The effect of masks on the visual preference for faces in the first year of life

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, face masks were mandatory in many public spaces around the world. Since faces are the gateway to early social cognition, this raised major concerns about the effect face masks may have on infants' attention to faces as well as on their language and social development. The goal of the present study was to assess how face masks modulate infants' attention to faces over the course of the first year of life. We measured 3, 6, 9, and 12-month-olds’ looking behavior using a paired visual preference paradigm under two experimental conditions. First, we tested infants' preference for upright masked or unmasked faces of the same female individual. We found that regardless of age, infants looked equally long at the masked and unmasked faces. Second, we compared infants' attention to an upright masked versus an inverted masked face. Three- and 6-month-olds looked equally long to the masked faces when they were upright or inverted. However, 9- and 12-month-old infants showed a novelty preference for the inverted masked face. Our findings suggest that more experience with faces, including masked faces, leads to efficient adaptations of infants' visual system for processing impoverished social stimuli, such as partially occluded faces.     

Advancing Hospice and Palliative Care Social Work Leadership in Interprofessional Education and Practice

The importance of interprofessional collaboration in achieving high quality outcomes, improving patient quality of life, and decreasing costs has been growing significantly in health care. Palliative care has been viewed as an exemplary model of interprofessional care delivery, yet best practices in both interprofessional education (IPE) and interprofessional practice (IPP) in the field are still developing. So, too, is the leadership of hospice and palliative care social workers within IPE and IPP. Generating evidence regarding best practices that can prepare social work professionals for collaborative practice is essential. Lessons learned from practice experiences of social workers working in hospice and palliative care can inform educational efforts of all professionals. The emergence of interprofessional education and competencies is a development that is relevant to social work practice in this field. Opportunities for hospice and palliative social workers to demonstrate leadership in IPE and IPP are presented in this article.     

Mental health professionals in children's advocacy centers: is there role conflict?

Two recent chapters in professional books have criticized children's advocacy centers for creating role conflict for mental health professionals because of their work with criminal justice and child protection professionals in children's advocacy centers as part of a coordinated response to child abuse. This article argues that these critiques misunderstand children's advocacy center practice and overestimate the risk of role conflict. Children's advocacy center standards set a boundary between forensic interviewing and therapy, which in most children's advocacy centers are done by separate professionals and never by the same professional for a given child. Many mental health professionals serve children's advocacy centers as consultants with no treatment role. Children's advocacy center therapists are rarely involved in investigation, and their participation in multidisciplinary teams focuses on children's interests and well-being.     

Supporting the emotional and psychological well being of sexual minority youth: Youth ideas for action

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) populations are susceptible to stress-related mental health disorders because of daily imposed stigma and prejudice. Yet minimal information exists from the perspective of sexual minority youth about how to support them in managing a challenging social environment during critical stages of development. Through the lens of youth from two geographic communities this study examined what is needed to support GLBT adolescent mental health. The study employed inductive secondary analysis of qualitative and quantitative data gathered through Concept Mapping needs assessments. Findings include 61 unduplicated ideas for support across the two groups of youth; 14 primary themes emerged with 22 stated needs common among both groups. Areas of need in multiple service systems are identified. The importance of the supports for meeting youths' emotional needs varied between the two communities. Ideas generated represent youth ideas for improving conditions which contribute to disparate community supports needed to develop positive emotional and psychological well being. The findings are conceptualized with regard to psychological and physical safety; community impact on emotional well being; schools and psychosocial supports; and access to relevant mental health and health care. Discussion includes implications for practice and policy.     

Barriers to employment as experienced by disabled people: a qualitative analysis in Calgary and Regina,Canada

Public policies stress greater inclusion of disabled people in the labour market and suggest ways to implement accommodative measures to these ends. Often missing from this literature is the experiences of disabled people in labour markets. This article reports results from a qualitative study conducted in 2005 and 2006 consisting of one‐to‐one and focus group interviews with 56 disabled individuals participating in employment training programmes in Calgary and Regina, Canada. Findings suggest the presence of workplace and employer discrimination and labelling as primary factors impeding respondents’ success in securing and maintaining employment in the labour market. The 56 respondents provide strong evidence that perceptions of disability have a greater impact on their inability to maintain and secure employment than does the lack of accommodative practices and measures in the workplace.     

Endogenous attention to costs

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - The value of a statistical life (VSL) is a key parameter in the analysis of government policy. Most policy decisions are made under ambiguity. This paper studies...     

Portuguese healthcare reforms in the context of crisis: External pressure or domestic choice?

As a result of the recent economic crisis, in 2011, Portugal signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund (the “Troika”). In exchange for Troika's financial assistance, the Memorandum required the implementation of a specific set of reforms targeted at the healthcare sector. The literature on policy reforms in the context of crisis and conditionality argues that governments have restricted room to manoeuver in responding to external pressure. We challenge this view, finding that even in cases of conditionality and strong external pressures, crisis can be used as a window of opportunity for reforms substantially shaped by domestic policy choices. In the case of Portuguese health reforms, these choices were based on pre‐existing reform plans aimed on resolving country‐specific deficiencies of the healthcare system and were enabled by the two main political parties' strategies of tacit cooperation and blame avoidance. The article emphasizes the need for more fine‐grained analysis of welfare reforms in the crisis that pays equal attention to the institutional characteristics and the political context of the affected countries.     

Social Class and Conversion Capacity: Deprivation Trends in the Great Recession in Ireland

In this paper, we draw on Irish SILC data to examine the roles of social class, non-class risk groups and state policies in influencing enforced material deprivation as Ireland moved from a period of economic boom through deep recession and on to early recovery. We also employ Sen’s capability approach to explore the extent to which certain social risk groups differ in their capacity to convert social class-differentiated resources into increased capability in relation to avoiding material deprivation. The findings refute the notion of polarization either across time as a result of recession or as a result of more vulnerable social risk groups experiencing more pronounced social class differences. Instead, the impact of recession on social class and social risk group operated mainly in an additive manner with each having a relatively independent impact on deprivation. The exception was lone parents who were less able to convert the benefits of higher social class position into reduced deprivation levels.     

A tale of two pregnancies: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis of women’s perceptions about delayed initiation of antenatal care

Background

Delayed access to antenatal care in high income countries is associated with poor maternal, fetal and neonatal outcomes. The aim was to synthesise the diverse body of evidence around women’s views of early antenatal care and barriers to attendance in such countries. Critical Interpretive Synthesis integrates the process of systematic review with the qualitative methods of meta-ethnography and grounded theory, with a focus on theory generation to inform policy, practice and future research.

Between love and behaviour management: the psychodynamic reflective milieu at the Mulberry Bush School

ABSTRACT

This article presents findings from a qualitative research study of the Mulberry Bush School (MBS), a therapeutic residential primary school caring for children with severe social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The article notes the challenges of working with children who have experienced traumatic relationship breakdown, and reviews ideas and practices developed at MBS to support the children’s development. There is a discussion of the research study’s methodology and main findings. The researchers argue that the therapeutic milieu at MBS maintains a creative tension between a secure, playful context and one where emotional disorder and disturbance are not suppressed. The study describes how a particular psychodynamic model of reflective practice has been successfully instituted at MBS to create a ‘staff therapeutic milieu’ supporting the group living and group learning through which therapy principally occurs. The article closes with comments on the applicability of this model to residential child care practice generally.