Public child welfare workers' perception of efficacy relative to multicultural awareness,knowledge and skills

Maintaining a well trained pool of workers in public child welfare agencies continues to be an ongoing problem. Research suggests that it is critical that we continue to explore the factors associated with worker efficacy. Existing research has found that outcomes for families and children are affected by numerous individual and organizational characteristics including worker's perceived efficacy (Advancement of Social Work Research, 2005; Bernotavicz, 2007; Collier, 2007; Ellett, 2007; Government Accountability Office, 2003; Milner, 2003). This study describes public child welfare workers, and their perceptions of efficacy relative to multicultural awareness, knowledge and skills. Study outcomes have implications for worker training, supervision, and curriculum on child welfare.     

Estimation of signal to noise ratio using mahalanobis distance

In this paper, we propose some alternative estimatiors to that given by C. G. Khatri and C. R. Rao (1985), for estimating Signal to Noise ratio. Using Pitman Nearness, Condition for prefering one estimator over the other is estabilished. It is shown numerically that estimators corresponding to Entropy loss function are better more oftern than those corresponding to Squared Error loss.     

Inference problems in life testing under multivariate normality

Modified maximum likelihood estimators of the parameters of a multivariate normal distribution are developed when the smallest or largest observations on one of the components are censored. These estimators are used to construct tests for means and correlation coefficients. The robustness of these tests to deviations from normality is investigated.     

Three Journeys Toward The Reflecting Team

The experience of familiestrainee and supervisory therapists involved in reflecting team work are explored through the metaphor of ‘journey’ and by asking a small number of our colleagues and clients about their experiences. Ideas gained from this approach are tentatively used to raise some questions about the reflecting team specifically and the current direction of family therapy. More rigorous research into this area is invited.     

Cognitive behavioural psychotherapy intervention in childhood sexual abuse: identifying new directions from the literature

The short‐ and long‐term consequences of childhood sexual abuse have been extensively reported. However, for many years there has been an absence of psychological conceptual frameworks for understanding and treating abuse trauma symptoms. This paper reviews a number of outcome studies for the treatment of child sexual abuse where a post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) conceptualization was used to plan treatment interventions. The paper concludes that, contrary to some concerns expressed by clinicians, sexually abused children and their non‐abusing carers can signi?cantly bene?t from cognitive behavioural interventions which use reliving and confrontation of the abusive experience. Notwithstanding this, there is a need for further controlled outcome research of cognitive behavioural interventions using reliving techniques to explore how and why these interventions help in reducing abuse‐related PTSD symptoms. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ecological Concern, Attitudes, and Social Norms in Voting Behavior

Using a theoretical framework not previously tested in environmentalresearch, this study investigates the indirect relationshipbetween ecological concern and voting behavior. Results indicatethat the effects of ecological concern are mediated by attitudinal,normative, and behavioral intention variables. The results alsoprovide a partial test of the validity of Ajzen and Fishbein'sTheory of Reasoned Action. Key environmental, public policy,and communications implications are discussed.     

Who forgets? An analysis of memory effects in a retrospective survey on migration history

An inevitable difficulty in the study of memory error in retrospective surveys is the availability of an objective source of data or information against which to compare survey responses. Without this external source, the response reliability of an individual cannot be accurately assessed. The strength of this study, focused on modelling memory effects in migration history data, is a survey conducted in 1988 by the National Institute for Demographic Studies (I.N.E.D.), in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve (U.C.L., Belgium). This data allows insight into the reliability of responses obtained from an autobiographical retrospective survey, and highlights the demographic characteristics that may interact with memory effects in recall of migration history. In addition, the data obtained from this survey allows response reliability comparisons between gender, and also between joint interviewing of spouses and singular interviewing of spouses.L'une des difficultés dans l'étude des erreurs de mémoire dans les enquêtes rétrospectives est la disponibilité de données pour vérifier l'exactitude des réponses fournies. L'Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques (I.N.E.D.), en collaboration avec l'Institut de Démographie du L'Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, a répondu à ce besoin en élaborant une enquête spécifique basée sur la collecte d'histoires de vie, d'une part auprès de couples mariées, d'autre part auprès du registre belge de population. En employant des modèles loglinéaires, cette étude nous permet d'identifier les caractéristiques socio-démographiques liées à des oublis dans le récit des migrations successives. De plus, les données de cette enquête nous permettent de comparer l'efficacité du questionnement individuel auprès d'un membre d'un couple par rapport au questionnement simultané des conjoints.     

A one-sided test for testino homogeneity of scale parameters against simple ordered alternative

In an earlier paper the authors (1997) extended the results of Hayter (1990) to the two parameter exponential probability model. This paper addressee the extention to the scale parameter case under location-scale probability model. Consider k (k≧3) treatments or competing firms such that an observation from with treatment or firm follows a distribution with cumulative distribution function (cdf) F_i(x)=F[(x-μ_i)/Q_i], where F(·) is any absolutely continuous cdf, i=1,…,k. We propose a test to test the null hypothesis H₀:θ₁=…=θ_k against the simple ordered alternative H₁:θ₁≦…≦θ_k, with at least one strict inequality, using the data X_i,j, i=1,…k; j=1,…,n₁. Two methods to compute the critical points of the proposed test have been demonstrated by talking k two parameter exponential distributions. The test procedure also allows us to construct simultaneous one sided confidence intervals (SOCIs) for the ordered pairwise ratios θ_j/θ_i, 1≦i<j≦k. Statistical simulation revealed that: 9i) actual sizes of the critical points are almost conservative and (ii) power of the proposed test relative to some existing tests is higher.