The Lakes Region's refugees home buying Individual Development Account project

The Lakes Region's Refugees IDA Project developed a mentoring and asset building program designed for refugees and immigrants living in our community. It is designed to help them assimilate American financial systems such as banking and credit. This is accomplished by working with an English speaking volunteer and another who speaks their language, enabling them to develop personal financial skills as well as trust. We offer an Individual Development Account (IDA). The participants' savings are matched with grant dollars raised in the IDA statewide initiative. Participants are accepted from the refugee and immigrant population resettled in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire (US). Participants save for home purchase, and while doing so receive individual counseling with their same-language mentor, the English-speaking community volunteers, and project director. Participants receive group training on the specifics of home buying and financial literacy (of American systems) through the Homeownership Center of a local non-profit agency working on affordable housing, the Laconia Area Community Land Trust. We evaluated the success of this project by determining the asset accumulation of participants each year; completing their IDA saving plan by purchasing a home and also by ongoing participation and savings rate. We evaluated the ongoing support level that participants in the project give back, by mentoring others as they enter the project. (Author abstract)MacDonald, J. (2005). The Lakes Region's refugees home buying Individual Development Account project. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen

A qualitative study in rural and urban areas on whether - and how - to consult during routine and out of hours

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Video Feedback for Improving Parental Sensitivity and Attachment (Protocol)

This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: To evaluate the effectiveness of video feedback for improving parental sensitivity and promoting attachment security

The Chat Reference Interview: Seeking Evidence Based on RUSA Guidelines: A Case Study at Texas A&M University Libraries

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare established reference interview guidelines (RUSA) with actual reference provider behaviors in remote reference transactions. The data is used to argue that specific reference interview “best practice standards” should be developed for remote access reference services. Design/methodology/approach: Remote reference transactions were examined for evidence of adherence, or not, to the RUSA guidelines and behaviors. The transcripts were also coded for showing evidence, or not, of user satisfaction. Findings: Data from 1,435 virtual reference transcripts shows that in 82% of the reference sessions the user found the information needed. Analysis also shows that librarian compliance with RUSA-recommended reference interview behaviors, especially in the areas of Listening/Inquiring and Searching is frequently poor – possibly due to time constraints

Group identity in social gatherings : traditions and community on the Iona Peninsula, Cape Breton

This thesis proposes the idea that social gatherings in a rural community of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, are a forum for displaying and reinforcing a group identity based on collective community values. Both present and past social gatherings on the Iona peninsula are discussed, using the contrasts between them to point out how these values and their manifestations have or have not changed. -- The methodology for the study consisted largely of tape-recorded interviews and participant observation, carried out on the peninsula over a period of two months. Other sources of information included written material by folklorists and others on social gatherings of different types, on Gaelic language use and on such concepts as reciprocity, leadership and communication. After an introduction and a chapter describing the communities studied, three chapters are demoted to groups of gatherings divided according to function, with ethnographic descriptions of present-day gatherings included in each. -- Where entertainment options are limited due to a diminishing population and geographical distance from major centres, people will construct their own entertainment and their own methods of gathering for what purposes they find. The ways in which they set up these gatherings and the form they take depend on resources available, motives for gathering and gathering traditions already in place. The thesis posits that people of this area, because of their common heritage of Hebridean, Roman Catholic traditions, and because of the complete lack of commercial entertainment options, tend to maintain some of the forms or aspects of gathering which their ancestors imported from Scotland in the early nineteenth century. These traditions have been retained in a largely practical, unselfconscious way because they continue to fill a need felt by the community, and are the natural way of gathering because they have been in place for several generations. -- At the same time a number of changes have come about in the patterns of gathering in order to fulfill the needs of the present day. Other changes, such as the decline in use of the Gaelic language, the rapidly shrinking population and the increase in the average age of the residents have brought about further adaptations in the gathering process. These consist of differences in dress, food use, narratives told, and even in the objectives of the group in holding the gathering. -- I examine here the ideas of reciprocity, with food as the medium of exchange, the concept of hidden leadership in an ideally egalitarian community, and communication within social gatherings. All of these relate to the idea of the group identity which gives this community its distinctive character. -- In conclusion, I consider the fate of this area and its group identity, when the population is diminishing to such an extent that the end of these particular traditions seems inevitable

Children under the Care of the Scottish Poor Law, 1880-1929

This thesis contributes to the debate about the division of responsibility between parents and the state towards children through a survey of the development of child welfare policy in Scotland under the Poor Law. The emergence of a distinctive Scottish practice was characterised by an intrusive approach to the family and reliance on the boarding out of pauper children to foster parents. To illustrate this, the administration of policy at both central and local level is examined and is compared with English Poor Law policy. The focus of the thesis is in the period 1880-1929 although the earlier sections provide a background to the reform of the Scottish Poor Law in 1845. Section one explores the shaping of child care policy under the 1845 Act and the arrangements for its administration. Section Two looks more closely at the implementation of policy at local level and the evolution of discretionary and legislative intervention in parent-child relations. Section Three evaluates the application and effectiveness of Poor Law child care with boarding out as the main method and poorhouse provision as the 'last resort.' What emerges is the existence of an approach to child welfare in Scotland which drew on traditional practice but no less responded to contemporary concern about the effects of social and economic change on children. Moreover, Scottish policy proved to be an important prototype in the framing of English Poor Law child care legislation. The study concludes by examining why the Poor Law care of children was discontinued, but argues that it nonetheless left a continuing legacy in modern Scottish child care policy