Breaking Health Barriers: How Can Public Libraries Contribute?

This article focuses on the health information needs of the State of Oklahoma, which ranks 45th among all 50 states in the health status of its citizens. A deficit in collections technology, a lack of knowledge about medical information in service staff, and poor marketing and outreach efforts in lightly populated counties and towns have worked against the provision of solid health information to the populace. The author points out how grants have provided funding for collaboration, partnerships, and training to certification (Medical Library Association’s Consumer Health Information Specialist Certification [CHIS]) for many staff as health information specialists. Although the issue of health information is still significant in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma library community has made inroads in handling a severe community problem in which the author believes that U.S. public libraries should be heavily involved.     

Supplementation of urban home visitation with a series of group meetings for parents and infants: results of a “real-world” randomized, controlled trial

Objective: Home visitation has been shown to be effective in reducing rates of child maltreatment and in enhancing psychosocial outcomes in children and their parents. Even when available, however, it is underutilized by parents in some urban settings. We tested a supplemental 10-session group intervention for its ability to increase active participation in home visitation, enhance the quality of caregiving behavior of parents, and improve social developmental outcome in children.Method: A randomized controlled design was utilized, involving two separate cohorts of parents of 3- to 18-month old infants, totaling 148 parent-child dyads. The intervention focused on practical experience in promoting parent-infant attachment relationships.Results: At 6 months follow-up, there was a substantial increase in the proportion of intervention group parents participating in home visitation, compared to parents in the control group (Fisher’s exact p = .008). Parents in the intervention group exhibited a trend for improvement in their capacity to appropriately interpret infants’ emotional cues (p = .08), independent of the effects of home visitation itself. Attrition in both the treatment and control groups was inversely associated with income and level of education.Conclusions: Group meetings may constitute an effective means of engaging stressed urban families in home visitation.     

Reported contact with child protection services among those reporting child physical and sexual abuse: results from a community survey

OBJECTIVE: This study uses results from a large community survey to examine the relationship between a history of child maltreatment and self-reports of contact with Child Protection Services (CPS). METHODS: The Ontario Health Supplement was a province-wide, probability-based survey of household dwellings in the province of Ontario, Canada. A random sample of residents aged 15 and older participated in the Ontario Health Supplement (N=9953). A face-to-face interview included a question about contact with Child Protection Services (CPS), and the Child Maltreatment History Self-Report, a self-administered questionnaire, was used to assess history of child physical and sexual abuse. RESULTS: Only a very small percentage of respondents with a history of child abuse reported contact with CPS; 5.1% of those with a history of physical abuse, and 8.7% of those with a history of sexual abuse. Contact with CPS was associated with younger age of respondent for both types of abuse and female gender for physical abuse. In the case of sexual abuse, younger respondents whose parental employment classification was in the lower socioeconomic group were more likely to have contact with CPS. CONCLUSIONS: Interventions that target only those who come in contact with CPS will not reach most persons exposed to child abuse.     

Helping Teachers Support Pupils with Mental Health Problems Through Inter-professional Collaboration: A Qualitative Study of Teachers and School Principals

ABSTRACT

A qualitative study conducted in four lower secondary schools in Norway explored teachers’ and school principals’ experiences of collaboration with a variety of extended services (ES). Particular attention was directed to the ways (if any) they perceived collaboration to be relevant to helping teachers support pupils with mental health problems through their everyday social and pedagogic practices. Findings of the study indicated that teachers valued initiatives that could help develop mutual understandings of teachers’ and ES professionals’ roles and responsibilities. Initiatives to build inter-professional relationships were perceived as laying the foundation for more productive collaboration. However, to be able to provide coherent, sustained support in the classroom, teachers needed guidance from ES professionals. This required a shift in collaborative processes away from a focus on individualized pupil support towards helping teachers support pupils through their classroom-based social and pedagogical practices. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Quality Measures in Distance Learning

The Director of Distance Learning in a university in Colorado reflects on the steps that must be taken to assure that that university-level e-learning courses be of the same quality as traditional courses. He suggests that the quality levels will be the same, if proper efforts are made to select suitable faculty members for on-line courses and that they be given proper training and support. Moreover, learning environments must be designed with care, and students must be provided with technical and academic support. Indeed, on-line students need to be offered the same level of services as traditional students. Finally, the technology policies in place must support monitoring and upgrading.     

