Parental Work Demands and the Frequency of Child‐Related Routine and Interactive Activities

This study examined whether the frequency of child‐related activities was associated with parents' own work demands and those of their partners. In addition to parental paid working hours, we considered the parents' organizational culture and experienced job insecurity. Moreover, we differentiated between child‐related routine and interactive activities. Using self‐collected data on 639 Dutch couples with children, we found that paid working hours were consistently associated with a lower frequency of child‐related activities. Fathers generally responded more strongly to their own and their partner's work demands than mothers. For fathers, both their own and their partner's work demands were more strongly associated with routine than with interactive activities. Mothers did not differentiate between these activities, however.     

Prevention of MSD by means of ergonomic risk assessment (tools) in all phases of the vehicle development process

In industrialized countries musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) play an import role and are often responsible for almost one third of the total sick leave. The changes in the demographic profiles, i.e. aging work forces might even worsen this situation in the future. For a highly productive and sustainable use of human resources in production systems, ergonomics offers high potentials. In the recent years the authors have developed several ergonomic risk assessment tools, especially for the use in automotive industries. These methods may be used during the planning phases in the Tech Centers as well as during the production phase at shop floor level. The tools might also be used for a standardized communication in between the Tech Center and the plants to improve the effects of "lessons learned" for the design and layout of workstations and processes and the optimization of vehicle components. This paper describes suitable risk assessment tools as well as the integration of these tools into the vehicle development process. It introduces a comprehensive management approach for the integration of ergonomics into the management of production systems.     

Future of Work in the Digital World: Preparing for Instability and Opportunity

Despite conflicting forecasts about the pace and extent of technological changes that lie ahead, it is difficult to dispute the impact that advances in automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence have already had on work in the United States and globally. Hirschi ( 2018 ) provided an excellent discussion of these developments and what they may mean for career clients, practitioners, and researchers. The author aims to complement Hirschi's contribution by (a) amplifying the nature of the challenges faced by workers, both currently and in the foreseeable future, and (b) considering steps that may be taken by career development experts, both individually and collectively, to meet these challenges. These steps include advocacy for displaced workers, participation in dialogues to transform educational institutions, and efforts to extend the range of counseling interventions to prepare clients for a career future that may be far less stable for increasing numbers of workers.     

Comparison of ergonomic risk assessment outputs from Rapid Upper Limb Assessment and the Strain Index for tasks in automotive assembly plants

This paper compares the ergonomic risk assessment of a task for the upper extremities as determined by Rapid Upper Extremity Assessment (RULA) and the Strain Index (SI). The ergonomic risk to the upper extremities of 244 automotive assembly plant tasks were evaluated using RULA and SI. The outcomes of each tool were compared for each task. Results from this study provide practical insight into the methods used in each tool. This study compared only the ergonomic risk outputs from each tool; it does not pursue the question of which tool best predicts injury. The kappa score was 0.11, indicating little agreement between the outputs of the two tools. This is supported by the lack of monotonicity with a gamma score of 0.1. These results indicate that the risk assessment outcome of these two ergonomic assessment tools for the upper extremities do not agree.     

Implications of the Literature on Equine-Assisted Activities for Use as a Complementary Intervention in Social Work Practice with Children and Adolescents

This article reviews the literature investigating psychosocial benefits of equine-assisted activities (EAA) for children and adolescents with physical, mental, and family challenges. It further analyzes implications for clinical social work practice in the use of EAA as complementary or adjunct interventions with these populations, thus addressing a gap in the literature on population-specific outcomes of EAA. As a contribution to methodology in future research, the conceptual analysis suggests that concurrent examination of complementary interventions across categories of special needs could add to the knowledge base concerning these children’s psychosocial status. Cross-domain investigations could also assess the contribution of each challenge to the status of children with multiple conditions.     

Manual handling risks associated with the care, treatment and transportation of bariatric (severely obese) clients in Australia

Carers of bariatric (morbidly obese) clients are exposed to manual handling injury risk throughout the journey that such clients take within the healthcare system. To identify the factors that affect risks associated with bariatric clients and the subsequent adoption of risk control measures focus groups were conducted in two Australian state capitals: a suburban region of Melbourne and a large regional Victorian town. Participants, were recruited from within the primary health care sector, ambulance services, fire services and funeral businesses. It was found that the risks to which nurses, ambulance officers, fire fighters, and funeral industry employees are exposed are significant. The injury risk is influenced by the nature and design of the range of environments within which client movement is undertaken; the limited range of handling equipment available for use with bariatric clients; and the efficacy of organisational procedures and training. Adoption of risk controls is hampered by the absence of a standard definition of the term ``bariatric' and the gaps in information flow during the bariatric client journey through the health care system. Various definitions of bariatric are applied in different sectors and there are limitations to the use of both weight and body mass index in those definitions.     

Content validity and utility of the Assessment of Work Performance (AWP)

In the area of work rehabilitation, many decisions about future interventions for the client are based on the results of various kinds of assessments. Therefore, it is important that the assessment instruments used are adequate, useful, and reliable. The purpose of this study was to investigate the content validity and utility of the instrument Assessment of Work Performance (AWP) which is used to assess an individual's observable (working) skills during work performance, i.e. how efficient and appropriate a client performs a work activity. A questionnaire was answered by 67 respondents who used the AWP in various work rehabilitation settings in Sweden. The result indicates content validity and utility for the AWP that supports further testing of the instrument.     

