Call for Papers
NOFSW Annual Conference
Deadline: October 21, 2012
The National Organization of Forensic Social Work (NOFSW) believes forensic practice best serves clients when it functions from an interdisciplinary perspective. NOFSW conferences offer a unique opportunity for social workers and allied professionals to learn from one another while enhancing their knowledge and understanding of the interconnectedness of the law, policy, and practice. Attendees include social workers, psychologists, attorneys, judges, law enforcement, physicians, nurses, child custody evaluators, and various other mental health, medical and legal professionals. Presentations from national and international speakers will include topics on criminal justice, specialty courts, juvenile justice, family violence (offenders & victims), child welfare, mitigation in capital cases, restorative justice, family and community mediation, mental health treatment in forensic settings, substance abuse treatment, as well as legal and ethical concerns related to work with forensic populations, and risk management for service providers. Click here for information on submitting papers.

 

Call for Proposals
National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS
Deadline: December 10, 2012
Boston College Graduate School of Social Work is accepting proposals for conference presentations for its 25th Annual National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS, to be held in Chicago during May 23-26, 2013. The theme is, "Re-thinking HIV/AIDS: What's Ahead for Social Work?". Contact Vincent Lynch, Ph.D., Conference Founder and Chair, at lynchv@bc.edu for more information. Click here for the latest flier. 

On Monday, October 1, 2012, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is presenting four webcast sessions designed to provide an orientation to our data services from understanding what our research data archive holds to how to use our data tools.  We'll explore the recently refreshed website, bring data into the classroom, and provide an overview our data management/curation (deposit) services.  And for those of you who need to promote ICPSR and train on data use across your campus, we've assembled a virtual panel that will provide lots of tips and welcome your questions. 

October 2, 2012
-11-11:50 a.m.: The American National Election Studies: An Introduction
ICPSR holds data from the American National Election Studies (ANES), the groundbreaking study of Americans' voting behavior, dating back to 1948. This session, led by David Thomas, archive manager with ICPSR's Resource Center for Minority Data, will explain what the survey measures, how it is conducted, and how the data are managed.
-12-12:50 p.m.: The American National Election Study: Finding Hidden Treasure
Libbie Stephenson, ICPSR's Official Representative from the University of California at Los Angeles, will provide tips on using the ANES Web site and ICPSR's ANES information effectively. She will demonstrate the unique features of each site, including the variety of easily accessible tables and time series information available at the click of a mouse and the search capabilities on both sites. ICPSR Assistant Director Mary Vardigan will also briefly describe a newly funded partnership between ICPSR and ANES to provide metadata markup so that information in all files is easier to find and use.
October 3, 2012
-11-11:50 a.m.: Elections, Polling, and Politics .... Oh, My!
ICPSR's holdings in election and polling data are deep and wide. David Thomas of the Resource Center for Minority Data at ICPSR and Peter Granda, director of ICPSR's General Archive, will be joined by Lois Timms-Ferrara, Associate Director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut to highlight the election and political polling studies available for secondary analysis and review. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn and explore the vast holdings of these two friendly competitor archives. 

Click here for complete details.

The SSWR Annual Conference offers a scientific program that reflects a broad range of research interests, from workshops on the latest quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to symposia featuring studies in child welfare, aging, mental health, welfare reform, substance abuse, and HIV/AIDS. Over 500 symposia, workshop, roundtable, paper and poster presentations. Research methods workshops designed to enhance methods expertise and grant-writing skills and special sessions on research priorities and capacity building that target cutting-edge topics vital to contemporary social work research. Register for the conference here. 

 

PCORI to Host Workshops to Involve Stakeholders in Research Process
(From the ASPH Friday Letter)
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) recently announced three workshops it will host from October through December of this year to engage providers, patients, researchers, and other stakeholders in amending its National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda. Once PCORI obtains input from workshop participants, the feedback will be used to select research topics that progress the organization's overall goal of improving patient-centered research, which will direct specific funding opportunities that correlate to PCORI's Funding Announcements and reflect its following five critical research areas, as outlined in its National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda: Assessment of Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment Options; Improving Healthcare Systems; Communication and Dissemination Research; Addressing Disparities; and Accelerating Patient-Centered Outcomes Research and Methodological Research. All three workshops will take place in Washington, DC:
(October 27-28) Transforming Patient-Centered Research: Building Partnerships and Promising Models
(December 4) What Should PCORI Study? A Call for Topics from Patients and Stakeholders
(December 5) PCORI Research Prioritization Methods Workshop
For additional information about each workshop, click here. 

