Evaluating Self-Concept and Ego Development Within Erikson's Psychosocial Framework: A Formulation

The purpose of this article is to suggest criteria developed within the context of Erikson's first five psychosocial stages that may be helpful in evaluating self-concept and ego development. The strength of Erikson's theory has been in its contribution to the understanding of the self's development over a series of psychosocial stages. A weakness, however, has been in the ambiguity about what behaviors to look for during any particular stage that allow one to evaluate the status of a person's psychological growth. To assess areas of strengths and weaknesses in the self's growth as it progresses through these stages, five behavioral expressions tables are presented, each illustrating possible behaviors and implicit attitudes associated with positive and negative ego resolutions at each stage. Implications for the evaluation of problem areas and counseling are noted.     

A Framework for Valuing Investments in a Nurturing Society: Opportunities for Prevention Research

Investing in strategies that aim to build a more nurturing society offers tremendous opportunities for the field of prevention science. Yet, scientists struggle to consistently take their research beyond effectiveness evaluations and actually value the impact of preventive strategies. Ultimately, it is clear that convincing policymakers to make meaningful investments in children and youth will require estimates of the fiscal impact of such strategies across public service systems. The framework offered here values such investments. First, we review current public spending on children and families. Then, we describe how to quantify and monetize the impact of preventive interventions. This includes a new measurement strategy for assessing multisystem service utilization and a price list for key service provision from public education, social services, criminal justice, health care and tax systems.     

Nurturing Environments for Boys and Men of Color with Trauma Exposure

Boys and men of color are exposed to traumatic experiences at significantly higher rates than are other demographic groups. To understand and address the mental and behavioral health effects of trauma, including violent incidents, on this population, we review the literature showing the context for, outcomes of, and potential responses to trauma exposure. We present the existing research about the unique challenges and associated negative outcomes for boys and men of color, as well as identify the gaps in the literature. We present the potential nurturing responses by systems such as schools, law enforcement, and communities to trauma-exposed boys and men of color, and we describe evidence-based programs and practices that directly address trauma. Finally, we argue that, rather than using a deficit model, a model of optimal development can be used to understand how to support and protect boys and men of color through nurturing environments.     

A Latent Variable Framework for Power Estimation Within Intervention Contexts

This paper presents a latent growth SEM approach for the estimation of treatment effects, and power to detect such effects, within a true experimental design setting in which subjects are randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions. Power estimation is a critical component of intervention experiment design and the testing of their results. Although researchers have become increasingly sophisticated in applying tests for statistical significance in intervention contexts, few are aware of the power of these tests. The issues raised in this paper are not new; however, reminding researchers to consider these points is important. Exactly how the researcher handles these issues will depend on the questions asked and the resources available, as well as other considerations. Discussion underscores the relationship between the reliability of a study's measures and concomitant increases in power obtained within the SEM framework.     

Nature and Nurturing: Parenting in the Context of Child Temperament

Accounting for both bidirectional and interactive effects between parenting and child temperament can fine-tune theoretical models of the role of parenting and temperament in children’s development of adjustment problems. Evidence for bidirectional and interactive effects between parenting and children’s characteristics of frustration, fear, self-regulation, and impulsivity was reviewed, and an overall model of children’s individual differences in response to parenting is proposed. In general, children high in frustration, impulsivity and low in effortful control are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of negative parenting, while in turn, many negative parenting behaviors predict increases in these characteristics. Frustration, fearfulness, and effortful control also appear to elicit parenting behaviors that can predict increases in these characteristics. Irritability renders children more susceptible to negative parenting behaviors. Fearfulness operates in a very complex manner, sometimes increasing children’s responses to parenting behaviors and sometimes mitigating them and apparently operating differently across gender. Important directions for future research include the use of study designs and analytic approaches that account for the direction of effects and for developmental changes in parenting and temperament over time.     

Paternal Positivity and Child Mental Health: A Meta-Analysis

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Children whose mothers display more positivity during interactions tend to have better mental health. Some studies investigating associations between...     

The ABLe Change Framework: A Conceptual and Methodological Tool for Promoting Systems Change

This paper presents a new approach to the design and implementation of community change efforts like a System of Care. Called the ABLe Change Framework, the model provides simultaneous attention to the content and process of the work, ensuring effective implementation and the pursuit of systems change. Three key strategies are employed in this model to ensure the integration of content and process efforts and effective mobilization of broad scale systems change: Systemic Action Learning Teams, Simple Rules, and Small Wins. In this paper we describe the ABLe Change Framework and present a case study in which we successfully applied this approach to one system of care effort in Michigan.     

Creating Options: A Career Development Training Program for Minorities

The lack of minority counselors in the field of career planning and placement often leaves minority students without the option of seeing a counselor of the same race. This article describes a training program designed to introduce minority staff to the field of career planning and placement as a possible career choice. The program goals, recruitment and selection strategies, training design, and implications for other institutions are discussed.     

