Overcoming Challenges to Using Evidence-Based Interventions in Schools

The Center for School Mental Health Assistance at the University of Maryland recently completed a review of evidence-based prevention and treatment programs that can be used by school mental health clinicians. Based on the review, a school-based program operating in 22 Baltimore City schools has purchased and trained clinicians in a number of protocols for evidence-based interventions. We present findings from this review and make pragmatic recommendations for school mental health programs to overcome the challenges associated with the use of evidence-based interventions.She received her doctorate in childclinical psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her research interests are in the area of the development, prevention, and treatment of juvenile delinquency and youth externalizing disorders.who does research in the area of childrens mental health services and the implementation of wraparound services in real-world settings.University of Maryland School of Medicine. His research is in the area of testing the effectiveness of School Mental Health Programs and the effects of community violence on youth mental health.involved in research related to school mental health, school-based health centers, and prevention of risky behavior among adolescents.Postdoctoral fellow at the time of the study.Postdoctoral fellow at the time of the study.     

Refugee Returns, Civic Differentiation, and Minority Rights in Croatia 1991-2004

Many studies on refugee returns tend to amalgamate the experiencesof migrants and concentrate on return as an end point of therefugee cycle. In reality, however, returnees do not share thesame experience and endure the effects of their displacementlong after they have returned. This study claims that a moreuseful tool of analysis is to consider both the paths of dislocationand the challenges of return and reintegration. It introducesthe concept of ‘civic differentiation’ as a meansof exploring patterns of return and reintegration in post-warCroatia where returning migrants enjoy vastly different accessto critical resources, above all housing and employment. Thisstudy considers the relevance for reintegration of ethnic identity,property ownership, exit routes and time spent in exile, anddescribes five return scenarios: settlement as ethnic colonization;forcible relocation as a result of regional policies; the returnof retirement; settlement following property repossession; marginalizationand exclusion.     

Trade,Development, and Nonproliferation: Multilevel Counterterrorism in Central Asia

This article was presented in its original form in October 2005 at the Conference on Central Asian Security in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This article seeks to add to the discourse on counterterrorism by looking at the challenges posed by sub-state radicalism to development and regionalization. Specifically, adequate counterterror campaigns require addressing socioeconomic feeders of radicalism while simultaneously dealing with the threat of political violence itself. In terms of development, this means advocating increased trade volumes and export oriented growth while concurrently controlling for illicit trade (which often finances terrorist movements) and trade in strategic goods (which could serve to undermine the security of the state). The authors use the case study of Uzbekistan and Central Asian insecurity to illustrate the utility of customs modernization, border security, and export control legislation as integral components in wider counterterror campaigns. The study addresses circumstances specific to present day Central Asia but has wider implications in stymieing the relationship between “grey areas” and terrorist movements worldwide.     

“Membership in a Particular Social Group”: International Journalists and U. S. Asylum Law

At least thirty non-U.S. journalists in the last decade have argued in U.S. Courts of Appeal that U.S. immigration authorities erroneously denied their asylum applications based on persecution in their native countries. However, only about 20% of journalists were successful, mirroring the approximate national asylum success rate for all applicants. The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act does not include journalism as a basis for asylum, but some circuit court judges have stated that reporting on systemic official corruption is inherently political and, as a result could be grounds for asylum for persecuted journalists. A 2007 opinion from the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals defining “particular social group,” a key requirement for asylum, is examined for its application to journalists.     

Top-Down Approaches to Joined-Up Government: Examining the Unintended Consequences of Weak Implementation

Since forming part of Blair’s modernization agenda in the UK, joined-up government has become a central ambition of governments in many industrialized countries. While there continues to be an absence of core methods and principles for achieving joined-up government, consensus has emerged around the effectiveness of top down approaches. Research has found that joining must happen at multiple levels and be supported by a range of cultural and structural interventions. This article presents findings from a study into the Australian Social Inclusion Agenda and explores the long-term and unintended consequences of joined-up initiatives that take a top-down approach.     

Challenging hydropower development in Myanmar (Burma): cross-border activism under a regime in transition

Abstract

Although general elections in Myanmar (Burma) in November 2010 have transformed the political landscape, many of the characters remain the same. While there is evidence of incremental domestic political openings many of the political constraints that existed during military rule remain in force. As a consequence of decades of military authoritarian governance and civil conflict, it is Myanmar's contested ethnic borderlands that have been the important locales for the development of environmental movements, despite increased recent domestic activity. This article analyses a case study of the largely cross-border campaign against hydropower dams on the Salween River in Myanmar and finds that through the suppression of opposition and dissent at home the regime has stimulated the creation of an ‘activist diaspora’, a dynamic transnational community of expatriates who engage in environmental activism beyond the reach of the regime. Due to their relative freedom on the border and in Thailand this community has developed expertise and international networks that have proved crucial in communicating the social and environmental impacts of hydropower development in Myanmar to the international community. Through increased cooperation with an expanding domestic civil society this established activist community is stimulating improved environmental governance of hydropower development and simultaneously assisting in the creation of a more open and democratic Myanmar.