Does Level of Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Predict the Content of Family Mediation Agreements?

This study investigated whether reported levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) and/or abuse (IPV/A) victimization are related to reaching agreement and to the content of mediation agreements of parties seeking to resolve family‐ and child‐related issues. Whether or not parties reached agreement was analyzed for 105 cases at a law school mediation clinic. Agreement content was coded for the 71 cases that reached agreement. Levels of IPV and IPV/A were determined separately for males and females, using a standardized measure. Regression models were utilized to examine reports of IPV or IPV/A as predictors. Results indicated that mediation may help families with a reported history of IPV and IPV/A address a variety of concerns; levels of partner violence/abuse predicted numerous issues in mediation agreements, including arrangements regarding legal custody, parenting time, holidays, child exchanges, interparental communication, safety restrictions, counseling referrals, child support, financial arrangements, and other miscellaneous topics (e.g., relocation). However, some findings were consistent with concerns raised about the use of mediation with parties reporting IPV and IPV/A; for example, increasing levels of male‐perpetrated IPV/A predicted increased likelihood of making an agreement to share legal custody. Further research is needed to resolve the longstanding debate of whether divorce mediation is an effective and safe process for parties demonstrating IPV/A.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• This study adds to the debate of whether divorce mediation is an effective and safe process for parties demonstrating IPV/A.
• It examines whether reported levels of IPV and IPV/A victimization are related to reaching agreement and to the content of mediation agreements of parties seeking to resolve family‐ and child‐related issues.
• Results provide some evidence that mediation may help families with a reported history of IPV and IPV/A address a variety of concerns.
• However, some findings are consistent with concerns raised about the use of mediation with parties reporting IPV and IPV/A.
• Findings have implications for the practice of family mediation with parties reporting a history of IPV or IPV/A.

     

Der Halo‐Effekt: Diffuses Bedrohungsempfinden und SVP‐Wähleranteil

Die Wählerstärke rechtspopulistischer Parteien wird regelmässig entweder auf ein Bedrohungsempfinden durch einen hohen lokalen Ausländeranteil oder aber geringe Kontaktmöglichkeiten zwischen Mehrheit und Minderheit zurückgeführt. Dieser Beitrag stützt sich theoretisch auf eine Synthese dieser Perspektiven, die als Halo‐Effekt bezeichnet wird. Demnach ist es weniger die lokale Grösse der lokalen, als fremd wahrgenommenen Bevölkerung als vielmehr deren relativer Anteil im Umland, der zu einem diffusen Bedrohungsgefühl führt. Der Wahlerfolg der Schweizerischen Volkspartei (SVP) auf Ebene der schweizerischen Gemeinden dient als Grundlage der empirischen Untersuchung, die alternativ mit Anteilen der ausländischen und muslimischen Bevölkerung durchgeführt wird. Räumliche Mehrebenen‐Regressionsmodelle liefern für beide Gruppen Hinweise auf eine Koexistenz von direkten negativen Effekten der Bevölkerungsanteile der Minderheiten auf den Anteil der SVP (im Sinne der Kontakthypothese) sowie von Halo‐Effekten, wobei die direkten Effekte etwas ausgeprägter auszufallen scheinen. Sozio‐strukturelle Faktoren können diese Zusammenhänge reduzieren (eine hohe Arbeitslosigkeit neutralisiert den negativen Effekt des Anteils Ausländer) oder verstärken (ein höheres Einkommensniveau akzentuiert den Halo‐Effekt für Muslime).     

IPSASB’s Conceptual Framework: Coherence with Accounting Systems in European Public Administrations

Accounting and reporting systems in public administrations of European countries have deeply changed in the last 20 years due to the new public management wave and the trend toward international harmonization. This research aims to examine the possibility of implementing International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board’s (IPSASB’s) Conceptual Framework (CF), by observing accounting and reporting systems in the different governmental levels of countries selected and taking into account the embedded traditional characteristics of European countries. Results highlight how many structural differences still occur within and among countries, showing that much work is still necessary to obtain harmonization as implied in the IPSASB’s CF.     

“The Big Society,” Public Expenditure,and Volunteering

The debate on volunteering has paid insufficient attention to the relationship between public spending and volunteering. The importance of this relationship is highlighted by the British government's “Big Society” plan, which asserts that an increase in volunteering will compensate for the withdrawal of public agencies and spending. This idea is based on the widely held belief that a high degree of government intervention decreases voluntary activities. This article uses a multidisciplinary approach to improve understanding of how public spending affects the decision to volunteer. A theoretical model conceptualizes this relationship in terms of time donation by employed individuals. The model is tested empirically through an econometric analysis of two survey data sets and interpretative analysis of narratives of local volunteers and public professionals. The results suggest that volunteering is likely to decline when government intervention decreases and that a collaborative approach to sustaining volunteering is needed.     

Strategies for homeless research in the 1990s

Abstract

Existing empirically based knowledge about homelessness is neither extensive nor well grounded. Proper policy formation and program design that address homelessness are badly served by knowledge deficiencies. This paper lays out a strategy that will develop appropriate research methodology and generate better empirically based knowledge. It proposes a program of technical research, as well as moditica‐tions to several national data collection programs, such as the Current Population Survey, to collect data on the literal homeless and the precariously housed. It also presents a rationale for starting longitudinal studies that focus on the processes that lead into and out of the homeless state. Finally, it proposes evaluation research to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of promising programs.     

Suicide due to oral ingestion of lidocaine: a case report and review of the literature

The Authors describe a rare case of suicide in a 31-year-old woman, due to oral ingestion of lidocaine; the histological and toxicological findings are discussed to provide useful information to the present experience with this particular modality of death. Histological examination revealed generalized stasis. In the myocardium we observed segmentation of the myocardial cells and/or widening of intercalated discs and associated group of hypercontracted myocardial cells with "square" nuclei in line with hyperdistended ones. Non-eosinophilic bands of hypercontracted sarcomeres alternating with stretched, often apparently separated sarcomeres, small foci of paradiscal contraction band necrosis, and perivascular fibrosis were observed too. Lidocaine was detected in the subject's urine through immunoenzymatic screening. Toxicological analysis by solid-liquid extraction and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis, was carried out to identify and quantify the individual substances present in the biological fluids and organs. Lidocaine concentrations were as follows: blood 31 microg/mL, gastric content 2.5 g, liver 10 microg/g, kidney 12 microg/g, brain 9 microg/g, spleen 24 microg/g, lung 84 microg/g, heart 9 microg/g, urine 9 microg/mL, and bile 6 microg/mL. No other drugs or alcohol were detected. When blood lidocaine reaches toxic levels, serious toxic symptoms associated with the central nervous system and cardiac system are noted. The overdose of lidocaine produces death from ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrest. In this case, according to macroscopic and microscopic findings, the cause of death was most likely cardiac and possibly related to ventricular fibrillation.     

Ronan Fanning,Eamon de Valera: A Will to Power

Fanning's biography of de Valera is the latest in a long line of studies of the man regarded as the single most significant figure ion modern Irish history. It is based on a lifetime study of de Valera by one of Ireland greatest historians. In little over 300 pages Fanning gives the reader the best overview of de Valera's remarkable career that can be found.