Stop It Now! A Pilot Study Into the Limits and Benefits of a Free Helpline Preventing Child Sexual Abuse

Stop It Now! aims to prevent child sexual abuse using a free anonymous helpline. It provides information, advice, and guidance to anyone concerned about child sexual abuse. It targets people who have sexually abused children or who are worried that they might do so. This article presents findings from a pilot study on the operation and outcomes of the helplines in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The findings underline the strength of the public health approach to prevention efforts. More specifically, benefits reported by helpline users are shown to correspond with the aims of the helplines. A number of factors were reported by users that helped them modify their own or others’ actions to minimize risk of abuse. However, a challenge that remains is ensuring that helplines are accessible to those most in need. Recommendations are included to further expand the effect of Stop It Now! in reducing CSA.     

Marital Therapy — My Style

Recipes often evolve over time and can become enshrined by chefs. I have set out my recipe on marital therapy reflecting the collected cooking wisdom of generations. My instructions and information will enable a therapist as chef to create special dishes for a variety of occasions.     

OR in the paper industry

The paper reviews the applications of OR in the paper industry and concludes that acceptance of OR is in general very poor. Some of the possible reasons for this are discussed, along with prospects for the future.     

Periodogram Analysis of Censored Time Series from a Designed Experiment

Growth hormone plasma concentrations vary rhythmically between high and low values. Radioimmunoassay measurements of low values are often indistinguishable from low controls, and are reported as a censored value, the 'minimum detectable dose'. This paper reports such a dataset from a designed experiment with about 60% of the values censored but large distinct signals for the remainder of the data. The ordinates of the average periodogram for each treatment group are independently gamma distributed, with distribution depending on the underlying spectrum and the replication for that group. This situation can lead to an analysis for common spectral shape using a gamma generalized linear model with log link, and the hypothesis of common spectral shape is rejected here. Since such a level of censoring reduces the variance of each profile, the periodogram, which is a partition of the variance, is also reduced in overall magnitude. A simulation study shows that this reduction is not necessarily uniform over the frequency domain, but may be more pronounced at lower or higher ordinates depending on the underlying model. Therefore it is possible that the rejection of common spectral shape is an artefact of the censoring.     

Creative solutions: Innovative use of the arts in mental health settings

A recent study of occupational stress on the unit (Clare, 2004) highlighted that staff valued the importance of the socialization process in reducing their stress levels. This process incorporates the need for peer support and acceptance, and an understanding of what is expected of them (e.g., roles and responsibilities), supported by a culture of learning, problem solving, and working together. This process is similar to the approach taken by the arts project in nurturing ideas and initiatives in a safe, respectful way. It is apparent that the arts project has been more than just a creative activity; it has had wider implications for both staff and service users in reducing stress. It has: * Enabled staff retention. In fact, there is a waiting list of nurses wishing to work on the unit. * Reduced incidents of damage to property. * Reduced use of p.r.n. medication. * Enhanced the good reputation of the service, which is often commented on by visitors to the unit. The arts project promotes well-being and lifelong learning for the ward community through meaningful engagement in creative activity.     

Rationalising knowledge: IT systems, professional identities and power

This paper explores the impact of a new IT system on the knowledge claims and occupational boundaries made by professional groups within a hospital laboratory setting. Within organizational settings professional groups enjoy considerable power and status through the specialised knowledge claims they make, deploying a variety of material and discursive resources to secure these. However, when organizations introduce new technologies to manage information needs, professional boundaries and claims to expertise may be threatened. This paper examines the strategies deployed by two key professional groups – Medical Laboratory Scientific Officers and medics – to secure their knowledge claims and statuses within the new organizational context shaped in part by an IT system. Though medics were more successful here, they had to accommodate to new demands within the organization. The professional identity and organizational space of the MLSOs were also redefined but, in contrast, by being narrowed. The different experiences and strategies of the two groups reflect their unequal holding of cultural capital and their differential capacity to define their status relative to the organization itself.     

Social Perception in Students with Learning Disabilities and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

The current study investigated whether students' classification of learning disabled (LD), learning disabled with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (LD/ADHD), or no classification (REG) was related to their ability to perceive nonverbal social cues. Participants in the study were 57 students between the ages of six and ten years identified as being LD, LD/ADHD, or REG. The Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy test (DANVA) and the Social Perception Behavior Rating Scale (SPBRS) were used to measure social perception. A MANOVA was computed for the four subtests of the DANVA (Facial Expressions, Postures, Gestures, and Paralanguage). A separate ANOVA was computed on the SPBRS. Significant differences were found for Facial Expressions and SPBRS scores. Follow-up analysis revealed that on the Facial Expressions subtest, students with LD demonstrated significantly more difficulty in the accurate perception of cues than the REG or LD/ ADHD groups. On the SPBRS, the LD/ADHD group was rated by teachers as significantly less socially perceptive than the REG group.     

THE MANAGEMENT OF WILDERNESS AREAS: A SIMULATION MODEL

This paper describes a travel simulation model developed to analyze the effects of alternative management practices on the quality of low-density recreation experiences. The model represents the first attempt to represent the travel behavior of wilderness recreationists in a format consistent with the analysis of management policy. The model can accommodate large scale areas and has been applied to the Spanish Peaks Area in Montana and the Desolation Wilderness in California. It is illustrated with a simple example. Experience with the framework suggests that it can function as an instrument for managerial policy with wilderness areas.