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This study investigates the relationship between stressors that are part of law enforcement job responsibilities or associated with police work and the relationships of law enforcement officers. This study uses a standardized testing instrument for relationships, the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI-R) (Snyder, 1997) and a qualitative tool developed by the researcher, the Law Enforcement-Based Family Survey (LEBFS). The MSI-R is a self-report measure that identifies for each partner the nature and the extent of the distress along key dimensions of the relationship. The LEBFS examines themes among law enforcement officers and is used as an exploratory measure. Participants for the study were chosen based on their active duty status and personal relationships, utilizing a sampling procedure. The Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles, California, employed the law enforcement officers for this study, and participation was voluntary and confidential.

Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children’s brain and neurophysiologic functioning, which leads to a wide range of deleterious health, developmental, and mental health outcomes. Given the benefits of early care and education (ECE) for African American young children, ECE may represent a compensating experience for this group of children, and promote their positive development.

The PMI Risk Framework (PRF) is introduced as a guide to classifying and identifying risks which can be the source of post-merger integration (PMI) failure — commonly referred to as “culture clash.” To provide managers with actionably insight, PRF dissects PMI risk into specific relationship-oriented phenomena, critical to outcomes and which should be addressed during PMI. This framework is a conceptual and theory-grounded integration of numerous perspectives, such as organizational psychology, group dynamics, social networks, transformational change, and nonlinear dynamics. These concepts are unified and can be acted upon by integration managers. Literary resources for further exploration into the underlying aspects of the framework are provided. The PRF places emphasis on critical facets of PMI, particularly those which are relational in nature, pose an exceptionally high degree of risk, and are recurrent sources of PMI failure. The chapter delves into relationship-oriented points of failure that managers face when overseeing PMI by introducing a relationship-based, PMI risk framework. Managers are often not fully cognizant of these risks, thus fail to manage them judiciously. These risks do not naturally abide by common scholarly classifications and cross disciplinary boundaries; they do not go unrecognized by scholars, but until the introduction of PRF the risks have not been assimilated into a unifying framework. This chapter presents a model of PMI risk by differentiating and specifying numerous types of underlying human-relationship-oriented risks, rather than considering PMI cultural conflict as a monolithic construct.

Behavior problems are common in toddlers and preschoolers. Richman, Stevenson, and Graham (1975) identified difficulties with eating, sleeping, toileting, temper, fears, peer relations, and activity as typical in this young population. While all young children should be expected to experience behavior problems as part of their normal development, an ongoing challenge in the field has been to determine when these “normal” developmental problems rise to the level of being considered “clinical” behavior problems (Keenan & Wakschlag, 2000). For example, when does a two-year-old child's tantrum behavior, a three-year-old's urinary accidents, and a four-year-old's defiance become clinically significant? To answer these questions, clinicians must examine the frequency, intensity, and durability of these difficulties, their potential to cause injury to the child or others, the extent to which they interfere with the child development, and the degree to which they disrupt the lives of their siblings, caregivers, peers, teachers, and others.

Over 2 million individuals are incarcerated in the US criminal justice system. More than half of incarcerated Americans are also parents of minors. Parental incarceration can lead to a higher risk of mental illness and enduring trauma in children, as well as other problematic cognitive, developmental, and educational outcomes. Examining parental incarceration through a racial equity lens is critical, as people of color make up 67% of the incarcerated population despite making up only 37% of the US population. Further, gender-related equity issues pose important challenges for families with incarcerated parents. Here, we discuss prison-based psychosocial interventions designed both to build parenting skills and to improve parent well-being within a racial and gender equity lens. We hypothesize that effective services in these areas are essential components in a broad strategy designed to mitigate the potential negative effects suffered by families and children of incarcerated parents of color as a result of their imprisonment.

This chapter reports the results of a 20-year longitudinal study of how American unions have adapted their internal administrative practices to meet the significant external challenges they face. In previous scholarly work, researchers have reported that the administrative practices of American unions were far more informal, ad hoc, and political than those of business, government, and other nonprofit organizations. The authors’ 2010 survey asked US-based national and international unions to provide data concerning their internal administrative practices. The results were compared with findings from similar surveys conducted in 1990 and 2000. The results of these surveys indicate a steady increase in unions’ adoption of more formal personnel policies, budget practices, strategic planning processes, and efforts to evaluate planned activities over the 20-year period studied. They also indicate that unions increasingly recruit individuals meeting college, technical, and professional qualifications. Taken together, the results suggest a recognition on the part of many unions that adapting their internal administrative practices to the new realities they face is a fundamental and a necessary part of any effort at organizational renewal.

Much of the discussion surrounding the antivaccine movement focuses on the decision of parents to not vaccinate their children and the resulting danger posed to others. However, the primary risk is borne by the child left unvaccinated. Although living in a developed country with high vaccination rates provides a certain amount of protection through population immunity, the unvaccinated child is still exposed to a considerably greater risk of preventable diseases than one who is vaccinated. I explore the tension between parental choice and the child’s right to be free of preventable diseases. The chapter’s goal is twofold: to advocate for moving from a dyadic framework – considering the interests of the parents against those of the state – to a triadic one, in which the interests of the child are given as much weight as those of the parent and the state; and to discuss which protections are available, and how they can be improved. Specific legal tools available to protect that child are examined, including tort liability of the parents to the child, whether and to what degree criminal law has a role, under what circumstances parental choice should be overridden, and the role of school immunization requirements in protecting the individual child.