Nutrition and Cognitive Achievement: An Evaluation of the School Breakfast Program
David E. Frisvold
(From the Institute for Research on Poverty)
This paper investigates the impact of the School Breakfast Program (SBP) on cognitive achievement. The SBP is a federal entitlement program that offers breakfast to any student, including free breakfast for any low-income student, who attends a school that participates in the program. To increase the availability of the SBP, many states mandate that schools participate in the program if the percent of free or reduced-price eligible students in a school exceeds a specific threshold. Using the details of these mandates as a source of identifying variation, I find that the availability of the program increases student achievement. Click here for the full report.

ACF Recently Released Reports
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) recently released a few reports.
-Cross-site Evaluation of Project LAUNCH: Evaluation Design
OPRE released a new report from the Project LAUNCH (Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children's Health) Cross-site Evaluation, which is being conducted by Abt Associates. The report presents the research design for the Cross-site Evaluation.
-The Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation - Final Implementation Results
OPRE released a new report: "The Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation: Final Implementation Results." This is the final report documenting the implementation by eight organizations of the yearlong, multi-component Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) program model of marriage and relationship education services. 
-NSCAW Research Brief: Instability and Early Life Changes among Children in the Child Welfare System
OPRE released a research brief in a series based on data from NSCAW, a nationally representative, longitudinal survey focusing on children who come to the attention of the child welfare system through investigation by child protective services. The survey is being conducted through a contract to RTI. The brief describes the placement histories and changes in living situations of infants who come to the attention of Child Protective Services.
Click here to read more. 

HIV In Prisons, 2001-2010
Laura M. Maruschak
(From the Bureau of Justice Statistics)
Presents national trends in the rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and AIDS-related death rates among state and federal prison inmates from 2001 to 2010. The bulletin also presents annual statistics on HIV/AIDS for state and federal inmates by jurisdiction from 2008 to 2010. The number of cases is reported for males and females and distinguishes between inmates who tested positive for HIV and inmates with confirmed AIDS. Tables present the numbers and demographic characteristics of inmates who died from AIDS-related causes between 2008 and 2010. The report also compares AIDS-related death rates in the general U.S. population ages 15 to 54 with AIDS-related death rates in prison populations in that age group. Click here to read the full report. 

Statistical Briefing Book Updated
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has updated its Statistical Briefing Book (SBB) to include 2011 data on juvenile populations, 2010 data on victims of domestic violence, and FBI supplementary homicide reports through 2010. The SBB offers access to a host of juvenile justice data and information. Click here to read more. 

ICPSR Data Additions
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for a diverse and expanding social science research community. Below is a list of new data collection additions to the ICPSR data archive:
-28367 Alaska Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Data, 1996-2006
-31141 Charging and Sentencing Decisions Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Three District Study, 1998-2000
-32452 Surveys of Consumers, November 2003
-32453 Surveys of Consumers, December 2003
-32621 Maryland Cooperative Agreement: The Effect of Subsidy Programs on School Readiness
Click here to read more. 

Child Welfare Information Gateway Library
Below is a list of new publications that were added to Child Welfare Information Gateway Library in August:
-Case Study: Indiana Child Welfare: Improving Practice to Improve Outcomes
-Examining Child Abuse Fatalities to Improve Child Protection
-A Toolkit for Hosting a Community Cafe Series: On Choosing Respect and Ending Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Sexual Abuse
-Behavioral Health and Out-of-Home Care
-The Devil is in the Details: Pennsylvania's Definition of Child Abuse Perpetrator, Author(s): St. Vincent, Stephen.
Click here to read more. 

NHGIS Comments & Publications
The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) needs your help! Later this month we will apply to the National Institutes of Health for the renewal of the main grant funding the NHGIS project. We have two quick and easy ways for you to help us improve the NHGIS and support this grant proposal:
1. We are seeking your suggestions and input as we identify and prioritize improvements for NHGIS over the coming five years. Please take five minutes to complete this short survey.
2. We also need your help to update our bibliography. If you have published an article or presented a paper using NHGIS data, we need to know about it. We are also interested in forthcoming publications, dissertations (completed and in progress), research reports, fact sheets, and newspaper stories. Visit our bibliography here to check for your entries; if something is missing or if you find errors, you can enter the citation online or just email the information to nhgis@umn.edu. We would appreciate if you can make any additions or corrections to our bibliography as soon as possible. We would also love to hear about classroom use of NHGIS, so if you have used the data in a course please let us know by emailing nhgis@umn.edu. Please forward this message to any NHGIS users who may not be registered for our data extraction system; this is especially important for people at research centers who may obtain the data indirectly.

 

Terra Populus: Integrated Data on Population and Environment
We are pleased to announce a preview of the TerraPop data extract system, and would like to request your feedback. We have prepared a short (10 min.) screencast that walks through the process of defining a customized dataset in the TerraPop system, from variable and metadata browsing and selection, through output format selection, to setting options for transforming across data formats. The screencast is available on our website. If you have any comments or suggestions, please take a moment to let us know by sending a message to terrapop@umn.edu.