Social Policy Commons^™

Focal Point, Volume 16 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Strengths-based practice is not just about supporting consumers as they identify and use their own positive capacities and assets. It is also about finding community assets which help link the consumer to these potential informal and community supports. For many people—consumers and providers alike—there is a great appeal to the idea of building an individual’s strengths while drawing on the community to build a supportive, individualized network of relationships and involvements. Yet when it comes down to planning and providing services and supports for children with emotional and behavioral disorders and their families, it is often difficult to see whether …

Focal Point, Volume 15 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

This issue of Focal Point begins from the idea that enrichments, far from being frivolous, are instead essential. The joy and meaningfulness which enrichments provide make a direct, positive contribution to quality of life. What is more, enriching experiences add to our reserves of strength and purpose, and these reserves in turn enable us to adapt, cope, recover and even thrive in the face of challenges and stresses. Specifically, this issue of Focal Point looks at research related to sources of enrichment, and at innovative programs that promote enrichment and achieve positive outcomes for children with emotional and behavioral challenges, …

Focal Point, Volume 15 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Transitions are difficult for all of us, but for children and youth with emotional and behavioral challenges, transitions are often both more difficult and more frequent than for their peers. Even “normal”, age-defined transitions such as the transition to kindergarten or the transition to independent living are often extremely difficult for children and youth with emotional and behavioral challenges, and for their families or other caregivers. Transitions—accompanied by the disruption of routine and the need to interact with unfamiliar people—are precisely the types of situations that are often most unsettling and stressful for these children.

Focal Point, Volume 14 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

FROM THE EDITORS. It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the premiere collaborative issue of Focal Point. The joint effort between the Center For Effective Collaboration and Practice and the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children’s Mental Health exemplifies a larger partnership initiative put forward by the Center for Mental Health Services’ (CMHS) Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program. The goal of an enhanced partnership is to promote improved services that lead to better outcomes for youth and their families. Along these lines we hope you find the fruits …

Focal Point, Volume 14 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Young people are assuming more, and more empowered roles in systems of care. They participate actively in planning for their own services and treatment, setting policy, and evaluating programs. This issue includes a discussion of resources that have been developed to help in the process of developing youth-adult partnership in these areas.

Focal Point, Volume 13 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

This issue of Focal Point examines the ways in which families with employed caregivers and children with emotional and behavioral disorders manage to meet the demands of employment and family responsibilities. Finding a fit between the demands of work and family life is a struggle for every employed mother and father. For parents whose children have emotional, behavioral, or mental disorders, meeting this challenge can prove extremely stressful, particularly since supportive services are notably lacking. Although Fernandez has estimated that 10% of all employed parents have at least one child with a disability living in their homes, there has been …

The Value Of Independence In Old Age, Paula C. Carder

Dissertations and Theses

Why is independence a central theme for proponents of assisted living facilities? How do assisted living providers respond to this theme? These questions are pursued in an ethnographic study centered on Oregon's assisted living program. Assisted living facilities (ALF), defined and monitored by Oregon's Senior and Disabled Services Division (SDSD), are a type of housing for disabled, primarily elderly, persons. Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR-411-56) define independence, requiring ALF providers to support resident independence.

Using social worlds theory as a sensitizing concept, assisted living is treated as a distinct social world. The activities of key groups, including SDSD staff, an ALF …

Focal Point, Volume 12 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Much of the family member involvement that is happening at the state and local level is due, at least in part, to the efforts by the federal government to institutionalize family involvement in policymaking. In 1985 Child and Adolescent Service System (CASSP) staff added a family goal to the program. This goal translated into a requirement that state applications for CASSP funds describe how families would participate in service planning efforts at the child and family, program, and system levels. In 1986 Congress passed the State Mental Health Services Comprehensive Plan (Public Law 99-660), which mandated family member participation in …

Focal Point, Volume 11 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

In the discussion on the issues of juvenile crime, the nation has ignored the prevalence of mental disorders among youth who commit crimes, and it has failed to provide policy directives on how state systems should respond. With the nation’s attention riveted on youth violence, the issue of prevalence has began to emerge, with the realization that many of the violent acts are committed by a small percentage of young people. Policymakers are beginning to ask questions about the conditions that contribute to a young person’s tendency toward delinquency acts.

