Experiences of internal and hybrid employee assistance program managers: Factors associated with successful,at-risk,and eliminated programs

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) originated as workplace-focused programs delivered largely by peer employees. Over the past 25 years, the once standard internal EAP has largely been replaced by internal/external hybrid programs or outsourced EAP vendors. Many long-standing internal programs have been downsized or eliminated, along with their internal program manager positions. This qualitative study examined the organizational, leadership, and programmatic characteristics associated with the internal and internal/hybrid EAPs from the perspectives of EAP managers working in programs that have thrived and those that have depreciated. Twenty-four current and former internal or internal/hybrid EAP managers were interviewed using a semistructured interview schedule. Qualitative methods were used to identify patterns and themes within the data to describe the experience of internal and internal/hybrid EAP managers and the critical success and risk factors associated with their positions and programs. Five final themes, with 15 subthemes emerged from the data, suggesting that both individual and organizational characteristics of EAP internal and hybrid programs are important to the program’s sustainability. These findings offer insights regarding best practices and critical success factors to EAP professionals, EAP purchasers, and the EAP industry.     

Adoption and feasibility of a communication app to enhance social connectedness amongst frail institutionalized oldest old: an embedded case study

The risks of social isolation and loneliness are becoming emergent issues for older adults (aged 65+) in industrialized countries, particularly for oldest old people (80+) who are frail and institutionalized. Socially isolated and lonely older people are more likely to experience depression, social disengagement, cognitive and physical decline, morbidity, and early mortality. In response to these significant negative health and socioeconomic costs, research suggests using new technologies to enhance opportunities for social connectedness as a strategy to help alleviate both social isolation and loneliness. In this context, following a participatory design method, we developed an accessible communication app with and for frail institutionalized older adults. To test the adoption of this innovative technology and its feasibility to address social isolation and loneliness, we conducted a two-month deployment of the app in a long-term care home with five oldest old and their relatives. Due to access, recruitment, and ethical challenges, the oldest old are a specially understudied group. Using an embedded case study (based on interviews, psychometric scales, field observations, and usability and accessibility testing) and a recursive approach to technology studies, our findings show that technology adoption is based on a complex set of interrelated factors: social, attitudinal, physical, digital literacy, and usability. We also discuss the feasibility of the app to enhance perceived social connectedness amongst our target population, provided that at least one strong tie is involved and communication norms and expectations across generations are considered.     

Fertility Behavior of Interracial Couples

Despite the unprecedented rise in the number of intermarriages and multiracial individuals in recent decades, our understanding about the fertility behavior of interracial couples is limited. Using data from the 2002 and 2006–2015 National Survey of Family Growth, this study compares the risk of pregnancy and the pregnancy intentions of interracial couples with those of same‐race couples. Interracial couples' risk of pregnancy differed little from that of same‐race White couples, with the exception of White wife–Black husband couples, whose risk of pregnancy was higher than both same‐race White and Black couples. Neither socioeconomic disparities nor union characteristics explained their elevated pregnancy risk. Interracial couples' risk of unintended pregnancy mirrored closely that of same‐race couples from the husband's racial or ethnic group. Socioeconomic disparity was the primary driver of differences in pregnancy intentions between interracial and same‐race White couples.     

Integration of Thought and Action: Arm Weights Facilitate Search Accuracy in 24‐Month‐Old Children

Search errors are common in cognitive tasks with infants and toddlers, and these errors reveal important insights to the development of competence and performance. Rivière and Lécuyer (2008, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 100, 1) demonstrated that 29‐month‐olds typically make an error during a search task involving invisible displacement. However, performance improves significantly when children wear weighted wrist bands while doing the task. To investigate this phenomenon further, we tested 24‐month‐old children in an identical search task (N = 35). Half the children wore weighted wrist bands, and the rest were in a no‐weight condition. To test how far this phenomenon generalizes, we also tested the same children in a second search task where they needed to find a ball that had rolled behind one of four doors. The results showed that children in the no‐weight condition replicated previous findings of poor performance on both search tasks. Unlike 29‐month‐olds, the 24‐month‐olds in the weighted condition did not immediately show improvement on the search tasks. However, after an initial search attempt, children wearing weights performed significantly better than chance. The findings shed new light on the interplay between thought and action.     

Variations of identities among the leaders of a minority group of immigrants

This paper discusses the complex identity of Kessoch immigrants in Israel. One group of Kessoch is regarded as ‘young’ and the other as ‘old’. These are two ‘invisible’ groups, which cope in their own way with their social and cultural marginality. They are delegitimized within both Israeli society and the religious establishment. Among the older Kessoch, the authors differentiated between those who have found new meaning for their life in Israel, while attempting to preserve significant ‘scraps of identity’, and those who are disconnected from their present-day life materials and find little meaning in them. In contrast, the younger Kessoch, 1.5-generation immigrants, express varied behaviour patterns of daily resistance to the host society. Their personalities and leadership patterns also indicate selective adoption of significant bits of reality that suit them. Their intelligent use of ‘scraps of identity’ serves their social integration processes.     

“I didn’t raise a d#@k!” How parents perceive and address gendered bullying with children

This is an exploratory study that uses a critical feminist approach to examine how parents perceive and respond to gendered bullying with children. Past research conceptualizes bullying from a feminist perspective and previous studies examine how parents perceive bullying. This study moves beyond earlier investigations by integrating these sites of inquiry. The author engages five fathers and eight mothers to participate in this study (n = 13). Data collection includes semi-structured individual interviews and the data analysis is based on a critical feminist approach to phenomenological inquiry. The data analysis shows how the majority of parents, in this study, do perceive and address bullying from a critical feminist perspective, in particular, according to three categories: (a) challenging binary thinking b) understanding identities/positionalities and c) perceiving/addressing gendered power relations. The results lay the foundation for practice and policy implications aimed at bullying prevention and future research to further examine social phenomenon related to gendered bullying.     

Neighborhood and social environmental influences on child chronic disease prevalence

We investigate how distinct residential environments uniquely influence chronic child disease prevalence. Aggregating over 200,000 pediatric geocoded medical records to the census tract of residence and linking them to neighborhood-level measures, we use multiple data analysis techniques to assess how heterogeneous exposures of social and environmental neighborhood conditions influence an index of child chronic disease (CCD) prevalence for the neighborhood. We find there is a graded relationship between degree of overall neighborhood disadvantage and children’s chronic disease such that the highest neighborhood CCD scores are found in communities with the highest concentrated disadvantage. After considering individual- and family-level characteristics, results show that higher levels of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage and air pollution exposure associate with higher risks of children having at least one chronic condition. Overall, our analysis serves as a comprehensive start for future researchers interested in assessing which neighborhood factors matter most for child chronic health conditions.