Limiting relationships through sousveillance video based digital advocacy: multi-modal analysis of The Nervous CPS Worker

ABSTRACT

Digital media technology and Internet-based/social media sharing are shifting the contexts and processes of social work, including the relationships emerging in practice. The Nervous CPS Worker, a digital video shared via YouTube, provides a concrete practice-based example of the use of social media self-advocacy by professional foster parents. This case-study demonstrates the fragmented and shifting power-relations brought to bear within contemporary social work. Multi-modal analysis facilitates the development of a layered qualitative understanding of this video, shaped by the researcher’s inter-textual relationship with the material. Supplemental online texts are applied to the Nervous CPS Worker and relevant scholarship, including discipline specific knowledge, reveals the layered and convergent meaning making processes present in this video through the use of auditory communication, visual representations and genre. Analysis demonstrates how contemporary social work contexts, such as neoliberalism, and standardisation are implicated in practice and how identity and context compete for recognition and space within the home visit depicted in this video.     

Review of Attachment Theory: Familial Predictors,Continuity and Change,and Intrapersonal and Relational Outcomes

Initially, the major focus of attachment theory was the parent–child relationship, but Bowlby (1988 Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Clinical applications of attachment theory. London: Routeledge. [Google Scholar]) also described the attachment system as active over the entire life course. Accordingly, a proliferation of research on attachment theory in the past two decades has addressed an array of familial predictors as well as intrapersonal and relational outcomes of attachment. The purpose of this review is to present: 1) measurement of attachment, 2) family violence, parental depression, and parental divorce as predictors of attachment, 3) (in)stability of attachment over time, 4) impact of attachment on emotion regulation and psychopathology, and 5) influence of attachment on romantic relationship. Special attention is paid to the role of attachment as a mediator between family of origin experiences and outcomes among youth and adults.     

Sex‐differentiated associations among negative parenting,emotion‐related brain function,and adolescent substance use and psychopathology symptoms

Parenting is a critical factor in adolescent social–emotional development, with maladaptive parenting leading to risk for the development of psychopathology. However, the emotion‐related brain mechanisms underlying the influence of parenting on psychopathology symptoms are unknown. The present study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging and laboratory measures to examine sex‐differentiated associations among parenting, adolescent emotion‐related brain function, and substance use and psychopathology symptoms in 66 12–14‐year olds. Maternal parenting behaviors (warmth, negative parenting) were observed in a laboratory task. Adolescent brain responses to negative emotional stimuli were assessed in emotion processing regions of interest (left [L] and right [R] amygdala, anterior insula, and anterior cingulate cortex [ACC]). Adolescents reported on substance use and depressive, anxiety, and externalizing symptoms. Maternal negative parenting predicted adolescent brain activation differently by sex. For girls, negative parenting predicted heightened R ACC activation to negative emotional stimuli. For boys, negative parenting predicted blunted L and R anterior insula and L ACC activation. Furthermore, for girls, but not boys, heightened L anterior insula and heightened L and R ACC activation were associated with substance use and depressive symptoms, respectively. Findings suggest neural response to negative emotion as a possible sex‐specific pathway from negative parenting to psychopathology.     

Migration as Social Movement: Voluntary Group Migration and the Crimean Tatar Repatriation

Voluntary group migration occurs when a collectivity reaches a group‐level decision to migrate and does so as a community without external compulsion. Typical examples include collective settler movements and voluntary repatriations of refugee communities. We demonstrate the distinctive characteristics of voluntary group migration that make it hard to analyze with current migration theories, and we develop an initial theoretical framework identifying the conditions that typically produce this type of population flow. Recognizing the collective nature of the mobilization that leads to voluntary group migration, we turn to social movement theory as a source of analytical tools that, in combination with concepts offered by prior migration theories, help us build an initial theory. To illustrate our ideas, we discuss an especially revealing contemporary case: the resettlement of Crimean Tatars to their original homeland.     

From Bottles to Bombs: The Role of Success and Occupying a Unique Niche in Organizational Transformation

Abstract

This study focuses on the transformation of a social movement organization, the Infant Formula Action Coalition (INFACT). INFACT was founded in 1977 by a few individuals concerned about the effects of marketing infant formula in less developed countries. They initiated an international campaign, centered around a boycott of the Swiss corporation Nestle, aimed at stopping certain marketing practices of manufacturers of infant formula. As success in this activity became apparent, leaders of INFACT began a lengthy planning process for a new campaign. The dynamics of the process that led to the selection of the nuclear weapons industry as a new target are described in this research.     

