Law Commons^™

Dealing With A Depressed Workforce: Are American Employers Doing Enough To Support The Mental Health Challenges Affecting Today's Employees., Charity Felts

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This comment focuses on what American employers should be doing to recognize and deal with an employee population afflicted by mental illness. Americans suffer from a variety of mental health challenges. The symptoms of these mental illnesses vary from mild to severe. Often, if left untreated, these challenges can turn into full blown mental disorders. Employers typically ignore these issues due to high employee turnover rate and lack of employee loyalty. The cost attributable to mental illness every year is twenty-three billion dollars. However, when calculating the indirect costs like loss of productivity and absenteeism, the actual cost reaches $249 …

Noncustodial Fathers' Involvement With Their Children: A Right Or A Privilege?, Janice Laakso, Sheri Adams

Social Work & Criminal Justice Publications

This study explores the key determinants of noncustodial fathers' involvement with their children. The stereotype that fathers have little interest in parenting their children is contradicted. The findings reveal that fathers are committed to parenting; however, actions on the part of the mothers and what the participants perceive to be bias on the part of the courts prevent fathers from having the relationship with their children they desire. Even fathers who have been committed early in the relationship to their children, pay child support, and give no justification for being denied parental rights do not necessarily get to spend time …

Stepparents As Third Parties In Relation To Their Stepchildren, Margaret Mahoney

Articles

The "third parties" who inspired this symposium are categories of adults who form de facto family ties with children to whom they do not stand in the relationship of legal parent. In the eyes of the law, the status of parenthood is generally restricted to biological and adoptive parents. Within this frame of reference, stepparents constitute a major category of "third parties" who develop relationships with their stepchildren but are not regarded as legal parents.

In spite of the long history of stepfamily issues in the legal arena, and the increased demand for regulation in recent decades, little progress has …