Teaching Philosophy and Methods of Restorative Care to Assisted Living Owners and Staff

To implement restorative care in assisted living facilities, staff need to understand the philosophy and learn methods to help residents maintain optimal function. In this study, the researchers developed a multimedia training program designed to teach staff how to encourage residents to increase their participation in dressing themselves. Researchers conducted a pilot test to measure the short-term effects of the training on 40 staff from two states. Program effects were measured by completing a survey developed by the researchers. Pretest scores were significantly related to gender (women as a group had higher scores than men). Results indicated significant gains in knowledge at posttest. In addition, 93% of participants described positive changes related to restorative care that they planned to make at their facility as a result of the training.     

Predicting first-time-in-college students’ degree completion outcomes

Higher Education - About one-third of college students drop out before finishing their degree. The majority of those remaining will take longer than 4 years to complete their degree at...     

STAFF AND ELDERLY KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ELDERLY SEXUALITY

This study compared staff and elderly knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to sexual expression by elderly persons in a long‐term care setting. Volunteers (N = 194) responded agree or disagree to 159 items. Significant differences were observed between the staff and elderly responses on 36 items. Areas of greatest differences involved knowledge and attitudes about consensual sex and sexual abuse, issues related to family attitudes toward remarriage and sexual expression, and age‐related changes and health problems related to sexuality. Items related to masturbation received the greatest percentage of no response. The staff had significantly higher total scores as compared to the elderly reflecting more knowledge, positive attitudes, and support for more proactive responses toward elderly sexuality. Findings have major implications for staff training in long‐term care settings.     

How home gets to school: Parental control strategies predict children's school readiness

At-risk families’ control style (autonomy support and coercive control) was examined in relation to children's school readiness; children's social skills and mastery motivation were hypothesized mediating variables. In two different, low-income samples from diverse ethnic backgrounds, one preschool sample recruited from Head Start (N = 199) and a school transition sample composed of children entering elementary school (N = 344), parental control styles were related to children's academic readiness modestly but significantly in the preschool sample and weakly in the school transition sample. Children's social skills and mastery motivation skills (persistence and goal orientation) were significantly related to the academic measures of school readiness, and fully mediated the association between parents’ use of coercive behavioral control and academic readiness. Such mediation could not be tested for parental support of children's autonomy. The results indicate that a developmental cascade exists between parental control strategies and academic indices of school readiness, emphasizing the importance of family context models of school readiness. Furthermore, strong correlations between the domains of school readiness were found in both samples, reinforcing calls for a multidimensional approach to supporting school readiness in early childhood education programs.