Predictors of Early Engagement in Home Visitation

Predictors of engagement in mothers receiving home visitation in the first year of service was examined. Early engagement was studied in three ways: (1) length of time active in the program during the first year of service (duration), (2) number of visits received (quantity), and (3) gaps in service between visits (consistency). Examined visits received in 515 first-time mothers in a Healthy Families America (HFA) program. Parameters of engagement were investigated, and predictors of engagement were identified using demographics and the Kempe Family Stress Inventory. Inclusive of the Assessment Visit, 31.8% of mothers disengaged prior to the first month of service. Remaining active in the program was associated with being Caucasian, and increased parenting risk (mental health/substance abuse history, low social support, increased stress). Most mothers had fewer home visits than prescribed. Gaps in prescribed service were common, with 89.4% of mothers experiencing gaps between visits of 1 month, and dropping to 16.4% having gaps of 2 months. In contrast to findings from clinic-based interventions, early engagement in home visitation is associated with lower levels of functioning and acute needs. These findings add to a growing body of literature suggesting that increased adversity promotes engagement in prevention programs in general, and home visitation programs in particular. To the extent that mothers who are actively engaged in home visitation are likely to have increased psychosocial needs, curricula may require modification and augmentation to address these needs and optimize program effectiveness.     

FRAGMENTED COURTS AND CHILD PROTECTION CASES

This article discusses the proposed implementation of a model court project that can serve as an alternative approach to adjudicating child abuse and neglect cases. The model project allows criminal child abuse cases to be processed with related civil proceeding in one court before one judge. This integrated approach can ensure more efficient case processing, more informed judicial decision making, and more effective delivery of services to children and families.     

Strong life sciences in innovative weak contexts: a “developmental” approach to a tantalizing mismatch

Life sciences are the best developed area of academic research throughout Latin America. Biomedical research has been particularly successful. However, generally speaking, excellence in research has not been accompanied by commercially successful innovations, a pattern that differs from what has happened in many highly industrialized countries, even small ones. The paper explores some causes of such disappointing outcome, stressing in particular the historical lack of political and social legitimacy exhibited by innovation policies in underdevelopment. From a developmental point of view it is of great importance the building of such legitimacy. One way of doing so is to link more tightly innovation policies to social concerns; bio-innovation is suggested as a productive path towards that aim.

STRATEGIES AND NEED FOR SYSTEMS CHANGE

Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye of New York delivered the following address to the Millennium Conference of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in Washington, D.C., on November 15, 1999. In it, she describes the development of the philosophy of the family court in the past century. Judge Kaye describes the family court's transition from reliance on social science to the incorporation of procedural due process guarantees in the Gault decision. She suggests that a further transformation is required to meet the needs of children and families in the 21st century. Judge Kaye proposes that in the next millennium the family court abandon the "remote adjudicator" judge who evolved after Gault to a "problem-solving model of judging… a judge who looks at the issues that are driving the caseload, who looks at the results that are being achieved, and who uses a hands-on style to figure out how we might do better both in individual cases and on a systemic level."
The New York Times described Chief Justice Kaye as, "A dedicated and effective reformer of the state's sprawling court system. Each of her hard won changes has had a positive impact." Chief Judge Kaye recently received the National Center for State Courts' William H. Rhenquist Award for Judicial Excellence in November 1999. On the occasion of the award, Roger K. Warren, president of the National Center, observed about her,"There are many who are working hard to better process the many cases that come before the state courts, but there are few working an harder or more successfully to better serve the people who use the state courts."     

"The word makes the man": A Catalan Anarchist Autodidact in the Australian Bush

This paper examines the interplay between the life and ideas of a Catalan anarchist and autodidact, Salvador Torrents, who migrated to Australia in 1915. Until his death in 1951, Torrents, from his isolated farm in North Queensland, contributed regular commentaries and articles in libertarian newspapers in Spain, France and the United States. With the exception of the years of the Spanish civil war, Torrents remained outside mainstream Australian labour politics. Like many non-English speaking immigrants, a lack of the language was an obstacle to participation. As well, as an anarchist, Torrents considered political parties and electoral politics a waste of time in achieving social and political change. Instead he propounded, and practised, the transformative powers of self-education and the revolutionary role of the autodidact in fomenting radical change. His ideas had been forged in the turbulent politics of Catalonia in the first decades of the century. In Australia he continued to apply the same analysis in what he perceived as the similar context which Southern European immigrants confronted in North Queensland. Although invisible on the Australian Left, Torrents functioned as a left wing intellectual, contributing to a particular public discourse, which took place in a space that was separated from the mainstream Australian Left by language and different radical traditions.     

Book reviews

One World to Share: selected speeches of the Commonwealth Secretary‐General, 1975–9. Shridath Ramphal, London: Hutchinson Benham. 1979. 444 pp. £10.95

The White House Years. Henry Kissinger, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson &; Michael Joseph. 1979. 1545 pp. £14.95

Kissinger and the Meaning of History. Peter W Dickson, Cambridge University Press. 1978. 207 pp. £8.95

Beyond Kissinger: ways of conservative statecraft. George Liska, London: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1975. 169 pp. $2.95

Where the Grass is Greener. David M Smith, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. 1979. 386 pp. £2.25

Small‐Scale Irrigation. Peter Stern, London: Intermediate Technology Publications. 1979. 152 pp. np

The Social and Ecological Effects of Water Development in Developing Countries. Edited by Carl Widstrand, Oxford: Pergamon. 1978. 120 pp. £10.00

Water in a Developing World: the management of a critical resource. Edited by Albert E Utton &; Ludwik Teclaff, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press (distributed in the UK by Ernest Benn). 1978. 282 pp. £13.75

