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BackgroundSchool safety has been a major public health issue in the United States and internationally for more than three decades. Many policies and programs have been developed and implemented to prevent school violence, improve the school climate, and increase safety. There are only a few peer-reviewed studies of changes in school violence over time. The study examined changes over time in school victimization, weapon involvement and school climate, comparing change trajectories by gender and race and different change trajectories among schools.MethodsA longitudinal study of the biennial California Healthy Kids Survey in secondary schools from 2001 to 2019. The representative sample included 6,219,166 students in grades 7, 9, and 11 (48.8% male) from 3253 schools (66% high schools).ResultsAll victimization and weapon involvement items had significant and substantial linear reductions. The largest reduction involved being in a physical fight (from 25.4% to 11.0%). There were reductions in weapon involvement (d = 0.46) and victimization (d = 0.38). Biased-based victimization only declined slightly (d = -0.05). School belongingness and safety increased (d = 0.27), adult support increased a small amount (d = 0.05), and student participation declined (d = -0.10). Changes were smallest among White students. Ninety-five percent of the schools showed the same pattern of reductions.ConclusionsThe findings are in contrast to the public's concerns that school violence is a growing problem. Reductions in school violence may result from social investment in school safety. A distinction should be made between school shootings and other forms of school violence.

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Objective: This study aimed to describe distinct trajectories of anxiety/depression symptoms and overall health status/quality of life over a period of 18 months following a breast cancer diagnosis, and identify the medical, socio‐demographic, lifestyle, and psychological factors that predict these trajectories. Methods: 474 females (mean age = 55.79 years) were enrolled in the first weeks after surgery or biopsy. Data from seven assessment points over 18 months, at 3‐month intervals, were used. The two outcomes were assessed at all points. Potential predictors were assessed at baseline and the first follow‐up. Machine‐Learning techniques were used to detect latent patterns of change and identify the most important predictors. Results: Five trajectories were identified for each outcome: stably high, high with fluctuations, recovery, deteriorating/delayed response, and stably poor well‐being (chronic distress). Psychological factors (i.e., negative affect, coping, sense of control, social support), age, and a few medical variables (e.g., symptoms, immune‐related inflammation) predicted patients' participation in the delayed response and the chronic distress trajectories versus all other trajectories. Conclusions: There is a strong possibility that resilience does not always reflect a stable response pattern, as there might be some interim fluctuations. The use of machine‐learning techniques provides a unique opportunity for the identification of illness trajectories and a shortlist of major bio/behavioral predictors. This will facilitate the development of early interventions to prevent a significant deterioration in patient well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explores the causal link between school climate, school violence, and a school's general academic performance over time using a school-level, cross-lagged panel autoregressive modeling design. We hypothesized that reductions in school violence and climate improvement would lead to schools' overall improved academic performance. School-level secondary analysis of the California Healthy Kids Survey was conducted at three points in time. Findings offer credible evidence that a school's overall improvement in academic performance is a central causal factor in reducing violence and enhancing a school's climate. In the discussion, we suggest that when strong efforts to improve academics are taken, schools may tend to include issues of climate and victimization as part of those academic reform efforts.

This study examined mechanisms of strain crossover within couples and the moderating role of gender. Data were collected at a time of military downsizing from a sample of 1,250 Russian army officers and their spouses. The authors tested a model that incorporated 3 mechanisms for the crossover of marital dissatisfaction among dual-earner couples. The model provided support for 2 suggested crossover mechanisms: direct reactions of crossover and indirect mediated effects through social undermining. Strong evidence was also provided for gender asymmetry in the crossover process. Marital dissatisfaction crossed over from husbands to wives but not vice versa, and social undermining behavior played a role in the process of crossover of marital dissatisfaction for husbands but not for wives.

This study examined the associations between social workers' professional identity and the quality of their work, as reflected by their perceived job performance and sense of personal accomplishment. Based on literature attesting to the contribution of the working alliance between social workers and their service‐users to the attainment of interventions' goals, a model in which the working alliance mediated the associations between social workers' professional identity and the quality of their work was also tested. The study's sample consisted of 570 social workers in Israel, from a wide range of professional and organisational backgrounds. The study was cross‐sectional, and data were gathered using an online questionnaire. Its results demonstrate direct effects of social workers' professional identity on the quality of their work. At the same time, social workers' working alliance with service‐users acted as a mediator in the association between certain aspects of workers' professional identity and the quality of their work. These findings reassert and broaden understandings regarding the crucial role of relationships with service‐users in the discussion of social work professional identity and its outcomes. The specific associations found also offer sustenance to the idea that autonomous social workers, who are committed to their profession, manage to generate stronger working alliances with their service‐users; which in turn makes them better at what they do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we report findings pertaining to connections between social workers' exposure to daily stressors, the work benefits they receive, their levels of burnout and their well-being. We examined (i) the associations between social workers' perceived exposure to daily stressors and their well-being; (ii) the mediating effect of burnout on these associations; and (iii) the moderating effect of extrinsic and intrinsic work benefits on the relationships between perceived exposure to daily stressors and burnout. Participants were 486 social workers, working in various organisations and with diverse populations in Israel. Of the various findings, two are of particular interest. One is that workers' depersonalisation of their clients mediated the relationship between the workers' exposure to daily stressors and their psychological distress. The other is that neither intrinsic nor extrinsic work benefits weakened the association between workers' exposure to daily stressors and their burnout, in terms of personal accomplishment. On the contrary, high benefits of either kind strengthened this association. These unexpected findings are discussed within the frameworks of relationships between service users and service providers and of Wilensky's compensatory theory. While this study was based in Israel, its conclusions bear relevance to social workers in other countries as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]