Business Incubation for People with Severe Mental Illness Histories: The Experience of One Model

ABSTRACT

The Enterprise People was a business incubator for people with serious mental health conditions that operated in Madison, Wisconsin, from 1998–2005. It supported entrepreneurs with learning basic business skills, start-up processes and expenses, back office supports, ongoing problem solving, and for some, with space to conduct their businesses. The original impetus was to discover whether people with SMI histories could successfully start and operate small businesses. Although this was confirmed, the experience also uncovered factors that will allow other projects of this sort to succeed, and some core infrastructural supports that need to be created. The experience demonstrates that self-employment supported by formal business incubation is a viable option in the range of mental health vocational rehabilitation models.     

Parenting with a Disability and Child Mental Health: A Propensity Score Analysis

Little research has examined the impact of having a parent with a disability on child mental health. This study used data from 7,116 families of children who participated in the 2006 National Health Interview Survey and propensity score matching (PSM) to investigate this question. Prior to PSM, differences in Child Mental Health Brief scores were significant with a moderate effect size. After PSM, differences in Child Mental Health Brief scores were still significant, but the effect size was small. Results indicate that much of the mental health risk for children of parents with disabilities is connected to related issues.     

因灾致残者的社会帮扶满意度研究——以5.12汶川地震为例

以汶川地震为例,调查了解因灾致残者对所接受社会帮扶满意度的一般状况,并分析不同人口特征者在该满意度上的差异性及影响力.通过实证调查首先发现：当前因灾致残者对社会帮扶的满意度较高,尤其体现在基本生活帮扶与医疗康复帮扶方面;其次不同受教育程度、家庭月收入、康复状况、工作状态、婚姻状况者对社会帮扶的满意度有较为显著的差异;进而分析发现,完全康复、基本康复、小学教育、初中教育、病退者对该满意度有一定的影响力,因此,社会帮扶重点应有所转变,从重视生存需求转变为生存与发展需求并重.     

Externalizing an ‘Asset Model’ of Activation: Creative Institutional Work by Frontline Workers in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service

The past two decades have brought significant shifts in Norwegian activation policy towards a joined‐up and employability‐enhancing approach to labour market inclusion in order to promote return‐to‐work despite health problems or disabilities. Utilizing a concept from health promotion, we term this approach an ‘asset model’ of activation. The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service (NAV) and its local offices are the main agents implementing the new policy. This article aims to investigate the strategies that the frontline workers of NAV engage in, in order to externalize an ‘asset model’ in the adjacent medical field and to the general practitioners (GPs) in particular. We analyze these strategies as forms of creative institutional work – the purposive actions undertaken to change existing presumptions and opinions among relevant actors. We argue that although the new activation policy is not theirs to develop, in order to bring about changes in practice, ‘creating’ institutional work by the frontline workers is required. Our findings show that the frontline workers develop strategies in order to externalize an asset model to the GPs, as part of operationalizing an ‘activation’ reform into practice. We identify four forms of ‘creating’ institutional work undertaken by the frontline workers: ‘defining’ – enacting legislation and regulation in relation to GPs; ‘constructing normative networks’ – creating a more collaborative relationship with the GPs; ‘educating’ – teaching the GPs about the rules and regulations, and the opportunities and assistive measures they can offer to the injured; and thereby also ‘changing normative associations’ of GPs towards the activation policy.     

Performative identity regulation in rehabilitative home care work: an analysis of how experts’ embodied mediation of the managerial ideology ‘activates’ new frontline identities

ABSTRACT

This article explores how therapists when introduced as new so-called frontline ‘experts’ in home care work, become both discursive and embodied mediators for the managerial ideology of rehabilitation, and how their presence regulates the care aides’ subjectivities at work. We show how the managerial discourse of rehabilitation mobilizes the care aides to transform their identity from traditional nurturing to rehabilitation, as a result of promoting the latter as more professional. While the traditional managers/nurses promote the identity transfer through more classic discursive regulation at a distance from ‘the office’, the therapists do so through what we label performative regulation. Performative regulation is exercised by the therapists performing the desired role at the frontline and thus embodies the ideal and transfers it by embodied practices, not directives. With this notion of performative regulation, the article emphasizes the material, physical, embodied and performative dimensions of professional identity regulation.     

