Caseload Characteristics Research Articles

Wellness, Professional Quality of Life, and Career‐Sustaining Behaviors: What Keeps Us Well?

A sample of 506 professional counselors who were members of the American Counseling Association completed measures of professional quality of life, career‐sustaining behaviors (CSBs), and wellness. Significant differences were found both within the sample based on caseload characteristics and between the participants and available norm groups. Counselors with high wellness scores engaged in more CSBs and reported higher positive professional quality of life factors (compassion satisfaction). Implications for counselors, counselor training, and research are discussed.

Enhancing Phonological Patterns of Young Children With Highly Unintelligible Speech

Enhancing Phonological Patterns of Young Children With Highly Unintelligible Speech

Economic Grand Rounds: Types of Practitioners and Outpatient Visits in a Private Managed Behavioral Health Plan

Economic Grand Rounds: Types of Practitioners and Outpatient Visits in a Private Managed Behavioral Health Plan

An Exploration of School Counselors' Demands and Resources: Relationship to Stress, Biographic, and Caseload Characteristics

The study in this article examined the relationship of school counselors' reports of demands and resources in their work environment to perceived stress, biographic factors, and caseload characteristics. Participants were 227 school counselors in Texas. Paperwork requirements and size of caseload were rated the most demanding aspects of their job, and other counselors were rated as the most helpful resource by participants. The perceived equality or inequality of work demands and resources also was assessed. School counselors classified in the higher-demand group reported having higher perceived stress, being less likely to remain in the profession the next year, and having higher caseload percentages of students with disabilities, lower academic performance, and poor attendance.

An Exploration of School Counselors’ Demands and Resources: Relationship to Stress, Biographic, and Caseload Characteristics

The study in this article examined the relationship of school counselors’ reports of demands and resources in their work environment to perceived stress, biographic factors, and caseload characteristics. Participants were 227 school counselors in Texas. Paperwork requirements and size of caseload were rated the most demanding aspects of their job, and other counselors were rated as the most helpful resource by participants. The perceived equality or inequality of work demands and resources also was assessed. School counselors classified in the higher-demand group reported having higher perceived stress, being less likely to remain in the profession the next year, and having higher caseload percentages of students with disabilities, lower academic performance, and poor attendance.

Welfare Program Performance

Public agencies are increasingly expected to track their performance according to established criteria—to be held accountable for the expenditure of public funds and show that funds are being used to achieve intended outcomes. This analysis of South Carolina’s Family Independence welfare program examines counties’ performance on five employment-related outcomes: employment rate, employment entry rate, employment retention rate, earnings gain rate, and earned income closure rate. Counties’ performance is statistically analyzed, adjusting for variation in external factors (e.g., labor market conditions and caseload characteristics) that influence program performance but that are outside the control of county program staff. This analysis shows that external factors influence employment-related performance, suggesting that states may want to vary counties’ goals based on external factors, rather than expecting all counties to meet the same performance level. This analysis provides an example of how agencies can apply statistical analysis to measure, track, and analyze program performance.

PEOPLE AND PLACES: WELFARE REFORM AND THE SEPARATE EFFECT OF CASELOAD CHARACTERISTICS AND LOCAL CONDITIONS

ABSTRACT The shift from hardship alleviation policies to behavior-focused policies in cash assistance highlight competing theoretical approaches to poverty: those focused on individuals' characteristics and those focused on structural factors lying beyond the control of the individual. This research bridges these approaches by examining the question, do local conditions have a separate and independent effect from cash assistance caseload characteristics on affecting caseload declines? The results indicate a separate and independent effect of both local conditions and caseload characteristics in explaining caseload declines suggesting that caseload reductions and the economic sustainability of recipients are affected by individual characteristics, but also by where recipients live.

Availability of Integrated Care for Co-occurring Substance Abuse and Psychiatric Conditions

The co-occurrence of psychiatric conditions and substance abuse presents significant challenges for behavioral healthcare providers. The need for integrated care has received substantial recent attention from clinical, research, and funding entities. However, the availability of integrated care has been low, carrying potential adverse implications for quality of care and treatment outcomes. This article describes the prevalence and key correlates of the availability of integrated care for co-occurring conditions within public and private-sector addiction treatment programs. Several organizational attributes, caseload characteristics, and service provision patterns were associated with the availability of integrated care.

