How can context and discourse affect teachers’ and mental health professionals’ interactions with adults with mental illness?

Patients with severe mental illness may have needs different from those of patients with more limited illnesses and might benefit from other types of intervention than traditional treatment. We interviewed health care professionals from two open, short-term psychiatric wards and teachers from two schools for adults with psychiatric diagnoses. The focus was to explore how differences in contextual factors such as time, tasks, and organizational demands might affect the actions and attitudes of health care professionals and teachers, as well as the potential consequences for patients and students. Data were collected through qualitative interviews. Participants included 14 health care professionals and 14 teachers. The informants worked with patients and students with similar diagnoses and illness durations. All interviews were conducted during the informants’ work time. Findings and interpretations showed that both teachers and health care professionals were engaged in their work and in the wellbeing of students and patients. However, they described marked differences in practice, including the amount of time spent with students/patients, the organization of their work, main tasks, amount of control over their tasks, and social structure. These differences seemed to affect relationships with students/patients, attitudes toward students/patients, norms and values, and opportunities for patient empowerment. Our findings suggest that while existing psychiatric health care might be appropriate for limited short-term problems such as single-episode depression, a model with a supportive environment, based on stable relations and possibility for learning, may improve personal development and mental health for persons with severe mental illness and disturbances in self-experience.     

Supporting students to use social media and comply with professional standards

Student social workers live in a world where sharing of information seems to be straightforward and unproblematic. However, data sharing is a contentious issue in practice that raises ethical issues. There is a focus on this aspect of practice in social work education particularly in the context of data storage, confidentiality and multi-disciplinary work. There have been examples of qualified workers being sanctioned by the Health Care Professions Council for breaching professional standards related to inappropriate use of social media. Understanding the advantages and potential pitfalls of social media is crucial for social workers. The aim of this research was to develop an understanding about how student social workers use social media during their time at university as a tool for continuing professional development whilst balancing the need to present a professional persona. This paper reports on four themes that emerged from a study that considered social media and social work training: changing/securing profiles; using social media to support learning and development; university support; replicating earlier behaviour in the professional setting. The findings suggest student social workers are ambivalent about the use of social media both during training and as a way to support ongoing development beyond the university setting.     

Home Environment and Its Relation with Quality of Life of Older People

In this cross-sectional study, we tested the relationship between sociophysical environment, quality of life (QOL), and perceived social support among elderly in Iran. The sample includes 128 participants recruited in the city of Shahrekord, Iran. We measured Evaluation of Older People Living Environment (EVOLVE); Control, Autonomy, Self-realization and Pleasure scale (CASP-19) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) tools respectively, through home-based observation and interview. A significant relationship was found between several domains of home environment, QOL, and perceived social support. The interaction effect of the home environment and gender in relation to QOL and perceived social support was statistically significant. Our results support that the home physical environment may not be considered a strong predictor of QOL among the Iranian elderly.     

Reconsidering “community liberated”: How class and the national context shape personal support networks

The “community liberated” thesis has been influential in describing contemporary social support systems. Specifically, “community liberated” argues that people do not seek support in their immediate neighborhood but rather entertain a network of far-flung ties to support-providing alters. This paper uses personal network data from six countries – Australia, Germany, the US, Austria, Hungary and Italy – to evaluate this argument and shows that the degree of liberation of one's community is strongly linked to one's socioeconomic status – specifically, one's education level. Additionally, we describe strong country-level heterogeneity in the spatial dynamics of personal support networks and find national contexts to be moderating the effect of education on community liberation, especially in Italy and Hungary, thus suggesting network geographic dispersion to be linked to national economic structures and labor markets. The paper thus elucidates the effect of two different, yet related social contexts on personal networks: the class context and the national context.     

Developing a model of disability that focuses on the actions of disabled people

Disabled people, writers on disability and disability activists stress the importance of disabled people being included in all aspects of society. I argue that a major omission from this inclusiveness is that no current model of disability focuses on the impact of the actions of disabled people on disability. Disabled people are not passive bystanders, powerless to reduce the restrictions of disability. On the contrary, we are central to actively limiting its constraints. I develop a model of disability, called ‘active’, which focuses on the effects on disability of the individual and collective actions of disabled people. I describe published findings which indicate that engaging in self-help, using support groups and deploying assistive technology can all reduce the limitations of disability. Recent increases in the number of disability support groups and developments in assistive technology have substantially augmented the potential for disabled people to combat the effects of disability.     

