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Course syllabi play an important role in teaching, learning, and course design. They serve multiple functions and audiences and represent the end product of a scholarly process. In the following article, select findings from a mixed methods study examining how faculty and students conceptualize course syllabi are presented, specifically the design implications of what faculty include in their syllabi and those items students perceive to be most important and attend to most often throughout the course.

The authors describe a for-credit course for Social Work PhD students called Writing for Publication and report on a study evaluating its success in supporting students to develop and submit a paper for publication in a refereed journal. The literature-informed course design, taught in collaboration with the university's Writing Centre, includes didactic elements and a peer editing component. Seventeen of the 22 students who had taken the course completed an anonymous online survey asking whether they had submitted the paper and the outcome, whether the course had been helpful, in what ways, and in which other areas of the PhD program they were most helpful. The quantitative and qualitative data indicate that the course has been successful. A majority of students submitted an article to a peer-reviewed journal, and a majority found the course helpful in this regard as well as in other areas of the PhD program. Based on findings regarding the contributions of the course and student suggestions for improvement, we discuss considerations for strengthening the program in future.

This article reports on a study of the needs of families coping with life-threatening allergies in a child. Due to the scarcity of publications on the psychosocial dimensions of anaphylaxis, the authors draw on selected literature on family coping with chronic illness, asthma, and allergy to provide a conceptual context for the research and discussion of findings. Using qualitative methodology, parents from 17 families were interviewed about their experiences adjusting to a diagnosis of anaphylaxis in a child. From participants' responses about the nature and sources of information and support, parenting dilemmas, family activities, anxieties, challenges, and coping strategies, the authors identify patterns in the adaptive processes related to predictable developmental and episodic events that increase anxiety and support needs. Social work clinicians and other family-serving professionals can help families maintain an optimal balance between protective and debilitating anxiety. Potential interventions in community and health settings are suggested.

This article reports on a study of the needs of families coping with life-threatening allergies in a child. Due to the scarcity of publications on the psychosocial dimensions of anaphylaxis, the authors draw on selected literature on family coping with chronic illness, asthma, and allergy to provide a conceptual context for the research and discussion of findings. Using qualitative methodology, parents from 17 families were interviewed about their experiences adjusting to a diagnosis of anaphylaxis in a child. From participants' responses about the nature and sources of information and support, parenting dilemmas, family activities, anxieties, challenges, and coping strategies, the authors identify patterns in the adaptive processes related to predictable developmental and episodic events that increase anxiety and support needs. Social work clinicians and other family-serving professionals can help families maintain an optimal balance between protective and debilitating anxiety. Potential interventions in community and health settings are suggested. KEY WORDS: allergies; anaphylaxis; children; coping; families, The scarcity in medical, psychological, and social work literature on the needs of families living with anaphylaxis in a child demands attention. Anaphylactic shock has been characterized as 'an explosive [...]

In dealing with separating and divorced families where child support is not being paid, clinicians, lawyers, mediators and judges are often at a loss as to how they may intervene successfully. Although popular beliefs abound regarding motivation for non-payment, we still have a poor understanding of the ways in which fathers rationalize a position of partial or non-payment. The justifications given, both in literature and in clinical practice, often are not supported by other relevant data. The research undertaken in this exploratory qualitative study was designed to develop a phenomenological understanding of fathers' decisions not to pay obligatory child support following separation/divorce. It is hoped that such an understanding will aid practitioners in identifying contributing difficulties and in developing constructive interventions. Although a specific sub-group of non-compliant fathers are described in this report, thematic areas are identified which may be relevant to a broad range of fathers. In terms of expressed content these are: stated reasons for non-compliance, experiences and perceptions of the legal system, role and identity, and personal goals and political solutions. In addition, clinically relevant themes which emerged from the analysis are: compliance/co-operation, conflation of the legal system and the spouse, transformations in roles and identity, and the need to be heard/supported. Implications for professional practice are discussed.

Although the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is widely used to assess burnout in human service workers, doubt has been cast on the usefulness of the conceptualization on which it is based and the independence of its subscales. A confirmatory factor analysis using the methodology employed in a previous study of child welfare workers revealed that the final model had only a minimally adequate fit and the constructs of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were not separate and unique. The findings suggest that research in child welfare settings should avoid continued reliance on the MBI for the assessment of burnout. Scales that are balanced in terms of positive and negative items and where each dimension represents a distinct construct need to be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]