When Welfare-to-Work Programs Seem to Work Well: Explaining Why Riverside and Portland Shine So Brightly

Of welfare-to-work programs evaluated by random assignment, two stand out as having exceptionally large estimated effects: one in Riverside, California, and the other in Portland, Oregon. The authors use data from 24 evaluations and the tools of meta-analysis to examine why. The findings indicate that the apparently superior performance of these two programs in increasing the earnings of participants is only partly attributable to program design (for example, the type of services provided, the use of sanctions, and the quality of program administration). Differences in caseload characteristics and site characteristics are probably more important. However, Riverside and Portland's relatively large effects in reducing the percentage of participants on the AFDC rolls appear mainly attributable to the design of the programs run in these sites.

Which Substance and What Community? Differences in Juvenile Disposition Severity

There is a need in the literature for research describing disposition severity differences between specific drug and alcohol law violations within the context of community characteristics. We conducted an exploratory study of prosecutor-reported juvenile disposition severity by both specific drug charge and community context using a national sample of prosecutors from communities surrounding schools participating in the nationally representative Monitoring the Future survey. Results indicated (a) strong within- and between-substance disposition severity variance as well as (b) evidence for differential effects of both prosecutor case load and community characteristics, including community income, ethnicity, and region.

Children with speech and language disability: caseload characteristics.

There has been no previous incidence survey of children referred to a speech and language therapy service in the UK. Previous studies of prevalence of specific communication difficulties provide contradictory data from which it is difficult to plan speech and language therapy service provision. Reliable data are needed concerning the nature and severity of impairments as well as the age and source of referral and the effects of cultural and socio-economic profiles of the population served. To describe referrals received between January 1999 and April 2000 by the paediatric speech and language therapy service of Middlesborough Primary Care Trust, an area of social deprivation. All referrals were offered an initial assessment appointment within 8 weeks of referral. Standardized tests and quantitative measures of communication difficulties, determined by age, were undertaken. Population and case history information was also gathered. The incidence rate of referrals who attended for assessment in a single year was calculated as 16.3% for primary communication disability and 14.6% for speech/language disability. Of the 1100 referrals, 14.9% failed to attend and 9.8% had normal functioning. The distribution of disorder type was dysfluency 5.3%, voice or nasality disruption 2.0%; receptive language difficulties 20.4%, expressive language difficulties 16.9% and speech difficulties 29.1%. A further 0.7% had special educational needs and 0.9% had speech and language impairment but refused consent. The majority of referrals were between 2 and 6 years old, more boys than girls were referred, and socio-economic status matched that of the local population. Both gender and socio-economic status affected diagnosis. Based on the Middlesborough data, the estimated national incidence rate of referrals who attend for assessment and who have speech and language disability is 85 000-90 000 children per year (14.6% of births). While findings from only one Primary Care Trust must be treated cautiously, they provide paediatric speech and language therapy services managers with information that might guide service planning.

Autism Spectrum Disorder: Caseload characteristics, and interventions implemented by speech-language therapists.

This study investigated the caseload characteristics and the types of intervention implemented for children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). A survey was developed and distributed to 75 speech-language therapists working for Special Education within the New Zealand Ministry of Education. A total of 34 surveys were completed and returned. Analysis indicated that all the respondents were providing intervention for children with ASD. The majority of respondents had between one and five children with ASD on their caseload, of which, over half were aged under five-years-old. Visually based intervention methods. such as the Picture Exchange Communication System and social stories, were identified as the most frequently used and the respondents rated these interventions highly in terms of their perceived effectiveness for this population. The need for research to examine the efficacy of intervention approaches commonly used by speech-language therapists in working with children with AD is discussed.

Meta-Evaluation: Discovering What Works Best in Welfare Provision

Numerous programmes designed to encourage welfare recipients to move into work and off benefit have been evaluated in the United States. Many have randomly assigned potential participants into ‘experimental’ and ‘control’ groups to generate unbiased estimates of the effectiveness of the programmes. The results of the evaluations have been selectively influential in shaping policy developments on both sides of the Atlantic, but a thorough understanding of the diversity of experience has been lacking. Applying meta-analysis techniques to a specially constructed database of evaluations in over 50 US sites, this article reports on the first programme-level, systematic meta-evaluation of welfare-to-work programmes. The results confirm the superiority of approaches that prioritize immediate work over human-capital investment but reveal that caseload characteristics and local environment can be equally important as or even more important than programme design. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential and limitations of meta-evaluation.

