Solicitors’ experiences of representing parents with intellectual disabilities in care proceedings: attitudes,influence and legal processes

This paper reports on an exploratory study of the role of solicitors acting for parents with intellectual disabilities (ID) in public law proceedings. The paper draws on in-depth interviews with 11 solicitors and a subsequent focus group in which the interview findings were presented and reflected on by six of the eleven participants. Two of the five themes that emerged will be discussed here. They are entitled ‘Attitudes and Influence’ and ‘Legal Processes’ and concern the attitudes and influence of those involved in assessing, supporting and representing parents with ID and the care proceedings processes encountered by parents with ID.     

Caregiver Protective Behavior,Toddler Fear and Sadness,and Toddler Cortisol Reactivity in Novel Contexts

Previous research has shown that caregiver protective behavior may exacerbate toddler distress in specific contexts. This study sought to extend this work to examine associations between these variables and toddler cortisol reactivity. Ninety‐three 24‐month‐old toddlers were observed across six novel contexts designed to elicit distress. Toddlers were asked to give saliva samples at the beginning and end of the laboratory procedure. Toddler sadness, toddler fear and caregiver protective behavior were coded. Results indicate that caregiver protective behavior accounted for the association between toddler sadness and cortisol reactivity where higher levels of protective behavior were associated with higher cortisol reactivity. This study showed that caregiver protective behavior, which functions to prevent a child from interacting with a novel stimulus, is an important mechanism to consider when understanding toddler stress responses during novel contexts.     

敦煌道教医学考论

本文通过对敦煌道教医学文献的考论,认为在现存敦煌遗书中,与道教医学关系密切的有16件,其内容广泛,涉及道教医学的各个方面,是研究道教医学的珍贵资料。文章从敦煌文献这一新的角度对道教医学的特色及其在中华传统医学文化史上的影响作了较为深入的探讨     

The Cost of Caring? Social Workers in Hospitals Confront Ongoing Terrorism

The study reported here assesses the severity of post-traumaticsymptoms and emotional distress among hospital social workerswho provided emergency treatment to victims after terroristattacks in Israel. We examined the contributions of personaland professional exposure to terrorism, professional training,supervision, sense of professional confidence, and optimismto the severity of distress among 144 social workers at eighteenhospitals in various parts of the country. Emotional distresswas assessed by two measures: secondary traumatization (post-traumaticsymptoms after treating victims of terrorist attacks), and additionalpsychiatric symptomatology. Only 7 per cent of the workers reportedsecondary traumatization, and their levels of distress on accompanyingpsychiatric symptoms were significantly lower than the normsfor the general Israeli population. We also found that professionalexposure to terrorism, sense of professional confidence andoptimism contributed significantly to the explained variancein distress. The discussion deals with the findings in lightof the rise in terrorism in recent years and the professionalliterature on the topic.     

How Do Children Matter? A Comparison of Gender Earnings Inequality for Young Adults in the Former East Germany and the Former West Germany

The former Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) differed sharply in their family policies. We follow 1950s and early 1960s birth cohorts from their first jobs to 1989 to see in what ways having children affected earnings for women and men. For the FRG, we find that being a parent had stronger earnings effects (positive for men and negative for women) than in the GDR, with much of this impact mediated by employment hours for women. This does not mean that having children was unimportant for women's and men's earnings in the GDR, but it indicates that the less variable life course led to more society‐wide than individual‐level impact. Further, in the East, some young women balanced family and employment by taking jobs below their qualifications, and this reduced their earnings.     

Teachers' Occupation‐Specific Work‐Family Conflict

To expand work‐family conflict (WFC) research to specific occupations, this study investigated how work and family generic and occupation‐specific stressors and support variables related to family interfering with work (F → W) and work interfering with family (W → F) among 230 Israeli high school teachers. Further expanding WFC research, the authors assessed WFC effects on burnout and vigor. Results indicated that W → F conflict was related to generic variables and more so to distinctive teaching characteristics (e.g., investment in student behavior and parent‐teacher relations). Both W → F and F → W predicted burnout, whereas only F → W predicted vigor. Implications for WFC research and occupational health programs are discussed.     

Family treatment of childhood anxiety

Anxiety in childhood and adolescence can cause serious impairment across many settings in a child's life. Childhood anxiety may be impacted by parent‐child attachment and by three specific parenting characteristics: acceptance, control and modelling of anxious behaviours. We review two evidence‐based family interventions for childhood and adolescent anxiety problems. Cognitive behavioural treatment is currently the most commonly used form of psychotherapy to treat specific anxieties. Global or diffuse anxiety, however, may be better suited to experiential interventions such as communications approaches to family treatment. Experiential therapists examine how dysfunctional family roles exacerbate childhood anxiety. These intervention techniques and their implications for social work practice were discussed.