Theories of Family Adaptability: Toward a Synthesis of Olson''s Circumplex and the Beavers Systems Models

Two typologies of family process, Olson's Circumplex Model and the Beavers Systems Model, are discussed, focusing particularly upon their definitions of family adaptability. It is argued that the two typologies are not simply "separate but equal" (11), but, rather, that there is an ambiguity in the Circumplex Model that disguises a fundamental theoretical overlap between the two. Olson's definition of adaptability is founded upon the concepts of morphogenesis and change; Beavers builds upon the concepts of negentropy and competence. It may be shown, however, that both understandings are necessitated by the theoretical writings of Olson and his colleagues. The nature of this ambiguity in the Circumplex Model is critically explored, and a higher-order model that attempts to synthesize these two theories is proposed.     

Enhancing Capacity for Trauma‐informed Care in Child Welfare: Impact of a Statewide Systems Change Initiative

Youth involved in the child welfare system (CWS) are disproportionally impacted by the negative effects of exposure to trauma. While efforts to develop trauma‐informed CWSs are accelerating, little research is available about the effects of these efforts on system capacity to respond to the needs of youth exposed to trauma. No studies evaluate longer‐term effects of these efforts. In 2011, Connecticut implemented CONCEPT, a multi‐year initiative to enhance capacity of the state's CWS to provide trauma‐informed care. CONCEPT used a multi‐component approach including workforce development, deployment of trauma screening procedures, policy change, improved access to evidence‐based trauma‐focused treatments, and focused evaluation of program effects. Changes in system capacity to deliver trauma‐informed care were assessed using statewide stratified random samples of child welfare staff at three time points (Year 1: N = 223, Year 3: N = 231, Year 5: N = 188). Significant improvements across nearly all child welfare domains were observed during the first 3 years of implementation, demonstrating system‐wide improvements in capacity to provide trauma‐informed care. These gains were maintained through the final year of implementation, with continued improvements in ratings of collaboration between child welfare and behavioral health settings on trauma‐related issues observed. Responses documented familiarity with and involvement in many of the CONCEPT activities and initiatives. Staff reported greater familiarity with efforts to increase access to specific evidence‐based services (e.g., TF‐CBT) or to enhance trauma‐related policy and practice guidelines, but less familiarity with efforts to implement new practices (e.g., trauma screening) in various sectors. Staff also reflected on the contribution of these components to enhance system capacity for trauma‐informed care.     

Fire Setting Behavior in a Child Welfare System: Prevalence,Characteristics and Co-Occurring Needs

Fire setting is one of the most challenging behaviors for the child welfare system. However, existing knowledge about its prevalence and correlates has been limited to research on single programs. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services initiated a uniform assessment process at entry into state custody using a trauma-informed version of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS). By using information from these assessments it is possible to establish an estimate of the prevalence of fire setting behavior and identify clinical and functional correlates. A review of 4,155 children and youth entering state custody reveals an overall prevalence rate of 1.35%. However, the rate for children and youth, 10 years and older was 3.5%. The rate was higher for boys than girls but there was no relationship to race. In general, the children and youth who engaged in fire setting behaviors had much higher levels of needs, fewer strengths, and were lower functioning. Within group analysis suggests the children and youth who set fires represent a relatively homogeneous group.     

Temperament as Risk and Protective Factors in Obesogenic Eating: Relations Among Parent Temperament,Child Temperament,and Child Food Preference and Eating

Children’s food preferences and eating behaviors have implications for their health and weight status, serving as risk or protective factors for obesity. Although parent and child factors influence children’s eating, few studies have examined parent and child temperament simultaneously in relation to child food preference and eating behaviors. The authors addressed this research gap. Participants were 115 ethnically diverse children between 4 and 6?years old and their parents. Measures included parental temperament traits, parental anxiety, child temperament traits, and child food preference and eating behaviors observed using a laboratory procedure. Results show that children preferred candies over grapes, and that aspects of both child and adult temperament were related to child eating behaviors. Child surgency was linked to eating more candies, while child effortful control was linked to eating more grapes. Parent effortful control was related to children’s preference toward grapes. No relations were found between child eating behaviors and child or parent negative affectivity and parental anxiety. Overall, findings suggest that highly impulsive and poorly self-regulated children may be at risk for obesogenic eating habits.     

