This document provides an annual report and financial review for 1995 of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, a private institution created in 1949 for broad humanitarian purposes. The report includes feature articles highlighting specific aspects of the year's activities: (1) "Growing Up in France: Parental Creches"; (2) "Changing the…

Even though current wisdom holds that adoptive parents should talk with their child about adoption as early as possible, no guidelines exist to prepare parents for the various ways their children might respond when these conversations take place. This book discusses how young children make sense of the fact that they are adopted, how their…

Amish beliefs are exemplified in their parochial schools. Children are taught to be diligent and work hard at the task at hand. "An idle mind is a devil's workshop" is very much in evidence when Amish children study and learn that which stresses the moral and the practical. The home setting emphasizes the utilitarian with its farm work…

A study described student evaluations of an assignment in a course in family communication that required writing and performing (in small groups) a personal family narrative. Of the 43 students sent questionnaires asking for their reactions to the assignment, 40 returned completed questionnaires. Content analysis of the responses to the assignment…

The case study describes a family residential service for three people with profound and multiple disabilities in Burlington, Vermont. The disabled individuals live with a couple and their two children who are also provided support services in the form of weekend relief and helpers for the late afternoon and evening period. The house is owned by a…

Reports on two studies related to the effect of early stress on the social and academic development of boys and girls. Suggested that the social resiliency of boys was relatively consistent from age 3 to 18, while girls had no such pattern. Academic performance of boys was lower than girls. (TW)

Technical amendments to the 1996 welfare reform legislation--the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)--include new requirements for administering a state child support enforcement program. This document provides background information to American Indian tribes, Alaska Native villages, tribal courts, and…

To understand the processes of learning and to make educational decisions for the future, three levels of environmental and historical context need to be considered. The microsystem represents the most immediate environment, the family; the exosystem includes environment experienced directly, the neighborhood; and the macrosystem represents the…

Describes a practice model that school social workers can use when helping culturally diverse families. Model emphasizes the importance of building a perspective for understanding culture and presents a framework for cross-cultural practice that includes some basic skills for effective transactions. Provides suggestions on how to work with…

Examines New Zealand legislation that allows families greater decision-making power when the safety and welfare of their children are seen to be at risk. Discusses the Family Group Conference intervention model and its efficacy, concerns and criticisms that this model has evoked, and the model's potential applicability to child care and protection…

One way to connect research with its clinical application is to examine the interplay between context and child. This article discusses the relationship between temperamental characteristics and the caregiving environment. During the first year of life, individual temperament differences in newborns are moderately stable and influence the nature…

Youth with sexual behavior problems pose a complicated challenge to the society. Yet the society has succeeded in developing only a limited range of actions and attitudes to grapple with and prevent this problem. Very few of the social service and criminal justice systems have rallied to create compassionate models that not only address and…

When faced with threats to physical or psychological well-being, our bodies and brains respond in a variety of self-protective ways, including the production of stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Our ability to turn this response on and off is critical to healthy functioning in society, and scientists now believe that significant…

Permanency planning for infants with prenatal substance exposure is challenging due to characteristics of the infants and the ongoing substance use or relapse of the parents. Visitation is a primary mechanism through which child welfare workers determine and support permanency planning. Productive use of visitation for permanency planning for…

The reason for studying the characteristics of a healthy family is to encourage and strengthen the family and to move toward an enriched family life by using the characteristics as bench marks. Six characteristics are discussed as the essence of a healthy family: (1) commitment; (2) togetherness; (3) appreciation; (4) good communication; (5)…