Does unemployment affect child abuse rates? Evidence from New York State

This article used child maltreatment reports from New York State from 2000 to 2010 to investigate the relationship between county level unemployment and county level child maltreatment rates. Models showed that a 1 percentage point increase in unemployment rates reduced the child report rate by approximately 4.25%. Report rates for young children (children under the age of 6) and older children (children ages 6 and over) responded similarly to changes in local unemployment, but the relationship between unemployment rates and child maltreatment reports did vary by a county's metropolitan designation. The negative relationship between unemployment and child maltreatment reports was largely contained to metropolitan counties. The relationship between unemployment and child maltreatment reports in non-metropolitan counties was often positive but not statistically significant. These findings were robust to a number of specifications. In alternate models, the county's mandated reporter employment rate was added as a control; the inclusion of this variable did not alter the results.     

Deciding on child maltreatment: A literature review on methods that improve decision-making

Assessment and decision-making in child maltreatment cases is difficult. Practitioners face many uncertainties and obstacles during their assessment and decision-making process. Research exhibits shortcomings in this decision-making process. The purpose of this literature review is to identify and discuss methods to overcome these shortcomings. We conducted a systematic review of the published literature on decision-making using PsychINFO and MEDLINE from 2000 through May 2014. We included reviews and quantitative research studies that investigated methods aimed at improving professional decision-making on child abuse and neglect in child welfare and child protection. Although many researchers have published articles on decision-making including ideas and theories to improve professional decision-making, empirical research on these improvements is scarce. Available studies have shown promising results. Structured decision-making has created a greater child-centred and holistic approach that takes the child's family and environment into account, which has made practitioners work more systematically and improved the analysis of complex situations. However, this approach has not improved inter-rater agreement on decisions made. Shared decision-making may improve the participation of parents and children and the quality of decisions by taking client treatment preferences into account in addition to scientific evidence and clinical experience. A number of interesting developments appear in recent research literature; however, child welfare and child protection must find additional inspiration from other areas, e.g., mental health services, because research on decision-making processes in child welfare and child protection is still rare.     

Adding Design Elements to Improve Time Series Designs: No Child Left Behind as an Example of Causal Pattern-Matching

Abstract:

Some form of a short interrupted time series (ITS) is often used to evaluate state and national programs. An ITS design with a single treatment group assumes that the pretest functional form can be validly estimated and extrapolated into the postintervention period where it provides a valid counterfactual. This assumption is problematic. Ambiguous preintervention functional forms are common, as are other factors affecting posttest means and slopes. Using No Child Left Behind as an example, we demonstrate how adding multiple design elements to the basic ITS structure serves to promote causal inference by limiting alternative interpretations. No added design element is perfect by itself, but we argue that they collectively provide a strong causal warrant when the predictions they engender are complex, the results “cohere” with the predictions, and no alternative can fit the same pattern of predictions even if it can fit some of them.     

A Guide to Setting Up a College Bereavement Group: Using Monologue,Soliloquy, and Dialogue

Childhood grief disrupts and reshapes a developing child’s primary attachments, emotional regulation system, and identity formation. Bereft college students have to build their grief identity simultaneously with their social, academic, vocational, and sexual identities. This article describes a bereavement group to help students work on these developmental tasks. Providing long-term conversationally structured grief groups in a college counseling center provides support for college students’ adjustment and identity development.     

美《不让一个孩子落伍法》又起新波澜——20个州联名要求联邦放宽学校绩效评价标准

美20个州联名上书要求联邦修改《不让一个孩子落伍法》,放宽学校评价标准,由州来判断学生进步与否与进步的时间问题。     

The prevention of child abuse and neglect: A review of the literature with recommendations for application

Families at high risk for inadequate parenting can be identified during the perinatal period, or during later health care visits. Effective intervention can be implemented for these special families. During the maternity ward stay, intervention can include early delivery room contact, rooming-in arrangements, and increased teaching sessions on child care. The primary physician can provide frequent office visits, telephone contacts and helpful advice during acute illnesses and developmental phases which might precipitate child abuse. The physician can seek assistance from outreach workers such as public health nurses, lay health visitors, and child welfare caseworkers. Community prevention programs such as parenting classes, Parent's Anonymous groups, crisis nurseries and crisis hotlines should also be integrated into the family's treatment. When provided in concert, these actions can stabilize most dysfunctional families.     

Latino children’s ability to interpret in health settings: A parent–child dyadic perspective on child health literacy

To determine children’s ability to interpret in medical settings, 100 dyads of low-income, Spanish-speaking parents and their bilingual children who interpret for the parents were surveyed. Seventy-four children demonstrated adequate health literacy in English. Three theoretical perspectives (social cognitive theory, role-reversal theory, and the team-effort model) guided hypotheses about how parent and child characteristics influenced child health literacy. Structural equation model results supported the team-effort model. Children were more health literate when they were older, had better English abilities, had higher self-efficacy, and had parents with lower self-efficacy and better English language abilities. Children and parents may work as a team in medical interpreting settings, with children simultaneously compensating for and learning from parents.     

Hidden fragility: Closure among licensed child-care services in British Columbia

Research shows that stability is one component of quality child care. We investigate the understudied phenomenon of the stability of child-care facilities over time, focusing on the province of British Columbia, Canada. Although net figures show growth in the number of providers between 1997 and 2001, they obfuscate a dramatic level of closure among centers and family child caregivers. Our study analyzes closure rates in the light of caregiver and facility characteristics for more than 2500 licensed services, plus the community contexts in which the services operate. Results underscore the importance of public policy for center stability, re-confirm the benefits of paying higher wages to staff, and shed light on the influence of socioeconomic trends over the sector.     

Health status of abused and neglected children and their siblings

Fifty Greek children who had been neglected or physically abused by one or both parents were studied, along with their families. Of these 18 were single-child families. The other 32 children in the study, including two sets of twins, had a total of 53 siblings. In comparison with their siblings, the abused children were more frequently the result of an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. They had a higher incidence of perinatal problems and more illnesses in the first year of life. Almost half had feeding problems, their nutritional status was often poorer than that of their siblings, and they were characterized by their parents as being more difficult than the other children. In some cases there was evidence of a lesser degree of neglect or abuse in the siblings. More than twice as many boys as girls were abused, although there were more girls than boys amongst the siblings. This possibly reflects the higher value and as a result higher expectations that Greek culture places on male children.