In this paper the researcher discusses the importance of specialized training for workers in child welfare who are responding to allegations of child sexual abuse in the context of custody/access disputes. The researcher has implemented an experimental design involving two matched groups of staff, equally sized, from an Ontario child welfare agency. Participants were requested to complete a pre-test and post-test which measured the priority assigned to a set of fictitious scenarios developed for the project. A training session was offered to the experimental group prior to the post-test. / The outcome data suggests that the training affected the coding which members of the experimental group applied to scenarios. The experimental group tended to consider dynamics related to the issue of custody/access when assessing the priority of response time given to a referral. The control group evidenced no consideration of such dynamics. / The researcher has included a number of recommendations within the analysis section so that future applications of similar studies may be improved. The conclusion of this study clearly states that adequate worker training is essential in order that objective, reliable, and competent service is available to child welfare clients.

In 1995 the Government of Ontario introduced reforms that significantly changed the way welfare was delivered in the province. Welfare rates were cut and benefits became conditional on recipients participating in a workfare programme called Ontario Works. These reforms ignore women's responsibility for child care. Single mothers and their children will be the group most affected by these changes. Single mothers are interviewed about how these changes have affected them, with particular attention to their experiences with the Ontario Works programme and its impact on their ability to care for their children.

Thanks to medical advances of recent decades, increased life expectancy for adolescents and young adults with chronic illnesses has created a need for transitional support for patients moving into adult healthcare systems. It is well documented that transitional support is a beneficial part of healthcare for adolescents who are chronically ill. However, the impact of these programs on this population is not well articulated in existing research. The goals of this study are to review and assess the body of literature pertaining to the effects of transitional care, to understand the methods used for measuring outcomes of transitional programs, and to ascertain areas for future study and directions for improved quality of care for adolescents and young adults with chronic conditions. A scoping review of the transition research literature was performed in three diagnostic groups: cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and sickle cell disease; non-categorical studies were also captured and assessed. A database search produced 825 abstracts. Duplicates (232) were excluded and initial and strict screening questions were applied to the remaining 593 articles. During successive screening rounds, 345 studies and 244 studies were respectively removed, leaving four studies for analysis. The main reason for exclusion was a lack of scientific rigor in empirical studies. Despite the small number of rigorous studies produced, the scoping review process did reveal some valuable insights about the current state of transition research. Studies on diabetes-specific interventions were the most common. Researchers are faced with barriers to producing useful evidence of effective transition. More attention should be paid to the importance of interdisciplinary care and the integration of both psychosocial needs and medical needs of young people with chronic conditions. / Grace aux progrès médicaux des dernières décennies, l'espérance de vie des adolescents et jeunes adultes atteints de maladies chroniques a augmenté et a créé un besoin de soutien transitoire pour les patients qui se dirigent vers les systèmes de soin de santé pour adultes. Il est démontré que le soutien transitoire a un rôle bénéfique sur la santé des adolescents qui souffrent de maladies chroniques. Cependant, l'impact de ces programmes sur les personnes dans cette population n'est pas bien cerné dans la recherche actuelle. Les objectifs de cette étude sont d'examiner et d'évaluer l'ensemble de la littérature portant sur les effets des soins de transition, de comprendre les méthodes utilisées pour mesurer les résultats des programmes de transition, et d'établir, en s'appuyant sur cette documentation, des domaines d'études et de l'orientation afin d'améliorer la qualité des soins pour les adolescents et les jeunes adultes atteints de maladies chroniques. Un examen de la littérature a été réalisé sur trois types de groupes diagnostique: la fibrose kystique, le diabète du type 1 et la maladie drépanocytaire; des études non - catégoriques ont également été saisie parmi les données et évaluées. Un total de 825 sommaires ont été extrait à la suite d'une recherche dans une base de données. Les doublons (232) ont été exclus et une première série de questions rigoureuse et approfondies a été employées pour les 593 articles restant. Au cours d'examens successifs, une première série de 345 études puis une seconde de 244 ont été éliminées, n'en laissant que quatre pour l'analyse. La raison principale de cette exclusion était un manque de rigueur scientifique. Malgré le nombre limité d'études rigoureuses évaluées, un examen de ces dernières a quand même révélé des points importants sur l'état actuel de la recherche de transition. Les interventions spécifiques portant sur le diabète dominent la recherche. Les chercheurs continuent d'affronter des obstacles à la production de preuves utiles de transition efficace. Une attention supplémentaire devrait être accordée à l'importance de la prise en charge interdisciplinaire et l'intégration des besoins psycho-sociaux et médicaux des jeunes souffrant de maladies chroniques.

The study is an inquiry into a group of 25 adolescent adopted children who have been in their adoptive homes for at least ten years. It attempts to derive limited knowledge and tentative conclusions pertaining to the way in which these children have evolved a concept of themselves as adopted children and the general success of the adoption. A research interview elicited the parents’ appraisal of the extent and manner in which own origins had been shared with the children and, also, the parents’ estimate of how the adoption had turned out. Origin of the Study: The need for a study on adoptions grew out of the questions of a private child caring agency. This agency, The Protestant Foster Home Centre, is a member agency of the Protestant federation of community agencies. The investigation of applicants requesting children for adoption and the placement of children for adoption is one of the services of the agency. The agency recognizes the need for a continuous evaluation of its service to the community. Wetha Kelly expresses something of the thinking of the agency: “It has been said that too little is known about adoption. There is a dearth of information about the outcome of adoptive placement which ultimately and definitely terminates in the legal creation of parent to child. For the child and his new parents, this termination is only the beginning. What happens to the relationships beyond this termination and this beginning is not known generally. [...]

