternal worry. Mothers’ partner status functioned as moderator, and maternal knowledge also emerged as a protective factor when youth were in self-care, highlighting a potential target for future work–family interventions, particularly those for hourly employees with limited access to family-friendly workplace policies.     

Financial Attitudes and Inter vivos Resource Transfers from Older Parents to Adult Children

This exploratory study combines economic, family, and decision-making conceptual models to investigate the factors influencing resource transfers as reported by older adults. Pilot data on 61 adult children was obtained during face-to-face interviews with 18 older parents. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to predict time (emotional support) and financial (cash and gifts) inter vivos transfers from demands, resources, values, and relationships. Positive health ratings, strong affection for the adult child, and money retention attitudes were associated with frequent emotional support. Small household size predicted frequent financial transfers. Results indicate the importance of values, resources, demands, and relationships in predicting resource transfers from older parent to adult child.     

Disadvantaged through discrimination? The role of employers in social stratification1

Sociologists have consistently demonstrated that a rather strong association exists between an individual's social class origin and their social class destination, even after controlling for educational attainment. One explanation for this persisting association which is rarely addressed in research in social stratification and mobility is the extent to which class inequalities in access to advantaged class positions are due to discrimination by employers. I set up a field experiment to test whether employers discriminate on the basis of class origin characteristics. I sent letters of job application for professional and managerial occupations to 2560 large UK companies, so as to compare the prospects of equally matched potential employees differing on a range of characteristics, some related to class of origin. The six treatment conditions in the experiment were: the name of the candidate, the type of school attended, the candidate's interests outside work, their sex, the university that they attended and their achieved degree class. Results suggest that employers do pay attention to the class origin characteristics tested here, and that candidates with a name, school type and interests associated with the social elite are more likely to receive a reply to their application than candidates with the equivalent non‐elite characteristics. However, the treatment conditions do not, on the whole, have significant effects on the employers' responses in and of themselves. Instead, employers appear to favour particular combinations of characteristics while penalising others.     

Measuring Love: Sexual Minority Male Youths' Ideal Romantic Characteristics

Research examining how sexual minorities characterize love within same-sex relationships is scarce. In this study, we examined the validity of Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love in a sample of sexual minority male youth (N = 447). To test the adequacy of the theory for our population, we examined the psychometric properties of the Triadic Love Scale (TLS) and tested whether the three underlying constructs of the theory (Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment) emerged when participants were asked to consider their ideal relationship with another man. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), we found support for the three-factor solution to characterize sexual minority male youths' ideal romantic relationship, after minimizing item cross-loadings and adapting the content of the Passion subscale. We discuss the implications of our findings regarding the measurement of the TLS among sexual minority male youth and propose ways to enhance its measurement in future research.