Specifying and facilitating family involvement in services to persons with developmental disabilities

This paper recognizes the important role of family involvement in services to people with developmental disabilities. The paper presents a conceptualization of involvement that was an outcome of a qualitative study of involvement from the perspective of family members themselves. The authors identify a framework of family involvement the composition of which incorporates four system levels (i.e. the individual, program/agency, community, society) and the five role opportunities for family members (i.e. treatment agent, planner, advocate, evaluator, and consultant/educator). Barriers to involvement are then delineated and the authors autline a process for promoting family involvement: 1) contracting for involvement; 2) developing a support system for involvement; and 3) monitoring and evaluating involvement.Presented at the Fourth Annual Conference of The Michigan Chapter, National Association of Social Workers, May 14, 1988. Grand Rapids Michigan.The writing of this paper was supported in part by a research stimulation grant awarded to the authors by Wayne State University. Portions of this article are included in an extensive research report in Epstein, I and Grasso, A. Editors,Research Utilization in Social Work, Wayne State Univesity Press, in Press.     

Siblings of handicapped children

There is a strong suggestion that the siblings of handicapped children are at risk psychologically. Factors which contribute to this risk, aspects of the sibling relationship, and the siblings' issues, concerns and feelings are discussed so that professionals may have a framework within which to assess and evaluate these children's needs. Case examples are given.     

Knowledge about AIDS and reported risk behaviors among black college students

This study surveyed 975 undergraduates attending a large East Coast university during the spring semester of the 1987/88 academic year. A convenience sample of predominantly black students (94%) participated. Overall, knowledge of basic AIDS-related facts was satisfactory. Raw scores on the 25-item knowledge scale ranged from 7 to 25, with a mean of 20.5 (82%) and a mode of 22 (88%). Selected questions on how HIV is not transmitted, however, posed some problems for respondents. Less than 30% of respondents knew that the AIDs virus was not transmitted by insects; less than 80% knew that AIDS was not transmitted on toilet seats, through blood donations, kissing, and coughing. The survey also asked students whether they had ever engaged in certain behaviors that put them at risk of HIV infection. Approximately 17% of respondents had experienced anal intercourse, 6.5% reported use of heroin, 32.6% reported having had multiple sex partners, and 16% had been treated for a sexually transmitted disease. Students who reported engaging in high-risk behaviors had statistically significant lower mean knowledge scores than those who reported not engaging in those same high-risk behaviors. Results of the study support the need to increase efforts to deliver AIDS information specifically targeted to individuals who may be engaged in high-risk behaviors. Special health education programs must be designed to focus attention on risk behaviors (ie, unprotected anal intercourse) instead of risk groups (ie, homosexual and bisexual males).     

Evidence of fertility regulation among rural french villagers, 1749–1789

In this first part an econometric model describing the sequences of live births to individual couples is developed and estimated, using data for a sample of married women in rural French communes during the period 1749–1789. The main methodological objective is to devise a means of controlling for unobserved heterogeneities that result in the endogeneity of variables describing a couple's accumulated demographic experience. Without such controls it is not possible to secure unbiased estimates of responses to familial demographic events, such as the births and deaths of children. Such estimates are sought here as indirect indicators of the existence and nature of deliberate fertility control.Un modèle économétrique, décrivant la suite des naissances vivantes d'un couple donné, est développé et estimé dans cette première partie, en utilisant des données sur un échantillon de femmes mariées dans des communes rurales françaises durant la période 1749–1789. Le principal objectif méthodologique est de fournir un moyen de contrôler l'hétérogénéité non observée qui résulte de variables endogènes décrivant l'expérience cumulative d'un couple. Sans un tel contrôle il n'est pas possible d'obtenir des estimations sans biais de l'effet d'événements démographiques, tels que les naissances et les décès d'enfants. De tels estimateurs sont recherchés ici en vue de fournir des indications indirectes sur l'exercice et la nature d'une prévention des naissances délibérée.

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The second part of this article will be published in theEuropean Journal of Population, Vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 173–206.     

NEIGHBOURHOOD MANAGEMENT FOR INTEGRATIVE DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT

In Germany there is broad consensus that efficient implementation of programme objectives requires cooperative political and administrative structures as the basis for realizing measures, activities and mobilization and revitalization processes deemed necessary by the neighbourhood. Therefore neighbourhood management is regarded as a critical tool for handling the tasks and reaching the targets associated with integrative district development. However, this tool is interpreted and utilized in a different manner. This is reflected not only in the labels (district, area or neighbourhood management), but more emphatically in the various organizational forms employed, ranging from individual officials equipped with specific authority to complex structures involving different levels of municipal control and operation. This article presents the neighbourhood management concept developed and implemented in the framework of the ‘Socially Integrative City’.     

Three agricultural regions of France: Three types of pluriactivity

In France, the new Common Agricultural Policy will have different regional impacts. There are three types of regions based on agricultural development. The first type is where farms are able to carry on a modernization process; the second type where farms are threatened in spite of their modernization, and the third type where farms are unable to be modernized. These three types of regions are represented in France by Picardy, Languedoc and Savoy. Each region is developing a particular form of pluriactivity in accordance with its own agricultural development. Picardy is setting up a business pluriactivity which uses agricultural resources to increase non-agricultural activities. Languedoc undergoes a rural development pluriactivity by using non-agricultural resources for its modernization. Savoy represents a rural pluriactivity of survival, in which the close combination between agricultural and non-agricultural activities permits the maintenance of rural many-faceted businesses.The three kinds of pluriactivity are very unlike. They show that, in France, agricultural development will in future be linked to rural development to a far greater extent.     

Estimation of period-specific gross migration flows from limited data: Bi-proportional adjustment approach

Two models, hierarchical in terms of input data requirements, are proposed to estimate place-to-place gross migration flows during a specified time period. In the first, the input data required are lifetime migration flows and the marginal totals of period migration, usually available from national censuses. The estimational algorithm is a ‘bi-proportional adjustment’ technique (and its variant) that assumes structural similarity between lifetime and period migration flows. The second model is designed to account for possible structural deviations in recent migratory patterns. Calibration of the procedure to replicate Indian and Korean data confirms high validity of estimation.