Social Workers' Perceptions of Family Preservation Programs

The passage of the Adoptions and Safe Families Act of 1997, with its focus on child safety and concurrent planning, has presented family preservation workers with new challenges and new opportunities. Twenty volunteers from a large comprehensive social service agency were interviewed to determine their experiences with two models of family preservation—Multisystemic Therapy (MST) and Traditional Family Preservation Service (TFPS) or practice as usual. Workers from both programs were able to articulate values consistent with family preservation as important strengths of the programs— keeping families together and empowering families for example. Information from referring agencies was described as variable and not especially useful when working with seriously troubled families, especially as it related to risk and child safety. Both groups indicated that the jargon of family preservation had permeated their agencies, and that working with other agencies was at times a challenge, though for different reasons. Finally, despite some reservations about the effectiveness of short-term treatment with families that face serious challenges, both groups of workers were generally satisfied with family preservation as an approach to practice.

Occupational health and safety among commercial sex workers in Ghana

The topic of occupational health and safety (OHS) has been investigated for many years and continues to be a concept often researched today. Generally speaking OHS research has been centered around food safety, construction safety, transportation safety, fire safety, drug and alcohol testing, health and medical management, and industrial hygiene to name a few. However, the concept of OHS concerning female commercial sex workers (FCSWs) has rarely been investigated, often neglected, seldom discussed and is lacking in sound research. Although regarded as the "oldest profession", commercial sex work (CSW) has consistently been ignored, disregarded and under-researched due to the illegality and stigmatization of prostitution. This paper reviews occupational safety and health issues faced by FCSWs in Tema and Accra, Ghana, through in-depth interviews, visits to women's homes, field work, informal conversations and participant observations with FCSWs over a period of two months. Facets of OHS that emerged among FCSWs included sexually transmissible infections, risks associated with harassment and violence from police and clients, alcohol and drug use, irregular hospital visits and/or lack of hospital visits, immigration issues, legal and policing risks. We argue that CSW be viewed as an occupation in great need of interventions to reduce workplace risks and improve the health and safety of FCSWs^

Attitudes of health-care workers toward pregnant, HIV -positive women

The management of HIV infection with antiretroviral drugs has succeeded in increasing survival rates, but the subject of pregnancy in HIV-positive women continues to garner debate. Discrimination and stigma have been identified as barriers to health care, suggesting that women with HIV may be disinclined to seek prenatal care if health-care workers exhibit negative attitudes toward the women's pregnancies. To optimize prenatal and medical care for women with HIV infection, it is important to understand the general social conditions and cultural context in which these women have children. Goffman's treatise on stigma, Foucault's discussion of the knowledge/power matrix, and Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory offer theoretical perspectives by which we can evaluate the gender, race, and class issues that are inherent in pregnancy decision-making for women with HIV infection. It is also necessary to evaluate prevailing attitudes on childbearing toward HIV-positive women and to review the historical background of prejudice in which HIV-positive women make decisions regarding childbearing. ^ This qualitative study used a survey instrument and one-on-one interviews with HIV-infected women to elicit their perceptions of how they were treated by care providers when they became pregnant. It also included interviews with health-care workers to determine what their feelings are about pregnancy within the context of HIV infection. Results of the ethnographic inquiry reveal that most of the women had negative experiences at some point during a pregnancy, but that the situation improved when they sought care from a provider who was familiar with HIV infection. The health-care providers interviewed were firm in their belief that HIV-positive women deserved optimal care and treated the women with respect, but these are individuals who are also experts in providing care to HIV-positive patients. The question remains as to what kind of care HIV-positive women are receiving generally and what types of attitudes they are being subjected to if they see less experienced providers. Further research is also needed to determine whether HIV-positive women from a broader ethnic representation and higher socioeconomic status experience similar negative attitudes. ^

Analysis of symptoms of rural workers exposed to pesticides

This cross-sectional study was conducted in southern Minas Gerais, in two counties: São Gonçalo do Sapucaí and Silvianópolis. Presented as objective to verify the important variables associated with the occurrence of symptoms of subacute intoxication related to pesticides exposure. A questionnaire was dedicated to a sample of 412 workers. An analysis of non-conditional logistic regression was applied gradually. The likelihood ratio method was used to define the significant variables in the final model. Of the analysed population, 59.2% reported symptoms typical of subacute intoxication. Of the respondents, 91.5% reported knowing the deleterious effects associated with exposure to pesticides. The adjusted model was found with the significant variables: being male that presented Prevalence Odds Ratio (POR) adjusted . PORof 0.54 (95% CI 0.36 to 0.81), already hospitalized for poisoning with pesticides, POR of 3.26 (95% CI 1.08 to 9.82), living in the rural area of residence., POR of 2.17 (95% CI 1.20 to 3.93) and type of employment relationship or temporary employment, POR of 2.32 (95% CI 1.08 to 4.95).