Hard Cases in Hard Places: challenges of community addictions work in Dublin

Outcomes of methadone maintenance treatment are determined by caseload characteristics, treatment processes and complex environmental factors. The paper aims to describe some clinical and organizational features of new community-based methadone services in Dublin, where many dysfunctional, alienated or destitute multisubstance addicts were in urgent need of harm reduction and rehabilitation. Data were drawn from a participant observation journal recorded over the period 1998-2002 by the author, a clinical public health doctor. Analytic themes were derived from the journal record by a process of induction and were refined in discussion with colleagues. The evolution of the new service is described, and problems of treatment delivery, addiction counselling, and multilevel intervention are discussed. The paper also reports on the results of a pilot project on family involvement in dose supervision and risk reduction. Some fundamental issues of service organization, community participation and evaluation are addressed briefly from a public-health perspective. It is proposed that reflexive practice is a valid and necessary form of enquiry in human service work, allowing access to knowledge which is embodied, tacit and resistant to explicit formulation.

Does Assertive Community Treatment Reduce Burnout? A Comparison with Traditional Case Management

We examined burnout and job satisfaction among 216 case managers serving clients with severe mental illness, comparing assertive community treatment (ACT) workers with traditional case managers (TCMs) in two Midwestern states. Compared to TCM, ACT workers reported significantly lower levels of burnout, higher levels of job satisfaction, and more favorable perceptions of their work environment. In the TCM sample, length of time in current job was associated with greater burnout, and severity of client problems was associated with greater burnout and job dissatisfaction. Neither of these sets of factors predicted burnout in the ACT sample, however. Instead, no case manager characteristics, caseload characteristics, or service delivery variables, except for age, predicted burnout in the ACT sample. The findings suggest that the ACT model may be especially suited to protect against burnout in case managers serving clients with the most severe disabilities and who are most prone to psychiatric readmissions. However, the small effect sizes and the lack of a prospective, experimental design suggest that further research is needed before drawing firm conclusions.

Survey of Australian paediatric speech pathologists, Part 1: demography

AbstractA survey of paediatric speech pathologists in Australia was undertaken to document: deinographic characteristics; enlploying bodies; caseload characteristics; and the nature of service provision. A total of 447 questionnaires were returned from practising Australian paediatric speech pathologists. This paper reports the age, years of experience, employing body, client group, venue for service provision and service delivery models of these respondents.

Social workers in private practice: An update

This article presents a current portrait of social work private practitioners, based on data collected in 1992 from a randomly drawn national sample. It provides information on the demographic characteristics of practitioners, their fees, caseload characteristics, theoretical orientations and reflections on the rigors of independent practice in the 1990s.

The Changing Profile of Pediatric Physical Therapy

Pediatric physical therapy practice components and demographic characteristics of pediatric clinicians are described from two nation-wide practice surveys conducted at 10-year intervals. Changes in practice settings, professional roles, and caseload characteristics are outlined. Future practice trends are postulated in keeping with the reflection and future vision focus of this commemorative issue recognizing the Section on Pediatrics' 20 year anniversary

Explaining The Pace of Civil Case Litigation: The Latest Evidence From 37 Large Urban Trial Courts

This paper analyzes data on caseload size, caseload characteristics, case management features, and civil case processing times in 37 large urban trial courts, the largest number of state general jurisdiction trial courts ever included in a study of the pace of litigation. First, the paper concludes that most courts are far from meeting the American Bar Association civil case disposition time standards, especially the standard that 90 percent of all cases should be disposed within one year after filing. Second, bivariate and multivariate analysis reveals, as expected, that the size of the pending caseload per judge is the strongest correlate of median and 90th percentile case processing times, though the causal relationship between pending caseload per judge and the pace of litigation is unclear. The number of filings and dispositions per judge, however, were not related to the pace of litigation. Interestingly, courts in counties with larger populations were also more likely to have larger pending caseloa...

Staffing patterns in rural health services for children and adolescents.

This paper reviews several current human resources issues in delivering mental health services to children and adolescents, focusing primarily on the lack of systematic data regarding staff involved in these programs. Data from twenty counties in rural western Pennsylvania are then presented demonstrating the personal, educational, employment, and caseload characteristics of this group of staff, as well as their primary job functions and areas of job satisfaction. Professional staff were likely to have terminal master's degrees and to work primarily in outpatient services, whereas bachelor's-level staff were more likely to perform "generalist" functions, often without adequate supervision and clinical training. Paraprofessional staff were most numerous in community residential settings and performed a variety of functions. The implications of these findings for services development and staff training are discussed.