Reducing recurrent care proceedings: initial evidence from new interventions

The English family justice system faces a crisis of recurrence. As many as one in four birth mothers involved in public law care proceedings in English family courts are likely to reappear in a subsequent set of proceedings within seven years. These mothers are involved in up to one-third of total care applications, as they are – by definition – linked to more than one child . Few birth mothers experiencing the removal of a child to care are offered any follow-up support, despite often facing multiple challenges including poverty, addiction, domestic violence and mental health problems. Since 2011, however, a number of new services have been established to begin to address their unmet needs. This article summarises the findings of the first academic-led evaluation of two of these initiatives. Presenting evidence from a mixed-methods evaluative study, it concludes that the new services were able to foster relationships that ‘worked’ in reducing recurrent proceedings. None of the women engaging with the services went on to experience what could be described as a ‘rapid repeat pregnancy’ within the evaluation window. Just as significantly, a number of clients reported some improvement in their psychological functioning, and the practitioners involved reported positively on their experience of delivering and managing innovative services. The article closes with a discussion of the challenges of evaluating personalised, strengths-based interventions and the possibilities of evidencing empowerment in these cases.     

Enforcing English ancillary relief orders in Jersey: principles and pitfalls

The long running and unhappy divorce litigation between Mr andMrs Mubarak has finally reached a reasonably happy conclusionin the Royal Court of Jersey. In a well reasoned decision, theDeputy Bailiff has set out the guiding principles to be appliedwhen considering whether orders made by a foreign Court oughtto be enforced or given effect to in Jersey. Whilst undoubtedlyhelpful, the guidance also provides a salutary warning to foreignlitigants seeking access to assets within Jersey trusts thatthey are in for a bumpy ride.     

A Perspective on Errors,Bias, and Interpretation in the Forensic Sciences and Direction for Continuing Advancement*

Abstract: The forensic sciences are under review more so than ever before. Such review is necessary and healthy and should be a continuous process. It identifies areas for improvement in quality practices and services. The issues surrounding error, i.e., measurement error, human error, contextual bias, and confirmatory bias, and interpretation are discussed. Infrastructure is already in place to support reliability. However, more definition and clarity of terms and interpretation would facilitate communication and understanding. Material improvement across the disciplines should be sought through national programs in education and training, focused on science, the scientific method, statistics, and ethics. To provide direction for advancing the forensic sciences a list of recommendations ranging from further documentation to new research and validation to education and to accreditation is provided for consideration. The list is a starting point for discussion that could foster further thought and input in developing an overarching strategic plan for enhancing the forensic sciences.     

“The Politics of Political Advertising” in Australia and Britain, 1970–1989

The role of advertising in the production of political campaigns deserves more consideration than it has previously received. My study examines advertising agencies associated with election campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s, investigating their decisions to accept or reject political accounts. Focusing on Britain and Australia, and using a range of primary sources including the industry press, interviews and memoirs, I demonstrate that an agency's decision to accept a political account is always complex, contested and highly contingent. Accepting a political account may alienate clients and agency staff who support another party. Campaigns are labour‐intensive and may detract from an agency's core business. Involvement in a losing campaign can damage an agency's reputation, just as association with a successful one may attract clients. Agencies are often unsure how to approach political advertising where traditional techniques may not be suitable. Such concerns about accepting a political account will likely be put aside where an agency principal has close personal ties to a party or leader.     

Longitudinal Bi-directional Relationships Between Sleep and Youth Substance Use

Despite the known deficits in sleep that occur during adolescence and the high prevalence of substance use behaviors among this group, relatively little research has explored how sleep and substance use may be causally related. The purpose of this study was to explore the longitudinal bi-directional relationships between sleep duration, sleep patterns and youth substance use behaviors. Participants included 704 mostly white (86.4?%) youth, 51?% female, with a baseline mean age of 14.7?years. Self-reported substance use behaviors included past month alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use. Sleep measures included sleep duration on weekends and weekdays, total sleep, weekend oversleep, and weekend sleep delay. Cross-lagged structural equation models, accounting for clustering at the school level, were run to determine the longitudinal association between sleep and substance use adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics, pubertal status, body mass index z-score, and depressive symptoms. Cigarette use and weekend sleep were bi-directionally related as were marijuana use and total sleep. No other bi-directional associations were identified. However, alcohol use predicted shorter weekend oversleep and marijuana use predicted increased weekend sleep and weekend oversleep. Sleep patterns and duration also predicted adolescents' cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use. Sleep, both patterns and duration, and substance use among youth are intertwined. Future research is needed to explore these bi-directional relationships, as well as other important contextual factors that may moderate these associations.     

