Mental Health and School Functioning for Girls in the Child Welfare System : the Mediating Role of Future Orientation and School Engagement

This study investigated the association between mental health problems and academic and behavioral school functioning for adolescent girls in the child welfare system and determined whether school engagement and future orientation meditated the relationship. Participants were 231 girls aged between 12 and 19 who had been involved with the child welfare system. Results indicated that 39% of girls reported depressive symptoms in the clinical range and 54% reported posttraumatic symptoms in the clinical range. The most common school functioning problems reported were failing a class (41%) and physical fights with other students (35%). Participants reported a mean number of 1.7 school functioning problems. Higher levels of depression and PTSD were significantly associated with more school functioning problems. School engagement fully mediated the relationship between depression and school functioning and between PTSD and school functioning, both models controlling for age, race, and placement stability. Future orientation was not significantly associated with school functioning problems at the bivariate level. Findings suggest that school engagement is a potentially modifiable target for interventions aiming to ameliorate the negative influence of mental health problems on school functioning for adolescent girls with histories of abuse or neglect

The Association Between Parental Incarceration and Health, Education, and Economic Outcomes in Young Adulthood

Of the more than two million persons incarcerated in U.S. prisons, the majority are also parents to children under the age of 18. A growing body of research has explored the impact of parental incarceration on these children and has consistently found a link between this experience and negative life outcomes. Fewer studies, however, examined the longitudinal impact of parental incarceration on offspring. This analysis attempts to address this shortcoming by exploring the relationship between parental incarceration during childhood and adult outcomes later in life. More specifically, we examine the associations between paternal incarceration during childhood and health, educational, and economic outcomes in young adulthood. Using data from the Add Health, we utilize a series of regression analyses to examine these relationships. Results suggest that parental incarceration is significantly related to a number of outcomes in early adulthood, including educational attainment, physical and mental health, and receipt of public assistance

Fate and transport of metals in H₂S-rich waters at a treatment wetland

<p/> <p>The aqueous geochemistry of Zn, Cu, Cd, Fe, Mn and As is discussed within the context of an anaerobic treatment wetland in Butte, Montana. The water being treated had a circum-neutral pH with high concentrations of trace metals and sulfate. Reducing conditions in the wetland substrate promoted bacterial sulfate reduction (BSR) and precipitation of dissolved metal as sulfide minerals. ZnS was the most common sulfide phase found, and consisted of framboidal clusters of individual spheres with diameters in the submicron range. Some of the ZnS particles passed through the subsurface flow, anaerobic cells in suspended form. The concentration of "dissolved" trace metals (passing through a 0.45 μm filter) was monitored as a function of H₂S concentration, and compared to predicted solubilities based on experimental studies of aqueous metal complexation with dissolved sulfide. Whereas the theoretical predictions produce "U-shaped" solubility curves as a function of H₂S, the field data show a flat dependence of metal concentration on H₂S. Observed metal concentrations for Zn, Cu and Cd were greater than the predicted values, particularly at low H₂S concentration, whereas Mn and As were undersaturated with their respective metal sulfides. Results from this study show that water treatment facilities employing BSR have the potential to mobilize arsenic out of mineral substrates at levels that may exceed regulatory criteria. Dissolved iron was close to equilibrium saturation with amorphous FeS at the higher range of sulfide concentrations observed (>0.1 mmol H₂S), but was more likely constrained by goethite at lower H₂S levels. Inconsistencies between our field results and theoretical predictions may be due to several problems, including: (i) a lack of understanding of the form, valence, and thermodynamic stability of poorly crystalline metal sulfide precipitates; (ii) the possible influence of metal sulfide colloids imparting an erroneously high "dissolved" metal concentration; (iii) inaccurate or incomplete thermodynamic data for aqueous metal complexes at the conditions of the treatment facility; and (iv) difficulties in accurately measuring low concentrations of dissolved sulfide in the field.</p