Enuresis is an ever recurring problem which is presented by a large number of children who come to the attention of a child guidance center. A survey of the literature in this field indicates that enuresis is not a clinical entity to which one can ascribe a single cause, but rather it is a symptom of an underlying emotional disturbance. If the enuretic child is to be helped with his problem, it is of vital importance to study each individual case in order to discover how that child is reacting to his environment and how his particular social experiences have affected him. Much material has been written about those experiences in early childhood which can create feelings of insecurity in the child and may lead to deeper disturbances later on in life. Enuresis can be viewed as an earlier manifestation of these disturbances. It is generally accepted that the most potent of all influences on social behaviour is derived from the “Primary social experience with the mother” during the oral stage. In this period the mother should be devoted to satisfying the demands made by the infant who is ruled by his impulses, and strives only to gratify his most primitive needs. The loving care and attention with which these needs are met is of vital importance to the infant’s sense of well-being and security. If he receives this, he will later learn to give up the pleasure derived from the immediate satisfaction of his instinctual needs [...]

In our present day democratic society certain important needs can best be met through group activities. These include the need for social contacts, for cultural expression, for the organization of action, and for group concern for the common good. The group plays a vital role in meeting these needs and in the preservation of our democracy. It is the practical training ground where people learn both the form and the practice of democratic living. Miss Coyle has pointed out that, “Many of them (groups) are permeated with the basic homespun relations of mutual respect, orderly procedures and common consent out of which the larger framework of political, economic, and social democracy must evolve. Because of the importance of group life in our democratic society this study has attempted to get a picture of group activities among Jewish teen agers in Indianapolis. Because group activity deals with that period of leisure time that is available after all necessary chores and tasks have been completed, the study is primarily concerned with the problem or how this leisure time is spent. The fact that the manner in which this leisure time is used is a matter or some concern to parents of teen agers and to the teen agers themselves is attested to by the comments made to the writer by several parents. Typical of these comments are the following. “Our teen agers are wasting their time.” “Our high school children are lazy. They show no creativity in their after-school activities.”[...]

The purpose of this study is·to evaluate the practice of having the medical social worker in the obstetrical clinic interview every married woman having her first baby. This is a policy which was introduced in the prenatal clinics of the Women’s Pavilion of the Royal Victoria Hospital in October, 1949. It was considered by the medical administration to be one method of strengthening the constructive maternal hygiene programme by providing a preventive mental health service during the prenatal period. It was·introduced on an experimental basis with the intention that after it had been in operation a reasonable length of time the policy would be reviewed and evaluated. Such an evaluation would reveal what the programme entailed in actual practice as shown by the number of patients served, quality of service given and whether the aforementioned goals had been achieved. The policy has been in effect for more than a year, and during 1950 more than 400 primiparous patients attended the prenatal clinics. Obviously the programme, if it is functioning as planned, absorbs a large proportion of the time of the medical social worker in the social service department. The time has come to determine whether it should be continued or not. The writer, who has participated in the programme as a caseworker, plans to evaluate this policy from two points of view [...]

The time-honoured attitude toward the problem of truancy is that it is purely an educational concern. Howerver, it is becoming recognized more and more as a behaviour disorder arising from a personality abnormality. Disorders of personality arise, to a very large extent, from unsatisfactory relationships within the family such as subjecting the child, during the early period of his development, to unwholesome and adverse parental attitudes, to unusual forutnes and to seduction by adults and older children. Children within the school may also cause the child to truant. He may be bored with a stereotyped school routine or find the curriculum, with its accent on verbal learning, discouraging. He may interpret the teacher’s impatience as a personal affront. From situations such as these, a child often chooses turancy as an escape. In a community lacking in recreational facilities, a child may seek outlets for his excess energy in unhealthy ways. In the community, too, he may suffer from discrimination on social or religious grounds. If the frustration arising from such conditions is carried over into the classroom, he may react by truanting. The Community Service Society of New York concludes that, “...truancy is found in conjunction with a complicated set of difficulties....(it is) a response to a general disturbance of the personality and the environment. As a result, children have not been able to adjust in the school setting.” [...]

In the past twenty years there has probably been less written on the subject of nervousness than on any other common complaint. To the best of this writer’s knowledge, there has been no recent text devoted to a thorough examination of the subject and only sporadic interest has been shown by researchers. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychiatry, began his learned observations by analyzing the mental health of adults. He soon arrived at the conclusion that the onset of mental illness can usually be traced to the period of post natal development and followed through to adulthood.

A most deafening silence is the effect created by the omission of Whiteness from racial discourses. Those within the social work profession, who seek to eradicate racism have for the most part, restricted their analyses to dissecting and defining the racial "Other". This has perhaps unwittingly implied an acceptance of "Whiteness" as an all-powerful, unnamed normality, exempted from the requirement of definition. This examination of White racial identity is an attempt to engage in a discussion of a different sort---exploring racism at its source. Those actively involved in the practice and/or study of Social Work in Montreal (Quebec) were asked to contemplate the meaning of "Whiteness" in society and in their own lives. Their interpretations were aligned with social and cultural interpretations, as well as my own interpretations. This study illustrates that, in spite of its elusive nature, Whiteness does indeed have very powerful meanings for those who have access to this racial category, those excluded, and the society in which we live.