Conceptualizing and Measuring Safe,Stable, Nurturing Relationships and Environments in Educational Settings

Most children and adolescents older than 5 years spend at least 6 h of their day in school settings. Like parents, education professionals can promote health and protect youth from harm by providing safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has developed a framework which posits that safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments are Essentials for Childhood and are fundamental to promoting health and well-being; protecting youth from maltreatment and other violence and victimization; and ensuring optimal, healthy development. In this paper, the authors propose an approach to applying safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments to the school ecology; review select survey measures to examine these constructs within educational settings; and suggest available indicators to measure safety, stability, and nurturance within the school context.     

Genetic Counselors in Startup Companies: Redefining the Genetic Counselor Role

Genetic counselors (GCs) have recently begun moving into non-clinic based roles in increasing numbers. A relatively new role for GCs is working for startup companies. Startups are newly established companies in the phase of developing and researching new scalable businesses. This article explores the experiences of four GCs working at different startup companies and aims to provide resources for GCs interested in learning more about these types of roles. The article describes startup culture, including a relatively flat organizational structure, quick product iterations, and flexibility, among other unique cultural characteristics. Financial considerations are described, including how to understand and evaluate a company’s financial status, along with a brief explanation of alternate forms of compensation including stock options and equity. Specifically, the article details the uncertainties and rewards of working in a fast-paced startup environment that affords opportunities to try new roles and use the genetic counseling skill set in new ways. This article aims to aid GCs in determining whether a startup environment would be a good fit, learning how to evaluate a specific startup, and understanding how to market themselves for positions at startups.     

Unexpected Social Benefits of Alcoholics Anonymous for Older Women

The authors interviewed older women in Alcoholics Anonymous to explore the participants' most beneficial and meaningful experiences in the program. Findings suggested that these women obtained unexpected social benefits from their participation. These benefits are examined through the framework of Carstensen's ( 1993 ) socioemotional selectivity theory.     

Early and Late Life Exposure to Trauma and Biopsychosocial Well-Being in Centenarians

Few studies have investigated the proximal versus distal influence of traumatic life events (TLE) on biopsychosocial resources of very old adults. The Developmental Adaptation Model was used to test TLE experienced before and after the age of 60 on outcomes of centenarians’ physical disability, perceived health impairments, depressive symptoms, and social support. Cross-sectional data were collected from 154 community-dwelling centenarians. Results indicated that TLE in the latter half of life were positively associated with health impairments and depressive symptoms. The present results emphasize the importance of a process-oriented approach to resilience that allows flexibility in successful coping across the lifespan.     

Clinical Application of the Couple Adaptation to Traumatic Stress (CATS) Model: A Pragmatic Framework for Working With Traumatized Couples

ABSTRACT

The authors attempt to apply knowledge of traumatization to clinical practice with couple dyads. Elaborating on the Couple Adaptation to Traumatic Stress (CATS) Model (Nelson Goff & Smith, 2005), the authors have worked to bridge the gap between a general understanding of trauma's impact on the couple relationship and couples' treatment. This article facilitates the application of the CATS Model to clinical work with couples impacted by trauma. Incorporating Herman's (1997) traumatic process with the original CATS Model, the authors created a more specific, clinically useful framework for clinicians. The goal of the current article is to provide clinicians with a pragmatic illustration articulating a clinical framework for understanding and treating posttraumaumitc symptoms and processes within the couple relationship. The main implication is that clinicians will be able to conduct effectively guided systemic therapy with distressed couples necessary to generate progress in the treatment of symptomatology and couple functioning of trauma survivors and their partners.     

Yearning and Its Measurement in Complicated Grief

Persistent intense yearning for the deceased is a core clinical feature of complicated grief (CG) that distinguishes it from other mental disorders that develop following loss. The Yearning in Situations of Loss Scale (YSL) is a recently developed assessment of yearning. To assess the psychometric properties of the YSL in those with CG, we administered the YSL, Inventory of Complicated Grief, and Quick Inventory of Depression Symptomatology to 303 treatment-seeking bereaved adults with CG. Our results suggest the YSL is a reliable assessment with acceptable convergent and discriminant validity as a measure of yearning in those with CG.     

Constrained Choice: Children's and Adults’ Attribution of Choice to a Humanoid Robot

Young children, like adults, understand that human agents can flexibly choose different actions in different contexts, and they evaluate these agents based on such choices. However, little is known about children's tendencies to attribute the capacity to choose to robots, despite increased contact with robotic agents. In this paper, we compare 5- to 7-year-old children's and adults’ attributions of free choice to a robot and to a human child by using a series of tasks measuring agency attribution, action prediction, and choice attribution. In morally neutral scenarios, children ascribed similar levels of free choice to the robot and the human, while adults were more likely to ascribe free choice to the human. For morally relevant scenarios, however, both age groups considered the robot's actions to be more constrained than the human's actions. These findings demonstrate that children and adults hold a nuanced understanding of free choice that is sensitive to both the agent type and constraints within a given scenario.     

Effective remote staff training of objective session notes

Session notes are a required component of documenting behavior analytic sessions. The direct training of writing objective session notes is important to the success of direct line staff completing adequate documentation and meeting requirements set forth by agencies, certification boards, and insurance funders. However, in‐person training is not always immediately available due to contextual restrictions. This study evaluated the effectiveness of implementing the teaching interaction procedure when training staff remotely to objectively document client progress within session notes. Three Registered Behavior Technicians? (RBT®s) were trained via telehealth to complete session notes objectively. Results showed that all 3 participants met the mastery criterion during probes measuring the objective documentation of home‐based behavior analytic sessions. These findings suggest that a training package, such as the teaching interaction procedure, can be effectively implemented remotely when conducting staff training.     

The Factors that Motivate Law Enforcement's Use of Force: A Systematic Review

Media attention relevant to law enforcement use of force in the last decade finally alerted the scientific community to the need for more research regarding law enforcement discretion and decision making. The purpose of this study was to synthesize the existing literature to explore the motivating factors for law enforcement use of force. This study will utilize a social–ecological framework to systematically examine factors that impact officer decisions to use force at the individual and community levels. The paper includes recommendations for research and practice through an equity lens that highlights the disparate use of force against men of color in particular. Interventions, trainings, education, and research to stop the promotion of perceived safety over justice will be highlighted.