Young Children of Parents with Substance Use Disorders (SUD): A Review of the Literature and Implications for Social Work Practice

SUMMARY

This article reviews the scientific literature that focuses on school-age children of parents with substance use disorder (SUD). The review examined the subjects, instruments, and results of 10 scientific studies published from 1985 to the present (2006). Generally, school-age children of parents with SUD demonstrated a variety of emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social problems. Specifically, (a) children of drug users (CODs) were at higher risk than children of alcoholics (COAs) for psychopathology and functional impairments, and (b) Children of parents diagnosed as having SUDs (particularly alcohol), along with anti-social personality disorder (ASPD) showed more negative psychosocial outcomes than children whose parents did not have ASPD. Recommendations for future research and implications for social work practice are discussed.     

Putting the pieces together for queer youth: a model of integrated assessment of need and program planning

Needs assessments require staff with the necessary expertise to design the study, collect the data, analyze the data, and present results. They require money, time, and persistence, because the people one wishes to assess often are difficult to access. This article argues for the centrality of a well-done needs assessment when developing services for LGBTQ youth. Needs assessment methodology and adjunctive uses of the needs assessment data also are discussed. The authors present a needs assessment of LGBTQ youth living in out-of-home care in San Diego, California, as an example of the purpose, practicality, and power of a comprehensive needs assessment. The needs assessment identified several issues, as well as additional data supporting the project's necessity. The data also identified the most significant obstacles youth face in accessing housing and supportive services. Through the data collection process, non-LGBT housing providers better understood their need for additional training, and housing and city leadership communities obtained and spread knowledge of the project.     

Help-Seeking for Sexual Difficulties and the Potential Role of Interactive Digital Interventions: Findings From the Third British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles

Sexual difficulties are common and can negatively impact health and well-being. A wide range of support is available, but there are multiple barriers to accessing help. Interactive digital interventions (IDIs) for sexual difficulties have the potential to provide a convenient, wide-reaching, and cost-effective source of support, but little is known about who might use them. We explored the potential reach of IDIs by assessing the prevalence of help-seeking among people with distressing sexual difficulties, including who seeks which sources of help. Data came from sexually active men and women, ages 16 to 74, participating in Britain’s third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3) (N = 11,637). Help/advice was sought by less than half of those with distressing sexual difficulties, and help-seeking was associated with younger age in women but not men. The most popular sources of support were family doctor (47.5% to 54.8%), Internet (22.0% to 25.6%), and family/friend (20.7% to 41.8%), with older participants (≥ 35), particularly men, preferring to seek help from a family doctor, and younger participants (<35) preferring to seek help from the Internet or family/friend. Despite a paucity of good digital support sites for sexual function, the Internet is a common source of help. As Internet access continues to increase, so too does the potential for well-designed IDIs to support those with sexual difficulties.     

Conditions for the successful integration of Human and Organizational Factors (HOF) in the nuclear safety analysis

This communication presents some elements which come from the experience feedback at CEA about the conditions for the successful integration of HOF in the nuclear safety analysis. To point out some of these conditions, one of the concepts proposed by Edgar Morin to describe the functioning of "complex" systems: the dialogical principle has been used. The idea is to look for some dialogical pairs. The elements of this kind of pair are both complementary and antagonist to one another. Three dialogical pairs are presented in this communication. The first two pairs are related to the organization of the HOF network and the last one is related to the methods which are used to analyse the working situations. The three pairs are: specialist - non-specialist actors of the network, centralized - distributed human resources in the network and microscopic - macroscopic levels of HOF methods to analyse the working situations. To continuously improve these three dialogical pairs, it is important to keep the differences which exist between the two elements of a pair and to find and maintain a balance between the two elements of the pairs.     

(Ap)parent Boundaries: Parents' Boundary Work at Cultural Events for Families with Children Adopted from China

Abstract

The adoption of children from China by American families represents a rich case study for an expanding sociological literature on boundaries: it brings to life many of our most salient borders and highlights their very permeability. This paper represents one aspect of a larger research project on parents' efforts to bridge perceived ethnocultural boundaries within the China adoptive family. Through ethnographic fieldwork and semistructured, in-depth interviews, I examine parents' interpretations of and participation in Chinese cultural events organized by and for China adoptive families. These events are significant sites for social research on boundaries because they: (1) appear to assume permeable ethnocultural borders; and (2) bring previously incoherent individuals together as a bounded group. Drawing on classic and contemporary theories of ethnic identification and collective identity, I reveal how parents activate existing symbolic and social boundaries and create new symbolic and social boundaries in their efforts to construct community. In particular, I demonstrate how previously incoherent parents cohere as a bounded community by actively distinguishing themselves from “authentic” Chinese/Chinese American referents and the “imagined community” of biological families. Likewise, I reveal how the community's boundaries and cultural events both mask and alienate a growing percentage of the China adoption contingent: African American and Asian American China adoptive parents, lower-middle-class and working-class China adoptive parents, and the adoptive parents of Chinese sons. Through this case-based analysis, I add general theoretical and methodological contributions to the diffuse boundaries literature.     

Service Delivery Models for Social Work Practice: Organizing the Content of Human Behavior and Social Environment Courses

The ever-increasing breadth in the conceptual base of current social work practice requires a schema for organizing the diverse needed knowledge for use by practitioners. This paper describes five models of social work practice: social functioning or social competency; social change; medical-clinical; ecological; and learning or education. The basic commonalities and dimensions within each model are reviewed with emphasis on the varying theoretical bases from the social and behavioral sciences as well as social work; the belief systems inherent in each model; assumptions made relative to the target population, the change process, and social work roles; and the authority patterns existing within each model.