Promoting children's rights through the use of relationship

This paper reports on a research study exploring the views of 27 children and young people on their involvement in a child protection investigation. Their perspectives on the personal and professional qualities of the professionals involved and on the choice, influence and representation they experienced and prefer are discussed. One of the most striking findings is that most of the children and young people had experienced a positive relationship with a social worker. Overall, many reported improvements at home, at school and in their health and behaviour. Their responses to different aspects of the intervention are discussed within the context of their rights to participation, choice and representation. It is acknowledged that children lack agency in promoting these rights in child protection work and concluded that these are best promoted through the development and maintenance of a relationship of trust, offered by a key professional in their network. Drawing upon Heard & Lake's (1997) work on attachment theory, it is suggested, further, that relationships and processes which embody supportive and companionable interactions are more likely to offer opportunities for representation and participation than those which are dominant and submissive. Finally, it is argued that children's services should be based on a human rights perspective, the discourse of which has more in common with the values of respect and honesty than with cost effectiveness and business management.     

Multiple‐Family Group Intervention for Incarcerated Male Adolescents Who Sexually Offend and Their Families: Change in Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Predicts Adaptive Change in Adolescent Behaviors

The multiple‐family group intervention is an effective, yet affordable, 8‐week treatment that is conducted in a juvenile correctional institution in Alabama with adolescents who sexually offend and their families. Data from 115 incarcerated male adolescents and their male and female caregivers collected at pre‐, post‐, and 1‐year follow‐up were used to determine that problem behaviors (internalizing, externalizing) decreased over pre‐ and posttest and the significant decreases in maladaptive emotion regulation predicted those changes. Adolescent‐reported anxiety over abandonment and attachment dependence on parents increased significantly; these changes were predicted by decreases in maladaptive emotion regulation. Linear growth models were also fit over the 3 time points and indicate decreases in adolescent problem behavior and maladaptive emotion regulation.     

Women rebuilding lives post-disaster: innovative community practices for building resilience and promoting sustainable development

Disasters result in devastating human, economic, and environmental effects. The paper highlights women's active participation in community-based disaster recovery efforts drawing from the results of the ‘Rebuilding Lives Post-disaster: Innovative Community Practices for Sustainable Development’ by an international research partnership. Two case studies are presented from Pakistan and the USA to demonstrate how women contribute to building resilience and promoting sustainable development in diverse post-disaster contexts. The policy and practice implications are relevant for discussions regarding the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals and framework.     

Peers' influence and African-American youth in public housing

Drawing from problem behavior theory (PBT), this study investigates whether the relationship between exposure to delinquent peers and delinquent behavior is moderated by peer influences as well as by generalized self-efficacy and an adolescent's attitudes toward deviance. We also explore how gender may influence these relationships. A sample of 401 African-American adolescents living in public housing developments in two large US cities was recruited for this investigation. The preliminary analyses included t-test and bivariate correlations, while our primary analysis included hierarchical regression analysis. The regression analysis included two-way and three-way interaction terms to assess the moderating effects of peer influences, generalized self-efficacy, and attitudes toward deviance as well as gender, respectively. Results indicate that the effects of exposure to delinquent peers depend on peers' influence over adolescents and other factors. Findings provide partial support for PBT and suggest that the relationship between exposure to delinquent peers and delinquent behavior, with regard to minority youth living in urban public housing, merits further investigation. Results have the potential to guide preventative interventions targeting African-American youth living in urban public housing and also inform future inquiries into the lives of such youth.     

Preparing Black and Latinx children for police encounters: Caregiver response profiles and child self-regulation

We hypothesized that the goodness-of-fit between profiles of observed, caregiver-provided ethnic–racial socialization (ERS), and child self-regulation (i.e., inhibitory control) would differentially associate with child behavioral outcomes. Conversations between 80 caregivers (45% Latinx; 55% Black) and their children (M _age  = 11.09; 46% female) were rated for ERS. Measures included an inhibitory control composite (ages 2.5–3.5) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; age 12). Three profiles were determined: Comprehensive (n  = 34), Reactive (n  = 8), and Pragmatic (n  = 38). Only youth with low inhibitory control in preschool appeared to benefit from Pragmatic ERS, whereas youth with normative or high inhibitory control in early childhood displayed lower internalizing and externalizing behaviors when they had Comprehensive or Reactive rather than Pragmatic caregivers.     

Bayesian forecasting with changing linear models

This investigation considers a general linear model which changes parameters exactly once during the observation period. Assuming all the parameters are unknown and a proper prior distribution, the Bayesian predictive distribution of the future observations is derived.

It is shown that the predictive distribution is a mixture of multivariate t distributions and that the mixing distribution is the marginal posterior mass function of the change point parameter.     

Microcredit Self-Help Groups for Widowed and Abandoned Women in South India: Do They Help?

ABSTRACT

Results are presented from a study on a microcredit program with self-help groups implemented for widowed and abandoned women in Tamil Nadu shortly after the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Data were collected from 109 participants measuring the women's investment patterns, loan amounts, demographics, and overall well-being (psychological, economic, communal, and familial). Results indicate that loan amounts and investment patterns were not significantly related to the women's well-being. Length of group participation and having children were negatively related to the women's well-being. These findings are discussed in relation to social and cultural contexts. Suggestions for programs for this population of vulnerable women and other marginalized groups are proposed.     

The expansion of religious affiliation: An explanation of the growth of church participation in the United States 1850–1930

This paper focuses on the period in U.S. history that experienced the most rapid rate of increase of church membership—the decades between 1850 and 1930—in order to explain synchronic and diachronic variation in those rates. Using pooled cross-sectional time series analysis, different predictions are derived and tested from theories of secularization/social control, comparative disadvantage, resource mobilization, and pluralism. The effects of spatial diffusion and the momentum of religious tradition also are estimated. Our conclusion is that religious monopoly—not diversity—fuels religious expansion. This finding is bolstered by the complementary result that ethnic homogeneity is also conducive to religious expansion. Together these results highlight the importance for mobilization of religious and ethnocultural dominance in a particular niche.     

Diverse trajectories of cocaine use through early adulthood among rebellious and socially conforming youth

This paper tests predictions of continuity and change in antisocial behavior over time as derived from population heterogeneity and life-course perspectives. These predictions are assessed with respect to a rarely studied form of delinquent/criminal behavior, cocaine use during the late-teenage and young adult years. We first examine the extent to which differential propensities toward antisocial behavior can be detected in a nationally representative sample of youth aged 14-16 in 1979. Based on self-reported delinquent and criminal activities in late adolescense, traditional cross-sectional latent-class analysis identifies three groups of antisocial/rebellious respondents and a group of non-offenders. We then follow these groups into early adulthood, examining age trajectories of cocaine usage between 1984 and 1998. Latent-class trajectory models identify clusters of respondents who show similar age trajectories of cocaine use over time and provide parameter estimates that predict membership in those clusters. In support of the population heterogeneity perspective, we find that antisocial/rebellious youth have higher probabilities of cocaine use throughout early adulthood than non-of-fending youth. There is, however, much variation in drug use patterns among the groups as they aged. In support of a life-course perspective, we find that social ties to schools, families, religion, and the labor market help differentiate youth who refrain from, maintain, or desist from using cocaine through early adulthood.