Call for Papers
Child & Youth Services
Deadline: open
For the coming two volumes (Volume 33, 2012 and Volume 34, 2013), we are planning several special issues to account for new developments, geographic gaps, and radical thinking in the child and youth serving fields around the world. Specifically, we are currently contemplating four special issues within the next two volumes of the journal. The themes to be addressed are the following:
-Child and youth care practice in South Africa: From residential care to national development
-Entrepreneurial trends in child and youth services: The role of private sector initiatives in supporting vulnerable children, youth, and families
-Learning from our elders: Lessons learned and advice given by the generation of scholars and practitioners about to retire
-Professional associations for child and youth workers: Prospects and challenges around the world

Click here for more information.

ICPSR's Social Sciences Data Fair
October 1-3, 2012
You're invited to participate in the 2012 Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Data Fair, "Analyzing Election Data with ICPSR"! Scheduled for October 1-3, the series of webcasts will focus on orienting new users to ICPSR's data and services, as well as providing an overview of the election data available from ICPSR and other data repositories. Click here for complete details.

International Bullying Prevention Association Conference
November 5-6, 2012
Kansas City, MO
The International Bullying Prevention Association's annual conference provides excellent learning and professional development opportunities for those involved in bullying prevention. This year's theme is "The Courage to Act: Working Together to End Bullying." Many of the workshops presented in breakout sessions offer current evidence-supported best practices, practical techniques for use in the classroom and school grounds, the latest research, and an opportunity to network with your colleagues from all over the United States and around the world. Click here for more information. 

 

25th Annual National Conference on Social Work & HIV/AIDS
Mary 23-26, 2013
Chicago, IL
Boston College Graduate School of Social Work will conduct the 25th Annual National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS during May 23-26, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. The theme of the conference will be "Entering a New Phase of the Epidemic: New Treatments, Options, and Challenges." We expect over 500 HIV social workers from across the country and several nations to be present and will offer over 100 presentations in various conference formats. These include posters, individual workshops, and also informal reports from the field. We also will offer once again the very popular 15-hour medical case management institute, developed and taught by colleagues from Diverse Management Solutions in Denver, Colorado. Three plenary sessions will also be given by distinguished invited speakers who will address various aspects of the 2013 theme. Several "meet and greet" events and receptions will be held for networking with colleagues. The Professional Association of Social Workers in HIV/AIDS will have a strong presence at the conference and will host many events. The conference will award 24.0 social work CEUs (continuing education units). The 2013 HIV/AIDS Conference Brochure and Registration will be available in October 2012. Contact the conference chair, Dr. Vincent Lynch, at vincent.lynch.1@bc.edu if you have questions or wish to be added to the mailing list. Click here for more information. 

Reducing existing disparities within the American health care system is a key Federal priority. One factor that can impact the types of services offered is population density. In fact, it is known that the urbanization level of a community can impact both the types of services offered and the use of services received, particularly in the area of substance abuse treatment. Examining substance abuse treatment admissions in the most urban and most rural areas may help inform prevention, intervention, and expanded treatment efforts for urban and rural communities. For example, it has been demonstrated that urban drug abusers are more likely to use cocaine and heroin, while rural drug abusers report more alcohol, opiate pain reliever, and stimulant use. An enhanced understanding of these types of differences may enable policymakers and treatment providers to direct limited resources more effectively and increase the quality of care received in different geographic contexts. The Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) can be used to explore characteristics of rural and urban admissions at substance abuse treatment entry. In this report, admissions receiving treatment at facilities located in the most rural areas (nonmetropolitan areas without a city, hereafter referred to as "rural") are compared with admissions receiving treatment at facilities located in the most urban areas (large central metropolitan areas, hereafter referred to as "urban"). Click here to read the full report. 

Best Care at Lower Cost: The Path to Continuously Learning Health Care in America
(From the Institute of Medicine)
America's health care system has become too complex and costly to continue business as usual. Best Care at Lower Cost explains that inefficiencies, an overwhelming amount of data, and other economic and quality barriers hinder progress in improving health and threaten the nation's economic stability and global competitiveness. According to this report, the knowledge and tools exist to put the health system on the right course to achieve continuous improvement and better quality care at a lower cost. Click here to read more.

Characteristics and Influential Factors of Food Deserts
by Paula Dutko, Michele Ver Ploeg, and Tracey Farrigan
USDA's Economic Research Service previously identified more than 6,500 food desert tracts in the United States based on 2000 Census and 2006 data on locations of supermarkets, supercenters, and large grocery stores. In this report, we examine the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of these tracts to see how they differ from other census tracts and the extent to which these differences influence food desert status. Relative to all other census tracts, food desert tracts tend to have smaller populations, higher rates of abandoned or vacant homes, and residents who have lower levels of education, lower incomes, and higher unemployment. Census tracts with higher poverty rates are more likely to be food deserts than otherwise similar low-income census tracts in rural and in very dense (highly populated) urban areas. For less dense urban areas, census tracts with higher concentrations of minority populations are more likely to be food deserts, while tracts with substantial decreases in minority populations between 1990 and 2000 were less likely to be identified as food deserts in 2000. Click here to read the full report. 

Tracking Performance of the Nation's Health Care System
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the launch of a new web-based tool that will make it easier for all Americans to monitor and measure how the nation's health care system is performing. The web-based tool, known as the Health System Measurement Project, will allow policymakers, providers, and the public to develop consistent data-driven views of changes in critical U.S. health system indicators. The Health System Measurement Project brings together datasets from across the federal government such as access to care, cost and affordability, prevention and health information technology. It presents these indicators by population characteristics, such as age, gender, income level, insurance coverage, and geography. Using the Measurement Project, one can quickly view data, compare trends across measures and compare national trends with those at the state and regional level. For example, an individual could use the Measurement Project to monitor the percentage of people who have a specific source of ongoing medical care or track avoidable hospitalizations for adults and children by region or ethnic group. Click here to access the Health System Measurement Project. 

Institute for Research on Poverty Podcasts
The Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) announces a new series of podcasts, hosted by David Chancellor. The following is a list of currently available topics:
-Spatial measurement of child poverty in the United States, Katherine Curtis
-Food security trends and an introduction to the Wisconsin Food Security Project, Judith Bartfeld
-Income volatility trends in the United States and their potential impact on the poor, Bradley Hardy
-Can behavioral economics contribute to poverty research? Justin Sydnor (June 2012)
-Measuring unmet food need in San Francisco and Marin County, Christopher Wimer
Click here to listen to the podcasts and find more information about IRP.