Preliminary evaluation of contingent meals and telephone use to improve evidence-supported family therapy session attendance in mothers referred by Child Protective Services for substance abuse

Persons referred by Child Protective Services (CPS) for substance abuse evidence high rates of nonattendance to therapy sessions, taxing systems of care and exacerbating outcomes. This study examined the influence of two telephone-based incentive programs on therapy session attendance in mothers who were referred by CPS for substance abuse. After baseline therapy session attendance was established in an evidence-based clinic that incorporated a telephone engagement intervention (Phase I), participants were provided free cellular telephones with limited minutes and permitted to order free meals delivered by the therapist during upcoming sessions (Phase II). The third phase was similar to Phase II, but participants were provided unlimited minutes. Results indicated that participants’ attendance was significantly improved when meals and cellular telephone minutes were contingent on attendance. Although the percentage of sessions attended by participants during Phase III was higher than Phase II, unlimited minutes and meals did not significantly enhance attendance relative to limited minutes and meals. Session attendance for significant others of these participants was significantly higher during Phase III as compared with Phase I. Session attendance of significant others was statistically similar between Phase I and II and between Phase II and Phase III. Study implications and recommendations for future research and practice are discussed in light of the findings.     

Child protection and welfare: cultures,policies, and practices

Child protection and welfare have become international issues in a globalized world. Ideas about childhood and the upbringing of children vary widely, depending upon the prevailing economic, socio-cultural, religious, and political contexts. These have had dramatic effects on the way societies value children, and the role acquired by the state in their protection and advancing their well-being. Children, however, remain at risk. They are placed at risk by the breakdown of extended family systems as a result of urbanization, and as a result of impaired functioning of some nuclear families, in the absence of kinship safety nets. Some traditional cultural practices place children at risk, especially girl children. Poverty creates risks for all children but it can create specific catastrophic risks for girls. Countries can enact visionary laws intended to protect children, but they will be ineffective against entrenched social attitudes, especially if only limited resources can be provided to implement and enforce them. This is the ultimate challenge that the world community must address if the vision of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is to be realized.     

我国土地征收权滥用的法律探析

土地征收权合法性的核心要件在于公共利益目的、正当法律程序和公平合理的补偿。结合我国人多地少的国情,有必要对公共利益采取列举式的立法体例进行严格界定,同时引入"公共产品"的概念,淡化地方政府在征地过程中的"经济人"角色,将土地被征收后的增值部分完全分配给失地农民。     

中国企业集团规模与效益关系探析

本文阐述了中国企业集团规模发展的特点和尚存在的主要问题,提出了优化企业集团规模与效益关系的实施对策。包括：确立规模扩张应以提高效益为目标的发展观、科学合理确定企业集团的适度规模、增强集团核心企业的竞争实力、集团企业应重点走专业化道路、通过联合与重组扩大企业集团的单体规模、注重发挥企业集团的聚集效率、构建有利于企业集团规模经济发展的外部环境。     

Protecting the paediatrician: responding to recrimination

Doctors involved in child abuse proceedings may be subjected to much blame and pressure because of their role as ‘messenger’. They frequently need assistance with complaints procedures, disciplinary proceedings, public inquiries, litigation, media problems and other threats to their professional integrity and reputation. The medical model of support which may be offered by the defence organizations has much to commend it to other workers in the field. The author is a medico-legal adviser at the Medical Defence Union, and was extensively involved in assisting doctors at the Cleveland and Orkney Inquiries. From this privileged position he surveys the various procedures which may be used by parents and others to challenge paediatricians, and sets out possible ways in which practical support may be given.     

The Media Abuse of Children. Jake's Progress from Demonic Icon to Restored Childhood Innocent

While scholarly analysis of child protection and the media has grown substantially during the 1990s (Aldridge, 1994; Franklin and Parton, 1991; Kitzinger and Skidmore, 1995), studies have ignored a crucial dimension which forms the focus for discussion here. We wish to suggest that media reporting of children and child abuse may itself constitute an abusive activity. Media presentations of children and childhood, since press coverage of the Bulger case in 1993, have assumed a distinctive and sinister guise which, we argue, fundamentally revises the previously held perception of children and childhood. We suggest that this new understanding of childhood is damaging to children and, because of the impact of such media presentations on the public mood and policy climate, harms their interests. The discussion is in three parts. First, newspaper reporting of the Bulger case is analysed to reveal how coverage challenged the idea of childhood as a period of innocence and replaced it with a perception of childhood as essentially ‘evil’. Second, the characterization of Jake, the central figure in Alan Bleasdale's recent television dramaJake's Progress, is analysed to serve as an illustrative exemplar of this new construction of childhood. Finally, we consider the possible messages conveyed by such presentations to perpetrators and victims of abuse.     

关于中国隐性养老金债务问题研究

隐性养老金债务(IPD)是中国养老金体系面临的主要问题。中国IPD来源于两个规定受益的养老金计划:现收现付制(PAYG)的社会统筹帐户和基金制(FUND)的个人帐户。受诸因素的综合影响,中国IPD规模达到5.5~9万亿;同时由于IPD属于政府、企业及个人的共同责任,故解决中国IDP问题是一项牵扯面广、持续时间长的系统工程,可采取削减规模、调整财政支出结构、资产债务互换、开征专项税、发行特种债券、建立储备基金、调整人口结构等多种经济和社会措施。     

Attitude strength moderates adverse effects to questionnaire design

ABSTRACT

The presentation and visual design of the “don’t know” category in rating scales on respondents’ behavior may have ambivalent effects. The hypothesis is that attitude strength toward the topic influences the respondents’ sensitivity to the graphical design of the scale. A paper-and-pencil questionnaire conducted among 307 German university students contained an experimental variation of the presentation of a “don’t know” category and its visual design. A multinomial logistic regression shows that presenting a “don’t know” category drives respondents toward extreme categories. The visual design of the “don’t know” category influences the distribution of responses, all the more that the respondents’ attitudes toward the item topic are weak.     

Legal Marriage,Unequal Recognition,and Mental Health Among Same‐Sex Couples

The authors examined whether the perception of unequal relationship recognition ‐ a novel couple‐level minority stressor ‐ has negative consequences for mental health among same‐sex couples. Data were analyzed from a dyadic study of 100 same‐sex couples (200 individuals) in the United States. Being in a legal marriage was associated with lower perceived unequal recognition and better mental health; being in a registered domestic partnership or civil union—but not also legally married—was associated with greater perceived unequal recognition and worse mental health. Actor partner interdependence models tested associations between legal relationship status, unequal relationship recognition, and mental health (nonspecific psychological distress, depressive symptomatology, and problematic drinking), net controls (age, gender, race and ethnicity, education, and income). Unequal recognition was consistently associated with worse mental health, independent of legal relationship status. Legal changes affecting relationship recognition should not be seen as simple remedies for addressing the mental health effects of institutionalized discrimination.