Are Job Networks Localized in a Developing Economy? Search Methods for Displaced Workers in Thailand

Effects of localized personal networks on the choice of search methods are studied in this paper using evidence of displaced workers by establishment closure in Thailand Labor Force Survey, 2001. For the blocks/villages level, there is less significant evidence of local interactions between job-seekers and referrals in developing labor markets. The effects of localized personal networks do not play an important role in the probability of unemployed job-seekers seeking assistance from friends and relatives. Convincing evidence from the data supports the proposition that both self-selection of individual background-like professions and access to large markets determine the choice of job search method.

A New End-User Composition Model to Empower Knowledge Workers to Develop Rich Internet Applications

Enabling real end-user programming development is the next logical stage in the evolution of Internetwide service-based applications. Even so, the vision of end users programming their own web-based solutions has not yet materialized. This will continue to be so unless both industry and the research community rise to the ambitious challenge of devising an end-to-end compositional model for developing a new age of end-user web application development tools. This paper describes a new composition model designed to empower programming-illiterate end users to create and share their own off-the-shelf rich Internet applications in a fully visual fashion. This paper presents the main insights and outcomes of our research and development efforts as part of a number of successful European Union research projects. A framework implementing this model was developed as part of the European Seventh Framework Programme FAST Project and the Spanish EzWeb Project and allowed us to validate the rationale behind our approach.

Leader Rural Development Program in Spain: Profile and Functions of Workers in Local Action Groups.

Occupations in the labor market are linked with to a minimum basic training and other capacities. Hired workers should be able to accomplish required functions related to their specific job. Regarding the rural development labor market, local action groups? workers have defined performance areas?projects, strategy, organization and training & market?but specific functions within each of these areas are not as clearly defined. Neither both, basic training and capacities needed to perform each job profile within the local action group are defined. This communication analyses training and other capacities linked to each of the job profiles within the local action group. Functions within each of the performance areas previously defined are also analyzed regarding the job profiles.

Interventions for improving employment outcomes for workers with HIV

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Cochrane Work Trials Search Co-ordinators Leena Isotalo and Kaisa Neuvonen for developing the search strategy and Managing Editor Jani Ruotsalainen and Co-ordinating Editor Jos Verbeek for editing the text and providing helpful comments. We would also like to thank Richard Othieno for his contributions to the protocol.

Dispersal of first “workers” in social wasps: Causes and implications of an alternative reproductive strategy

Many “workers” in north temperate colonies of the eusocial paper wasp Polistes fuscatus disappear within a few days of eclosion. We provide evidence that these females are pursuing an alternative reproductive strategy, i.e., dispersing to overwinter and become nest foundresses the following spring, instead of helping to rear brood on their natal nests. A female is most likely to stay and help at the natal nest (i.e., least likely to disperse) when it is among the first workers to emerge and when it emerges on a nest with more pupae (even though worker-brood relatedness tends to be lower in such colonies). The latter cause may result from the fact that pupae-laden nests are especially likely to survive, and thus any direct or indirect reproductive payoffs for staying and working are less likely to be lost. Disappearing females are significantly smaller than predicted if dispersal tendency was independent of body size (emergence order-controlled), suggesting that the females likely to be most effective at challenging for reproductive rights within the natal colony (i.e., the largest females) are also most likely to stay. Thus, early dispersal is conditional on a female’s emergence order, the maturity of its natal nest, and its body size. Finally, we present evidence that foundresses may actively limit the sizes of first-emerging females, perhaps to decrease the probability that the latter can effectively challenge foundresses for reproductive rights. The degree to which foundresses limit the size of first-emerging females accords well with the predictions of the theory of staying incentives.