At the end of 2016, approximately 65.6 million individuals were displaced forcibly around the world because of generalized violence, persecution, violation of human rights, or conflict such as civil war (UNHCR, 2016). The purpose of this study is to: (a) explore Syrian refugees after displacement in the US, (b) give voice to refugee fathers, and (c) advance knowledge for marriage and family therapists, who are working with refugee families. Eight Syrian refugee fathers who were displaced in the last two years and living in Indiana, US shared their experiences through in-depth interviews. After transcribing and translating the interviews, thematic analysis, a flexible research tool that provides a reach and complex account of data, was used to analyze the data. Four main themes emerged from fathers: displacement stress, loss of extended family connections, experiences of isolation, and identity changes with provider role. A thematic map also is created illustrating how the stress of displacement and being far away from extended families profoundly influence provider identities and family interactions. In addition, the contextual model of family stress is used to customize fathers� experience of displacement. The inferences from this study provide guidance for marriage and family therapists, mental health practitioners, and organizations working with refugee families. / PHD / Just imagine you have to flee your home country, leaving all your physical and non-physical possessions and belongings or even members of your extended family behind, witnessing the death or missing of a significant or loved one, resettling in a new country and struggling to obtain a new social status, coping skills and suffering a stigma against your nationality. These are just a portion of the adversities that refugee fathers have endured (other family members suffer in different ways) in host countries such as the US. Syrian refugee fathers in this study were forced to live in a new country wherein they cannot speak the language and have to rely on their children to communicate with others. As the only providers of their families in Syria, they struggle with financial strains. Consequently, their wives (almost in half of the cases) have to work outside the home in order to cover the household expenses ideally; they could rely on their extended family’s help and support if they were in their own country. Such experiences are stressful for Syrian refugee fathers with damaging effects for their identity as fathers and their family dynamics. Family therapists, mental health practitioners, and organizations working with refugee families can benefit from findings of this study to provide better services for their targeted populations.

The research critically examines the positive and negative effects of hiring and not hiring non-family executives in Scandinavian family businesses. The analysis relies on a qualitative data collection method through semi-structured interviews with four participants. They can provide diverse information on the topic. It has been justified to use 2/1 ratio as one of the participants who had experience of hiring non-family executives, had not been hired it yet. It has been indicated from the current research that non-family business executives may bring healthy changes to the family business they can have greater efficiency, growth, and increased profitability. Nevertheless, challenges occur in recruiting and retaining non-family executives because of the unique family business dynamics. The research claimed that balancing the relationship between family workers and non-family executives can be a significant challenge. It is recommended from the research findings that family businesses in Scandinavia must identify the significance of embracing talent and expertise to drive growth and innovation. They must take the necessary measures to ensure that non-family executives are on the same page. Future research must focus on discovering innovative perspectives to make necessary changes, increase sales, enhance the customer base, and ensure prolonged growth in family businesses.

Guided by an explanatory matrix of family conflict at the end-of-life, the goals of this mixed methods study were to further generate theory regarding family conflict and to provide insights into its correlates and predictors. Sources of data analyzed include quantitative survey responses from 161 hospice family caregivers, 15 in-depth interviews with hospice family caregivers, and 10 interdisciplinary focus groups with hospice professionals. An explanatory matrix is presented that portrays family conflict at the end-of-life as a complex phenomenon influenced by salient contextual variables, conditions, and factors that may contribute to a number of negative outcomes for patients, family members, and professionals. The matrix also provides a beginning understanding of approaches utilized by hospice professionals in their work with families experiencing conflict. Significant bivariate correlations were found between family conflict and family context variables (i.e. prior conflict, length of caregiving, caregiver gender, caregiver age, presence of children in the caregiver’s home, advance planning discussions within family), conditions (i.e. family coming out of the woodwork and patient care needs) and contributing factors (i.e. communication constraints and family asserting control). In the multivariate model, significant predictors of family conflict included prior conflict, caregiver gender, caregiver age, advance planning discussions within family, family coming out of the woodwork, communication constraints, and family asserting control; the model explained 60% of the variance in family conflict. Implications for routine assessment, further examination of interventions to prevent and address conflict, and future research are highlighted. / text

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Meta-analyses with 144 correlations from 44 studies to assess the relationship between experienced, father-to-mother, and mother-to-father violence in the family of origin and partner violence for males and females in clinical, community and student samples.

