Positive Possibilities for Child and Family Welfare: Options for Expanding the Anglo-American Child Protection Paradigm

The creation of the ‘problem of child maltreatment’ and how we deal with it are best understood as particular discourses which grow out of specific histories and social configurations. The Anglo-American child protection paradigm can be viewed as a particular configuration rooted in our vision for children, families, community, and society. However, other settings have constructed quite different responses reflecting their own priorities and desired outcomes. This paper is an effort to understand the choices made in Ontario’s child protection system by examining its history and the underlying beliefs and values which have fostered its development. In addition, the paper is an attempt to counteract the sense of inevitability of this child protection approach. By discussing the many different ways in which other countries and settings work with, and think about, families and children, we will uncover a spectrum of positive possibilities which exist outside our current conceptions of child and family welfare systems

Artificial Superintelligence: Coordination & Strategy

Attention in the AI safety community has increasingly started to include strategic considerations of coordination between relevant actors in the field of AI and AI safety, in addition to the steadily growing work on the technical considerations of building safe AI systems. This shift has several reasons: Multiplier effects, pragmatism, and urgency. Given the benefits of coordination between those working towards safe superintelligence, this book surveys promising research in this emerging field regarding AI safety. On a meta-level, the hope is that this book can serve as a map to inform those working in the field of AI coordination about other promising efforts. While this book focuses on AI safety coordination, coordination is important to most other known existential risks (e.g., biotechnology risks), and future, human-made existential risks. Thus, while most coordination strategies in this book are specific to superintelligence, we hope that some insights yield “collateral benefits” for the reduction of other existential risks, by creating an overall civilizational framework that increases robustness, resiliency, and antifragility

College Catalog, 2017-2018, Graduate

https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/buffstatecatalogs/1232/thumbnail.jp

Addressing Depression Among American Indians and Alaska Natives: A Literature Review

This report highlights and reviews literature, programs and activities focused on depression and other common mental health conditions in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities in the United States

Health-Related Quality of Life

The concept of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) has evolved since the 1980s, with broad-based applications for clinical care, research, and health policy, as well as for individual and patient use. This book, Health-Related Quality of Life - Measurement Tools, Predictors and Modifiers, highlights measurement tools for HRQoL, as well as predictors and modifiers, examining HRQoL in various disease states, including psychological health. It also discusses ethical issues in the use of HRQoL measurements. The book is a compendium of original research, sharing perspectives from across developing and developed world settings. It is a useful text for researchers and students of academic disciplines in public health and clinical studies, extending to healthcare administrators and policymakers

Retaining Foster Parents in San Bernardino County: Identifying and Accessing Resources and Support Services Since California’s Continuum of Care Reform

Foster care is a vast social justice issue that impacts nearly every local community. Yet, it receives relatively little attention due, in part, to the low social constructs of many of the most affected groups (Schneider and Ingram 1997). Thus, it should come as no surprise that foster care and the child welfare system in California, and the United States in general, is in a crisis as more children enter the system than there are foster parents to care for them. Retention of quality foster parents reduces the need for recruitment and increases the likelihood of more stable placements with experienced foster parents, leading to better outcomes for children in foster care. Thus, it seems incumbent upon policymakers, practitioners, support professionals, researchers, and the like to help provide resources and support services that are needed, accessible, and effective; and essentially help reduce the cost that foster parents pay for their “community altruism. ”Accordingly, this research project fields survey data of foster parents licensed in San Bernardino County to identify sentiment among current foster parents of the barriers associated with their retention as foster parents, and to explore whether these perceptions change depending on whether they are relative or non-relative foster parents. The analysis then turns and uses logistic regression of the survey data to determine what resources and support services that best predict being satisfied and the retention of foster parents and whether these results change depending on the foster parent group (relative or non-relative). Finally, an exploratory spatial analysis uses a key support to determine if the results justify further investigation into the potential need for a more robust spatial decision-making process for social services associated with foster care. Access to their social workers is identified as a key support for both relative and non-relative foster parents and the one policymakers and practitioners have the most direct agency in leveraging. Mental health services are the most significant resource in the formal support category. Healthcare and social supports from other foster families and spouses/partners are more moderate in their significance but could benefit from further research. The results also indicate that significant differences exist between the relative and non-relative foster parent groups and justify developing different resource and support models for each. In exploratory analysis, a net-promoter score (NPS) tool was tested and found to provide a parsimonious metric that predicts both being satisfied and a desire to continue fostering. While more research is needed to confirm these results, the NPS tool could enable practitioners to use this “one-question” survey to obtain foster parent feedback on resources and support services quickly and more frequently, thereby enabling policymakers and practitioners to be more agile and responsive to the needs of foster parents. This would give foster parents a greater voice into the resources that best support their changing needs and circumstances. Finally, including spatial utility and spatial policy considerations may be an area of untapped potential for improving resource allocation, distribution, and utilization of foster parents

