145 research outputs found
"I'm Not Rockefeller": 33 High net Worth Philanthropists Discuss Their Approach to Giving
Presents findings from interviews, conducted between September 2007 and April 2008, with 33 donor who were able to give $1 million annually. The study focused on how donors make giving decisions
Rightsizing Congregate Care: A Powerful First Step in Transforming Child Welfare Systems
Outlines Casey's initiatives in four sites to help child welfare systems reduce institutional placements, improve outcomes, and support community services by changing the array of services, frontline practice, finances, performance management, and policy
Tell Me A Story: Fairy Tales and the Feminist Conflict
Although the feminist critique of fairy tales is a legitimate and necessary step toward equality for women in modern society, the traditional fairy tale genre is also a critical factor in the happiness and enjoyment of the audience. Elements of traditional fairy tales such as love, adventure, or beauty do not only place women in submissive and passive roles, but they also provide the entertainment which makes fairy tales appealing. Many feminist readers also want to read and enjoy traditional fairy tales, but are caught in a self-imposed conflict between the desire for elements which they know will oppress women and yet which will provide the hope and entertainment they are seeking the fairy tale genre. Grimms\u27 editions, Victorian fairy tales, and Disney movies are criticized for their harmful representations of children or fall short of the feminist goal. Consequently, feminist readers are caught in a bind between what is right for women and what is necessary in fairy tales. The possible solution? Feminists must learn to accept traditional elements in fairy tales and readers must learn to recognize dangerous stereotypes of women in the same stories
PATTERNS OF WILDFIRE RISK IN THE UNITED STATES FROM SYSTEMATIC OPERATIONAL RISK ASSESSMENTS – HOW RISK IS CHARACTERIZED BY LAND MANAGERS
Since the turn of the 21st century, the complexity and costs of wildfires have increased substantially. There is a need to evaluate entrenched fire management practices that encourage status quo decision making to suppress fires. Data stored in mandated reporting systems collected during wildfires may provide a perspective on fire management decision-making needed to change wildfire governance structures. The Relative Risk Assessment (RRA) resides within a federally mandated workflow process necessary for all longer duration federal wildfires since 2010. Land managers rate hazard, probability and values at risk as high, moderate or low throughout the course of an incident to define wildfire risk as a precursor to strategy. 5,087 published risk assessments were evaluated to provide a snapshot of the how land managers characterize risk from every geographic area (GA) in the United States. Results suggest that most GAs have a tendency to select moderate relative risk; however, two unique regions warranted greater inspection. The Northwest utilizes high risk more than any other geographic area; and the Southwest opts for low risk. Following a mixed method explanatory research design, these GAs became the basis for exploring factors influencing high and low risk by coding qualitative text belonging to the RRA. Investigation of a 20% sample of wildfires from these regions provided finer specificity of the values at risk, hazard, and probability concerns emerging during wildfires. Results suggest that climate plays a pivotal role to lessen the impact of the fire environment in the Southwest and generally increases the severity of the fire environment in the Northwest. When risk is low, land managers exercised greater decision space by using a variety of strategies. High risk constrains decision space and managers opt for suppression strategies. Subsequently, the Southwest is poised to benefit from favorable climate to use more fire and there is mounting evidence that a patchwork of historical wild and prescribed fires are leading to greater decision space for the management of current wildfires by serving as barriers to fire spread. However, suppression strategies were the most common for both GAs suggesting challenges remain for the use of fire to achieve resource objectives
Counting Is Not Enough: Investing in Qualitative Case Reviews for Practice Improvement in Child Welfare
Outlines the value of quality case service reviews in child welfare systems, requirements for building and sustaining a robust process and adapting it under limited state budgets, and recommendations for jurisdictions, initiators, and national leadership
Reforming Institutions: The Judicial Function in Bankruptcy and Public Law Litigation
Public law litigation (PLL) is among the most important and controversial types of dispute that courts face. These civil class actions seek to reform public agencies such as police departments, prison systems, and child welfare agencies that have failed to meet basic statutory or constitutional obligations. They are controversial because critics assume that judicial intervention is categorically undemocratic or beyond judicial expertise.
This Article reveals flaws in these criticisms by comparing the judicial function in PLL to that in corporate bankruptcy, where the value and legitimacy of judicial intervention are better understood and more accepted. Our comparison shows that judicial intervention in both spheres responds to coordination problems that make individual stakeholder action ineffective, and it explains how courts in both spheres can require and channel major organizational change without administering the organizations themselves or inefficiently constricting the discretion of managers. The comparison takes on greater urgency in light of the Trump administration’s vow to “deconstruct the administrative state,” a promise which, if kept, will likely increase demand for PLL
Courts As Institutional Reformers: Bankruptcy and Public Law Litigation
This article compares two spheres in which courts induce and oversee the restructuring of organizations that fail systematically to comply with their legal obligations: bankruptcy reorganization and public law litigation (civil rights or regulatory suits seeking structural remedies). The analogies between bankruptcy and public law litigation (PLL) have grown stronger in recent years as structural decrees have evolved away from highly specific directives to “framework” decrees designed to induce engagement with stakeholders and make performance transparent. We use the comparison with bankruptcy, where the value and legitimacy of judicial intervention are better understood and more accepted, to address prominent criticisms of PLL. Our comparison shows that judicial intervention in both spheres responds to coordination problems that make individual stakeholder action ineffective, and it explains how courts in both spheres can require and channel major organizational change without administering the organizations themselves or inefficiently constricting the discretion of managers. The comparison takes on greater urgency in light of the Trump Administration’s vow to “deconstruct the administrative state,” a promise which, if kept, will likely increase demand for PLL
Legal Accountability in the Service-Based Welfare State: Lessons from Child Welfare Reform
Current trends intensify the longstanding problem of how the rule-of-law should be institutionalized in the welfare state. Welfare programs are being re-designed to increase their capacities to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and to tailor their responses to diverse clienteles. These developments challenge the understanding of legal accountability developed in the Warren Court era. This Article reports on an emerging model of accountable administration that strives to reconcile programmatic flexibility with rule-of-law values. The model has been developed in the reform of state child protective services systems, but it has potentially broad application to public law. It also has novel implications for such basic rule-of-law issues as the choice between rules and standards, the relation of bureaucratic and judicial control, the proper scope of judicial intervention into dysfunctional public agencies, and the justiciability of positive (or social and economic) rights
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