Simulating Real Life: Enhancing Social Work Education on Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention

Social work students typically use role play with student colleagues to practice clinical intervention skills. Practice with simulated clients (SCs) rather than classmates changes the dynamics of the role play and may improve learning. This is the first known study to employ the SC model in substance use assessment in social work education. Social work students completed a questionnaire assessing attitudes, knowledge, and perceived skills (AKS) regarding substance misuse prior to completing an online screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment training, and then following role plays with SCs. Paired t-tests indicate increased confidence in substance use assessment and intervention ability, and stronger feelings that routine screening is critical to practice. Incorporating SCs with didactic learning increases students’ self-perceived ability to assess and change client behaviors and reduce substance misuse.     

Human–environment interactions in South Florida's Everglades region: Systems of ecological degradation and restoration

This chapter examines the societal drivers of environmental change in South Florida's Everglades region during the past 150 years. This historical geography is developed through the use of a conceptual framework constructed to facilitate the analysis of human–environment interactions and nature–society systems of ecological degradation and restoration at the regional scale. The framework is composed of four basic interlinked components: interaction mechanisms (e.g., land use, direct resource utilization, pollution and external inputs, resource competition), feedback mechanisms (e.g., basic needs, quality of life, environmental ethics), control systems (e.g., governmental regimes, legal institutions, resource management), and the societal context (e.g., population and demographic patterns, social structure and organization, technology, economic conditions, societal values). A primary objective of this chapter is to determine the presence and importance of each of these components during the process of environmental change over the period of study—1845 to 1995.Data for the analysis are drawn from primary and secondary sources on the environmental, social, economic, and political history of South Florida. The results indicate that although elements of each component were present throughout the entire period, different elements of each component play more significant roles at differing moments. The shifts in importance are used to define four periods of environmental change within the region. The periods are the following: (1) frontier settlement (1845–1900), focused on basic needs acquisition and direct utilization of the resource base; (2) drainage and land conversion (1900–1930), focused on population and economic growth, land use change, and increased resource management and competition; (3) flood control and consolidation (1930–1950), focused on inputs from external sources and infusion of advanced technology, the development of governance and social structures, and increased concern for quality of life; (4) postwar boom, flood control, and water supply (1950–1970), focused on accelerated land use change, increased pollution, and further heightened concern for local quality of life; and (5) period of limits (1970–1995), focused on pollution and resource competition concerns, a developing regional environmental ethic and amenity values, and environmental preservation governance strategies.Taken together, the five periods represent the differing nature–society systems through which South Florida's regional ecosystem was degraded and which is now entering a phase of restoration.     

The spousal SROK revisited: A comparison of Chicago and Houston intimate partner homicide ratios

Based on the work of Wilson and Daly (1992) and Gauthier and Bankston (1997), the major objective of the present study was to determine how the spousal sex ratios of killing (SROKs)—the number of female perpetrators for every 100 male perpetrators—compare between two geographically disparate, major U.S. cities—Chicago and Houston. The results of the analysis reported add to our general understanding of the problem of intimate partner violence, in that the relative proportions of females and males killing intimate partners were similar along at least three important dimensions. The SROKs in both cities were only high for the killing of spouses and children; we did not observe a convergence of SROKs in the killing of other blood relatives, nor acquaintances or strangers. Our analysis also strongly indicates that men’s relative risk of intimate partner homicide victimization in both cities decreases dramatically when the two parties are estranged in some way. Another major finding is that large SROKs observed in the present analysis of Chicago and Houston are primarily a Black phenomenon. The lowest SROKs were found for Hispanics, followed by non-Hispanic Whites. The article concludes with suggestions for further research in this area. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual symposium of the Homicide Research Working Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His research interests include homicide, the role of the media in violent crime, crime mapping and policing. His work appears in Policing and Society. Her research interests are in the areas of interpersonal violence and health-related issues of incarcerated women. Her work appears in journals including Criminal Justice Policy Review, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency and Violence against Women.     

Beyond Competence: Fostering LGBTQQI Ally Development Through Supervision

In this critical literature review, the authors examine how counseling supervisors can ethically and effectively foster supervisees’ lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex (LGBTQQI) ally development. Synthesis of the integrated developmental model of supervision with a framework for affirming LGBTQQI case conceptualization is described. Practical examples are provided for each component of the proposed model, and a case study is provided to illustrate application of LGBTQQI ally supervision.     

Do As I Say and Not As I Think: Parent Socialisation of Lie‐Telling Behaviour

This study explored parent (N = 146) perspectives about situations in which they think it is acceptable to lie, how this corresponds to how they socialise their children about lie‐telling and their children's actual behaviour. Results indicated the methods parents report using to teach their children about the acceptability of lie‐telling are consistent with what they report teaching their children about lie‐telling overall. Also, the frequency of lies that children told (N = 88) to protect themselves from psychological distress or conflict differed between those who were taught that lying is sometimes acceptable versus those taught it is never acceptable.     

Social Security and Demographic Shocks

An overlapping generations model of social security with shocks to the productivity of labor and capital and demographic shocks is studied. We focus attention on stationary long run allocations. An allocation is interim optimal if there does not exist another feasible allocation that improves the expected welfare of all generations, computed conditionally on the state of the world when they are born. We characterize the set of interim optimal allocations and study the equilibria associated with various institutional forms of social security from the point of view of this optimality criterion. We obtain the analogs of the two traditional welfare theorems of microeconomic theory. Assume that there exists a financial asset in fixed quantity, which supports some (non null) intergenerational transfers. Then the rational expectations equilibrium allocation of this economy is interim optimal. Conversely, any stationary interim optimal allocation can be supported by such an equilibrium, with adequate lump sum transfers.     

The response of violent mortality to economic crisis in Russia

From 1992 to 1994 life expectancy for Russian males dropped from 62.0 to 57.6 years. Female life expectancy dropped from 73.8 years to 71.2 years. This drop in life expectancy coincided in time with the introduction of painful economic reforms in Russia, leading to a rapid decrease in real wages and pensions, nearly complete loss of personal savings, and a tremendous increase in the poverty rate. This article examines the temporary changes in mortality for violent causes of death during the crisis period with a special emphasis on age-specific and gender-specific differences in the response to economic crisis.     

Science,Critique, Authority,and Accountability

This essay is written in response to Fujimura and Holmes’s piece “Staying the Course,” published in the December 2019 special issue of Sociological Forum—Resistance in the Twenty-First Century     

Self-efficacy and social support for psychological well-being of family caregivers of care recipients with dementia with Lewy bodies,Parkinson’s disease dementia,or Alzheimer’s disease

The study identified factors associated with depressive symptoms in family caregivers of persons with dementia with Lewy bodies, Alzheimer’s disease, or Parkinson’s disease dementia. An Internet-based survey generated 606 response sets. Regression analysis indicated that care recipients’ memory and behavioral problems, caregivers’ self-efficacy, grief, and tangible, emotional, and affectionate support were significantly associated with caregivers’ depressive symptoms. Self-efficacy mediated caregiver burden to improve psychological well-being. Social support mediated the association between caregiver grief and psychological well-being. Social workers can provide psychoeducational interventions to help caregivers to manage emotional distress and improve capacity to manage tasks related to the dementia.