Marx and the End of Orientalism. Bryan S Turner, London: George Allen &; Unwin. 1978. 98 pp. £3.50

Project Planning for Developing Economies. WW Shaner, New York: Praeger. 1979. 235 pp. £14.25

International Development Administration: implementation analysis for development. Edited by G Honadle &; Rudi Klaus, New York: Praeger. 1979. 221 pp. £13.00

Nutrition and National Policy. Edited by Beverly Winikoff, London: MIT Press. 1979. 580pp. £15.75

The Nuclear Question: the United States and nuclear weapons, 1946–76. Michael Mandelbaum, Cambridge University Press. 1979.277 pp £12.50

Force Without War: US armed forces as political instruments. Barry M Blechman &; Stephen S Kaplan, Washington DC: Brookings Institution (distributed in the UK by Blackwells). 1978. 584 pp. £15.00. £6.50 pb

Nuclear Arms in the Third World: US policy dilemma. Ernest W Lefever, Washington DC: Brookings Institution (distributed in the UK by Blackwells). 1979. 154 pp. £8.50. £3.25 pb

The Nonaligned Movement: the origins of a Third World alliance. Peter Willetts, London: Frances Pinter. 1978.310 pp. £12.50

Coups and Earthquakes: reporting the world for America. Mort Rosenblum, New York: Harper &; Row. 1979. 230 pp. £5.95

Nations and States. Hugh Seton‐Watson, London: Methuen. 1979.563 pp. £12.00

Rich World, Poor World. Geoffrey Lean, London: George Allen &; Unwin. 1978.335pp. £4.50 pb

Your Own Pigs You May Not Eat: a comparative study of New Guinea societies. Paula G Rubel and Abraham Rosman University of Chicago Press. 1978.368pp. £14.40

Afterthoughts on Material Civilisation and Capitalism. Fernand Braudel, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1977.120 pp. $7.95

Women in the Muslim World. Edited by Lois Beck &; Nikki Keddie, Harvard University Press. 1979. 698 pp. £18.00

The Economics of Multinational Enterprise. Neil Hood &; Stephen Young, London: Longman Group. 1979. 412 pp. £7.95 pb

The Social and Cultural Impacts of Transnational Enterprises. Krishna Kumar, University of Sydney. Transnational Corporations Research Project (Working Paper No 6). 1979. 183 pp.

A New Stage in International Relations. N I Lebedev, Oxford: Pergamon. 1978. 253 pp. $20.00

The Political and Military Laws of War. J Lider, Farnborough, England: Saxon House. 1979. 266 pp. £10.50.

Becoming Modern. Alex Inkeles &; David H Smith, London: Heinemann Educational. 1974.436 pp. £5.00

The Capitalist World Economy. Immanuel Wallerstein, New York: Cambridge University Press. 1979. 305pp. £15.00

South Africa: the method in the madness. John Kane‐Berman, London: Pluto Press. 1979. 265 pp. £2.95 pb

White Man, We Want to Talk to You. Denis Herbstein, London: Andre Deutsch. 1979. 270 pp. £4.95

Africa Undermined: a history of the mining companies and the underdevelopment of Africa. G Lanning with M Mueller, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. 1979. 590 pp. £3.50

Africanisation, Nationalisation and Inequality: mining labour and the copper belt in Zambian development. Philip Daniel, Cambridge University Press: 1979.202 pp. £12.50. £5.95 pb

Nasser and His Generation. PJ Vatikiotis, London: Croom Helm. 1978. 375 pp. £11.95

Politics Mainly Indian. W H Morris‐Jones, Bombay: Orient Longman. 1978. 392 pp. Rs 60.00

Papua New Guinea: its economic situation and prospects for development. G W Baldwin et al, London: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1978.223 pp. £4.50 pb

Paradise Postponed: essays on research and development in the South Pacific. Edited by Alexander Mamak &; Grant McCall, Oxford: Pergamon. 1978. 277 pp. £11.25

Urbanisation in Papua New Guinea: a study of ambivalent townsmen. Hal B Levine &; Marlene Wolfzahn Levine, Cambridge University Press. 1979.161 pp. £8.95. £3.95 pb

The Land of Promise: A critique of political Zionism. Abdelwahab M Elmessiri, New Brunswick, New Jersey: North American. 1977.255 pp. $6.95 pb

ASEAN Economies in Perspective: a comparative study of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. John Wong, London: Macmillan. 1979.217 pp. £3.95 pb

China's Role in World Affairs. Michael B Yahuda, London: Croom Helm. 1978. 300 pp. £10.95. £4.95 pb

Mao's China: a history of the People's Republic. Maurice Meisner, New York: Free Press. 1977. 416 pp. np

China and the Major Powers in East Asia. A Doak Barnett, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution (distributed in the UK by Blackwells). 1977. 416 pp. np

Chinese Politics After Mao. Edited by Jurgen Domes, Cardiff, Wales: University College Cardiff Press. 1979. 291 pp. np

São Paolo: growth and poverty. A Report from the São Paolo Peace and Justice Commission, with an introduction by Cardinal Arns, Archbishop of Säo Paulo. London: The Bowerdean Press (in association with The Catholic Institute for International Relations). 1978.128 pp. £3.40

Frontier Development Policy in Brazil: a study of Amazônia. Dennis J Mahar, New York: Praeger. 1979.182 pp. £10.50

Arise Ye Starvelings: the Jamaican labour rebellion of 1938 and its aftermath. Ken Post, London: Institute of Social Studies/The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1979.502 pp. np

The Future of the Inter‐American System. Edited by TJ Farer, London: Praeger. 1979. 290 pp. £13.00