Use of a values history in approaching medical advance directives with psychiatric patients

The Patient Self-Determination Act became federal law in 1990. However, many psychiatric facilities are just beginning to actively address the issue of medical advance directives. The term advance directives, for the purposes of this article, refers exclusively to medical advance directives. Psychiatric advance directives, which are related to issues such as involuntary hospitalization, are beyond the scope of this article.     

Social Amplification of Wildfire Risk: The Role of Social Interactions and Information Sources

Wildfire is a persistent and growing threat across much of the western United States. Understanding how people living in fire‐prone areas perceive this threat is essential to the design of effective risk management policies. Drawing on the social amplification of risk framework, we develop a conceptual model of wildfire risk perceptions that incorporates the social processes that likely shape how individuals in fire‐prone areas come to understand this risk, highlighting the role of information sources and social interactions. We classify information sources as expert or nonexpert, and group social interactions according to two dimensions: formal versus informal, and generic versus fire‐specific. Using survey data from two Colorado counties, we empirically examine how information sources and social interactions relate to the perceived probability and perceived consequences of a wildfire. Our results suggest that social amplification processes play a role in shaping how individuals in this area perceive wildfire risk. A key finding is that both “vertical” (i.e., expert information sources and formal social interactions) and “horizontal” (i.e., nonexpert information and informal interactions) interactions are associated with perceived risk of experiencing a wildfire. We also find evidence of perceived “risk interdependency”—that is, homeowners’ perceptions of risk are higher when vegetation on neighboring properties is perceived to be dense. Incorporating social amplification processes into community‐based wildfire education programs and evaluating these programs’ effectiveness constitutes an area for future inquiry.     

Empowering Community-Based Programs for Youth Development

This article discusses the need for community-based programs for youth and their families and urges the social work profession to resume its historical leadership in such programs while incorporating recent theory and practice. The authors describe the reasons why social workers abandoned neighborhood-based youth development services, the intended outcomes of such services, and current societal and professional trends that support a revival of social work’s involvement in youth development. They discuss one school of social work’s current participation in a youth agency partnership and examine implications of the suggested revival for social work education. Collaboration among families, schools, diverse community services, agencies, and educators is emphasized.     

Intention Understanding and Partner-Sensitive Behaviors in Young Children's Peer Interactions

Recent research on peer interaction shows that complex, coordinated play emerges around 24 months. Increased understanding of others' intentions has been proposed as a reason for its emergence at this juncture. In this study, we assessed understanding of the intentional structure of human action in children aged 19 to 39 months by eliciting verbal explanations of observed action. We hypothesized that more elaborated understanding of intention would be related to more partner-sensitive behaviors during interactions with familiar, same-age peers at home. We found that level of intention understanding predicted types of overtures made, types of objects offered, monitoring partner responses, partner compliance, and types of speech acts addressed to partners. Results are discussed in terms of the contribution of intention understanding to interactive competence, the role of linguistic competence in conceptual development, the effects of context on the production of speech acts and developing theory of mind.     

Gender-Specific Changes in Students' Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes at a Southeastern University between 1973 and 1988

Abstract

This study investigated the gender-specific, self-reported sexual behaviors and attitudes of never-married college students attending a southeastern university in 1973 and 1988. Data were collected by means of a mailed questionnaire that remained essentially unchanged for both years. The authors found that both men and women reported an increase in heterosexual relationships that included sexual intercourse and a decrease in nonsexual relationships with the other gender. The majority of the students perceived themselves as adequately informed about sexuality and satisfied with their relationships, although the proportion of men who reported being satisfied with their relationships declined over the 15 years. The students indicated that sexuality education should focus primarily on information about AIDS and on preparation for marriage.     

Recruiting fathers to parenting programs: Advice from dads and fatherhood program providers

The benefits of high-quality father–child relationships for fathers and children alike are well documented. While evidence suggests parenting programs can improve the quality of father–child relationships, few fathers participate in such programs. This qualitative study aims to fill the gap in knowledge on best practices for recruiting urban African American fathers, a group of fathers with unique parenting challenges, to parenting programs. Focus groups were conducted with 29 fathers to gain their perspectives on recruitment strategies. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with a nationwide sample of 19 fatherhood program providers to learn about their most successful recruitment strategies. Recruitment strategies based on emergent themes from the focus groups and interviews are presented here. Themes included using word-of-mouth recruitment, increasing advertising, targeting advertising specifically to urban African American fathers, providing transportation and incentives, recruiting through the courts, collaborating with other community agencies, and offering parenting programming along with other programming valued by fathers such as employment assistance. Implications for developing strategies for recruiting urban African American fathers to parenting programs are discussed.     

Career Maturity: The Construct's Validity,Vitality, and Viability

Career maturity is a useful construct for studying adolescents, but it has limits. Professional counselors need to integrate personality and decision-making style into research on career maturity as well as give more than a passing nod to developmental theory. They cannot study career development at the individual level alone; context matters and is an integral part of career development. The amount of variance in individual career development accounted for by context and change may be so great that longitudinal research on individuals may not be worthwhile.     

Stress management for pregnant adolescents and adolescent mothers: A pilot study

A five week stress management program for pregnant adolescents and adolescent mothers emphasizing deep muscle relaxation and cognitive control methods was pilot tested with 23 experimental and 12 control subjects. The experimental group demonstrated a significantly greater reduction in cognitive and affective manifestations of stress and an increased belief in their ability to deal with stress. While the differences between the groups did not reach statistical significance with respect to changes in overall stress levels or use of specific coping strategies, a consistent trend was demonstrated in the data for more positive changes in the experimental group. Recommendations were made for an expanded program, the inclusion of incentives, and the program's inclusion in the school schedule.