Perceptions of Foster Care Providers\u27 Implementation of the PSTSFA of 2014

Youth in foster care encounter challenges during and after they transition from foster care to adulthood. To address these challenges and prepare these youth for transitioning into adulthood, U.S. Congress enacted the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (PSTSFA) in 2014. The problem, which has received little attention in research, concerns the challenges that the implementers of this policy encounter as they provide services to foster youth. The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the challenges faced by foster care providers in their implementation of PSTSFA. Von Neumann and Morgenstern\u27s game theory provided the theoretical framework on which this qualitative study was based. The central question explored and provided a better understanding of the perceived challenges that foster care providers face while implementing PSTSFA to foster youth between 13 and 17 years of age. The qualitative phenomenological study included online open-ended survey questions that were applied to obtain responses from 17 participants. Data were analyzed using the modified Van Kaam phenomenological analysis model. The results revealed that foster care providers face various challenges in their implementation of the law, including, but not limited, to training, communication and collaboration, code of silence, and heavy workloads. The implication for social change includes contributing to the dialogue on the challenges foster care providers face their implementation of PSTSFA, and formulating corrective measures that address the challenges. Because of the corrective measures, foster youth will acquire the required training and coping skills before transitioning from care to independence

Factors moderating the risk of PTSD, emotional and behavioral problems amongst children in war zones and refugees escaping from warfare

Children who grow up in war zones are typically exposed to multiple stressors including physical harm, intimidation or other forms of psychological trauma. This can also lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. On the other hand, resilient children show no psychiatric distress even when they are exposed to severe traumatic stress. Additionally, the number of refugee children due to warfare reasons is increasing. Past empirical studies have recognized that the process of migration and living life as a refugee is detrimental to the psychological health of young refugees. In this symposium we will examine the prevalence and determinants of resiliency among refugee children and children living in conditions of war and violence. The first study investigated the psychological, social and somatic effects of chronic traumatic experience on Palestinian children over six years (2000-2006). The sample consisted of 1,137 children who completed: Checklist of Traumatic Experiences, Symptoms of PTSD Scale, Network of Psycho-Social Support and Personality Assessment Questionnaire. It was found that 41% of the participants suffered from PTSD. From these 25% suffered from cognitive symptoms; 22% suffered from emotional symptoms; 22% suffered from social behavioral problems; 17% suffered from academic and 14% suffered from somatic symptoms. The support of family, friends, relatives and teachers, and positive personality traits were found to be strong protective factors aiding recovery from trauma and PTSD. The second study evaluated the relation of exposure to war traumas, and violence in the family, community, and school, to PTSD symptoms, emotional and behavioral problems amongst 330 Palestinian children. Results highlight the additive effects of exposure to war traumas and violence in different settings. In addition, it was found that psychosocial support reduced the effects of environmental factors in developing PTSD and behavioral problems. The third study included data from two refugee charity organizations in the UK. There were 200 refugee children coming from war zones and 210 control children (non-refugees). The study aimed to look at a range of factors to assess the differences between the above groups with regards to their well-being and peer and sibling relationships. Results showed that refugee children were significantly more likely to be in the clinical range for total difficulties and to have higher health and physical problems, negative friendship quality and low self esteem compared to the control group. Refugees who were bullied at home and at school were also more likely to develop PTSD symptoms. Protective factors are also discussed in this study. The above studies emphasize the fact that interventionists should consider the full range of sources of environmental risk for PTSD and emotional and behavioral problems and should strengthen the psychosocial support for children in or coming from war zones