Joe Hudson

Relationship Between Discharge Outcomes For Treatment Foster-Care Clients And Program Characteristics

Data collected from a survey of treatment foster-care programs permitted an exploratory study of relationships among type of discharge (planned or unplanned), restrictiveness of postdischarge living arrangements, and the program characteristics (per client annual cost, basis of payments and amount paid to family care providers, preservice and inservice training requirements for family care providers, maximum caseload permitted for social workers, program treatment theory, program size, maximum number of placements permitted per family care provider, and the average number of clients per home). Data were available for 1,521 youth discharged from 210 treatment foster-care programs in the United States and Canada. Of the total discharges, 60% were planned, and 63% of the youth were discharged to settings less restrictive than treatment foster care. No meaningful associations were found between program characteristics and type of discharge or restrictiveness of discharge setting. Additional research is necessary to establish the relationship, if any, between program characteristics and program success before moving to impose standards that may increase the cost of delivering treatment foster care but not increase program success.

A Survey of North American Specialist Foster Family Care Programs

Over the past 10 years, specialist foster family care services have emerged as a distinct child welfare service. Snowballing sampling techniques were used to identify over 1,200 possible North American specialist foster family care programs; 293 met six criteria established as defining a specialist foster family care program. Data on the programs, ranging from size, number of clients, foster parent training, size of caseload, length of stay, and intervention techniques, are presented.

Restitution and Rehabilitation Some Central Issues

While most victim compensation schemes dwell on the situa tion of the victim, the use of restitution within criminal justice systems is comparatively unexplored. This concept may have rehabilitative potential for offenders, but before the potential can be realized a number of issues must be resolved: Should the aim be complete restitution or partial, symbolic restitution? Can restitution be more effective as a rehabilitative measure if it is required or if it is made voluntarily? What would be the effect of personal victim-offender interaction within a restitution scheme? Should the offender be held responsible for making restitution in crimes that were clearly victim-precipitated? These issues are considered and suggestions are made for their resolution.

A Survey of Social Work Research Centers

A survey of Social Work Research Centers (SWRCs) in North America produced results from 8 Canadian and 37 U.S. SWRCs. The number of SWRCs and the proportion directed by women has increased since Estess survey. Most SWRCs have small budgets and staff complements. The most reported purpose was to improve social work practice by applying and transferring knowledge. Center membership was largely social work faculty and students. SWRC policy and administration was usually shared among SWRC directors, social work heads, and other university officials. Most respondents agreed that SWRCs should have separate budgets to increase their ability to plan and carry out activities. SWRC priorities were about the same as reported by Estes, and their research priorities reflected faculty interests. A high proportion of SWRC directors strongly agree with many of the recommendations originally offered by Estes in 1979. Nearly all agreed that SWRCs should have a stable set of resources to direct toward generating additional funds to build SWRC operations.

Book Reviews : Beyond the Courtroom, Benedict S. Alper and Lawrence T. Nichols. Pp. 299. Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1981.

the work, which presents the day-to-day consequences of human marginalization as individualized and prelabeled pathologies. In their final paragraphs on the condition of crisis, Clarke, Langan, and Lee offer a few remarks which serve as fitting conclusions to the book as a whole and comments on the significance of Reaganism. They note that, given the failure of the Left to amass widespread support for the liberal reforms of the 1960s, it is now easy for the Right to appeal to traditional

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prisons; juwenile institutions, traditional probation and parole services. Too frequently, corrections planners and service deliverers have overloo-ked the plight of the victims, the need for rigorous research accountability and the’ necessity to irivolve the larger community in the planning and delivery of correctional programmes. The Minnesota Restitution Centre in Minneapolis has responded to the crisis currently confronting the correctional field by initiating such a programme. This programme aims at the development off a contractual relationship between the offender and his victim, the diversion of offenders from the prison setting, the conduct of rigorous evaluation research, and the involvement of the larger community in a policy-making role.