This timely study explores the experiences of fathers who take on equal or primary care responsibilities for young children. Offering academic insight and practical recommendations, this will be key reading for researchers, policymakers, practitioners and students interested in contemporary families.

A clinician faces a multitude of considerations when assessing a child patient. Foremost among these is that caring for the child entails caring for the family members involved with that child. The therapist must balance the competing needs and feelings of the child, parents, and family as a whole. By forming an alliance with all members of the family, the therapist is in a position to strengthen and enhance the ties between child, parents, and family during all phases of assessment and treatment, leading to a more effective therapeutic intervention. Paving the Way for Children's Success offers a model that will help clinicians achieve this alliance. The model presented in this book focuses on ways to integrate child assessment and treatment with that of their parents' and families' level of function. It uses the authors' unique concept of the Zones of Care to help clinicians assess this level of function. In turn, each of the four zones leads to a specific approach to treatment. The authors present how these treatment approaches to current internalizing and externalizing disorders in children and adolescents allow clinicians to integrate a wide variety of techniques to address most DSM-IV categories. Their approach stresses both symptom reduction and the cultivation of coping skills. It also integrates fiscal issues of treatment into the development of the alliance with the parents in resolving the presenting problem. Dr. Ziegler and Dr. Bush present the reader with practical, workable strategies for laying down strong diagnostic foundations for successful treatment, making Paving the Way for Children's Success a valuable resource for any clinician working with children and adolescents.

Originally published in 1987, Malcolm Hill examines the different ways in which parents share responsibility for looking after their pre-school children with other people, whether members of their social networks, formal groups or paid carers. He also looks at the reasons parents give for choosing and changing their particular arrangements. In this way he provides insights into a range of ideas which ordinary members of the public have about children’s needs; the rights and responsibilities of mothers and fathers; and how children think and feel. Marked differences are described in the social relationships of families and in notions about who is acceptable as a substitute carer for children, in what circumstances and for what purpose. Several of these contrasts are linked to attitudes and life-conditions which are affected by social class. The book identifies possible consequences for individual children’s social adaptability resulting from these patterns of care. It suggests that people working with the under-fives could profit from adapting their activities and services to children’s previous experiences of shared care and families’ differing expectations about groups for children.

This edited book draws from work that focuses on the act of telling family stories, as well as their content and structure. The process of telling family stories is linked to central aspects of development, including language acquisition, affect regulation, and family interaction patterns. This book extends across traditional developmental psychology, personality theory, and family studies. Drawing broadly on the epigenetic framework for individual development articulated by Erik Erikson, as well as on conceptions of the family life cycle, the editors bring together contemporary examples of psychological research on family stories and their implications for development and change at different points in the life course. The book is divided into sections that focus on family stories at different points in the life cycle, from early childhood and the beginnings of narrative skill, through adolescence, young adulthood, midlife, and then mature adulthood and its intergenerational meaning. During each of these periods of the life cycle, research focusing on individual development within an Eriksonian framework of ego strengths and virtues is highlighted. The dynamic role of family stories is also featured here, with work exploring the links between family process, intergenerational attachment, and storytelling. Sociocultural theories that emphasize how such development is situated in the wider cultural context are also featured in several chapters. This broad lifespan developmental focus serves to integrate the exciting diversity of this work and foster further questions and research in the emerging field of family narrative. The book is intended primarily for researchers and advanced-level students in the fields of developmental and personality psychology, as well as those in family studies and in gerontology. It may also be of interest to those in the helping professions who are concerned with family therapy and family issues, and may--due to its content and illustrative material--have appeal to a wider market of the lay public. The chapters are written in a readily accessible style and the analyses are presented in a fairly non-technical way. Because family stories are charted across the lifespan, it would be a suitable companion book to a more traditional lifespan textbook in certain courses.

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

Wow, life is changing fast! And there's so much for moms and girls to talk about. But how do girls ask the questions they need answers to, and what words can moms use to answer those questions? Here's the solution! This kit includes twin books, one for girls and one for moms, filled with dozens of how-to-say-it scripts to get the conversations going. These scripts give girls the words to talk about all the big topics from body basics, hygiene, and healthy habits to friends, first-love crushes, clothing, and more. And mom's book gives her the actual words to respond to her girl's questions, as well as scripts to initiate important conversations with her daughter. Plus, a sharing journal lets both moms and girls jot down everything from jokes, memories, and must-remember moments to thoughts, questions, and even to-dos. Two bookmarks are included to guide each other to the latest entry or point out something they don't want the other to miss. The journal becomes a great keepsake, and the books will be a hand-me-down resource to treasure.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

A textbook that combines economic concepts with empirical evidence to explain in economic terms how health care institutions and markets function. This book introduces students to the growing research field of health economics. Rather than offer details about health systems around the world without providing a theoretical context, Health Economics combines economic concepts with empirical evidence to enhance readers' economic understanding of how health care institutions and markets function. It views the subject in both microeconomic and macroeconomic terms, moving from the individual and firm level to the market level to a macroeconomic view of the role of health and health care within the economy as a whole. The book includes discussion of recent empirical evidence on the U.S. health system and can be used for an undergraduate course on U.S. health economics. It also contains sufficient material for an undergraduate or masters course on global health economics, or for a course on health economics aimed at health professionals. It includes a chapter on nurses as well as a chapter on the economics of hospitals and pharmaceuticals, which can be used in master's courses for students in these fields. It supplements its analysis with readings (both classic and current), extensive references, links to Web sites on policy developments and public programs, review and discussion questions, and exercises. Downloadable supplementary material for instructors, including solutions to the exercise sets, sample syllabuses, and more than 600 slides that can be used for class presentations, is available at http://mitpress.mit.edu/health_economics. A student solutions manual with answers to the odd-numbered exercises is also available.