Focal Point, Volume 10 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

The federal Child and Adolescent Service System Program (CASSP), launched in 1984, has been an important contributor to the movement to make major changes in the way services are provided to children with severe emotional disorders and their families . The principles underlying CASSP call for community-based systems of care that are comprehensive and emphasize coordination among child-serving agencies, service delivery in the least restrictive environment, full involvement of families, and cultural competence. These principles have been widely accepted in the worlds of child welfare, child mental health, juvenile justice and special education.

Violent Youth Gangs In Portland: A Study Of The City's Response, Debra Lynn Lindberg

Dissertations and Theses

Youth gangs infiltrated Portland's illegal drug trade in the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, entire neighborhoods in some parts of the city were affected. Residents expressed fear that their children would be drawn into gangs. Violence between rival gangs was frightening. Citizens, law enforcement and social services personnel organized to defend themselves and adjust programs to manage the problem. City officials denied a problem existed until a gang style shooting death forced recognition. The shooting death was catalytic in that it launched an effort to respond with a continuum of services. The House of Umoja was one of the services. …

Performance Of The Housing Market In Abudhabi City And The Government Housing Policies, Nasser Saif Almansoori

Dissertations and Theses

This research examines the government housing policies and the performance of the housing market in AbuDhabi City. AbuDhabi City and other cities in United Arab Emirates were among the poorest cities in the world about thirty years ago but the new wealth from oil production which started during the early 1960s changed that fact completely. AbuDhabi City, the capital of U.A.E., experienced the most dramatic change in the country as it went through a massive urban transformation. Housing the city's rapidly growing population became among the top priorities of the government and this led to the adoption of many housing …

Focal Point, Volume 09 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Men are increasingly discovering the many joys of active involvement in their children's lives. The special bond between father and child produces measurable, positive effects in regards to a child's self-esteem, gender identity, intellectual growth, curiosity and social skills. Current literature increasingly portrays dads as caretakers, supportive, sensitive and caring. However, this enhanced involvement can be sorely tested when a child has a disability or chronic illness. The dreams fathers have for their child's life, educational, athletic and vocational achievements are threatened.

Focal Point, Volume 08 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

There is an increasing awareness of the role culture plays in the delivery of health and human services (10, 30, 32). One recent response in the area of children's mental health has been the emergence of the Child and Adolescent Service Program's (CASSP's) cultural competence model.

Focal Point, Volume 08 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

The 103rd Congress has set itself an ambitious agenda. Between now and October, five Congressional committees are to report out their versions of health care reform legislation, from which a single piece of legislation must be written and forwarded to President Clinton for his signature.

Rapists And Their Parental Relationships, Yaeko Steidel

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation attempts to find out what associations exist between dysfunctional parental relationships in the childhood of rapists and the rapists' violent acts. It also briefly examines the sociocultural effects which nurture such relationships.

Rape, a crime very prevalent in our society today, is now perceived as an acute expression of men's contempt for and anger against women. The former interpretation of rape as primarily a sexually motivated crime is no longer popular. This dissertation attempts to trace the origin of the rapist's psyche from his dysfunctional parental relationships.