Team Performance and Satisfaction: A Link to Cognitive Style Within a Process Framework

Effective teamwork is becoming increasingly important to organizational success. Advances in network and communication technology have allowed companies to widen their potential team member base, however we still need to better understand how to structure top-performing teams. This paper proposes forming teams based on their cognitive style, rather than personality, within a process framework. An experiment was conducted to investigate the innovative performance of problem solving groups with three different blends of cognitive styles. As predicted, groups with a heterogeneous blend of styles outperformed groups with completely or partially homogeneous blends. On the other hand, team members' satisfaction scores were lower for heterogeneous teams than either the completely or partially homogeneous teams. There was preliminary evidence that among groups with heterogeneous blends, those with smaller style dispersions might be expected to outperform those with larger style dispersions. There was also room for some speculation that a curvilinear relationship might exist for team members' satisfaction as a function of diversity in team member cognitive style. Implications of these finding are discussed.     

Nurturing Spirituality: A rationale for holistic education

In this article I examine the nature of ecological spirituality as it is discovered within the growing field of holistic education. I introduce holistic education and attempt to describe its chief characteristics by reference to the thought of Dewey and Hegel. Dewey was the ultimate progressive, yet his attachment to scientific progress and disregard for inherited wisdom mean that his work is not suitable for holistic education without adaptation. Hegel was the metaphysical philosopher of wholeness, yet his systematic, totalizing view of democracy which so alarmed Karl Popper similarly means that adaptation is again required. I argue that holistic education takes up a position between the two philosophers, experiential yet enculturated, metaphysical yet fluid and processual. I examine the ideas of both writers in relation to four key elements of holistic education and conclude by showing how they could combine to provide a rationale for the future.     

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation: Promoting Change in the Quality of Teacher–Child Interactions

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between characteristics of early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) and changes in the quality of teacher–child interactions. One hundred forty‐one early childhood teachers, serving 3‐ to 5‐year‐olds in publically funded early education programs in the state of Arkansas, participated in this study. All childcare sites and preschool programs participating in the study received ECMHC through the Arkansas Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Project over a period of 3 years. Findings from this study suggest that teachers exposed to ECMHC through their employment at one of the project sites made significant gains toward high‐quality teacher–child interactions relative to their initial levels of quality. In particular, delivery aspects of ECMHC and teachers’ experiences of ECMHC predicted change in quality of teacher–child interactions. Findings suggest that ECMHC may be a promising professional development intervention for teachers in early childhood settings and that specific characteristics of consultation may be particularly influential in impacting change in those settings.     

The Child Development Specialist: A Prevention Program

The Child Development Specialist Program makes use of a new professional specialist and is designed to provide intervention before the child develops personal or learning problems.     

Strategies for Enhancing Child and Adolescent Mental Health

The prevention of mental health disorders and development of competence and well-being are critical for enhanceing the long-term adjustment of children and adolescents. Approaches to mental health promotion are discussed in this article in terms of (a) preventing the onset of disorders: (b) strengthening competencies to enable children and adolescents to better handle life stressors; and (c) assisting children and adolescents in dealing with life transitions. Examples which illustrate the approaches are included.     

家庭与儿童发展：一个充满生命力的研究领域

个体从呱呱坠地到去世,整个一生都是在家庭的伴随下而成长、发展的。尽管在个体不同的发展阶段,家庭对个体发展的影响作用不同,但是个体始终不会,也不可能脱离家庭的影响而成长和发展。这是吸引研究者关注家庭在儿童发展中重要作用的主要原因之一。     

A Typology of Youth Participation and Empowerment for Child and Adolescent Health Promotion

Research suggests that increasing egalitarian relations between young people and adults is optimal for healthy development; however, the empirical assessment of shared control in youth–adult partnerships is emerging, and the field still requires careful observation, identification, categorization and labeling. Thus, our objective is to offer a conceptual typology that identifies degrees of youth–adult participation while considering the development potential within each type. We use an empowerment framework, rooted in evidence-based findings, to identify five types of youth participation: (1) Vessel, (2) Symbolic, (3) Pluralistic, (4) Independent and (5) Autonomous. The typology is constructed as a heuristic device to provide researchers, practitioners and policy-makers with a common language for articulating degrees of youth participation for optimal child and adolescent health promotion.     

Positive Indicators of Child Well-Being: A Conceptual Framework, Measures, and Methodological Issues

This article suggests a comprehensive conceptual framework which identifies constructs for positive well-being as well as potential indicators and extant measures that fit with those constructs. In addition, the article reviews existing data sources for examples of positive measures that are found in the proposed framework as well as research studies that have been successful in measuring these indicators. The article then notes the data and measurement gaps that exist in comprehensively measuring the positive in children and youth. Finally, it identifies a number of conceptual and methodological issues that need consideration as efforts to define and measure positive indicators of well-being and well-becoming go forward. We argue that positive indicators represent good science, reflect and promote a positive vision of children, and establish positive goals for nations.