Combining the parts to make the whole : integrated child and family services in Queensland

Over the past decade, the promotion of 'integrated child and family services' has emerged as a strong and consistent theme within Australian early childhood policy. Fuelling this trend is the belief that integrated service provision is more responsive to holistic family needs, offering better support to parents and thereby promoting better outcomes for young children. Adding further strength is the prevention and early intervention literature, and suggested social and economic benefits of 'effective' early years services and supports. States and territories are introducing new integrated child and family service models and Reflections is continuing to profile these. In this edition, we look at directions and new service models in Queensland, in particular, the new Early Years Centre service model.

Small firm growth

We review and discuss the literature on small firm growth with an intention to provide a useful vantage point for new research studies regarding this important phenomenon. We first discuss conceptual and methodological issues that represent critical choices for those who research growth and which make it challenging to compare results from previous studies. The substantial review of past research is organized into four sections representing two smaller and two larger literatures. The first of the latter focuses on internal and external drivers of small firm growth. Here we find that much has been learnt and that many valuable generalizations can be made. However, we also conclude that more research of the same kind is unlikely to yield much. While interactive and non-linear effects may be worth pursuing it is unlikely that any new and important growth drivers or strong, linear main effects would be found. The second large literature deals with organizational life-cycles or stages of development. While deservedly criticized for unwarranted determinism and weak empirics this type of approach addresses problems of high practical and also theoretical relevance, and should not be shunned by researchers. We argue that with a change in the fundamental assumptions and improved empirical design, research on the organizational and managerial consequences of growth is an important line of inquiry. With this, we overlap with one of the smaller literatures, namely studies focusing on the effects of growth. We argue that studies too often assume that growth equals success. We advocate instead the use of growth as an intermediary variable that influences more fundamental goals in ways that should be carefully examined rather than assumed. The second small literature distinguishes between different modes or forms of growth, including, e.g., organic vs. acquisition-based growth, and international expansion. We note that modes of growth is an important topic that has been under studied in the growth literature, whereas in other branches of research aspects of it may have been studied intensely, but not primarily from a growth perspective. In the final section we elaborate on ways forward for research on small firm growth. We point at rich opportunities for researchers who look beyond drivers of growth, where growth is viewed as a homogenous phenomenon assumed to unambiguously reflect success, and instead focus on growth as a process and a multi-dimensional phenomenon, as well as on how growth relates to more fundamental outcomes.

Empowerment and role stress in the human interface between the firm and its markets

Frontline employees constitute one of the key interfaces that service organisations have with their markets. Many strategies to enhance the ability of these employees to satisfy the needs of customers have been proposed. Amongst these, empowering employees has been suggested to enhance the customer orientation of the firm and consequently its effectiveness in serving the market. However, the impact of empowerment in service organisations remains somewhat contentious. This paper examines the role of empowerments an organisational service strategy and identifies its consequences for role stress, job satisfaction and the willingness of service employees to serve their customers.

An analysis of the RC4 family of stream ciphers against algebraic attacks

To date, most applications of algebraic analysis and attacks on stream ciphers are on those based on lin- ear feedback shift registers (LFSRs). In this paper, we extend algebraic analysis to non-LFSR based stream ciphers. Specifically, we perform an algebraic analysis on the RC4 family of stream ciphers, an example of stream ciphers based on dynamic tables, and inves- tigate its implications to potential algebraic attacks on the cipher. This is, to our knowledge, the first pa- per that evaluates the security of RC4 against alge- braic attacks through providing a full set of equations that describe the complex word manipulations in the system. For an arbitrary word size, we derive alge- braic representations for the three main operations used in RC4, namely state extraction, word addition and state permutation. Equations relating the inter- nal states and keystream of RC4 are then obtained from each component of the cipher based on these al- gebraic representations, and analysed in terms of their contributions to the security of RC4 against algebraic attacks. Interestingly, it is shown that each of the three main operations contained in the components has its own unique algebraic properties, and when their respective equations are combined, the resulting system becomes infeasible to solve. This results in a high level of security being achieved by RC4 against algebraic attacks. On the other hand, the removal of an operation from the cipher could compromise this security. Experiments on reduced versions of RC4 have been performed, which confirms the validity of our algebraic analysis and the conclusion that the full RC4 stream cipher seems to be immune to algebraic attacks at present.

Twelve-month effectiveness of a parent-led, family-focused weight-management program for prepubertal children : a randomized, controlled trial

BACKGROUND Parenting-skills training may be an effective age-appropriate child behavior-modification strategy to assist parents in addressing childhood overweight. OBJECTIVE Our goal was to evaluate the relative effectiveness of parenting-skills training as a key strategy for the treatment of overweight children. DESIGN The design consisted of an assessor-blinded, randomized, controlled trial involving 111 (64% female) overweight, prepubertal children 6 to 9 years of age randomly assigned to parenting-skills training plus intensive lifestyle education, parenting-skills training alone, or a 12-month wait-listed control. Height, BMI, and waist-circumference z score and metabolic profile were assessed at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months (intention to treat). RESULTS After 12 months, the BMI z score was reduced by ∼10% with parenting-skills training plus intensive lifestyle education versus ∼5% with parenting-skills training alone or wait-listing for intervention. Waist-circumference z score fell over 12 months in both intervention groups but not in the control group. There was a significant gender effect, with greater reduction in BMI and waist-circumference z scores in boys compared with girls. CONCLUSION Parenting-skills training combined with promoting a healthy family lifestyle may be an effective approach to weight management in prepubertal children, particularly boys. Future studies should be powered to allow gender subanalysis.

Family-focused weight management program for five- to nine-year-olds incorporating parenting skills training with healthy lifestyle information to support behaviour modification

his case study aims to describe how general parenting principles can be used as part of parent-led, family-focused child weight management that is in line with current Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines. A parent-led, family-focused child weight management program was designed for use by dietitians with parents of young children (five- to nine-year-olds). The program utilises the cornerstones of overweight treatment: diet, activity, behaviour modification and family support delivered in an age-appropriate, family-focused manner. Parents participate in 16 sessions (4 parenting-focused, 8 lifestyle-focused and 4 individual telephone support calls) conducted weekly, fortnightly then monthly over six months. This case study illustrates how a family used the program, resulting in reduced degree of overweight and stabilised waist circumference in the child over 12 months. In conclusion, linking parenting skills to healthy family lifestyle education provides an innovative approach to family-focused child weight management. It addresses key Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines, works at the family level, and provides a means for dietitians to easily adopt age-appropriate behaviour modification as part of their practice.