Rare data on rapist's family relations from a recent FBI survey …

An Implementation Analysis Of The Water Resources Development Act Of 1986, James Joseph Rich

Dissertations and Theses

Implementation research, an area once largely ignored in favor of policy design and impact assessment, now constitutes a significant portion of the policy analysis literature. One of the key issues addressed by the theory building portion of that literature is the necessity of precisely identifying implementation variables, conditions, or actions that measurably contribute to the success or failure of implementation efforts over a broad range of policies and programs, and to then suggest some order of significance. In order to test the validity of a variable set proposed by the literature, a multivariate implementation model was employed as the basis …

Residential Mobility And Revitalization In Portland Between 1970 And 1980: A Study Of The Urban Structural Impacts On Neighborhood Revitalization, Sheka Gassimou Kamara

Dissertations and Theses

Evidence of physical decline due in part to the rapid encroachment of commercial and industrial activity into some of Portland's residential areas in the mid-1960s and efforts to combat the forces of time and change through neighborhood revitalization provide the basis for this study. Additionally, some of the characteristics often employed in explaining the phenomenon in cities are manifested in the city of Portland. For example, Portland is endowed with a distinctive and well established downtown area that provides opportunities for the establishment of businesses as well as white-collar job opportunities. By the standards of the U.S. Bureau of the …

Focal Point, Volume 05 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

In this issue of Focal Point we address the special needs of lesbian and gay youth and their families. The United States Department of Health and Human Services' 1989 Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide defines gay and lesbian youth as those who have a primary attraction to members of the same sex for intimate and sexual relationships (4). A variety of explanations have been offered to describe the origins of individual sexual orientation. While homosexuality may involve both elements of nature and nurture, the origins of sexual orientation are generally believed to be established during early …

The Transformation Of Urban Form: A Study Of The Interaction Among Policy, Urban Form, And Change In A Small City, Elton Herbert Schatz

Dissertations and Theses

The central theme of this Case Study is that social policy is changed by its interaction with the changing non-physical (socioeconomic) and physical (infrastructure) urban form of the city within which it is formulated, implemented, and evaluated.

The primary hypothesis of this Case Study is that the policy represented by the Main Street Program changes and is changed during its implementation in the changing non-physical (socioeconomic) and physical (infrastructure) urban form of the small city of Centralia, Washington.

The primary purpose of the Centralia Main Street Program is to involve Centralia in a community development process directed to changing the …

An Evaluation Of Columbia Villa/Tamaracks Community Service Intervention Project, Gerald F. Blake, Martin L. Abbott, Debra Lynn Lindberg

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

The Community Service Intervention Program (CSlP) is a unique public agency response to a multifaceted set of problems confronting low income residents living in Oregon 's largest public housing project. The primary goals of the CSIP are to reduce crime, reduce the fear of crime among residents, and to improve the quality of life of the families living in Columbia Villa/Tamaracks.

The evaluation of the CSIP combined a number of different research methods, on different analytical levels, to provide a summary assessment. Data were collected from individuals, from agencies, and from police records in a post facto analysis of the …

Focal Point, Volume 04 Number 02, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Children Grow Better in Families. This was the slogan on a 1984 poster developed by the Children's Bureau to emphasize the benefits of adoption -- not only to a waiting child, but to the adoptive home itself through the enrichment the new member brings to the existing family system. The slogan rings true for all types of families -- not only those restructured through adoption or remarriage, but those that are formed in more conventional ways. The child welfare system today is heavily invested in family preservation and the philosophy of permanency for children who have been placed outside their …

The Relationship Between School Integration And Student Attitude Toward Residential Racial Integration, David Allen Johnson

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined factors related to the teaching effectiveness of adjunct faculty in higher education. Specifically, it explored the relationship between personality, as defined by the Five-Factor Model, occupation, and student ratings of teaching effectiveness. Results indicate that personality is correlated to an instructor's classroom behavior and education goals, which in turn are related to teaching effectiveness. In addition, instructors with occupations in social services and education had significantly higher mean teaching effectiveness scores than those from other occupations. Finally, there was an inverse relationship between age and teaching effectiveness in this study, and a positive relationship between teaching experience …

Focal Point, Volume 04 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Improving collaboration between parents ,family members and professionals has recently become a central theme in efforts to improve services for children c.md adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders. In this issue, conceptual issues and practical applications of parent-professional collaboration are presented. Here, we examine the rationale for collaboration, some common barriers to effective partnership and key elements that enhance a collaborative relationship. Accompanying articles describe a broad array of activities occurring throughout the country to promote collaboration, support parent organizing efforts, and enhance family support policy and practice.

