This handbook is a "how-to" guide to help parents get the child support payments their children need and deserve. The handbook is written in a question and answer format. Chapter 1 provides information on child support enforcement problems, how parents can get help, and the basic fees and steps in getting child support. Chapter 2…

These three newsletter issues, published by the Children's Rights Council (CRC), are concerned with the healthy development of children of divorced and separated parents. Feature articles in issue number 1 of this volume are: (1) "Commission to Focus on Custody/Access"; and (2) "Congress to Move on Welfare Reform." Feature articles in issue number…

The goal of this book is to help counselors move from a respectful but hesitant neutrality to a skilled, and action-oriented sensitivity toward their clients' spirituality. The primary audience is professional counselors and psychotherapists, social workers, counselor and therapist educators, and counselors-in-training in college programs. The…

The U.S. Young Child Poverty Rate (YCPR) is at least one-third higher and usually two to three times as high as the YCPR in any of 12 other Western industrialized nations. This report highlights key facts regarding the six million young children living in poverty in the United States and the millions more living in near poverty, and it provides…

The coping responses of 251 Australian high school students involved in outdoor education programs were examined using a modified version of the Adolescent Coping Scale (ACS). Coping includes all strategies, whether cognitive, emotional, or physical, that a person uses to negotiate a stable balance between the internal psychological state and…

Education is key to helping people make informed, healthy choices. Children must be healthy in order to learn. Each year approximately 2.5 million children and adolescents are victims of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or neglect. A similar number of teens become infected with sexually transmitted diseases. To combat these and other…

Women can benefit from sports activities across the entire continuum from play to professional. Women have been catapulted into serious sports training and have been able to contend for more sports opportunities due to the evolution of clothing reforms, more acceptable sports, the right to vote, and the right to control pregnancy. Women have…

This report provides a composite look at public schools in the first 111 communities that conducted the 152-item survey titled "Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors" through the RespecTeen program. Chapter 1 presents a vision of what is wanted for children, then attempts to evaluate how well this vision is being met.…

Numerous studies have established a relation between negative life events and psychological and physical health, however, these studies have focused on the consequences of life stress of psychological and physical functioning. The possibility that individuals may experience negative life events due to preexisting emotional dysfunctioning is…

Ways to promote healthy child development are addressed in this essay. The following conditions conducive to identified: (1) an intact, cohesive, nuclear family; (2) a relationship with at least one parent or surrogate who is consistently loving and nurturing; (3) easy access to supportive family members; (4) a supportive community (neighborhood,…

This paper describes the content, techniques, and benefits of a life history course, which was designed to extend the traditional goal of psychological development through autobiography into a spiritual context. The three major components of the course are described. The format of the lectures is presented, focusing on concepts, ideas, and tools…

Much of the literature on widowhood has focused on coping and adjustment following the death of a spouse; only recently have social/psychological relationships among the widowed become the subject of investigation. To examine the activity patterns and well-being of elderly widows living in a Florida retirement community, 48 widows were contrasted…

The causes of stress for college senior-level administrators and their coping approaches were studied, based on discussions with 60 administrators from 44 institutions in the United States and England. Four sources of stress were identified: stress from the general environment, stress from job-related but external sources, stress from internal…

Self-report research has inconclusively linked complaints of poor memory functioning, memory performance, and intellectual ability with depression in older adults. In order to investigate more conclusively the correlation between these variables as well as to investigate the effect of age differences, 159 older adults (49 young-old, aged 55-70; 60…

Although social networks play an important role in supporting families under stress, there is some evidence that families living a stressful dual career life style may have limited network resources. To describe support networks of dual career couples and to examine the relationship between the supportiveness of the network and satisfaction with…