Challenges of home visitor interventions with adolescent mothers and their infants

Issues in designing a home visitor intervention and research program for 130 adolescent mothers, 17 and under, and their infants from birth to 30 months are discussed. The overall project is described, and various aspects of creating and maintaining a home visitor intervention program are discussed, including: (1) Issues and problems that arise with the integration of a home visitor intervention component into an ongoing health department program; (2) the recruitment and training of lay home visitors in the context of arduous, often disheartening work; (3) issues of supervision and quality control faced by the mental health consultants; (4) coping with potential stresses and dangers faced by the home visitors; (5) assisting and maintaining maximum communication for the research components of the study to be successful.     

Effects of a Peer Engagement Program on Socially Withdrawn Children with a History of Maltreatment

Children with a history of child maltreatment often have limited social interactions with other children and adults. This study examined the effects of a Peer Engagement Program, consisting of peer mentoring and social skills training with positive reinforcement, in three children with low levels of oral and social interaction. A multiple baseline, single-subject research design was used to test whether introduction of the intervention was associated with increased, directly observed oral interaction and engagement in social activities with peers and adults. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Social Skills Rating Scale (SSRS) were administered before and after intervention. All children showed increased levels of oral and social interaction and improved scores on the SSRS and the CBCL.     

Parenting after trauma: Supporting parents and caregivers in the treatment of children impacted by violence

The deleterious impact of trauma on parents and their capacity to parent their children seems well recognized in the clinical community, although not sufficiently studied empirically. The purposes of this article are to present an overview of current knowledge about trauma and parenting, to provide an illustrative clinical case study, and to offer recommendations for systemic treatment modalities, multidisciplinary program design, and empirical evaluation. The preponderance of evidence from both the available literature and clinical observations indicates the crucial need for caregiver support in families who have experienced violence. The case study provides an exemplar of the overlapping and interrelated clinical needs of families experiencing trauma. The authors conclude that future empirical study should focus on delineating the processes through which parent functioning following trauma affects children, as well as establishing the effectiveness of treatment and the links between improvement in parent mental health and subsequent enhanced functioning in children. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

How to blow the Whistle and still have a career afterwards

Filing charges of scientific misconduct can be a risky and dangerous endeavor. This article presents rules of conduct to follow when considering whether to report perceived misconduct, and a set of step-by-step procedures for responsible whistleblowing that describe how to do so once the decision to report misconduct has been made. This advice is framed within the university setting, and may not apply fully in industrial settings. Ms. Gunsalus, an attorney, has been responsible for a wide range of compliance issues and academic policy matters at her university including responding to allegations of scientific misconduct. She served on the United States Commission on Research Integrity and spent six years on the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, four of them as chair. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the symposium entitled “Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t: What the Scientific Community Can Do About Whistleblowing” held during the Annual Meeting of the AAAS, Seattle, Washington, 15 February, 1997.     

Relating the adolescent mother—child relationship to preschool outcomes

Two domains of potential risk in relation to the cognitive-linguistic outcomes of preschool children of adolescent mothers were investigated: (1) interactive features of the mother—child relationship and (2) aspects of the demographic context of parenting. Sixty-nine adolescent mothers and their children participated in evaluations when the children were 13, 20, 30, and 44 months old. Results indicated that the cognitive-linguistic development of children of adolescent mothers was affected by both the mother—child relationship and cumulative index of demographic risk. Specifically, positive maternal affect, mother—child verbal reciprocity, mother—child interactive fit, and cumulative demographic risk all contributed to explaining difficulties in preschool cognitive and linguistic functioning in children of adolescent mothers.