Mission Bogotá: pedagogical governance in a weak state

Wracked by crime and violence, Bogotá, Colombia adopted a unique urban security policy in 1998 called Mission Bogotá (MB). MB identifies the poor as ‘at risk’ of being violent. The program seeks to decrease crime by employing the poor and educating them on entrepreneurial urban citizenship, fomenting their sense of belonging to the city, a good work ethic, conflict resolution skills, and cosmopolitanism. Participants are then employed as citizen ‘guides,’ modeling their citizenship skills in public in order to instill exemplary citizenship in others by example. There is no evidence that MB reduces either crime or poverty. Nevertheless, the program establishes norms for ideal citizenship and structures the relationship between state and society. Based on one year of ethnographic research, I argue that MB uses pedagogy as a technology of governance to transfer responsibility for security provision from the state to society by making citizens responsible for their own security provision.     

Family Group Conferencing Comes to the U.S.: A Comparison with Victim-Offender Mediation

A boy hesitantly appears in the doorway to a meeting room. A large man wearing a name tag greets him thoughtfully and points out where he should sit in the horseshoe of chairs in the room. The boy crosses the room, picks his name tag up off the chair, puts it on crookedly, and sits down. On his face apprehension alternates with bravado. As his mother and sister, done with hanging their coats, enter the room the boy begins to fidget quietly. The large man greets them and points out their places in the horseshoe of chairs; they find their name tags on their chairs and sit down on either side of the boy. Other people that the boy and his family are close to appear in the doorway, are greeted, and move to their seats farther down the arch of the horseshoe: his grandfather and cousin, his basketball coach, his school social worker, an elderly neighbor, and a member of his mother's church. Their faces, and those of his mother and sister, betray various emotions; grim calm, hopefulness, solemnity, foreboding, sadness, and quiet interest. When they are seated, the chairs on one side of the horseshoe arch are full. The investigating officer enters, and sits at the apex of the arch. When they are all seated, the large man leaves the room and comes back with a group of people who have been waiting in a nearby room. The boy's victim enters the room first; she is a small, white-haired woman who shakes a little as she crosses the room and sits in a chair directly across the horseshoe from the boy. The boy glances quickly at her and then looks down and away to avoid her eyes. On her face, anxiety is swiftly replaced by surprise, relief, and then anger as she openly studies the boy across from her. Her daughter, a middleaged woman, sits down on one side of her, and her teenaged grandson takes his place on the other side of the victim. The older woman's minister, two elderly women neighbors, and a middle-aged male friend find their name tags on chairs further down the horseshoe's arch. When they sit down they fill the last vacancies in the horseshoe of chairs. The large man who greeted them all takes his place on a chair at the open end of the horseshoe. He is the conference coordinator and the only one with whom every person present has spoken about this meeting. He smiles quietly, looks around the circle of faces, clears his throat, and begins the family group conference.     

Intimate partner violence, PTSD, and adverse health outcomes

The high prevalence of adverse health outcomes related to intimate partner violence (IPV) is well documented. Yet we know little about the pathways that lead to adverse health outcomes. Research concerning the psychological, biological, neurological, behavioral, and physiological alterations following exposure to IPV--many of which are associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--represents a promising area of empirical discovery. New technologies and interdisciplinary collaborative efforts are required to integrate diverse methodologies and to apply new findings to improving the health and well being of those affected by IPV. This article focuses on victimization by IPV and addresses the most important research findings in the last 20 years (health and mental health burden of IPV), the most important research issue for the next decade (pathways between IPV and adverse health outcomes), and the most promising methodological innovation for the study of IPV (integrated, interdisciplinary, biobehavioral methodology).     

Disorders of extreme stress (DESNOS) symptoms are associated with type and severity of interpersonal trauma exposure in a sample of healthy young women

Childhood abuse and other developmentally adverse interpersonal traumas may put young adults at risk not only for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but also for impairment in affective, cognitive, biological, and relational self-regulation ("disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified"; DESNOS). Structured clinical interviews with 345 sophomore college women, most of whom (84%) had experienced at least one traumatic event, indicated that the DESNOS syndrome was rare (1% prevalence), but DESNOS symptoms were reported by a majority of respondents. Controlling for PTSD and other anxiety or affective disorders, DESNOS symptom severity was associated with a history of single-incident interpersonal trauma and with more severe interpersonal trauma in a dose-response manner. Noninterpersonal trauma was associated with elevated prevalence of PTSD and dissociation but not with DESNOS severity. Study findings indicate that persistent posttraumatic problems with self-regulation warrant attention, even in relatively healthy young adult populations.