Commentary on Practitioners’ Views of Family Strengths: A Delphi Study

Commentary on Practitioners’ Views of Family Strengths: A Delphi Stud

Editorial: What\u27s Good for Families?

In the midst of the debates in Washington, D.C. over the budget, health care, welfare, and foreign affairs, a central question remains unanswered ~ what is good for families? Part of the ongoing debate has included family preservation which has been both tauted as the solution for society\u27s ills and, simultaneously, as the cause. The reality, of course, is somewhere in between. Family preservation is a new and exciting approach for helping the most basic unit of our society, families, do their job. The principles which guide family preservation grow out of professional helping values and practice experience. Family preservation is a powerful approach to practice which puts the families we are trying to help at the center of the process, not as symptom bearers or dysfunctional systems, but as full partners. While family preservationists enter a family with their eyes wide open to help solve problems, sometimes very serious ones, most of their energy goes to finding strengths and resources in the family in order to meet its needs. It works! And thousands of families who have been helped, along with researchers and other practitioners, sing its praises

Editorial: Take Me Home, Down Country Roads

Those of us committed to the tenets of Family Preservation must advocate for increased awareness and attention to the needs of children and their families in rural America. Country roads and the rural spaces they traverse have been eulogized by many poets and song writers as ideal places to live. But they may not be ideal for everyone. The past few months, it has become all too evident that rural America is not immune to acts of extreme violence by troubled children. Even though almost 1/3 of American youth live in rural areas, they have been virtually ignored by mental health service planners and providers (Cutrona, Halvorson, & Russell, 1996, p. 217). Mental health risk factors such as poverty, parental alcohol abuse, and family instability are on the rise in rural areas, and there has been an increase in suicide attempts, family violence, depression, and alcohol abuse (Cutrona, Halvorson, & Russell, 1996; Petti & Leviton, 1986; National Mental Health Association, 1988). Native Americans are especially concerned about the increases in child abuse and neglect, depression, substance abuse, and suicide in their communities

Ordinary Families -Extraordinary Care Giving

Children with severe emotional problems often have multiple needs that require disparate services including child welfare, juvenile justice, health, mental health, substance abuse, and mental retardation (Stroul, 1996). However, the primary care giving responsibilities for these youngsters still remain with their families. It is the family who shelters and clothes them; provides guidance, affection, recreation, nurturing; gets them to appointments with doctors and therapists and to school dayin- and-day-out, year after year (Lourie, 1995). Despite the invaluable and irreplaceable care provided by families, they are often maligned by a system which characterizes them as having their own problems and inadequacies. The purpose of this research is to learn more about the strengths of families who care for children with severe emotional disabilities (SED). This exploratory descriptive study made use of focus groups attended by parents who are caring for such children. In order to improve services to these families, it is important that we understand how the notion of strengths play out in their everyday lives. Observations are made about the care giving plan, which all families devise in the course of caring for their child with special needs. Implications for paid professionals who serve these families are offered by presenting a model for putting family care givers at the hub of the service provision wheel

Editorial

After 20 years of development, research and practice, it is time to begin a journal for family preservation and support. There are many exciting opportunities and issues for consumers and practitioners, as well! Last year most states became deeply invested in new collaboration activities across agency lines and with consumers. This is the high in which this journal was conceptualized. The need for a family preservation journal has also been made clear by the new Congress which wants to provide orphanages, or the Administration which has proposed residential group homes as the ultimate punishment for children who\u27s parents fail to get off of welfare in two years. These challenges make us more determined to redouble the efforts on behalf of all families and serve as a reminder that we need quality research, dedicated staff and political savvy to help families by employing family preservation values, knowledge and skills

Smart Medication Disposal: Subcritical Water Oxidation of Pharmaceutical Compounds

Disposal of unused or expired pharmaceuticals is neither safe nor environmentally-friendly. Current regulations for pharmaceutical disposal do not prevent environmental contamination. Industrial methods of disposing of waste medications can generate toxic compounds through incineration, or generate large volumes of waste through use of physical adsorbents. Medium sized providers (pharmacies, small clinics) typically hire expensive hazardous waste removal or dispose of these medications improperly. The project goal is to deliver a safe, sustainable process, suitable for retail pharmacies and the like, for rendering pharmaceuticals chemically inactive. This project encompasses the development of a degradation process via testing of 5 model pharmaceuticals and the design and prototyping of a device. Conceptualization proved challenging as the target market and regulatory landscape continually evolve. The process resulted in total degradation of 3 out of the 5 medicinal compounds at a reaction temperature of 150°C and pressure of 5 atm. Moreover, the team was able to develop a process that degraded these medications with subcritical water oxidation, utilizing microwave technology, allowing for greater safety by eliminating the need for a conduction heating unit, while simultaneously allowing for uniform heating throughout the solution. The process only requires tap-water as an input and coolant, which is inexpensive and ubiquitous. The lack of chemical transformation with 2 out of the 5 compounds indicates that further refinement and development are warranted. This machine will give the user the ability to dispose of medications without the worry of unintentional poisonings, illegal distribution, and environmental contamination.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/capstone/1087/thumbnail.jp

Family Preservation and Support: Past, Present, and Future

As the family preservation and support movement evolves rapidly, this article overviews the past, present and future of this approach to policy and services. Building upon several decades of practice experience and research, and now federally funded, program designers are searching for ways to implement system wide change with an array of services all from a family focus, and strengths perspective. Critical issues facing the movement are discussed and a set of benchmarks to judge our future success is presented

Pyoderma gangrenosum after caesarean section: a case report

BACKGROUND: Pyoderma gangrenosum is a rare ulcerative skin disease. The diagnosis is based on clinical features and excluding other causes of skin ulcers, as it does not have characteristic histopathology or laboratory findings. The etiology is poorly understood. Lesions can develop spontaneously, after surgery or after trauma. CASE PRESENTATION: We present the case of a 32-year-old woman with ulcerative wound defect after caesarean section. The wound was not healing despite standard wound care and antibiotic treatment. Pyoderma gangrenosum was diagnosed and after high dose corticosteroids wound healing started. CONCLUSION: Early diagnosis and subsequent treatment of pyoderma gangrenosum are crucial for limiting scar tissue. Diagnosis of pyoderma gangrenosum could easily be missed since gynaecologists are rarely confronted with this disorder