A Statewide Parenting Alternative Sentencing Program: Description and Preliminary Outcomes

ABSTRACT

The Washington State Legislature created the Parenting Sentencing Alternative in 2010, authorizing a substitute to total confinement for parents of minor children. The Alternative is designed to strengthen family bonds and improve parenting skills to encourage successful reintegration. An overview of the Alternative’s history, design, and implementation is presented, followed by preliminary results from an impact evaluation. A case study of a successful participant is presented, and implications for the findings are discussed.     

Fathers' Investments of Money and Time Across Residential Contexts

Fathers' roles in family life have changed dramatically over the past 50 years. In addition to ongoing breadwinning responsibilities, many fathers are now involved in direct caregiving and engagement with children. Yet there is considerable variation in what fathers do, especially depending on whether they live with or away from their child. In this article, the authors use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,869) to describe how fathers' economic capacities (money) and direct involvement with children (time) are associated over child ages 1 to 9 for resident versus nonresident fathers, net of confounding factors. They found suggestive evidence that money and time investments operate differently across residential contexts: Resident fathers experience a trade‐off between market work and time involved with children. In contrast, nonresident fathers' higher economic capacities are associated with more time involvement, underscoring the greater challenge for such fathers to remain actively involved.     

“This will help your children”: Service providers’ experiences with military families during cycles of deployment

ABSTRACT

Military families face not only the same challenges as other families, but also unique issues due to their military involvement. Parenting programs for civilian families can be helpful, but they do not generally cover the specific issues faced by military families. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gather information from a focus group of eight service providers about the types of issues that affect military families, such that content and delivery of workshops at a social service agency could be formed to specifically cater to military families. This study utilized a phenomenological approach, and analyses revealed areas for social service involvement around the cycle of deployment. Specifically, social services could be helpful by using psychoeducational and normalization techniques around the five major themes that resulted from this study: (1) the issues of servicemembers psychologically withdrawing before deployment, (2) family cohesion and connectedness during and after deployment, (3) family stability during reintegration of the service member, (4) military families experience many of the same challenges that nonmilitary families do (such as domestic violence and financial issues), and (5) utilizing a military culture framework for all military family programs.     

On shifting ground: First-time parents’ ideal world of paid work and family time

We examined first-time fathers’ and mothers’ perspectives about their ideal world of support in the context of dominant social ideology, ethno-cultural ideals, and the pragmatics of their everyday family, workplace, and socioeconomic circumstances during their first 18 months as parents. Twelve Canadian-born and six Chinese immigrant couples participated in individual in-depth interviews. We conducted a three-part analysis: fathers’ perspectives, mothers’ perspectives, and couples’ perspectives. Fathers focused on fulfilling dual fathering ideals of ‘time with family’ and ‘providing for family’; mothers emphasized fulfilling a mothering ideal of ‘caring for children'. Examining couples’ perspectives revealed a more nuanced understanding of their shared focus on ‘caring for family'. Parents in this study found the current social ideal of the ‘new’ father, who is both financial provider and nurturing co-parent, appealing, yet difficult to achieve. Couples wanted informal (i.e. family and social network) support, along with formal (i.e. workplace and childcare) support to enable them to provide family care and financial stability for their family. Findings contribute to understanding family and paid work experiences and decision-making among couples as new parents. We offer insights into the complexity of intersections among social ideals, personal expectations, family care, and paid work for fathers and mothers.     

Time and exclusion

Drawing on interviews with parents of children with complex disabilities in several school systems in a US state, this paper examines how temporal units such as the school day and school year and practices organized around artifacts like clocks and calendars work as ‘devices of temporal distanciation’ to separate children with disabilities from other children and exclude their families from critical relations with schools. The paper focuses on two kinds of effects: the ways differentiated timetables separate children and the ways constructing school time in bounded, discrete units limits the ability of parents and children to make key elements of their lives visible to the school.     

幼儿家长教养观念及方式的现状调查——基于祖、父辈教养的比较

家庭系统的重要他人的教养观念、教养方式对幼儿的发展有着潜移默化的影响。文章采用问卷调查的方式，考察幼儿家长的教养观念及方式，探究祖辈、父辈两代人在幼儿教养上的共性与差异性。结果发现：多数家庭的祖、父辈共同参与幼儿的教养，父辈多为主要教养者；祖、父辈获取及解决教养难题的途径、教养观念及教养方式既存在共性又存在不同程度的差异性。正视两代人教养的共性和差异性，发挥其中有利之处，规避存在的不足，对幼儿及其家庭大有裨益。     

父母离婚未成年子女权益保护的法律缺陷

当前,不抚养一方妨碍抚养权利行使是我国子女抚养权判决执行难的一个突出问题。应该通过加大对拒不履行子女抚养权判决行为的处罚力度,明确对拒不交出子女的父母一方适用司法强制措施,明确拒不履行法院判决罪规定的情形,简化子女户口迁随抚养一方的手续等法律措施,保障父母离婚未成年子女的合法权益。     

An Exploratory Study on Psychosocial Variables of Single Parent Involvement in Education

Despite the proliferation of studies on parent involvement, few have specifically examined the psychosocial variables of single parent involvement. In this qualitative study, ten single mothers with children in the first two years of primary school were interviewed to explore psychosocial variables of their involvement in education. Financial assistance, personal resilience and support from loved ones especially grandparents supported their involvement. The lack of time to provide supervision due to long hours spent at work, low wages, difficulties with quality supervision of children's homework and grandparents' differences in disciplinary practices prevented their involvement. Implications for school-community-family partnerships were discussed.     

BOOK REVIEWS

No abstract available for this article.     

Web-Enhanced Preservice Training for Prospective Resource Parents: A Randomized Trial of Effectiveness and User Satisfaction

ABSTRACT

Traditionally, prospective resource parents must attend all preservice training in person. Although live sessions are necessary for screening applicants, instructional portions of training could be enhanced by Web-based sessions. This pilot study compares the effectiveness of online and classroom versions of one session from a widely used preservice training program. Ninety-two individuals enrolled in the program in two states were randomly assigned to a treatment group that viewed an online version of the class on child abuse and neglect or to a comparison group that took the same class in person. Written questionnaires were completed before and after the class. Significant group differences on knowledge of child maltreatment and empathy toward birth parents plus high user satisfaction were hypothesized. Analysis of covariance results showed the online training was more effective than the live training at increasing knowledge. Multivariate analysis of covariance findings on empathy were not significant but trended toward greater empathy for the online group. Feedback indicated high satisfaction with the online course. The finding that online instruction is more effective than live instruction has positive implications for practice, because Web-based training offers advantages like standardizing instruction, cutting agency and trainee costs, and providing greater flexibility.