Romantic Relationships and Criminal Desistance: Pathways and Processes

In dominant theories of criminal desistance, marital relationship formation is understood to be a key “turning point” away from deviant behavior. Empirical studies supporting this claim have largely focused on the positive role of marriage in men's desistance from crime, and relatively few studies have examined the role that nonmarital relationships may play in desistance. Drawing on 138 longitudinal in‐depth interviews with 22 men and women reentering society from prison, this article extends the scope of desistance research by additionally considering the significance of more fleeting and fluid relationships, and the diverse processes through which romantic relationships of all sorts are linked with criminal behaviors. We present an empirically based typology detailing six processes, grouped within three conceptual categories, through which romantic relationships had their effects. These pathways include material circumstances, social bonds and interactions, and emotional supports and stressors. We also consider gender differences in these processes. While more tenuous bonds to marginally conventional partners would seem to exert little effect, as one of the few relationships and social roles available to many former prisoners, we found that they wielded important influence, if not always in a positive direction.     

Gender and Supportive Co‐Worker Relations in the Medical Profession

Women's growing numerical representation in the professions has not necessarily translated into women being truly integrated in these occupations. Questionnaire data are used to examine whether female physicians are socially integrated in the male‐dominated profession of medicine in terms of the support they receive from their medical colleagues compared to male physicians. The literature on tokenism and homophily suggests that women in male‐dominated professions receive less support than their male colleagues, whereas the social support literature predicts that women typically receive more emotional support than men but less informational and instrumental support. The results of this study shed light on the complex and multi‐layered ways in which gender is relevant to our understanding of the extent to which co‐workers provide empathy, information and assistance to one another.     

振兴东北老工业基地的金融支持

区域经济发展的差异与国家现行的统一的金融政策在制度安排上的不一致,构成了现行的金融政策制度与振兴东北老工业基地之间的基本矛盾。以金融结构论、金融深化论、金融约束论为代表的发展金融学,对制定振兴东北老工业基地的金融支持政策,具有重要的理论指导作用。振兴东北老工业基地金融支持的具体措施包括:发展风险投资事业;设立东北老工业基地振兴基金;组建东北振兴银行;化解银行不良资产。     

农民分层与财政支农政策优化研究——宏观视域下的微观探讨

农民分层是在农业人口占绝大多数的中国农民迈入现代化的必然选择,也是发展现代农业、消除城乡差别的普遍规律和重要标志。改革开放以后,在一系列农村经济政治体制改革的推动下,传统同质化的农民开始分化为不同的阶层,呈现“分层化”的特征。自2004年起中央“一号文件”连续11年聚焦“三农”问题,凸显对提升农民收入、层次和地位的关注。然而,作为国家惠农支持的主要手段——财政支农政策,在农民分层上存在投入总量不足、结构失调、效率不高等问题。通过建立职业农民与农转非者、农业主产区与非农主产区政府之间的博弈模型,结合现实考察财政支农政策对农民分层行为的影响,提出优化财政支农目标、科学调整支农政策、实现农业资源配置和农民分层的帕累托效率。     

强化金融支持中小企业发展创新的对策思路

目前中小企业贷款已进入高速发展期。建立高效的金融支持体系对促进中小企业发展创新、保持经济持续发展具有重大的现实意义。金融支持的目的,是通过各种金融支持方式帮助中小企业在获得资金的基础上,借助融资推动中小企业改善经营管理、促进中小企业成长发展。强化对中小企业发展创新的金融支持,应抓住金融结构创新这条主线,研究制定与《物权法》相适应的配套措施,促进中小企业融资方式创新;依靠两个完全不同的金融市场,建立和完善为中小企业服务的金融组织;完善担保运行机制,促进中小企业担保信用体系健康发展;用新的理念、新的经营模式,为中小企业定做融资产品。