Treatment Strategies for Juvenile Delinquency: Alternative Solutions

Social workers involved in the treatment of adjudicated youth commonly encounter youth sentenced to traditional incarceration or parole as a path to rehabilitation. This article examines alternative treatment strategies for adjudicated youth, namely Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs (often called mediation), Boot Camps, and Wrap-Around Community-Based Care, to help these youth avoid reoffending. While popular with the media, policymakers, or the general public, an evaluation of the literature makes it clear that these programs do not necessarily guarantee lower recidivism rates for program participants. It is evident that further research and evaluation must be done in order to more fully understand the drawbacks and benefits of alternative strategies, and to more appropriately help adjudicated youth and their communities.     

网络价值冲突与高校共青团工作的创新

当今时代,网络越来越成为人们获取知识和信息的重要途径,它广泛而深刻地影响着人们的思想观念和价值取向。从分析网络价值冲突的角度入手,阐明了当前高校共青团工作面临的机遇和挑战,提出从高校团工作进网络的新视角来建构网上团工作新体系,开创高校共青团工作新格局。     

Malawi goes to scale with anti-AIDS clubs and popular media

This paper evaluates a project in Malawi that aimed to provide in-school and out-of-school youth with the necessary tools and skills to avoid high-risk sexual behavior, in order to reduce HIV transmission. Project components were school curriculum; extra-curricular activities; out-of-school youth clubs; enabling environmental support; youth reproductive health services; and research, monitoring and evaluation. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Youth Technical Committees established 3200 anti-AIDS Clubs throughout Malawi. These Clubs positively influenced members' behavior and helped to ‘break the silence’. An enabling environment was created through two popular radio programs, advertisements and provision of sports equipment. The out-of-school youth clubs needed clearer criteria and objectives. Many objectives were achieved, but the aim of establishing health services for youth was over-ambitious, and not achieved. This program is exemplary for the national scale that it achieved, and for its approach of using diverse partners to implement locally adapted components.     

Predicting successful and unsuccessful transitions from school to work by using sequence methods

Policy makers recognize the importance of identifying early young people who are likely to end up jobless on entry to the adult labour market. This paper uses sequence techniques to characterize 712 young peoples' transitions from school to work into `types', with jobless types interpreted as unsuccessful transitions. A logit model is estimated for transition type using a collection of static individual, family and school characteristics. This allows us to identify which young people are most likely to experience unsuccessful transitions into the adult labour market. Policy makers might use such information to target social and educational policy more effectively to promote social inclusion.     

加强高校师资队伍管理与建设刍议

师资管理是高等学校管理的一项重要工作,也是提高教学质量和办学水平的重要保障.本文论述了高校师资管理的重要性,并对在高校师资管理的诸项作用中扮演重要角色的最为核心的内容--教师队伍的计划与组织进行了深入而具体的阐释.提出完善管理中的计划与组织职能,是高校师资管理中的重中之重的看法.同时也对如何加强高校师资队伍管理与建设进行了进一步的思考.     

Community-based Arts Program for Youth in Low-Income Communities: A Multi-Method Evaluation

This article reports on a multi-method evaluation of a national arts program conducted over 3 years in five sites across Canada. Statistical analysis involve growth curve modeling of five waves of data and interviews with participating youth and parents. The results indicate that high-quality arts programs have a significant effect on children’s in-program behavior and emotional problems. The findings from the qualitative interviews suggest that active recruitment, removing barriers to participation, and high parental involvement enhanced youth engagement. Perceived youth gains included increased confidence, enhanced art skills, improved prosocial skills, and improved conflict resolution skills.     

Organizing for Tenants' Rights: Insights and Approaches From Both Sides of the Fence

The initial discussion includes musings about learning community organization as a graduate student in social work during the late 1970s and subsequently practicing as a tenant organizer in the inner cities of New York City. Three major areas are addressed: (1) the tensions between educational models of practice and community organizing; (2) the critical role of the organizer in constructing the problem and shifting perceptions of power and; (3) how confrontations with legitimate channels of power can foster the development of oppositional consciousness and thus promote social justice efforts. This article argues for greater educational emphasis on the claimsmaking role of community organizers because problem construction is inextricably tied to definitions of power and thus to its redistribution to exploited classes.     

It Takes a Community: Older Lesbians Meeting Social and Care Needs

Although specialized formal services are becoming more prevalent in addressing the needs of the older LGBT community, little is known about informal groups that have organized to meet the needs of this population. This article presents two case examples that depict the efforts of older lesbians to meet the social and care needs of members of their communities. The concept of psychological contracting is used to analyze these experiences, and combined with a review of the literature, practice implications for care and support for this special population are discussed.     

Grassroots Meet Homophobia

SUMMARY

This case study highlights the challenges and successes of a small grassroots effort to change the learning environment for GLBT youth in a local public school district located within the conservative social climate of a small city in Colorado. Strategies included tailoring the social action agenda to the unique characteristics of the conservative community; finding allies in the school district; recruiting volunteer professional talent; and reframing social justice issues to focus on the educational value that every child is entitled to a physically and psychologically safe and supportive learning environment in order to achieve full academic potential.