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The police profession is viewed as one of the most stressful occupations in the world. Police officers are responsible for handling calls for service, serving and protecting the community, enforcing laws, and preventing and solving crimes. These responsibilities along with many others can become overwhelming and lead to police stress and trauma. Police stress has been linked to adverse effects on the performances and health of police officers. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to describe the internal and external factors of police stress through their lived experiences as police officers, and the stress management techniques used by police departments to treat police stress. The theoretical framework was based on Kingdon's multiple streams approach. The research questions were designed to examine the factors of police stress and the treatments offered by police departments to help officers manage police stress. Data were collected through surveys and interviews with 15 police officers and 2 human resources department employees from 2 police departments in a southern state. Quantitative results from the surveys were analyzed using Intellectus Statistics software. Qualitative results from the face to face interviews were organized and analyzed using Nvivo 12. The findings indicated that death, time away from family, and trust were main stress factors affecting officers and that Employee Assistance Programs were treatments police departments offer to officers to help manage stress. The implications for social change is improving police officer job performance, the overall mental and physical health of police officers as well as strengthening police-citizen relationships.

Youth in foster care encounter challenges during and after they transition from foster care to adulthood. To address these challenges and prepare these youth for transitioning into adulthood, U.S. Congress enacted the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (PSTSFA) in 2014. The problem, which has received little attention in research, concerns the challenges that the implementers of this policy encounter as they provide services to foster youth. The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the challenges faced by foster care providers in their implementation of PSTSFA. Von Neumann and Morgenstern's game theory provided the theoretical framework on which this qualitative study was based. The central question explored and provided a better understanding of the perceived challenges that foster care providers face while implementing PSTSFA to foster youth between 13 and 17 years of age. The qualitative phenomenological study included online open-ended survey questions that were applied to obtain responses from 17 participants. Data were analyzed using the modified Van Kaam phenomenological analysis model. The results revealed that foster care providers face various challenges in their implementation of the law, including, but not limited, to training, communication and collaboration, code of silence, and heavy workloads. The implication for social change includes contributing to the dialogue on the challenges foster care providers face their implementation of PSTSFA, and formulating corrective measures that address the challenges. Because of the corrective measures, foster youth will acquire the required training and coping skills before transitioning from care to independence.

Research into indigent defense issues has shown that the growth in the use of public defenders has been accompanied by increased bureaucratization and has paralleled the expansion of the right to counsel and the "due process revolution." The goal of this research is the development and testing of a model of organization adaptation which explains for public defender offices in Virginia the evolution of multiple and contradictory organizational goals, the means by which they balance conflicting values and goals, and the effect of resulting decision making processes on organizational output. The basic research question addressed is the relationship between values, goals, and organizational processes. Due process goals protect the organizations' ideologically based "core technology." Production goals allow organizations to adapt to the environment through emphasis on caseloads and efficiency. The possibility that over time normative goals are eclipsed by production goals as the demands of rising caseload increase with an increase in the routinization of decision making processes is also explored. The results on organizational output of the contradiction between due process and production values and goals are examined. Data were collected through a survey of public defenders in Virginia in 1992 (N=118 with a response rate of 73%). Caseload data were also collected. Analysis of the data revealed that due process values and goals are particularly strong throughout the Virginia system. Production values and goals, while not as strong as due process ones, were also important. The oldest offices showed stronger production values and goals even while due process values and goals remained relatively constant. Higher workload pressures were also found in offices where production values were strongest. Stronger production values and goals were associated with more routinized decision making in the forms of increased pressure to plea bargain and more frequent accepting of routine offers of prosecutors; there were also higher caseloads and lower rates of increase in several measures of costs in offices with stronger production values and goals. Higher due process values and goals were associated with increased trial rates and longer case processing times.