Web-based nutrition education for college students: Is it feasible?

College students have poor nutrition habits and often exhibit at-risk weight control behaviors; yet, health promotion efforts on campuses often target other risk behaviors such as alcohol and tobacco use. The goal of this study was to determine program content and examine the feasibility of a web-based nutrition education program for college students using innovative applications of tailoring, targeting and personalization of information. Comprehensive program planning entailed three phases: focus groups and use of concept mapping methodology, prototype web program development, and feasibility testing of the prototype. Results of concept mapping suggested that students and experts agreed on the relative importance of the major content areas unique to the college audience. A prototype web program, informed by health promotion theories, was developed and evaluated. Students and college health professionals participated in the feasibility evaluation, which included acceptance and usability testing of the prototype. Mean scores were computed for the acceptance ratings that indicated that the prototype web program was not only feasible, but also compelling and relevant for the college audience. In conclusion, a tailored, web-based interactive nutrition program could potentially be used to provide individualized nutrition information to encourage college students to adopt healthy eating behaviors.     

Behavioral and Physiological Components of Communication Training: Does the Topic Affect Outcome?

This study experimentally examined the Speaker‐Listener technique when couples (N= 30) were instructed to either discuss an issue within or outside their marriage, on marital satisfaction, and communication behaviors. This study examined the J. M. Gottman, J. Coan, S. Carrere, and C. Swanson (1998) hypothesis that the Speaker‐Listener technique may lead to improved marital satisfaction when the couple is discussing a third party issue, but discussing an issue about each other may weaken the marital relationship. Behavioral and physiological data during marital interactions were sequentially analyzed. Results suggested that the Speaker‐Listener technique reduced negativity but did not increase positivity in marital interactions. There were significant differences in positive reciprocity across the 2 experimental groups, but no differences in negativity. Additionally, adherence to the Speaker‐Listener technique was poor, which has implications for both research and theory. Possible interpretations and areas for further investigation are suggested.     

Burnout and Mental Health in Swiss Vocational Students: The Moderating Role of Physical Activity

Few studies have focused on burnout among vocational students. This study examined the association between burnout and mental health among 56 Swiss vocational students (29 males, 27 females, M = 18.1, SD = 1.2 years) and tested whether recommended levels of moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA) attenuate this relationship. Burnout was strongly associated with increased depressive symptoms and decreased levels of life satisfaction, mental toughness, and quality of sleep. Students above recommended levels of MVPA reported lower burnout and higher mental health. No significant moderator effects were observed. Symptoms of burnout were associated with increased mental health problems. Physical activity should be promoted to prevent burnout, because nearly half of the students did not meet MVPA recommendations.     

Sibling kinnections: a clinical visitation program

The growing literature on sibling relationships throughout their lifespans is of great importance to those working in the child welfare system, and in adoption services in particular. Sibling bonds are important to all of us, but they are particularly vital to children from disorganized or dysfunctional families. These relationships assume even greater importance when children from these families enter the care system. Supporting and sustaining these sibling bonds should be, and most often is, a priority throughout the child welfare system, with practice literature providing guidelines for arranging and sustaining sibling contact. However, children in the care system may also have dysfunctional sibling relationships as a result of their early experiences, and sibling visitation alone may not be enough to ensure a healthy, long-lasting relationship among siblings. Some form of sibling therapy, or 'clinically supervised visitation,' may be required to help children remove the barriers to form mutually satisfying relationships and to reinforce life-long relationships with each other.     

The Value of Cultural Adaptation Processes: Older Youth Participants as Substance Abuse Preventionists

This National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Drug Abuse) funded study employed focus groups to explore the value of: (a) engaging youth as experts in their own drug culture to engage them in open, honest discussion around substance use in their communities; and (b) allowing youth within a range of settings to systematically recreate unique workbook and video scenarios while maintaining the core components of an evidence-based substance abuse prevention program. Researchers collaborated with community based agencies that serve high risk youth, including youth who were incarcerated, homeless, in alternative high schools, in low-income housing programs, and on the US-Mexico border. The research indicates that high-risk youth in community settings can be actively engaged in adapting evidence-based prevention curricula. Youth emphasized their reasons for using drugs, as well as the salient consequences, and the value of tailored scenarios that incorporate their life experiences, language, drugs of choice, and relevant motivators. Serendipitous findings noted attitude changes related to dissonance between the adaptation component participants’ behaviors and their input as “Preventionists.” Findings have implications for developing prevention strategies that may be helpful for older, high-risk youth.