Job Satisfaction of Child Welfare Workers in an Urban Setting: Status and Predictors

Large urban areas present many challenges to those children and adults who reside in those settings. The social service workers in urban areas have clients with complex, multiple needs. Reliable and consistent workers are essential to successfully working with these families. In the current study, the job satisfaction of 29 social service workers in an urban child welfare agency was assessed using the Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS). The JSS measures satisfaction in 7 areas of one's job (i.e., work, supervision, coworkers, pay and promotion, work environment, training, and position). Data indicated that the staff were relatively satisfied, that satisfaction did not vary by staff position (family worker vs. social worker/supervisor), and that neither demographic factors nor prior experiences were predictors of job satisfaction. Implications for agency management and the provision of social services to urban families are discussed.     

Advancing Our Understanding of the Risk Factors Associated with Crossover Youth in the Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice Systems: A Trauma-Informed Research Agenda

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review - Previous research has provided robust evidence demonstrating that a notable proportion of youth become involved in both the child welfare (CW) system...     

Mother and Child Depressive Symptoms in Youth with Spina Bifida: Additive, Moderator, and Mediator Models

The purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which parenting behaviors influence the relation between maternal and child depressive symptoms in youth with spina bifida and a comparison sample. Previous research has found that maternal depression not only negatively impacts the mother–child relationship, but also places the child at risk for developing depressive symptoms. However, certain parenting behaviors might buffer the association between maternal and youth depression. The influence of maternal depressive symptoms and parenting behavior (i.e., acceptance, behavioral control, psychological control) on youth depressive symptoms were examined in the context of three models: (1) an additive/cumulative risk model, (2) a moderator model, and (3) a mediator model. Data were examined longitudinally at five time points when youth were 8–9 through 16–17 years of age. Results supported an additive/cumulative risk model, but did not support the moderator or mediator models. Low maternal acceptance, high behavioral control, and high psychological control were risk factors for child depressive symptoms at several time points, with maternal depressive symptoms exerting an additional risk at later time points. A group difference between the spina bifida and comparison youth was not supported. Findings indicate that in general, maternal parenting behavior is salient throughout childhood and early adolescence, but maternal depressive symptoms do not exert an influence until mid-adolescence. Family interventions should aim to promote maternal mental health and maternal parenting behaviors to reduce the risk of the development of depressive symptoms in adolescence.     

Multidimensional Profiles of Welfare and Work Dynamics: Development, Validation, and Associations with Child Cognitive and Mental Health Outcomes

This prospective longitudinal study addresses the research gap in the literature regarding multidimensional variation in welfare use and employment patterns, and relationships of such variation with parent earnings and child development outcomes. This study also aims to address the limitations of welfare dynamics studies that do not examine how multiple dimensions of welfare receipt and employment co-occur. Cluster analysis was utilized, using monthly welfare and employment data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, to examine variation within the welfare population in their welfare and work patterns across the first 5 years of children's lives. Six cluster profiles of welfare and work dynamics were found: Short-Term, Short-Term Work Exit, Working Cyclers, Nonworking Cyclers, Cycle to Long-Term Exit, and Long-Term. The clusters were validated using mother's 6th-year earnings as the criterion. The clusters' associations with child development outcomes in the cognitive and mental health domains (at ages 6 and 7) were then explored. Work following short-term welfare use was associated with higher child reading scores than that following long-term use (a moderate-size effect). Cycling on and off welfare in the context of high levels of employment was associated with higher child internalizing symptoms than cycling accompanied by low levels of employment (a moderate-size effect). Implications for evaluation of TANF welfare-to-work policies are discussed.     

Child, Family and Case Characteristics: Links with Service Utilization in Physically Abused Children

We investigated the relationships between child, familial, and case characteristics and mental health and medical health care service utilization by physically abused children. Participants included 26 parents or caregivers of 37 Medicaid-eligible children who had substantiated cases of physical abuse. Children whose female caregivers reported a greater number of stressors were more likely to receive mental health care. Furthermore, children not living with the maltreating caregiver were more likely to receive medical health care services. Results are discussed in terms of factors that may account for these links, and the similarities of these findings with those of service utilization in general and clinical child samples.     

Supporting Grass Roots Implementation of an Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Through a Virtual Community of Practice: A Case Example in the Department of Veterans Affairs

In contrast to a top-down dissemination approach, the present approach identified existing clinicians using an evidence-based psychotherapy (EBP), dialectical behavior therapy, throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) system, and created a virtual community of practice (VCoP) to facilitate sharing of materials, resources, information, and clinical expertise. This “bottom-up” or grassroots approach to building a VCoP has potential to support the adoption of EBPs in settings without the resources required to support a large-scale training and consultation initiative. The objective of the current paper is to describe creation, dissemination, and web analytics data of this VCoP to connect providers using an EBP in a national health care system. The VCoP was created using SharePoint and development included user acceptance testing. Dissemination was achieved through a variety of outlets, including use of e-mail listservs, promotion on internal Web sites, and presentations. Monthly Web analytics data were collected on number of unique users, location of users, and number of requests or visits. Monthly Web analytics data indicated that the site was visited every workday in the first year and consistently across 5 years. Number of unique users and number of requests was relatively stable with increases corresponding to efforts to increase site engagement. Location of users demonstrates a wide reach across the VA system. Web analytics data indicate sustained use of the site by providers and methods to facilitate and increase use and interaction appeared to have a positive impact. Future research should investigate the effectiveness of such a strategy on provider behavior.     