This study identifies and validates variables which are significant predictors of work release success on 439 Virginia work release participants. The variables were selected on the basis of whether they would exert internal or external control over the inmate, with a view toward offering empirical support to control theory. A retrospective longitudinal research design was employed by randomly selecting inmates who had participated in either of three work release centers from 1987 to 1991. Two of the programs housed male inmates while the other housed female inmates. Data were collected from inmate files on thirty-one variables over a six month period. Analysis employed logistic regression using work release success or failure as a dichotomous dependent variable. A prediction model was developed using a construction sample of 416 cases. The resultant model was then used to predict and classify inmates using a randomly selected validation sample of 226 cases. Of the thirty-one variables under study, four individual factors (previous commitments, age of offense, time on the street, and prior misdemeanor convictions), two program factors (time in work release and year of work release), and one institutional adjustment factor (no institutional drug or alcohol violations), emerged as significant predictors. The study revealed that the work release staff has been successful in identifying low risk inmates, with a success rate of 86% and a failure rate of 14%. Of the failures, only six had new charges (1.4% of the total population), and three escaped or absconded (0.7% of the total population). The remaining forty-nine failures (11.1% of the total population) failed urine screens or failed due to poor work performance. The prediction model was able to classify 88% of the validation sample correctly which is a minimal improvement over the department of corrections selection procedures.

Because of increasing costs and demand for nursing home care, studies are needed that can better describe the population of users and improve prediction of clinical outcomes and program requirements. The major purpose of this study was to explore the incremental and seven month outcomes of nursing home patients using the Andersen model. The design was longitudinal. Patients from one Veterans Administration (VA) hospital-based nursing home and six freestanding. VA contract community nursing homes were studied. Functional and cognitive ability were analyzed along with socioeconomic and demographic data. and utilization patterns. A second purpose was to assess associations among variables and their interaction effects in predicting outcome. A third purpose was to assess the contribution of such independent variables as case-mix and rehospitalization rates to possible cost differences evidenced by the two nursing home types. The results of this study suggest avenues for planning and allocation of resources in the two program alternatives. The Barthel Index (BI) (Mahoney & Barthel. 1965) was used to measure functional status and the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) (Pfeiffer. 1975) for cognitive ability. In addition to standardized measures. sociodemographic and utilization data. perceptions of health and outcomes of care were collected on all subjects. Analytical techniques included descriptive and inferential statistics. The major hypothesis was that veterans in the hospital-based versus contract statistically significant differences in characteristics and on measures of service use and clinical outcome. Findings were evaluated for policy adequacy. adherence to program intent. federal and state cost complement and other qualitative implications. Statistically significant differences were found between patients in the two settings on predisposing, enabling and need characteristics. The hospital-based NHCU patients were more likely to be married and living with someone. They also had higher incomes, more Medicare A coverage, a greater percentage of service-connected veterans and demonstrated greater limitation in functional ability than did those in contract. The predominant outcome for both groups was continued nursing home care. Statistically significant differences were also found for outcome measures. Higher income and being 76 years or older were predictive of continued nursing home residence. The type of nursing home was not significant in explaining continued care. The total number of diagnoses. age group and type of nursing home were predictive of death as an outcome. There were significantly more deaths among those 75 years or younger. among those with lower incomes and among NHCU patients. Health service utilization did not differ significantly by nursing home type. Neither group of nursing home patients demonstrated any significant improvement in functional or mental status and self-perceived health. The only differences of note were among those 75 years or less who did improve in functional ability from the third to the sixth month. The findings suggest that the two nursing home types do have different patient population profiles. However. the continued use of nursing home care by both groups indicates some lack of fit between legislative intent and actual clinical utilization.

Partnerships between public and for profit organizations are increasing in frequency and scope due to scarce economic resources to support and deliver social programs. However, little is known about the characteristics of a successful partnership versus the characteristics of a failed partnership. The purpose of the study was to explore the leadership characteristics that were exhibited by the management team of a public-private partnership (PPP) that suffered a significant failure at the onset of the partnership, but recovered successfully over a period of time. The research question explored which leadership characteristics existed within the public and for-profit leadership teams that impacted the project team's ability to deliver the program requirements. A qualitative case study approach was utilized with the theoretical framework leveraging both Greenleaf's servant leadership philosophy and Burn's transformational and transactional leadership styles. A purposive sampling strategy identified 9 people who played a key role in the PPP, experienced the repercussions of the failure, and participated in the remediation efforts. All data were inductively coded and then subjected to a constant comparative method of analysis. The analysis revealed a strong relationship between servant leadership attributes exhibited by the leadership team and the project team's ability to traverse the partnership challenges. Data analysis indicates the necessity of effective servant leadership, specifically the attributes of understanding and empathy. Implications for positive social change from this study may lead to improved partnership delivery outcomes and better utilization of taxpayer funds to administer social programs.

