Lessons from a project to create performance measures for public health

This paper uses a specific example to illustrate complications that arise in formulating and implementing performance measures. The context of this demonstration is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded project to explore the feasibility of performance measures developed at the national level for local sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention and control programs. Grantees provided local data and reported on their experience in eliciting the data and using the results for program development. The experience of this project suggests that measures can be made operationally feasible and programmatically useful only if terminologies are subjected to extensive definition and clarification activities. These activities must include development of common language, mapping of workflows, and clarification of spheres of influence. Finally, performance measures must be used with some caution, as they often unintentionally capture extraneous program elements.     

Considerations of family structure and gender composition: the lesbian and gay stepfamily

Lesbian and gay stepfamilies are unique family forms which must be investigated as such. This paper explores the similarities and dissimilarities between heterosexual stepfamilies and lesbian/gay stepfamilies, arguing that similarity of structure is impacted by gender composition. Utilizing face-to-face and telephone interviews with biological and stepparents in 23 lesbian and gay stepfamilies, the results show that while lesbian and gay stepfamilies share some challenges and strengths with heterosexual stepfamilies, they also evidence a unique and flexible adaptation to becoming a family. The paper is aimed at delineating future areas for lesbian and gay stepfamily research.     

Safety Nets and Scaffolds: Parental Support in the Transition to Adulthood

Using longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study (analytic sample N = 712), we investigate how age, adult role acquisition and attainments, family resources, parent-child relationship quality, school attendance, and life events influence support received from parents in young adulthood. Parental assistance was found to be less forthcoming for those who had made greater progress on the road to adulthood, signified by socioeconomic attainment and union formation. The quality of mother-child and father-child relationships affected parental support in different ways, positively for mothers, negatively for fathers. School enrollment, negative life events, and employment problems were associated with a greater likelihood of receiving support. The findings suggest that parents act as "scaffolding" and "safety nets" to aid their children's successful transition to adulthood.     

The knowledge of caring: revisiting the need for knowledge support of carers

Foster carers' knowledge of caring for abused and neglected children is a largely under-researched area. We know very little about the nature of carers' knowledge in relation to caring for children who have been abused or neglected. This paper reports on an exploratory study which examined the knowledge of caring. Qualitative data were analysed based on in-depth interviews with 10 foster carers in Queensland, Australia. A range of knowledge was identified showing an interaction of both personalized and formal understandings in the caring response. Given the breadth of knowledge recognized from the analysis, this paper presents one dimension of their knowing: theory and abuse-indicated understandings. Participants' responses in these areas were at times sound, but many struggled to provide convincing and well-formed explanations of topics, such as attachment, harm and child development which may suggest that their understandings are not what they could be. Although further research is needed on a larger scale, this study does highlight the necessity to re-examine processes and strategies for carer knowledge support, so as to strengthen their understanding of these issues.     

Parental Expenditures on Children's Education

This study examined selected factors related to parents' allocation of money for children's primary and secondary education and, if money was spent on education, the variation in the amount spent. Cragg's double-hurdle model was utilized to analyze data from the 1996 Consumer Expenditure Survey on 331 families that spent money on their children's primary and secondary education and 827 families where parents reported no such expenditures. Factors that were significantly related to spending money on children's primary and secondary education, included after-tax income, parent's education, region, and season of the year. Variables significantly related how much was allocated to children's primary and secondary education, included after-tax income, parent's education, age, and race.     

What does empathy sound like in social work communication? A mixed‐methods study of empathy in child protection social work practice

It is widely accepted that empathy is important for social work practice, yet there are multiple dimensions of empathy and comparatively few studies of empathy as a component of social work skill. To date, published studies have been quantitative, and as a result, we know little about how social workers demonstrate empathy in practice or what skilled empathic practice in child and family social work might sound like. This study contributes to the development of understanding of empathy as a social work skill through a mixed‐methods analysis of 110 audio recordings of meetings in a child protection service between workers and parents, applying a coding framework for analysis. Findings indicate that workers who demonstrate higher levels of empathy skill use more open questions and reflections in their communication with parents. Further, they demonstrate curiosity about and make efforts to understand parents' often difficult experiences, including a focus on emotions. That the majority of workers were found not to demonstrate a high level of empathy skill presents concerns to be considered by the social work profession. A deeper understanding of empathy presents an opportunity for an increased focus in organizations to enable workers to demonstrate empathy towards families they work with.     

The Developmental Origins of Gaze‐Following in Human Infants

During the first year of life, infants develop the capacity to follow the gaze of others. This behavior allows sharing attention and facilitates language acquisition and cognitive development. This article reviews studies that investigated gaze‐following before 12 months of age in typically developing infants and discusses current theoretical perspectives on early GF. Recent research has revealed that early GF is highly dependent on situational constraints and individual characteristics, but theories that describe the underlying mechanisms have partly failed to consider this complexity. We propose a novel framework termed the perceptual narrowing account of GF that may have the potential to integrate existing theoretical accounts.