The Impact of the Therapist's Curiosity on the Treatment Process of Children and Adolescents

Therapists bring their own initiative, interest, and wonder—their professional curiosity—into treatment sessions. Some children and adolescents pull away in reaction to this curiosity, bristling or withdrawing, if only for a moment. This can happen abruptly, even in response to the first hello, but most often it occurs subtly, over the course of treatment. These children and adolescents may be replaying the ruptures in relationships they experienced when they have expressed their own initiative and curiosity to important others in their lives. Therapists need to utilize opportunities to understand the dynamics, explore where the original ruptures may have occurred, and bring the experience into therapeutic focus. Case vignettes illustrate these dynamics.     

Developmental outcomes after five years for foster children returned home, remaining in care, or adopted

A substantial proportion of children who enter foster care in the US are infants or toddlers and will exit from foster care before they have been in care for long, either returning home or to adoption. These first years of involvement may predict a significant amount about children's longer term development so understanding developmental outcomes after five years is valuable to understanding if child welfare services (CWS) are serving the intention of promoting the well-being of children. A subsample of 353 infants (less than 13 months of age when investigated by CWS) and subsequently placed into foster care were selected from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. After 66 months, these infants had been reunified, adopted, or were still in foster care. Bivariate comparisons were completed. Statistical controls for maltreatment type and severity, demographic traits, and current caregiver education were implemented to help clarify the role of terminal child welfare placement, current caregiver behaviors, and household income, on eight linear regression models of developmental outcomes. Results support the longstanding tenet of child welfare services policy that remaining in foster care is less developmentally advantageous than having a more permanent arrangement of return home or adoption.     

The age old question, which comes first? A simultaneous test of children's savings and children's college-bound identity

This study has three goals: (1) to provide an extensive review of research on the assets/expectation relationship, (2) to provide a conceptual framework for how children's savings effects children's college-bound identity (children's college expectations are a proxy for children's college-bound identity), and (3) to conduct a simultaneous test of whether owning a savings account leads to college-bound identity or college-bound identity lead to owning a savings account using path analytic technique with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Our review reveals asset researchers theorize about college-bound identity in two distinct but compatible ways: college-bound identity as a “linking mechanism”, and college-bound identity as a mediator. However, there has been little theoretical development on the attitudinal effects of assets. In this study, we posit a conceptual framework for how children's savings affects children's college-bound identity. Findings from the simultaneous test of the assets/college-bound identity relationship suggest that savings has modest effect on college-bound identity and vice versa. A policy implication is that asset building policies that seek to build children's college-bound identity in addition to their savings may be more effective than policies that only seek to build children's savings.     

“She was buried in her purple dress and her red hat and all of our members wore full ‘Red Hat Regalia’ to celebrate her life”: Dress, embodiment and older women's leisure: Reconfiguring the ageing process

There is a significant literature on women's dress and clothing, women's dress and identity, and women's dress and body image. However, the way that dress shapes the self, gives public meaning to the body, and situates it within culture—its embodiment—is understudied. Older women's voices on how dress-up in leisure contexts is linked to embodiment are absent. Using data from an online survey of the Red Hat Society®, a leisure-based social group with over 1 million members, we examined the relationship between older women's dress and embodiment. Data analysis revealed three themes: 1) Dress and embodiment, doing “dress-up”; 2) Dress and embodied subjectivity, linking the personal with the social; and, 3) Dress and perceptions of ageing, fashioning to freedom. We extend the embodiment and leisure literatures by: (a) including older women's viewpoints on dress; (b) understanding linkages between embodiment and older women's leisure; and, (c) illustrating how public displays of dress contribute to older women's development.     

Strain Trauma: Effects on Symptom and Character Development in an Eight Year Old Girl

The concept of traumatic strain is reviewed and illustrated with case material from the treatment of an 8-year-old girl. Clinical formulation about the impact of strain trauma upon this girl’s development is provided to further highlight the literature on the subject.Danille Drake is affiliated with Baltimore-Washington center for Psychoanalysis and Clinical Social Work Institute, Washington, DC.     

A qualitative study on participants’ perceptions of child development accounts in Korea

ABSTRACT

In 2007, Korea implemented Child Development Accounts (CDAs) for institutionalised children in child welfare systems. Since then, the target group and a matching cap of CDAs in Korea have evolved. The target group expanded to include poor children receiving welfare, whereas the matching cap increased from KRW 30,000 (US$26.53) to KRW 40,000 (US$35.38), which is matched at a 1:1 rate. Despite the expansion, there is little empirical evidence examining the extent to which CDAs have influenced the life of participants. Using a content analysis method with a sample (N = 22), this study examines how CDAs have changed children’s mindsets, saving habits, education, future planning and sponsorship. The findings suggest that CDAs have multiple positive influences on children. This study concludes with policy implications for the inclusive and progressive development of CDAs in Korea.     

Transforming Social Work Curricula: Institutional Supports for Promoting Sustainability

Due to the centrality of human rights and social justice in the profession, social work must collectively take a stand on ecological degradation and the climate crisis. Overall, social work education's engagement with issues of sustainability and an expanded ecological justice perspective has been peripheral and piecemeal. It is crucial that social work education expand opportunities to prepare social workers to respond to the global environmental crisis. This conceptual paper considers strategies for integrating environmental content in social work curricula and addresses the essential role of institutional supports for curricular change and professional development focused on sustainability. The role of institutional supports to advance curricular change to respond to environmental crises and promote sustainability is highlighted, along with specific examples from the authors' home institution, including (1) institutional commitment and culture, (2) curricular supports and guidelines, and (3) interdisciplinary faculty development.     

皇家宫苑赏石文化流变研究

中国赏石文化内容丰富且历史悠久。赏石文化就是积淀在赏石中的文化现象 ,是人与自然相互协调、和谐统一的系统。自汉代在宫苑中已有赏石叠置 ,到南朝山水文化繁荣 ,经隋唐尤其是宋代以来赏石经历代王朝收藏、搬运、配置 ,至清乾隆时期 ,皇家赏石文化随宫苑变迁而消长流变 ,达到极高水平。这一流变脉络值得梳理研究。     

社会工作伦理守则：制定、完善与国际比较

本文阐明了制定伦理守则的一般程序,并在比较各国的社会工作伦理守则的异同的基础上,分析了中国的伦理守则存在的问题及其完善措施。     

灾后社区重建中的社会工作介入——从地区发展模式的视域展开

本文立足于汶川灾后社区重建的现实,通过分析目前国内外有灾后社区重建的实践和研究资料,提出以地区发展模式为视域是社会工作介入灾后社区重建的有效途径,这主要取决于灾后社区重建的现状和需求以及地区发展模式的本身的特性。地区发展模式是在充分整合地域现有资源的基础上,在一个地域内鼓励居民通过自助及互助来解决社区内的问题,实现共同发展。置于地区发展模式视域下,笔者尝试从服务理念、服务内容、方法和过程三个方面构建社会工作介入灾后社区重建的服务框架。文章最后指出以地区发展模式为视域的社会工作介入灾后社区重建,既是社会工作实务拓展的契机,同时也是实现社会工作职业化的一条重要路径。