Social networks,information-seeking,and the utilization of services

Voluntary participation by low-income and/ar high-risk populations in prevention-oriented human service programs is minimal and dropout rates are high. Examination of social networks as they relate to information-seeking and utilization behavior may provide a source of understanding. Two investigations are reported. The results of Study 1 indicate that high-risk referred women with denser networks attended fewer parent group sessions than did those whose networks were less dense and that the more contact a woman had with her kin, the fewer parent group sessions she attended. The results of Study 2 indicate that in a sample of low-income women participating in a supplementary food program, those women whose networks were characterized by lower density and less frequent kin contact were more likely to pursue professional child-rearing information and advice than women in denser, more kin-involved networks. In addition, a significant interaction between one's sense of competence as a parent and the structure of one's network was found to determine the overall frequency of information seeking.     

Social psychology of institutional change: General principles for intervention

Six principles for achieving total institutional change are presented as a framework for developing intervention strategies for changing established human-service institutions for deviants. These principles are discussed and then explicated with examples from a total change effort in a state training school for adjudicated male delinquents. It is argued that most human service institutions for deviants are in desperate need of massive change and that all six of these principles must be realized, at least to some degree, if such change is to be effected.Numerous discussions over the years with Seymour B. Sarason, J. Terry Saunders, Brian P. V. Sarata, Charles W. Dean, and Leland Wilkinson have been instrumental in formulating the ideas expressed in this paper. The author is most appreciative of their support and contributions. Some of these ideas were originally presented in a paper of the same title by N. D. Reppucci, J. T. Saunders, and L. Wilkinson as part of a symposium at the Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1972.     

Prevention of Child Maltreatment: Evaluation of a Parent Education Program for Teen Mothers

We conducted an evaluation of a parent education program for the prevention of child maltreatment that served urban teen, unmarried mothers at risk for child maltreatment. Three to five years after the birth of their children, program graduates (n = 125) were significantly less likely than controls (n = 410) to have founded reports of maltreatment in the state database. On the basis of a follow-up phone call to a subset of 80 program graduates and 40 controls, mothers who enrolled in the 12-week parent education/support program showed trends toward being more likely to have completed high school, taken some college courses, and delayed subsequent pregnancies until after age 21.     

Prevention of child sexual abuse. Myth or reality

Programs to prevent child sexual abuse have proliferated as a result of increased public awareness and professional documentation of its incidence. We describe the content and format of these prevention programs in general and examine selected programs for effectiveness. Although there is limited evidence for an increase in knowledge for program participants, most evaluations suffer from basic design problems and present few results indicative of either primary prevention or detection. Overall, we argue that self-protection against sexual abuse is a very complex process for any child and that few, if any, prevention programs are comprehensive enough to have a meaningful impact on this process. Finally, we discuss several untested assumptions that guide these programs. We conclude that it is unclear whether prevention programs are working or even that they are more beneficial than harmful.     

Involving parents in child sexual abuse prevention programs

Conclusion The importance of involving parents in child sexual abuse prevention programs has been given much lip-service by prevention educators, but relatively little time, energy or resources in reality. This seems short-sighted at best, if the goal of these programs is truly prevention as they purport. Although the results of this study may have limited generalizability because of its sample size and its highly educated respondents, it is the first study to compare the knowledge of attending versus nonattending parents of a typical one-shot parent workshop. The results indicated that the parents as a whole were fairly well versed in the facts of sexual abuse, although as in previous studies, they did not extend the statistics on sexual abuse to their own children. However, probably the most important results were the enthusiastic responses for parent programs and involvement but in different formats, at different times, and in different environments than the current typical PTO evening, one-time meeting. Clearly child sexual abuse prevention programs should experiment with innovative ways to reach parents. If prevention programs can involve a small minority of motivated parents as they seem to be able to do, then together these parents and the educators may be able to develop methods and resources to involve the large majority of currently uninvolved parents. Such an integrated and involving community approach to the prevention of child sexual abuse seems necessary if the goal of prevention is ever going to be reached.     

Political orientation and perceptions of adolescent autonomy and judicial culpability

This study probed general attitudes about processing youths in adult criminal court across a range of offenses, explored attitudes about age of autonomous decision‐making for several activities outside the criminal justice context, and examined the interaction between these two realms. The major finding was that adults favor adult punishment of adolescent offenders at younger ages than they favor autonomy in other decision‐making contexts; the gap is widest for those who identify themselves as conservatives. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice

The central question examined in this address is, “Do children's crimes make them adults?” I begin by focusing on the concept and history of adolescence in our society, I then examine the development and philosophy of the juvenile justice system. Adolescent development and juvenile justice are brought together around the concepts of maturity, judgment, and competence, followed by a brief introduction to some current research that we are engaged in regarding the issues of adjudicatory and culpability competence. I conclude with suggested directions for future work.