Despite efforts and financial resources invested in the prevention of child abuse and neglect in New York City (NYC), many children are still in danger of being victimized by their parents or caregivers. The general public's assumption is that the NYC Administration for Children's Services (ACS) either does not have efficient policies, programs, or laws to protect at-risk children, or these are not being properly implemented. The purpose of this qualitative study was to provide a thorough analysis of ACS policies, programs, and laws based on information gained from interviews with child welfare experts. Newberger and Newberger's social support theory provided the theoretical framework for the study. The methodology was a holistic case study design in which data were analyzed and collected through semi structured face-to-face interviews with 12 child welfare experts, archival records, and publicly available documents from ACS, the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, and NYC family court websites. Five themes emerged after the data were inductively coded and subjected to a content analytical procedure: implementation of programs, policies, and laws; areas of policies and programs that need improvement; reasons for failure of child abuse prevention; communication problems; and risk factors for child abuse and neglect. The key finding of this study was that child abuse and neglect prevention policies, programs, and laws were not adequately implemented. The study concludes with recommendations to retrain workers and to conduct a reexamination of existing child abuse prevention policies, programs, and laws to meet the needs of NYC at-risk children.

Previous studies have neglected to focus on the generalized affective satisfaction (diffuse support) to state level courts among Hispanics/Latinos. A western US county was selected for this case study to test a racial and ethnic theory of procedural justice in a region with a large Hispanic/Latino population. Differential experience theory was used as a theoretical foundation and posits that people determine their level of satisfaction with the courts based on their own actual experience with the courts. The main research question was whether Hispanics/Latinos have a different level of satisfaction with their access to, and fairness in, the court when compared to Whites. Data were gathered from 1406 people exiting the courthouse for any reason in 2007 and 2008. The exit survey data were used to test a logistic regression model to empirically investigate whether race or ethnicity is a significant predictor of court user satisfaction. Level of satisfaction was operationalized by assessing responses to questions regarding the accessibility to, and perceived fairness in, the court. Although race/ethnicity proved to be significantly linked to both measures of satisfaction in 2007 these associations were no longer observed in the 2008 data. Mean satisfaction ratings affirmed the findings of other researchers in the field that Hispanics/Latinos have a high level of satisfaction with their access to, and fairness in, the court. This is important because the legitimacy of the judicial branch is dependent upon the good will of the public. This study can directly contribute to social change by informing outreach programs designed to increase voluntary participation in state and local legal systems among members of Hispanic/Latino communities, and thus help to realize more equitable justice for all citizens.

Demographics are changing for the young elderly population in America, and poverty is a growing concern among this population. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between young elderly demographics and income level, and between government programs and economic status. Rawls's theory of justice was useful to examine the relationship between predictor variables and the outcome variable. Secondary data came from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey from March 2016. The results of multiple and logistic regressions indicated no statistically significant linear correlation. There was no statistical linear correlation between income level and region, race, education level, occupation status, sex, marital status, or employment status. Moreover, there was no statistically significant linear correlation between income level and medical equipment expenditures, health insurance payments, medical out of pocket expenses, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) status, and housing. Finally, the independent variables social security, supplemental security income (SSI), Medicare, Medicaid, public housing, and SNAP were not statistically significant in predicting the dependent variable of economic status. Implications for positive social change are to provide information to policymakers and researchers about the changing needs and demographics of the young elderly so that they can develop policies and programs that focus on their needs. Although the findings of this study revealed no new information to researchers or governmental policymakers, the work taken as a whole, highlights the need for continued study and policy consideration related to this generation of the American population.