Modelling the spreading of wilding conifers

In many parts of the Canterbury high country, conifer seeds are spreading on the wind from exisiting plantations and shelterbelts, leading to a serious weed problem. Environment Canterbury set the task at MISG to model this spread, and thus provide a basis for prioritising control operations on a limited budget. The study group provided increased understanding of topographic and climatic factors involved in seed dispersal, and of the distribution of the resulting seed rain. In addition a simulation framework was developed for comparing the effectiveness of different control strategies

The effects of an intensive training and feedback program on investigative interviews of children

In the present study, we assessed the effectiveness of an extensive training and feedback program with investigative interviewers of child victims of alleged abuse and neglect in a large Canadian city. Twelve investigative interviewers participated in a joint training initiative that lasted eight months and involved classroom components and extensive weekly verbal and written feedback. Interviewers were significantly more likely to use open-ended prompts and elicited more information from children with open-ended prompts following training. These differences were especially prominent following a subsequent ‘refresher’ training session. No negative effects of training were observed. Clear evidence was found of the benefits of an intensive training and feedback program across a wide variety of investigative interviews with children. Although previous research has found benefits of training with interviewers of child sexual assault victims, the current study extends these findings to a wide range of allegations and maltreatment contexts

USM’s Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling (CLRC) Social Media Outreach

For the service-learning practicum capstone, I assisted Dr. Charles Bernaccio and Tiffany Reagan on the media outreach (LinkedIn page) for the Clinical Rehabilitation Counseling (CLRC) master’s program here at the University of Southern Maine. The mission of the USM Rehabilitation Counseling (RC) specialty program is to promote quality rehabilitation services to persons with disabilities by: (1) preparing qualified rehabilitation professionals; (2) providing services to rehabilitation professionals and organizations; and (3) sponsoring rehabilitation-related research and training

Using Spaced Learning Principles to Translate Knowledge into Behavior: Evidence from Investigative Interviews of Alleged Child Abuse Victims

The present study assessed the progress of 13 investigative interviewers (child protection workers and police officers) before, during, and after an intensive training program (n = 132 interviews). Training began with a 2-day workshop covering the principles of child development and child-friendly interviewing. Interviewers then submitted interviews on a bi-weekly basis to which they received written and verbal feedback over an 8-month period. A refresher session took place two months into training. Interestingly, improvements were observed only after the refresher session. Interviews conducted post-refresher training contained proportionally more open-ended questions, more child details in response to open-ended questions, and proportionally fewer closed questions than interviews conducted prior to training and in the first half of the training program. The need for ‘spaced learning’ may underlie why so many training programs have had little effect on practice

The Relationships Among Adaptive Behaviors of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Their Family Support Networks, Parental Stress, and Parental Coping

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the adaptive behaviors of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), their family support networks, parental stress, and parental coping and the relationships among these variables. Background: Autism is the fastest growing diagnosed developmental disorder. When parents receive a diagnosis of autism for their child, mothers and fathers are affected differently. The costs to families of children with autism are personal, social, and affect family finances and day to day living. Parents of a child with autism are at high risk for increased stress levels. The child’s socially unacceptable behaviors and communication problems contribute to parental stress. Available and accessible support services for children with autism, their caregivers, and families are often inadequate to address the increasing numbers of children being diagnosed with autism. Methods: A descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional study was conducted with a purposive sample of 75 parents/primary caregivers of children with ASD. Parents provided information about the adaptive behaviors of their child with autism, family support networks, parental stress, and parental coping. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to identify the relationships between the variables. Multiple regression analysis was performed to identify which of the independent variables better predicted parental coping patterns. Findings and Conclusion: The adaptive behaviors of children with autism were negatively correlated with parental behaviors which focused on continuing to seek and use social support, self-respect, and emotional strength. Parents’ views of the support their family received were positively correlated with parental behaviors that concentrated on family adjustment, teamwork, and a positive meaning of the situation. A trend toward significance was found between adaptive behaviors of the child with autism and paternal stress. These results bring new challenges and thoughts about how the children with autism and their families can be assisted. Parents who are coping with the added stresses in their lives need support that addresses the abilities of their child with autism, their own patterns of coping, and the resources available to their family

Children’s episodic and generic reports of alleged abuse

With the present data, we explored the relations between the language of interviewer questions, children’s reports, and case and child characteristics in forensic interviews. Results clearly indicated that the type of questions posed by interviewers – either probing generic or episodic features of an event – was related to the specificity of information reported by children. Further, interviewers appeared to adjust their questioning strategies based on the frequency of the alleged abuse. Children alleging single instances of abuse were asked more episodic questions than those alleging multiple abuses. In contrast, children alleging multiple incidents of abuse were asked a greater proportion of generic questions. Given that investigators often seek forensically-relevant episodic information, it is recommended that training for investigators focus on recognition of prompt selection tendencies and developing strategies for posing non-suggestive, episodically focused questions

The use of paraphrasing in investigative interviews

Objective Young children’s descriptions of maltreatment are often sparse thus creating the need for techniques that elicit lengthier accounts. One technique that can be used by interviewers in an attempt to increase children’s reports is ‘paraphrasing’, or repeating information children have disclosed. Although we currently have a general understanding of how paraphrasing may influence children’s reports, we do not have a clear description of how paraphrasing is actually used in the field. Method The present study assessed the use of paraphrasing in 125 interviews of children aged 4 to 16 years conducted by police officers and social workers. All interviewer prompts were coded into four different categories of paraphrasing. All children’s reports were coded for the number of details in response to each paraphrasing statement. Results ‘Expansion paraphrasing’ (e.g., “you said he hit you. Tell me more about when he hit you”) was used significantly more often and elicited significantly more details, while ‘yes/no paraphrasing’ (e.g., “he hit you?”) resulted in shorter descriptions from children, compared to other paraphrasing styles. Further, interviewers more often distorted children’s words when using yes/no paraphrasing, and children rarely corrected interviewers when they paraphrased inaccurately. Conclusions and Practical Implications Investigative interviewers in this sample frequently used paraphrasing with children of all ages and, though children’s responses differed following the various styles of paraphrasing, the effects did not differ by the age of the child witness. The results suggest that paraphrasing affects the quality of statements by child witnesses. Implications for investigative interviewers will be discussed and recommendations offered for easy ways to use paraphrasing to increase the descriptiveness of children’s reports of their experiences

The Theory of the Foundation European Initiative

The purpose of the Theory of the Foundation European Initiative was to contribute key insights into European foundations; and to look beyond the direct charitable activities or grant-making of European foundations and instead to explore and understand how foundations operate as organisations in their pursuit of mission and social impact. This we term a "whole foundation approach".Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) established a framework to stimulate discussion around the organisational form of philanthropy called "The Theory of the Foundation."1 Inspired by Peter Drucker's "Theory of the Business,"2 RPA's approach to framing philanthropic practice is detailed in Figure 1 and contains three core domains: Charter, Social Compact, and Operating Capabilities

The effects of an intensive training and feedback program on investigative interviews of children

In the present study, we assessed the effectiveness of an extensive training and feedback program with investigative interviewers of child victims of alleged abuse and neglect in a large Canadian city. Twelve investigative interviewers participated in a joint training initiative that lasted eight months and involved classroom components and extensive weekly verbal and written feedback. Interviewers were significantly more likely to use open-ended prompts and elicited more information from children with open-ended prompts following training. These differences were especially prominent following a subsequent ‘refresher’ training session. No negative effects of training were observed. Clear evidence was found of the benefits of an intensive training and feedback program across a wide variety of investigative interviews with children. Although previous research has found benefits of training with interviewers of child sexual assault victims, the current study extends these findings to a wide range of allegations and maltreatment contexts