Implementation and evaluation of a juvenile mental health training for law enforcement in a medium-sized jurisdiction

The need for specialized training programs that are focused on youth mental health needs, awareness of community-based services, and de-escalation skills is growing across law enforcement agencies due to calls for service that involve youth in mental health crisis. The current study evaluates a juvenile mental health training for law enforcement that was developed based on agency needs. The training was completed by 159 officers and a pre-/post-test design was used. Findings suggest that officers were satisfied with the training and improvements were seen across several training constructs (confidence, preparedness, stigma, resource awareness, and de-escalation skills). Satisfaction with the training predicted change in confidence and preparedness. Recommendations for future research and the implementation of juvenile mental health trainings are discussed.     

Developing the matrix representation grid (MRG): A method for observing group processes. Findings from time-limited group psychotherapy for alcohol-dependent patients

The MRG was published 1988 in order to support developments in group psychotherapy methods as one of the all too few process observation research methods for studying group-as-a-whole. After 9 years of what pilot studies have labeled successful clinical trials, this study aims at validating the MRG against the established SAVI: Structural Analysis of Verbal Interaction (Agazarian & Simon 1989). Videotaped group sessions from short-term groups for alcohol dependent patients conducted along two therapy methods, one behaviorally oriented and the other group analytic, are used as material. The MRG is validated in the study, confirmed to be clinically valuable, and some interesting comparisons between the two treatment modalities are also made.     

Student volunteer social support and infant intervention: A case study

The emphases in infant mental health have been in the three areas of supporting the mother-infant dyad through education, psychotherapy to help parents resolve emotional conflicts that interfere with the parent-infant interaction, and support during the acute crisis that follows an abnormal birth. The case described herein involves a child with a genetic defect born to competent parents, a chronic stressful situation that does not fit these categories. It became apparent in the first few months after the birth that both the child and parents were in need of some help in coping with the situation. An intervention was designed to help provide both the necessary stimulation for the baby and the needed emotional support for the family, while it acknowledged their skill and competencies as parents. This was done through the help of college student volunteers, who assisted the mother in the home. Developmental data recorded at birth, 7 months, 12 months, and 39 months indicate that the child is severely multiply handicapped. Interview data with the parents at those times document their personal and family difficulties, the eventual resolution as a family in dealing with this problem, and the importance of the volunteer help during that process.     

Bullying in university between peers and by personnel: cultural variation in prevalence,forms, and gender differences in four countries

Social Psychology of Education - This study reports results from cross-cultural comparisons of (a) the frequency of university students’ experiences of bullying victimization and perpetration...     

Mindful Mates: A Pilot Study of the Relational Effects of Mindfulness‐Based Stress Reduction on Participants and Their Partners

Very little is currently known about how increases in dispositional mindfulness through mindfulness training affect the quality of participants’ romantic relationships, and no previous studies have examined how increases in specific facets of mindfulness differentially contribute to relationship health. Additionally, even less is known about how an individual's development of mindfulness skills affects the relationship satisfaction of his or her romantic partner. Thus, the purpose of this pilot study was to examine associations between changes in facets of mindfulness and relationship satisfaction among participants enrolled in a Mindfulness‐Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course and their nonenrolled romantic partners. Twenty MBSR participants and their nonenrolled partners (n = 40) completed measures of mindfulness and relationship satisfaction pre‐ and post‐enrolled partners’ completion of an MBSR course. Results indicated that enrolled participants significantly improved on all facets of mindfulness and relationship satisfaction, while nonenrolled partners did not significantly increase on any facet of mindfulness or relationship satisfaction. Moreover, enrolled participants’ increases in Acting with Awareness were positively associated with increases in their own and their nonenrolled partners’ relationship satisfaction, whereas increases in enrolled participants’ Nonreactivity were positively associated with increases in their nonenrolled partners’ (but not their own) relationship satisfaction. These results suggest that increasing levels of mindfulness (particularly specific aspects of mindfulness) may have positive effects on couples’ relationship satisfaction and highlight mindfulness training as a promising tool for education and intervention efforts aimed at promoting relational health.     

Beyond Discrete Categories: Studying Multiracial,Intersex, and Transgender Children Will Strengthen Basic Developmental Science

Developmental research on social categorization has overwhelmingly focused on perceptions about and experiences of individuals who are clear or prototypical members of discrete and usually dichotomous social categories. For example, studies of social categorization, stereotyping, prejudice, and social identity have generally explored how children reason about others who are gender-typical boys or girls or monoracial White or Black children. Similarly, research participants have generally been gender-typical and monoracial. However, our efforts to build theories that account for the true range of variation require acknowledging the increasing visibility of children who do not fit into these discrete categories and raise the question of whether existing theories can capture the dynamics that arise for them. Focusing on race and gender/sex, the social categories that have received the most attention in the developmental literature, we review research that has gone beyond simple dichotomies by including multiracial, gender-nonconforming, or intersex children, either as the targets of social perception or as participants themselves. We argue that this emerging work reveals problematic assumptions built into our theories and methods and highlights the value of building a more inclusive science.     

Three-year-olds Remember a Novel Event from 20 Months: Evidence for Long-term Memory in Children?

Abstract

Thirty-seven 3-year-old children, who had learned a 9-action event sequence (“making Play-Doh spaghetti”) when they were 20 months old, returned to the lab to determine whether they would be able to verbally and/or behaviourally recall the event after a 12- to 22-month delay. Children originally participated in the event either one or three times and experienced different parts of the event either at three distinct locations (spatial condition) or at a single location (nonspatial condition). Results show very little evidence of long-term memory for the event after one to two years. Returning children did not verbally recall the event, and they did not perform more actions or sequence the event more accurately than controls, with the exception of the older experimental children who had a tendency to sequence the event more accurately than same-aged controls. Although the results indicate that young children's memory for novel events is not very enduring, there were individual differences in children's ability to remember the event. These differences are discussed in terms of potential differences in cognitive abilities and changing knowledge about retrieval strategies or memory.     

‘No fair, copycat!’: what children’s response to plagiarism tells us about their understanding of ideas

Adults believe that plagiarizing ideas is wrong, which requires an understanding that others can have ideas and that it is wrong to copy them. In order to test when this understanding emerges, we investigated when children begin to think plagiarism is wrong. In Study 1, children aged 7, 9 and 11 years old, as well as adults, disliked someone who plagiarized compared to someone who drew an original drawing or someone who drew an identical picture by chance. Study 2 investigated the same question with younger children, focusing on children aged 3–6 years old. Children aged 5–6 years old evaluated plagiarizers negatively relative to unique drawers, but 3–4-year-olds did not. Study 3 replicated the findings from Study 2 and found that children justify their negative evaluations of plagiarizers by mentioning concerns over copying. These experiments provide evidence that, by age 5 years old, children understand that others have ideas and dislike the copying of these ideas.     

Conjoint developmental trajectories of young adult alcohol and tobacco use

Developmental and etiological advances have set the stage for considering trajectories of problem behavior across the life course, but little work thus far addresses co-occurring problem behavior trajectories. Although recent work characterizes drinking and smoking trajectories, none has explored the course of concurrent drinking and smoking. Using panel data from the Monitoring the Future Project (N=32,087), the authors applied growth mixture modeling to 4 waves of heavy drinking and smoking in a young-adult sample. The authors extracted a single latent group membership factor from heavy drinking and smoking. Associations between trajectory classes and risk factors were relatively unique to the substance being predicted. The association of smoking with alcohol expectancies and delinquency appeared to exist by virtue of smoking's comorbidity with drinking.