Adopting Children with Down Syndrome: A qualitative study of family experiences

The purpose of this study is to qualitatively investigate and compare the family beliefs, values, and perceptions of parenting of families who have adopted children with Down syndrome (DS) to parents who have biological children with DS. Participants in the study included 27 parents of biological children with DS and six parents of adopted children with DS. Participants were interviewed through a digital survey that was distributed through Qualtrics Online Survey Software. Quantitative analysis placed the participants into groups and qualitative analysis was used to identify beliefs, values, and perceptions. Results showed that while both adoptive and biological parents indicated that support services have played an important role in raising their child with DS, 100% of adoptive parents indicated a desire for the creation of additional services/programs to better serve their child with DS and only 63% of biological parents indicated the same desire. There were no significant differences in level of stress seen between the two groups, joys and benefits added to family life, or challenges faced by families. While participants from both groups reported similar values and beliefs that have contributed to their parenting decisions, themes found in motivation differed between biological and adoptive parents

Individual Differences in Cyber Security

A survey of IT professionals suggested that despite technological advancement and organizational procedures to prevent cyber-attacks, users are still the weakest link in cyber security (Crossler, 2013). This suggests it is important to discover what individual differences may cause a user to be more or less vulnerable to cyber security threats. Cyber security knowledge has been shown to lead to increased learning and proactive cyber security behavior (CSB). Self-efficacy has been shown to be a strong predictor of a user’s intended behavior. Traits such as neuroticism have been shown to negatively influence cyber security knowledge and self-efficacy, which may hinder CSB. In discovering what individual traits may predict CSB, users and designers may be able to implement solutions to improve CSB. In this study, 183 undergraduate students at San José State University completed an online survey. Students completed surveys of self-efficacy in information security, and cyber security behavioral intention, as well as a personality inventory and a semantic cyber security knowledge quiz. Correlational analyses were conducted to test hypotheses related to individual traits expected to predict CSB. Results included a negative relationship between neuroticism and self-efficacy and a positive relationship between self-efficacy and CSB. Overall, the results support the conclusion that individual differences can predict self-efficacy and intention to engage in CSB. Future research is needed to investigate whether CSB is influenced by traits such as neuroticism, if CSB can be improved through video games, and which are the causal directions of these effects

Exploring the latitude of attitude: Intentions to breastfeed among adolescents in Lebanese schools.

School-based breastfeeding education (SBBE) may help improve breastfeeding rates in the long-term by targeting children and adolescents' knowledge, attitudes, skills, and intentions. Breastfeeding rates in Lebanon are suboptimal. Psychosocial drivers of breastfeeding intention among the youth are unknown. We administered a survey to 658 high school students (448 females; 210 males) at two large Lebanese schools to understand intentions, intention drivers, and views on SBBE as means to guide SBBE programme design on the basis of the theory of planned behaviour. We collected information on demographics, intention to breastfeed/support wife to breastfeed future. Intention was predicted by attitude related to breastfeeding health outcomes and family normative beliefs-χ2 (25) = 115, P < .001 for males, and χ2 (39.3) = 186, P < .001 for females. Among females, intention was also positively associated with being breastfed, higher socio-economic status, and being more accepting of public breastfeeding. Seventy-eight per cent of students felt they were not learning enough about breastfeeding in school but were interested in SBBE through didactic teaching methods and interactive experiences. Findings indicate that breastfeeding intention among adolescent students is not merely influenced by the extent of knowledge but by more complicated psychosocial drivers that may differ by gender. Our findings also suggest a misalignment exists between what schools are providing with what students feel they need, thereby opening up a potential space for intervention

The discipline of Natural Design

If we define design work as those cognitive and practical things to which designers give their valuable effort, then our Natural Design framework allows the recording and replaying of design work. Natural Design provides a meta-structural framework that has developed through our observations of engineering design in safety and mission critical industries, such as aircraft design. Our previous work has produced parametrisable models of design work for software intensive systems, and we now look to make an initial assessment of our natural design framework for its fit to the more creative design practices. In this paper we briefly sketch the framework and subsequently attempt to locate ‘creativity’ in it. We find that, although there are good strong hooks for what the designer does, we are forced to find a role for the community of the designer in the creative process in our framework, something that was only implicit in our previous work. Keywords: Natural design; Engineering design; Creativity</p

Professional boundaries: research report

In 2008 the General Social Care Council (GSCC) published Raising standards: Social work conduct in England 2003-2008. This constituted the GSCC’s first report covering the work undertaken to uphold standards and protect people who use social care services. The GSCC’s analysis revealed that a considerable proportion of conduct cases, some 40%, involved allegations of 'inappropriate relations'. In the light of this finding, and the release by the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) of sexual boundaries guidance for healthcare workers at the beginning of this year (Halter et al, 2009), the GSCC committed itself to exploring the possibility of producing professional boundaries guidance for social workers. To begin this exploration, the GSCC commissioned a study in early 2009.This is the report of that study. There were two main purposes. First, to establish what professional boundaries1 guidance currently exists for social workers, or for sections of the workforce that includes social workers in the United Kingdom, and the content of any such guidance. Secondly, to identify and discuss a number of other examples of professional boundaries guidance to act as points of reference for the GSCC’s project. The aim was to identify and discuss examples relevant to the GSCC’s project