Identifying the Extent of Challenging Behaviour in Adult Learning Disability Services

Correspondence to Carol Hayden, ICJS, St. George’s Building, 141 High Street, Portsmouth PO1 2HY, UK. E-mail: carol.hayden{at}port.ac.uk Summary This article presents one part of the findings of an ongoingstudy that set out to investigate and explain the extent ofchallenging behaviour in twenty-one social service run day andresidential services in one large county authority in England.This part of the study reports on staff perceptions of problematicbehaviour from service users. It uses staff reports of levelsof problematic behaviour as indicative of potentially challengingbehaviour. The study uses an adapted version of an establishedinstrument, the BPI (Behaviour Problems Inventory), as a surveytool completed by staff for all service users in a one-monthperiod (January 2000). The findings of this exercise are basedon 1,390 service users, near to a census at the time of thesurvey. The study shows ‘non-compliance’ to be themost problematic and prevalent behaviour from the point of viewof staff. Overall the research illustrates a split between themajority of service users who present staff with problematicbehaviour in a relatively minor to moderate way and a smallgroup of individuals (less than 2 per cent) who present muchmore extreme behaviour. Brief reference is made to other datacollected in the study when it helps in the interpretation ofthe behaviour patterns identified by the BPI.     

Vstreet.com: a web-based community for at-risk teens

Most teens leaving the care of an agency are woefully unprepared and unsupported. Current approaches to aftercare are expensive and difficult to implement. This study evaluated a prototype version of Vstreet.com, an innovative website for at-risk youth designed to teach lifeskills and build community. Findings from a sample of youth in the Job Corps showed that the website was highly effective in increasing their knowledge of apartment hunting skills, feelings of peer social support, and intentions of staying in touch with their agency.     

Research in mental health: social etiology versus social consequences

This article differentiates a social etiology model focused on identifying the social antecedents of one particular mental disorder from a social consequences model concerned with the overall mental health consequences of various social arrangements. In the social etiology model, people with disorders other than the one particular disorder singled out for investigation are implicitly classified as "well." This disorder-specific model is inappropriate for the more general sociological task of identifying the consequences of various social arrangements, such as concentrated poverty, racial segregation, and gender stratification. It is problematic because these consequences are typically nonspecific, not limited to one particular disorder. From this perspective, persons classified as "well" in the disorder-specific model who have a different disorder are misclassified. Consequently, the impact of social arrangements is underestimated, and estimates of causal effects are biased. To address these problems, the full range of theoretically derived mental health outcomes needs to be simultaneously analyzed.     

Does funding for HIV and sexually transmitted disease prevention matter? Evidence from panel data

Since the onset of the AIDS epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has allocated several billion dollars for the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States. Using state-level data from 1981 to 1998, the authors found that greater amounts of prevention funding in a given year are associated with reductions in reported gonorrhea incidence rates in subsequent years. The authors conclude that funding for STD and HIV prevention, on the whole, appears to have a discernable impact on the incidence of STDs.     

Narratives of identity: Denying empathy in conservative discourses on race,class, and sexuality

Issues of identity are crucial in current political debate. This article analyses narratives of identity using three very different examples, namely colonial-settler Australia, lesbian romance genres, and the role of class in contemporary American and British politics. It explores both privileged and marginalized identity narratives and the tensions between them. For example, lesbian romance narratives are contrasted with religious right arguments against same-sex marriage. Some argue that the complex intersections, compatibilities, and differences between conflicting narratives of identity reveal a great deal about how specific concepts of identity are formed. The narratives examined do not produce explicit binary constructions of dominant and subordinate identity categories. Rather, being able to imagine (or not imagine) other narratives plays an important part in the process of constructing identities within these discourses. Narratives that foreclose empathy facilitate the denial that discrimination or subordination is taking place. Similarly, privileged narratives of identity facilitate subjects ability to think well of themselves and their treatment of others.     

Drinking locations prior to impaired driving among college students: implications for prevention

Drinking and driving is perhaps the most serious problem associated with heavy drinking among college students in the United States. In this study, the authors examined drinking locations prior to impaired driving in a college student sample. They administered the Impaired Driving Assessment to 91 college students identified as high risk for drinking and driving. Participants reported an average of 7.98 (SD = 7.67) impaired driving episodes during the past 5 weeks. Using a random effects model, the authors found that location was a significant predictor of blood alcohol content (BAC), F(6,89.6) = 3.62, p = 0.0029. After drinking alcohol at a party, students' average estimated BAC prior to driving (geometric M = 0.089) was significantly greater than all other drinking locations (geometric M = 0.033). The findings of this study provide insight into drinking locations prior to impaired driving and can be used by college health practitioners to develop appropriate interventions to reduce the magnitude of this problem.     

Fertility and education premiums

This study examines households fertility variations in response to expected permanent shifts in the return to education. Wage premiums measurethe return to education because their long-run movements are driven by factors exogenous to the fertility process. The results indicate that high education parents fertility responds negatively to changes in the expected return to college and negatively to changes in the expected return to high school. On the other hand, the fertility of low education parents does not vary with changes to expected returns to education. These results can be consistently interpreted within a standard quality/quantity model of endogenous fertility.I am grateful to seminar participants at Penn State University, Virginia Tech. University, the Economic Demography Workshop at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America and the Mid-West Macroeconomics Conference and well as to a helpful referee. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Designing Service–Learning to Empower Students and Community: Jackson Elementary Builds a Nature Study Center

We propose an approach to service–learning in which projects are designed so as to empower undergraduate students and community members. When student service scholars take away control from citizens, they can undermine citizens' perceptions of competency; when faculty reduce students' choice and responsibility, they can undermine students' efficacy and desire to learn. We propose four guidelines for optimizing student and citizen experiences: (1) service should serve both the community and the students; (2) service should empower; (3) service should be contextual; and (4) service projects should endure. We elaborate this philosophy and illustrate it with a project in which nine university students and 30 fifth–graders built a science and nature study center for a K–6 elementary school.