Employability pathways for young adults: lived experiences of learners and practitioners in Youth Guarantee programmes

ABSTRACT

Until today, thousands of young adults still dropout of school with no or low qualifications and experience difficulties in entering the labour market. The European Commission offers funding and opportunities for young adults to enter employability enhancing training, often organised under its flagship initiative ‘The Youth Guarantee’. The aim of these programmes is to make young adults a work, training or educational offer within four months of their start into this initiative.

In this paper, we critically explore the concept of employability and focus on the roles of both the young adults undergoing training interventions, but also of practitioners whose work is ideally embedded within the local context of the labour market and the economy. We were interested in the participation experiences by both groups to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of these programmes. Evidence from interviews demonstrated that learners and practitioners were generally satisfied with the interventions, although individualised support was preferred over group-based activities. Working with stakeholders was strongly recommended for this target group who tends to experience cumulative disadvantages. Long-term follow-up of participants’ destinations will provide better evidence on the effectiveness of these programmes.     

Can middle‐school science textbooks help students learn important ideas? Findings from project 2061's curriculum evaluation study: Life science

The transfer of matter and energy from one organism to another and between organisms and their physical setting is a fundamental concept in life science. Not surprisingly, this concept is common to the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993 ), the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996 ), and most state frameworks and likely to appear in any middle‐school science curriculum material. Nonetheless, while topics such as photosynthesis and cellular respiration have been taught for many years, research on student learning indicates that students have difficulties learning these ideas. In this study, nine middle‐school curriculum materials—both widely used and newly developed—were examined in detail for their support of student learning ideas concerning matter and energy transformations in ecosystems specified in the national standards documents. The analysis procedure used in this study was previously developed and field tested by Project 2061 of the AAAS on a variety of curriculum materials. According to our findings, currently available curriculum materials provide little support for the attainment of the key ideas chosen for this study. In general, these materials do not take into account students' prior knowledge, lack representations to clarify abstract ideas, and are deficient in phenomena that can be explained by the key ideas and hence can make them plausible. This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this study to curriculum development, teaching, and science education research based on shortcomings in today's curricula. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 538–568, 2004     

Social Interactions of Retarded Children: Generalization from Mainstream to Special School

Seven IH children attending a special school were integrated into a mainstream school on a part‐time basis over a period of 18 weeks. Effects were evaluated using behavioural measures of activity participation and social interactions during class time and free‐play periods in both the mainstream school and the special school which the children continued to attend. Compared to IH children who remained in the special school, the integrated children showed larger increases in Associative play in the special school free‐play period, but no differential change in classroom behaviour. In the mainstream school, social interactions between IH and non‐handicapped children occurred at high levels in both class and playground periods.     

Social and Emotional Competence in Children of Depressed Mothers

The relations between maternal unipolar major depression and children's self-concept, self-control, and peer relationships were studied in a middle-class, predominantly white sample of 96 families. Each family included a target child between the ages of 5 and 10. Depressed mothers varied on whether or not the child's father also had a psychiatric disorder. Well mothers all had spouses with no psychiatric disorders. Analyses controlled for marital status, age, and sex of child. Children completed measures of self-concept and peer relations skills; teachers completed measures of self-control and a rating of popularity with peers. Results supported the multiple risk factor model in that fathers' psychiatric status and parents' marital status explained much of the variability in children's social and emotional competence. Maternal depression alone, in the context of a well husband/father, was only related to children having been rated by their teachers as less popular. Results are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms by which maternal depression may interact with paternal psychopathology and divorce in relation to children's social and emotional competence. The findings may further indicate that older children are more vulnerable to these multiple risk factors than younger children.