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Social work supervision addresses professional development, staff support, and management of direct service workers. It is important in aging-services settings because of the impacts of complex and evolving biopsychosocial forces in clients' lives. This article presents findings of the Supervisory Leaders in Aging (SLA) study based on data available one-year post completion. SLA is a 30-hour certificate program for supervisors from aging-services settings addressing best practices in supervision of gerontological practice. The study compares participants' self-assessment of use of supervisory best practices before attending a 3-month workshop series and at two times following graduation. This article reports findings from the analysis of data provided by 114 out of 129 supervisors who completed the program. Participants increased the frequency of use of best practices at both three and 12 months after graduation. These increases were conceptually meaningful and statistically significant among participants who were low users of best practices prior to the program. SLA has led to significant adoption and maintenance of supervisory best practices among participating social work supervisors and especially among those who have not previously adopted routine use of best practices. The interactive small-group learning activities of SLA's educational model should be promoted and the curriculum of best practices should be further refined and tested as SLA is implemented in other communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss the various topics tackled within the issue, like trial home visits of children in out-of-home care, foster care, and the risk factors for maltreatment after permanency through adoption.

Social work education plays a critical role in preparing social workers to lead efforts that improve health. Because of the dynamic health care landscape, schools of social work must educate students to facilitate health care system improvements, enhance population health, and reduce medical costs. We reviewed the existing contributions of social work education and provided recommendations for improving the education of social workers in 6 key areas: aging, behavioral health,community health, global health, health reform, and health policy. We argue for systemic improvement in the curriculum at every level of education, including substantive increases in content in health, health care, health care ethics, and evaluating practice outcomes in health settings. Schools of social work can further increase the impact of the profession by enhancing the curricular focus on broad content areas such as prevention, health equity, population and community health, and health advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the twenty-five year collective effort of the social work profession in the U.S. to improve its research capacity and ensure greater representation of the needs of social work research. The key processes, efforts to achieve professional solidarity, and interventions of social workers and advocacy agents are provided. The details and accomplishments of the collective effort are mentioned.

Water resources in agriculture-dominated basins of the arid western United States are stressed due to long-term impacts from pumping. A review of 88 regional groundwater-flow modeling applications from seven intensively irrigated western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska and Texas) was conducted to provide hydrogeologists, modelers, water managers, and decision makers insight about past modeling studies that will aid future model development. Groundwater models were classified into three types: resource evaluation models (39 %), which quantify water budgets and act as preliminary models intended to be updated later, or constitute re-calibrations of older models; management/planning models (55 %), used to explore and identify management plans based on the response of the groundwater system to water-development or climate scenarios, sometimes under water-use constraints; and water rights models (7 %), used to make water administration decisions based on model output and to quantify water shortages incurred by water users or climate changes. Results for 27 model characteristics are summarized by state and model type, and important comparisons and contrasts are highlighted. Consideration of modeling uncertainty and the management focus toward sustainability, adaptive management and resilience are discussed, and future modeling recommendations, in light of the reviewed models and other published works, are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Summary: We investigate the conditions and criteria for identifying flow regimes in shallow groundwater-dominated lakes in arid environments. Relying on regional and local water-table configurations, we develop a steady-state model of lake-aquifer systems. Using dimensional analysis and numerical simulations, we investigate relationships between groundwater inflow and outflow. A new framework uses the concepts of gradient ratio G, defined as the ratio of regional-to-local head gradients, and the topohydrologic offset (THO), defined as the difference between actual lake level and regional groundwater level. It is shown that a critical value of gradient ratio, Gc , exists for each aquifer thickness and anisotropy in hydraulic conductivity. In cases where the regional gradient is larger than the local gradient and G > Gc , the lake is “flushed” in a flow-through regime. When the local gradient is larger than the regional head gradient and G < Gc , the lake gains and large evaporative losses occur. Gc becomes progressively larger with increasing aquifer thickness and anisotropy in hydraulic conductivity. Variation in the ratio of groundwater inflow-to-outflow as G approaches Gc is consistent with observed variability in lake salinity. Transition from flow-through conditions to other regimes in groundwater-dominated lakes in arid environments may occur with subtle changes in the gradient ratio, regional water-table slope, lake size, and THO. Finally, we discuss the feasibility of using a geographic information system to delineate the potential for lake to retain solutes in areas with numerous lakes, similar to Nebraska, USA. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study examines the organizational and institutional factors that may be associated with the success of schools of social work (SOSWs) in securing research grant awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and constituent agencies. Using data from the CRISP database on NIH grant funding, the Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance, the Council on Social Work Education, the American Association of University Professors, and other sources, several key factors were identified as being associated with SOSWs' grant success: having a PhD program, not having a BSW program, being an independent academic unit, faculty publication rates, having a medical school in the home university, having higher faculty salaries in the home university, and the home university's overall grant success. The principle of "accumulative advantage" describes relative grant success well: During 1993-2005, only 13 SOSWs accounted for almost 75% of all NIH grants awarded to SOSWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the developments in child welfare in the U.S. Improvement of pre-service and in-service staff training programs; Upgrade of staffing requirements for front-line and supervisory staff; De-professionalization phase.

This article challenges the conventional wisdom that, since the circa 1974 discontinuation of policies encouraging temporary labor migration, female migration has significantly outnumbered male migration. Drawing on data from Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, the article shows that the proportion of women in gross immigration is lower when the flows originate in developing rather than in developed countries. Women outnumber men only in terms of net migration. Each receiving country has its own variations on these generalizations, with the chief variables being the receiving countries' admission policies and the stage in migration history of the expatriate population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the demographic changes on social work profession in the United States. Challenges posed by the growth of older population; Findings of a research on the state of gerontological social work in the country; Issues that affect the growth of gerontological social work.

As many as 3% of children in the United States live in kinship care arrangements with caregivers who are relatives but not the biological parents of the child. A growing body of evidence suggests that children who cannot live with their biological parents fare better, overall, when living with extended family than with nonrelated foster parents. Acknowledging this, federal laws and public policies increasingly favor kinship care over nonrelative foster care when children are unable to live with their biological parents. Despite overall better outcomes, families providing kinship care experience many hardships, and the children experience many of the same adversities of children in traditional foster care. This policy statement reviews both the strengths and vulnerabilities of kinship families and suggests strategies for pediatricians to use to address the needs of individual patients and families. Strategies are also outlined for community, state, and federal advocacy on behalf of these children and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]