Suchergebnisse

There is substantial evidence that domestic violence and child maltreatment coexist in some families. It is essential for child maltreatment professionals to understand child neglect as it occurs in the context of domestic violence. A common but mistaken approach is to allege in a child maltreatment petition that the battered woman failed to protect her child or children. The article explores the conceptual and practical difficulties with the concept of failure to protect. Two erroneous assumptions that lead to a finding of failure to protect are that witnessing domestic violence is inherently child maltreatment and believing that the battered woman and her children must leave to be safe. The behavior of battered women toward their children likely falls along a continuum from nonabusive to abusive. Child maltreatment professionals should move beyond labels and examine the complexity of the situation confronting a battered woman and her children. Suggestions for training, legislation, research, and practice are offered.

Objective: This project had two questions: (a) To what extent did clients improve after participation in the cancer support groups? and (b) What was the relationship between outcome and clients' perceptions of group process? Method: Clients participating in 12 cancer support groups were administered the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), a consumer satisfaction questionnaire, and a self-report version of Yalom's Curative Factors Questionnaire. Results: BSI results pointed to statistically significant reductions in emotional distress. About one third of the clients moved into the normative distribution of the BSI from the distressed distribution. The group processes with the highest mean scores were cohesion, existential factors, instillation of hope, altruism, and universality. There were no significant correlations between BSI scores and group processes. Conclusion: These results are discussed in terms of the need to identify both the outcome and process of support group participation as well as establish an empirical link between the two.

The development of a parenting role-play test is presented. The article briefly discusses the ad vantages of role-play tests over interviews, checklists, and direct observations. Item develop ment followed an empirically driven model suggested by Goldfried and D'Zurilla. The final par enting role-play test contained six common, yet difficult, parent-child situations. Judges used a scoring manual to rate parent's responses. The results indicated that the parenting role-play test could be scored with adequate reliability. Although the preliminary data gave indications of the role-play test's validity, further validation research is suggested. The application of the role-play test to social work practice is discussed.

This study sought to determine which of two forms of group parent training was more effective for parents of children having problems with aggressive or noncompliant behavior. Fifty-six parents recruited from the community were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: group training in behavioral skills, group training in problem solving, or a waiting-list control group. Outcomes were evaluated using a pretest/posttest experimental design with an added 3-month follow-up. The results indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the two experimental conditions and the control condition in parent's perceptions of child behavior. Individualized measures of change, using goal attainment scaling, indicated that most trained subjects made progress toward goals. Group process measures demonstrated that parents in the problem-solving groups completed significantly less homework and had significantly worse attendance when compared to parents in the behavioral skills training groups. Although both training conditions were more effective than the control condition, post hoc analyses suggest that the skills training group was more effective.