‘Race War’: Black American GIs and West Indians in Britain During The Second World War

During the Second World War some three million American service personnel came to the British Isles. Among them were more than 130,000 African-Americans who were segregated and subjected to the discrimination that crossed the Atlantic with their white countrymen. However, while many of the British hosts often welcomed the African-American GIs, the American-style Jim Crow was not welcomed. But while it has often seemed that the wartime British were free of race prejudice, treatment of troops and workers from the colonies, particularly the West Indies, suggest that this was not so. This article looks at the response to black GIs and West Indians in order to demonstrate that there was in fact greater continuity between British wartime and post-war race relations than has often appeared to be the case.     

Is more better? The relationship between outcomes achieved by problem gamblers and the number of counselling sessions attended

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of how much intervention is necessary for the effective treatment of problem gambling by exploring the relationship between the number of counselling sessions attended and the degree of problem resolution achieved for 613 individuals who attended problem gambling counselling services in Victoria. While those who achieved partial or full resolution of presenting problems attended more sessions than those who finished counselling with their problems still unresolved, problems were typically reported as being resolved in fewer than five sessions. It is concluded that for some problem gamblers a relatively brief intervention may be sufficient.     

Pathological Dissociation as Measured by the Child Dissociative Checklist

The component structure of the Child Dissociative Checklist was examined among abused children. A factor described as pathological dissociation emerged that was predicted by participants being male. There also were differences in pathological dissociation between groups of sexually abused and physically abused children. Replication of this factor and the establishment of base rates for various groups of children are recommended so that the Child Dissociative Checklist might be used to more effectively eliminate false positives and increase true positives in the screening and ultimate treatment of dissociative children.     

Supporting Post-Adoption Contact for Children Adopted From Care: A Study of Social Workers' Attitudes

New legislation in England and Wales requires adoption agencies to specify the contact adopted children will have with their birth families and obliges agencies to offer all parties support to maintain such contact. This study, based on responses from 112 adoption social workers in England and Wales, used a case vignette methodology to explore workers' attitudes towards supporting post-adoption contact. The findings suggest that social workers think primarily about the child's needs and about providing services to or on behalf of the child. In contrast, adults' needs, especially the relationship between birth parents and adoptive parents, were less often considered. Workers were least orientated toward supporting birth parents. Workers from different agencies had very different attitudes towards the case vignette. This study suggests that supporting post-adoption contact is a complex professional task likely to be influenced by workers' own attitudes. Implications for training, support and supervision are discussed.     

The pipeline: Botswana’s reception of refugees, 1956–68

This paper covers Botswana’s emergence as a place of refuge from its troubled white‐ruled neighbours. Botswana’s reception of refugees is seen as a symptom of, and as a catalyst for, its growing identification as a distinct nation in the region. From 1956, Bechuanaland colonial authorities distanced themselves from apartheid South Africa, and from 1957–58 the country received significant influxes of political refugees. The paper pays particular attention to the ‘pipeline’ that took refugees north across the Zambezi. This was initially protected from local police interference probably by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Nelson Mandela, alias ‘David Motsamayi’, used the pipeline ‘down’ as well as ‘up’ to re‐enter South Africa. Such arrangements continued through independence in 1966 but were almost terminated when guerrilla fighters tried to use Botswana as a refuge in 1966–67. Revaluation of policy towards refugees within Botswana government circles resulted after 1969 in more overt moral support for liberation movements and, boosted by new economic strength, more self‐confident assertion of national sovereignty against neighbouring countries. This set the scene for Botswana to receive a huge influx of refugees as a result of the Soweto rising of 1976.     

Transitions of Youth in Mental Health Residential Care to Less Restrictive Settings: The Role of Strengths and Gender

ABSTRACT

Changes in youth's behavioral/psychosocial functioning has been found to play an important role in the transitions from mental health residential care to less restrictive settings, and this functioning differs significantly by gender. However, there has been little attention paid to the roles played by psychosocial strength and gender in transitions out of residential care. The current study examined gender differences in the role of strengths in transitions to less restrictive settings using data on 675 youth's admission and discharge records collected from Illinois Residential Treatment Outcome System during 2005–2007 (Mean age = 15 years, SD = 2.0; 57.5% = boys). The results of multivariate logistic regression model indicated that positive recreational activities and lack of chronic illness were related to a higher likelihood of transitions to less restrictive settings among girls, while appropriate sexual development, psychological strengths, and strong spiritual/religious strengths were related to the transitions among boys. This study demonstrates the potential importance of youth strengths in the provision of mental health services and suggests a need to develop models of outcomes that take gender into account. Additional research based on multiple informants including youth self-report is needed to understand the role of gender in transitions out of residential care.     

A Framework for Exploring the Policy Implications of UK Medical Tourism and International Patient Flows

It is estimated that over 50,000 individuals from the UK each year elect to fund their own treatment abroad. Such treatments commonly include cosmetic and dental surgery; cardio, orthopaedic and bariatric surgery; IVF treatment; and organ and tissue transplantation. The UK has also experienced inward flows of patients who travel to receive treatment and pay out of pocket, being treated in both private and NHS facilities. The rise of ‘medical tourism’ presents new opportunities and challenges in terms of treatment options for consumers/patients and health policymakers. Such developments denote a commercialization, commodification and internationalization of health care in a way that UK policy has not experienced to date. This article addresses four key issues. We explain the rise of medical‐related travel (applied to the UK), identify key policy considerations for the future, highlight important research gaps and explore conceptual frameworks which might help us understand better the observed patterns of medical tourism. Whilst the context for policy and practice is undoubtedly dynamic, we argue the need for greater clarity in understanding the emergent implications for health policy and health care delivery.     

The Influence of Context on the Strategic Decision‐Making Process: A Review of the Literature

This paper critically reviews the strategic decision‐making process literature, with a specific focus on the effects of context. Context refers to the top management team, strategic decision‐specific characteristics, the external environment and firm characteristics. This literature review also develops an illustrative framework that incorporates these four different categories of contextual variables that influence the strategic decision‐making process. As a result of the variety and pervasiveness of contextual variables featured within the literature, a comprehensive and up‐to‐date review is essential for organizing and synthesizing the extant literature to explicate an agenda for future research. The purpose of this literature review is threefold: first, to critically review the strategic decision‐making process literature to highlight the underlying themes, issues, tensions and debates in the field; second, to identify the opportunities for future theory development; and third, to state the methodological implications arising from this review.     

The centenarian question and old-age mortality in the Soviet Union, 1959–1970

Are claims of extraordinarily low mortality levels in the USSR justifiable? Applying a recently developed methodology appropriate for nonstable populations to 1959 and 1970 census data from the Soviet Union, we find that mortality is generally understated for the country as a whole and for various regions and republics. This is particularly so for the republics composing the Central Asian region and the Caucasus. Age overstatement appears to be extremely pronounced in the oldest segments of the population. Using the new methodology, we can derive the age distribution that is uniquely implied by a given life table and a set of age-specific rates of growth obtained from two censuses. When we use the official Soviet life tables in this procedure, we find that the reported number of centenarians is at least 28.9 percent overstated for males and 7.5 percent for females. If one were to posit that Soviet mortality during 1959 to 1970 was, in fact, no better than the Swedish mortality experience during roughly the same time period, then the true number of centenarians could be no more than 2 percent of that reported.