“We will never be normal”: The Experience of Discovering a Partner Has Autism Spectrum Disorder

Online forums and lay literature suggest that partners of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience depression, distress, and trauma in their everyday lives, exacerbated during the time surrounding diagnosis. In this content analysis, 29 participants were provided with an online open‐ended statement asking them to describe in writing their experiences of discovering that their partners had ASD during their relationships. Six themes emerged, including: facing unique challenges within relationships; insisting partners seek diagnosis; initial shock and relief; losing hope for normalcy; making accommodations within relationships; and wishing for professional support. Marriage and family therapists should help couples minimize blaming and promote self‐awareness, appropriate relationship expectations, and mutual understanding. Future research should explore the overall experience of neuro‐mixed relationships for both partners.     

‘Let's Talk About Children’: Investigating the Use of a Family‐focused Intervention in the Gambling Support Services Sector

The family‐focused mental health intervention, ‘Let's Talk About Children,’ has positively influenced the lives of families affected by parental mental illness. This paper outlines the use of this brief, strengths‐based intervention for parents with gambling and other co‐occurring issues from the gamblers’ support services sector. Over a six‐month period, a training manual and accompanying resources were adapted for the gamblers’ support services sector and a targeted training session developed. Nine problem gambling counsellors from three Victorian gambling support services trialled the Let's Talk About Children intervention over a four‐month period. Qualitative data were gathered through focus groups, interviews, and practice enquiry groups to determine the impact of the Let's Talk About Children model for gambling support services. The results are presented as ‘practice wisdoms and recommendations’ reporting on the impact of the trial and to provide some guidance to support others in the implementation of a specific family‐focused intervention. This paper reports on the first exploratory trial of Let's Talk About Children for the gambler's support services sector in Australia.     

Racial/Ethnic Minority Vocational Research Trends: An 11‐Year Update

This study extends Flores et al.'s ( 2006 ) 36‐year analysis of racial/ethnic minority (REM) career research to identify recent trends in choice of topics and leading individual and institutional contributors. The authors identified 166 articles on REM career research published from 2005 to 2015 in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, The Career Development Quarterly, the Journal of Career Assessment, and the Journal of Career Development. Of these studies, 92% were empirical, with more than three quarters of these using quantitative rather than qualitative methodology. Most frequently, the empirical studies (n = 153) were based on samples of high school (30.7%) or undergraduate (34.6%) students. The authors discuss the implications of their findings and suggest ways to expand REM career research in the future.     

The Extent and Nature of Practitioners,Encounters with Alcohol and Other Drug Use in Social Work and Social Care Practice

This article considers the extent and nature of social work and social care practitioners' experience of working with service users whose lives are affected by the problematic use of alcohol or other drugs (AOD). It draws on the findings of a national study of ‘working with alcohol and drug use’ which was conducted in England in 2010–2011. The study reported here comprised an online survey of front-line practitioners (n = 597), complemented by 12 practitioner focus groups and interviews with 21 key informants from participating local authorities and substance use treatment services. This paper focuses primarily on data from one element of the survey. Findings indicate that the great majority of staff encountered service users who are affected by AOD problems at some level, although there were differences between groups of practitioners in the extent and nature of AOD problems for different groups of service users. The differential experiences of staff according to their client groups underlines the need for education and professional development not only to provide training on working with AOD but to ensure that training is contextualised and relevant to practitioners across the range of social work and social care services.     

Theory of mind: are there wider implications from working with d/Deaf people?

An exploratory teaching approach was inspired by the communicative experiences of d/Deaf students in tertiary education. ‘Theory of Mind’ has been used by some to describe the capacity to appreciate that views of others may be different from our own, a concept that could provide a different way for students and educators to understand the barriers identified. An adapted assessment highlighted challenges faced and a communication group provided opportunities for extending personal understandings of social settings. Emerging ideas to inform practice and potential implications for inclusion have relevance for other contexts.     

“But I’m not a racist!” Phenomenology,racism, and the body schema in white,pre-service teacher education

In this article, I call for a phenomenological turn in educating white, pre-service teachers. As opposed to dominant pedagogical models which focus on changing one’s beliefs about race, phenomenology points toward the importance of pre-conceptual, pre-critical forms of racial embodiment. Here I draw upon recent work on the different between body image (beliefs about the body) and body schema (what the body can do). The worry is that existing forms of anti-oppressive education miss the centrality of the schema, and thus do not go far enough in uncovering the embodied, perceptual roots of racism.     

The Emergence of Two Distinct Fertility Regimes in Economically Advanced Countries

Beginning in 2000, in economically advanced countries, a remarkable bifurcation in fertility levels has emerged, with one group in the moderate range of period total fertility rates, about 1.9, and the other at 1.3. The upper branch consists of countries in Northern and Western Europe, Oceania and the United States; the lower branch includes Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe, and East and Southeast Asia. A review of the major theories for low-fertility countries reveals that none of them would have predicted this specific bifurcation. We argue that those countries with fertility levels close to replacement level have institutional arrangements, and related policies, that make it easier, not easy, for women to combine the worker and mother roles. The institutional details are quite different across countries, suggesting that multiple combinations of institutional arrangements and policies can lead to the same country-level fertility outcome. Canada, the only exception to this bifurcation, illustrates the importance of the different institutional structures in Québec compared to the rest of Canada.     

Power and perceptions in participatory monitoring and evaluation

This paper examines the assumptions that commonly underpin the design of participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) within development programmes through the examination of a case study of a large rural development programme in Uganda. This case study reveals a mismatch between programme assumptions and participant perceptions, which stymied the implementation of PM&E. In this case, PM&E was based on the assumptions that programme and participant goals were compatible, participants were willing to volunteer and engage themselves for the greater good of their communities, and information sharing and communication was fairly free and open. However, farmers within the programme felt that the bureaucratic and accountability requirements of the programme were not their concern, and were acutely aware of power differences between farmers and programme officials, and between farmers of varying status. The key lesson to be drawn from this case is the need for a heightened awareness of power dynamics and political factors in the design of PM&E.