Recent trends in workers' compensation

Workers' compensation provides cash benefits and medical care to employees who are injured on the job and survivor benefits to the dependents of workers whose deaths result from work-related incidents. Workers' compensation programs in the 50 states and the District of Columbia and federal programs together paid $56.0 billion in medical and cash benefits in 2004, an increase of 2.3 percent over 2003 payments. Of the total, $26.1 billion was for medical care and $29.9 billion was for cash benefits. Employers' costs for workers' compensation in 2004 were $87.4 billion, an increase of 7.0 percent over 2003 spending. Workers' compensation programs and spending vary greatly from state to state. As a source of support for disabled workers, workers' compensation is currently surpassed in size only by Social Security Disability Insurance (DI), which covers impairments of any cause that are significant, long-term impediments to work. Although most recipients of workers' compensation recover and return to work, those with lasting impairments may become eligible for DI benefits, subject to an offset to avoid excessive wage replacement from both programs.     

Procedural justice in mental health court: an investigation of the relation of perception of procedural justice to non-adherence and termination

Mental health courts (MHCs) operate on the principles of procedural justice (PJ). PJ highlights the importance of process over outcomes in encounters with authority. Subjective perceptions of having voice, being heard by decision-makers, and being treated with respect and concern by figures of authority are influential in assessment of fairness and in cooperation with decisions, regardless of favorability of the outcome. In this paper, we investigate MHC participant perception of PJ in interactions with MHC staff and the association between perceptions and recidivism (i.e. time in jail, new arrests, and probation violations), treatment adherence, and MHC termination. Participants from two MHC programs (n?=?80) took part in this study. Results suggest that perception of PJ during interactions with the entire MHC team is significantly associated with program termination, but not with participant behaviors during MHC. Implications for MHC practitioners and researchers are discussed.     

An effective pedagogy for child welfare education

ABSTRACT

Preparing social workers for child welfare practice with the complexly traumatized children now in the system has created the need for schools of social work to integrate trauma content into the curriculum. This article presents findings of an evaluation of a child welfare course designed to prepare MSW level trauma-informed child welfare practitioners. Findings indicate that students in 29 schools of social work not only significantly increased their confidence in working with traumatized children and families but also are significantly more prepared to work toward these three child welfare goals of safety, permanency, and well-being.     

Doing time after time: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of reformed ex-prisoners' experiences of self-change,identity and career opportunities

Abstract

The study of desistance from crime has generated a wealth of research in the last few decades. Despite the many barriers ex-prisoners face when attempting to ‘go straight’ many successfully lead law-abiding lives. Two key features identified in criminal desistance are a shift to a pro-social identity and worthwhile employment or the development of a new career path. There is, however, little psychological knowledge available on reformed offenders' experiences of self-change. This study focuses on ex-prisoners' experiences of employment and career opportunities. Five male reformed offenders took part in semi-structured interviews. Data collected was subjected to an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Participants demonstrated that desistance involves a shift to a pro-social identity and that self-change was a positive experience. An important aspect to emerge was the conflict experienced by the label ‘ex-offender’, which had a contradictory influence on the men's sense of self.     

Parents and progeny: Inheritance and the transition to adulthood in colonial North Carolina, 1680–1759

There is now an abundance of research on the relative ages of transition to adulthood in colonial America, but, unfortunately, we are still not in a position to offer many generalizations from these myriad historical case studies. There are two reasons for this inconsistency. Some historians have been content to use parental mortality as a proxy for property transfer and we have been reluctant to consider marriage and child-bearing as events that involve, at a minimum, pairs of men and women. Instead, some historians have been content to examine these life course transitions as individual affairs. The article demonstrates the importance of these two points. Direct linkage of intergenerational property transfer has been found to be a powerful predictor of the transition to adulthood and the individual perspective has been found to be an insufficient level of analysis for understanding the social forces underlying the distribution of wealth and, consequently, the transition to adulthood.     

Workers without rights as citizens at the margins

This article presents a normative account of citizenship which requires respect for labour rights, as much as it requires respect for other human rights. The exclusion of certain categories of workers, such as domestic workers, from these rights is wrong. This article presents domestic workers as marginal citizens who are unfairly deprived of certain labour rights in national legal orders. It also shows that international human rights law counteracts the marginal legal status of this group of workers. By being attached to everyone simply by virtue of being human, irrespective of nationality, human rights can complement citizenship rights when both are viewed as normative standards. The example of domestic work as it has been approached in international human rights law in recent years shows that certain rights of workers are universal. Their enjoyment cannot depend on citizenship as legal status or on regular residency. The enjoyment of labour rights as human rights depends, and should only depend, on the status of someone as a human being who is also a worker.     

Redfearn v UK: Political Association and Dismissal

In Redfearn v UK the European Court of Human Rights examined the question whether dismissal for membership of a political party is compatible with freedom of association under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court endorsed a strong commitment to multi‐party democracy and protection of employees against the domination of the employers. This note discusses the judgment and its implications for UK law, looking at three key issues: first, whether the law of unfair dismissal provides effective protection against action that poses a threat to the enjoyment of Convention rights; second, the grounds under which an employer may justify the lawfulness of a dismissal that interferes with a Convention right; third, the available remedies against the employer when there is a breach of a Convention right.     

Family Group Conferencing: An Indigenous Practice Approach to Compliance With the Indian Child Welfare Act

Native American children are perpetually over-represented in the U.S. child welfare system, despite the creation of the Indian Child Welfare Act. This article examines the use of family group conferencing, particularly initiated in Indian child welfare systems, as a practice method to reduce the disproportionality in this area.