Focal Point, Volume 03 Number 03, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

We are concerned about parents who have children with emotional disabilities in need of a range of services -- particularly out-of-home placement -- who have, in countless instances, been required to transfer custody of their children to the state for the sole purpose of obtaining necessary services at public expense. This requirement appears to stem, primarily, from the following: (1) a mistaken belief on the part of the state and local officials that federal reimbursement under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act is available only where legal custody of a child has transferred to the state; and or (2) …

Urban Service Delivery System And Federal Government Bureaucracy: A Structural Analysis Of Spatial Distribution Of Water Supply In A Suburban Community Of Metropolitan Lagos, Michael Udochukwu Mbanaso

Dissertations and Theses

This study identifies the prevailing scarcity of urban public services and the conceptual relations among service delivery, patronage, bureaucratic activities and structural factors in the Lagos Metropolitan region. It examines the extent to which clientelism, bureaucratic decision rules and structural theoretical models explain water service delivery patterns in Festival Town (Festac), a suburb of Lagos, Nigeria.

The unprecedented pace of growth of the Lagos Metropolis since the mid-twentieth century gave rise to the spectacular spatial expansion of the continuous built up region. Urban industrial and governmental institutions have not kept pace with the population growth rate of Lagos. This demographic …

Disability Rights Mandates: Federal And State Compliance With Employment Protection And Architectural Barrier Removal, Stephen Percy, United States Advisory Commission On Intergovernmental Relations

Office of the President Publications and Presentations

The findings of this study indicate that the existence of national mandates does not necessarily eliminate the need for citizen groups to be attentive to state capitols and city halls. Ironically, one factor in the rise of regulatory federalism has been the desire of interest groups to concentrate their resources on one government, namely, the national government, rather than 50 different state governments. Yet, success in the national arena is often only partial, and sometimes only largely symbolic. It is the implementation of national rules that takes one back to states and localities.

The findings of this study also suggest …

The Longterm Psychosocial Impacts Of Caregiving On The Caregivers Of Persons With Stroke, Alice Updike Scannell

Dissertations and Theses

This study is a Time 4 (T4) follow-up interview of ninety-three caregivers of persons who experienced a first stroke between 2 to 4 years (mean = 36 months) prior to the T4 interview. The first wave of data collection occurred within two months after the stroke. The second and third waves occurred six and twelve months, respectively, after the first interview. The caregivers were identified by the person with stroke as being the person closest to him/her who would be responsible for care after the stroke.

Data were gathered at all four interviews using reliable and valid measures for depressive …

A Preliminary Analysis Of Beneficiary Discharge Status And Post-Hospital Placement Before And After The Implementation Of Medicare's Prospective Payment System, Anne Marguerite Wilkinson

Dissertations and Theses

In recognition of the inherently inflationary nature of retrospective reimbursement, the Reagan Administration enacted legislation that substantially changed Medicare's hospital reimbursement system. The Prospective Payment System (PPS) mandated paying hospitals a fixed payment, set in advance, based on the patient's diagnosis rather than retrospectively paying for all services delivered to a patient. Critics contend that PPS introduces incentives for hospitals to conserve resources during the hospital stay and to shift care to less costly settings, both potentially affecting quality of care to the elderly. The question addressed by this dissertation is whether there were changes in the discharge health status …

Focal Point, Volume 03 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

Cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency or professional to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. The word culture is used because it implies having the capacity to function effectively. A culturally competent system of care acknowledges and incorporates - at all levels - the importance of culture, the assessment of cross-cultural relations, vigilance towards the dynamics that result from cultural differences, the expansion of cultural knowledge and the adaptation of services to meet culturally unique needs.