M.A. / This study explores the ways in which children are affected by witnessing domestic violence. The literature reviewed shows that witnessing violence against their mother’s impacts upon their development in many different ways. The wide-range of problems associated with children exposed to wife abuse, including significant behavioural, emotional and cognitive problems, are described in this study. The outcomes and consequences are also discussed. Children respond to witnessing domestic violence in a variety of ways. These responses are mediated by many factors, for example, their age and gender, the intensity and frequency of the violence, parental responses, levels of family dysfunction, and the psychological disposition of the child. Children’s experiences vary according to these many characteristics. This study also examines various theoretical perspectives on exposure to domestic violence. These approaches provide an important framework that contributes to this understanding of this phenomenon. There are many shortcomings in this area research, and an in-depth understanding of the phenomena of witnessing marital violence during childhood is lacking. There is also minimal research examining the long-term consequences of exposure to marital violence, particularly with regard to the way that women’s lives are impacted upon as adults. / Dr. I. van der Merwe Prof. R.van Vuuren

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Violence occurs in different environments, however, it is often found in the family with family members being the perpetrators. Family violence, as an integrative concept, is defined by few researchers or theorists, let alone conceptualised as a theoretical grounding for family-centred interventions aimed at violence in the home. However, family members are all affected in the act of any violence in the family, thus any intervention should include the whole family. A family-centred approach focuses on all family members to be included in the intervention and is acknowledged as the best method when trying to create an intervention for family violence. Thus, the aim of this study was to design an intervention programme for families experiencing family violence in order to reduce violence in the family. To create such a programme, intervention mapping was the chosen design for this study. Intervention mapping has five steps, 1.) Specify the programme’s goals into proximal programme objectives. In this stage, needs are identified; 2.) Selection of theoretical and practical strategies; 3.) Design the programme, 4.) Implementation of the programme, and 5.) Focus on anticipating process and effect evaluation. However, this study only focused on the first 3 steps of intervention development, namely, Phase I, a family violence needs assessment done to identify the problem, Phase II entailed a review done to determine appropriate theoretical and practical approaches for the intervention regarding family violence, and lastly, Phase III had been a Delphi study which aided in the design and development of the intervention. This study showed promising results with proven long-term positive effects in implementing a family-centred approach, and when coupled with a collaborative network of support services, political will, and community support, and has the ability to ensure continuity of care and improved functioning for families experiencing violence in the home.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Sociology

Despite wide agreement in the systemic field that therapists should take a non-blaming stance, historically there has been little exploration of how this stance is achieved in practice. The difficulty in knowing how to put ‘non-blaming’ into practice is further heightened by competing models of intervention with families affected by psychosis. This study contributes to a body of literature that is concerned with how complex issues of morality are achieved dialogically by considering how family therapists manage the tension of intervening to promote change whilst maintaining a multi-partial, non-blaming stance. Two therapies carried out with families affected by psychosis are analysed using the methods of Conversation Analysis (CA) and Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA). In both therapies the sequences examined are drawn from the second session of therapy where explicit blaming events occur. By examining blaming events chronologically through the course of a session the study shows how the rules about the way blame is talked about are achieved interactionally. The analysis demonstrates that systemic theory’s emphasis on the importance of being non-blaming is grounded in a sophisticated understanding of the threat blame poses to co-operation and agreement. In both therapies, the delicacy and ambiguity with which blame is treated serves to enable the conversation to continue without withdrawal. However the cost of ambiguity is a possible misunderstanding of the intent of the speaker. The resulting misalignment, where it continues over several turns and sequences, leads to explicit blame becoming relevant as a solution to a redundant pattern of interaction. The findings indicate that the management of blame requires both the exploration of blame and its interruption when emotions and conflict run high. The former enables understanding and movement towards therapeutic goals while the latter is necessary to promote therapeutic and family alliances. An unintended consequence of the injunction to be non- blaming might be the premature closing down of topics, militating against problem resolution. The study concludes that CA and MCA offer a wealth of knowledge about mundane conversational practices that can be applied fruitfully to systemic therapy process research, teaching and supervision.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries