The mental health problems of mothers experiencing the child protection system: identifying needs and appropriate responses

This article presents the findings of a small pilot study which examined the needs of 13 mothers with severe mental health problems whose children were involved in the child protection system. The use of the diagnosis of ‘personality disorder’ in relation to this group of women is discussed and the finding that all these women had experience of domestic violence is considered in the context of other research findings. The extent to which child protection social workers and mental health professionals worked together on these cases was explored and only limited evidence of good communication and collaboration was found. The need for effective inter‐professional and inter‐agency coordination is argued, but differing conceptions of maternal mental health problems and their relationship to children's needs may make for difficulties in professional communication and decision‐making. The article seeks to identify the differing approaches to maternal mental health problems which appear to be developing out of different groups of research studies and argues that practitioners need to be explicit in identifying their perspectives on the associated issues of maternal mental health problems and child protection. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structured risk assessment procedures: instruments of abuse?

Child protection services in Australia and elsewhere face increasing internal and external demands. As a response to these pressures, in part at least, services are increasingly implementing some form of risk assessment procedures. This article examines the practice implications of the increasing use of risk assessment instruments in child protection services. It highlights the complexity of the concept of risk as the basis for a future‐oriented assessment activity. The authors suggest that this change of time frame (from what has happened to what might happen) may be detrimental to children. Through a critical review of the literature, the authors question whether risk prediction is possible and discuss the limitations of risk assessment instruments which omit some risk factors and may ignore the perspective of the child. The authors challenge the validity of risk assessment instruments in statutory settings and suggest that the protection of the organization may be a major objective in their implementation. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ballot theorem and lattice path crossings

We consider lattice paths which cross the diagonal exactly r times, and by a simple method determine the number of such paths when the endpoint is given. Then as a byproduct we easily obtain Feller's (1968, p.84) result for crossings when the length is given.     

Towards a typology of female entrepreneurs

This paper reviews some of the employment problems faced by women and examines how these difficulties might be overcome through entrepreneurship. However, recent empirical work by Goffee and Scase suggests that it is inappropriate to speak of ‘the’ female entrepreneur: there are different types of female business proprietors. Based on an empirical study of 34 aspiring female proprietors, the authors investigate the validity of Goffee and Scase's assertions. Results suggest that there are indeed different types of female entrepreneur, and that while there are some similarities between the typology developed in this paper and that presented by Goffee and Scase, there are also significant differences between them. Possible policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Stability over time in the distribution of population forecast errors

A number of studies in recent years have investigated empirical approaches to the production of confidence intervals for population projections. The critical assumption underlying these approaches is that the distribution of forecast errors remains stable over time. In this article, we evaluate this assumption by making population projections for states for a number of time periods during the 20th century, comparing these projections with census enumerations to determine forecast errors, and analyzing the stability of the resulting error distributions over time. These data are then used to construct and test empirical confidence limits. We find that in this sample the distribution of absolute percentage errors remained relatively stable over time and data on past forecast errors provided very useful predictions of future forecast errors.     

Effects of Career Education Interventions: A Meta-Analysis

Twelve studies published between 1983 and 1996 that met the definitions for admissible studies established by Baker and Popowicz (1983) for a meta-analytic review of the effects of career education interventions were submitted to a similar meta-analytic integration. Effect sizes based on Glass's (1976) formula were determined for the current sample and were combined with the Baker and Popowicz (1983) sample, providing a sample of 30 studies and an overall effect size of 0.39.