幼儿自尊与掌控动机、能力关系的模型建构

采用他人评定法、半结构化自由游戏观察法及综合测验法考察了4~6岁幼儿的自尊、掌控动机和能力,并建构三者的关系模型。结果发现:第一个模型中,高认知低效果类掌控时间可解释认知学习能力变异的12%,低认知高效果类掌控时间可解释精细动作能力变异的4%,综合能力可解释自尊中胜任感变异的17%;第二个模型中,掌控变换性可解释认知学习能力变异的18%,而认知学习能力可解释自尊中胜任感变异的11%。     

Core Elements of CBT for Adolescent Conduct and Substance Use Problems: Comorbidity,Clinical Techniques,and Case Examples

Adolescent externalizing problems (AEPs), including serious conduct problems, delinquency, and substance misuse, are the most common adolescent behavioral issues in specialty care. High rates of comorbidity between conduct and substance use problems necessitate multidomain treatment strategies that can effectively address the AEP spectrum. One strategy to increase delivery of evidence-based interventions for multiproblem youth in usual care is to focus on core elements of empirically supported treatments that can be judiciously applied to clients presenting with diverse clinical profiles. This paper describes six core practice elements of the cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) approach for AEPs: (a) functional analysis of behavior hroblems, (b) prosocial activity sampling, (c) cognitive monitoring and restructuring, (d) emotion regulation training, (e) problem-solving training, and (f) communication training. Integrated delivery of these core CBT elements is illustrated in two case examples, and implications for treatment planning for youth with AEPs are discussed.     

Risk Orientation,Risk Exposure,and Policy Opinions: The Case of Free Trade

This research offers a general framework for thinking about how individual disposition towards risk influences public policy opinions. Affinity for or aversion to risk is, in part, a stable personality characteristic that interacts with risk and reward messages in complex policy debates. We examine the implications of this for public opinions about free trade with extensions to immigration policy. We argue and find that opinions about policy depend jointly upon one's exposure to potential gains or losses and one's risk orientation. The findings have implications for crafting and framing public policies because they highlight how individual characteristics are likely to shape the public response to policy proposals. Our findings suggest that there may be limits, in the aggregate, to the degree to which elites can alter the level of support for policies through framing or through offering risk‐mitigating policy provisions.     

Connectionist Models and Linguistic Theory: Investigations of Stress Systems in Language

We question the widespread assumption that linguistic theory should guide the formulation of mechanistic accounts of human language processing. We develop a pseudo-linguistic theory for the domain of linguistic stress, based on observation of the learning behavior of a perceptron exposed to a variety of stress patterns. There are significant similarities between our analysis of perception stress learning and metrical phonology, the linguistic theory of human stress. Both approaches attempt to identify salient characteristics of the stress systems under examination without reference to the workings of the underlying processor. Our theory and computer simulations exhibit some strikingly suggestive correspondences with metrical theory. We show, however, that our high-level pseudo-linguistic account bears no causal relation to processing in the perception, and provides little insight into the nature of this processing. Because of the persuasive similarities between the nature of our theory and linguistic theorizing, we suggest that linguistic theory may be in much the same position. Contrary to the usual assumption, it may not provide useful guidance in attempts to identify processing mechanisms underlying human language.     

Cycles of Understanding and Hope: Toward an Integrative Model of Therapeutic Change in Child Psychotherapy*

ABSTRACT

This article presents an integrative theory of pathological development in childhood and an inclusive model of therapeutic change, based on a contemporary understanding of children's emotions. In this model, effective therapies for children and adolescents, whether through empathy and understanding or through active efforts to change patterns of thought and behavior, arrest malignant emotional processes, especially vicious cycles of painful emotions and pathogenic family interactions. Our most successful interventions then set in motion positive cycles of healthy emotional and interpersonal experiences - increased confidence and engagement in life and more affirming interactions between parents and children. Over time, successful therapy strengthens in children and adolescents a more encouraging, less critical inner voice and, perhaps most profoundly, more positive expectations for their future - a new sense of what is possible in their lives.