美国海洋溢油事件的社会学研究

海洋溢油是工业社会的产物,凸显了现代风险社会的特质。它不仅会产生严重的环境与经济影响,也会产生深刻的社会与文化影响。美国海洋溢油事件的社会学研究可分为"根源论"、"影响论"和"博弈论",分别探讨了溢油事件的社会根源、社会文化影响与心理影响及其康复以及权力博弈等议题。美国海洋溢油事件的社会学研究具有很强的追踪性和深入性。随着海洋开发进程的加快,中国溢油事件已经屡见不鲜,对社会运行产生着深刻影响。鉴于此,中国社会学界需要增加学术自觉意识,积极扭转海洋溢油事件中社会学话语体系缺失的局面。     

我国三类人群社会福利现状的定量研究

我国社会福利正经历着从"小福利"向"大福利"的转型,而认清区域间社会福利的差异对于整体转型具有重要意义。利用SPSS软件中的均值分析、回归分析和聚类分析技术,从福利供应的角度对我国儿童教育福利、残疾人康复福利、老年人供养福利进行区域差异的量化研究。研究发现,我国三类人群的社会福利基本上呈现出自东向西逐步恶化的趋势,经济发展水平对社会福利呈现出了决定性作用,且三类社会福利的区域差异程度有内部分化。在认清我国区域间社会福利差异的前提下,应强化对中西部地区的支持,保证福利供应在区域之间的平衡,为实现"大福利"的转型奠定基础。     

Mental health in postgraduate social work curriculum: Review of training contents in Indian schools of social work

Training of social workers according to the changing needs of the society is important. To this end, we decided to review the adequacy of mental health training in postgraduate programme in social work. The Mental Health Care Act 2017 defines psychiatric social worker (PSW) in India to have additional higher qualification beyond post‐graduation in social work. The number of such qualified PSWs appears to be limited due to small number of institutes that offer advanced training in the country. Though, the number of available PSWs with such qualifications is rising, the manpower in proportion to the mental health needs in the country continues to remain low. It is therefore, relevant to review the quality of psychiatric social work education at postgraduate level if this level is to be considered as the desirable qualification for PSW. In this context, postgraduate social work syllabi from 71 universities including autonomous institutions were reviewed using semi‐structured assessment. The results show a lack of uniform teaching components, training methods and insufficient skill orientation towards mental health interventions. These observations suggest that curricula and training are modified with strengthening and enhancing the quality of training of mental health at post‐graduate level in Social Work.     

Gendered tri-racial stratification and health disparities

Despite extensive evidence confirming racial and gender health disparities, little research considers how race theory might aid in understanding these patterns. Using the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), this study fills this void by integrating two research areas—sociology of race and medical sociology—to assess the utility of Bonilla-Silva's tri-racial stratification perspective in predicting health patterns. More specifically, I address the following questions: is the tri-racial stratification thesis aligned with the health profiles of racial groups in the U.S.? Does the applicability of this perspective differ for women and men? Last, do the health patterns suggested by tri-racial stratification persist after adjusting for social factors (socioeconomic status and social support) often invoked to explain health disparities? Results indicate that the racial patterning of life-threatening conditions lend partial support for tri-racial stratification for women and men. Self-rated health findings yield counterintuitive patterns. Furthermore, social factors do not explain the majority of ethnic differences in health. Research and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

意义建构:戒毒社会工作服务的实践研究——以上海社区戒毒康复服务中的同伴教育为例

本文以上海市社区戒毒康复服务中的同伴教育为研究案例,重点探讨同伴教育辅导服务对担当同伴示范员的个体实现戒毒康复的功效。本研究发现,同伴教育小组及同伴示范员的角色,使社区戒毒康复人员的自信心、自我效能感、价值观产生了巨大的改变。助己、互助及助社会的目标,建构了社区戒毒康复人员新的生命意义。通过研究,笔者归纳出了社区戒毒康复人员同伴教育辅导服务的核心要素应包括:第一,以建构生命意义为同伴教育辅导服务的核心目标。第二,建构意义的三个途径为:(1)开展就业辅导服务和各类公益助人活动,体现个人的社会贡献,实现个体的社会价值;(2)开展各类体验活动,感受真、善、美,感受爱,体验价值;(3)修正认知和态度,以实现最深和最高意义的态度价值。第三,建立社会支持系统,搭建政府、社会服务机构、社区戒毒康复人员、社会志愿者的互动交流平台,创建社会支持的环境资源。