Family Unity Research Articles

Impact of a methadone maintenance program on an Aboriginal community: a qualitative study.

Methadone maintenance treatment programs implemented in Aboriginal communities have proven to be beneficial for the control of opioid addiction and its associated consequences, but the perceptions and opinions of different community members about these programs remain elusive. The goal of this study was to determine the perceptions of members of a First Nation community in New Brunswick, Canada, on the implementation of a methadone maintenance treatment program and its effects on the community. We conducted a qualitative study using semistructured focus group discussions with 3 distinct groups composed of health care professionals and influential community members, patients in the methadone maintenance treatment program and community members at large. Thematic analysis of discussion transcripts was performed. A total of 22 partipants were included in the 3 focus groups. All groups of participants expressed that patients in the program are stigmatized and marginalized. Discussions also revealed widespread misconceptions about the program. Participants associated the program with improvements in community-level outcomes and in parenting abilities of patients, but also with difficulties preserving family unity. Despite being culturally adapted to the community, elements surrounding the methadone maintenance treatment program in this First Nation community appear to be misunderstood and stigmatized. It may be beneficial to provide community education on these programs to assure community buy-in for the successful implementation of harm reduction programs in Aboriginal communities.

Christian and Muslim Immigrant Women in the Canadian Maritimes

This article details the strengths and vulnerabilities that Christian and Muslim immigrant women bring to situations of domestic violence in the Canadian Maritimes. An intersectional theoretical framework grounds the analysis of qualitative data collected from 89 Christian and Muslim women from 27 countries of origin who arrived in the region ten years prior to the field work. Their strengths include high levels of education, experiences of overcoming adversity, the ability to act strategically, and the use of social networks, while factors such as increased dependence on husbands, transnational family situations, responsibilities for family unity, and a lack of knowledge about local services are vulnerabilities. The findings show that Orthodox and Catholic Christians, Muslim women with young children, immigrant women employed full-time immediately upon arrival, and wives whose immigration is sponsored by their husbands lack access to important social support networks.

HIV Status Disclosure through Family-Based Intervention Supports Parenting and Child Mental Health in Rwanda.

Few evidence-based interventions exist to support parenting and child mental health during the process of caregiver HIV status disclosure in sub-Saharan Africa. A secondary analysis of a randomized-controlled trial was conducted to examine the role of family-based intervention versus usual social work care (care as usual) in supporting HIV status disclosure within families in Rwanda. Approximately 40 households were randomized to family-based intervention and 40 households to care as usual. Parenting, family unity, and child mental health during the process of disclosure were studied using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Many of the families had at least one caregiver who had not disclosed their HIV status at baseline. Immediately post-intervention, children reported lower parenting and family unity scores compared with those in the usual-care group. These changes resolved at 3-month follow-up. Qualitative reports from clinical counselor intervention sessions described supported parenting during disclosure. Overall findings suggest adjustments in parenting, family unity, and trust surrounding the disclosure process. Family-based intervention may support parenting and promote child mental health during adjustment to caregiver HIV status disclosure. Further investigation is required to examine the role of family-based intervention in supporting parenting and promoting child mental health in HIV status disclosure.

Family Group Conferencing. Involving the Wider Family in Child Protection Decision Making

Family Group Conference (FGC) is a practice which encourages family participation in decision making when a child or children are in need of protection or support. It encourages the wider kinship connection to provide solutions for a plan that can often be complex. It seeks to capitalise on the strengths and connections of the wider family network. This paper will explore the principles, ethos and history of FGC, the importance of the uniqueness of families (including cultural sensitivity), the promotion of choice and support of a family’s right to express their independence and to demonstrate best practice in this field of work in relation to engagement, preparation and time.

Understanding the Stresses and Coping Resources of Filipino Clergy Families: A Multiple-Case Study

This study looked into the experiences of five Filipino Protestant clergy families, focusing on the stresses they experience, their coping resources, and their perceptions of their situation. The interview and questionnaire methods were used in data collection. Consistent with the clergy literature in the West, it was found that Filipino clergy families experience the following stresses: balancing time between work and family, living up to expectations of church members, financial difficulties, and lack of an external support system, especially for the clergy wives. Coping resources of the respondents include spiritual resources, such as prayer and faith in God, and the support of their own family and church members. The participants view their stressful situation as something that God is in control of and believe it can be managed because of their faith in God and sense of family unity. Implications for interventions to help clergy families and recommended future research in view of current findings are discussed.

Commentary: Fractured Families: US Asylum Backlog Divides Parents and Children Worldwide

This commentary focuses on the detrimental effects of the US asylum backlog on families around the world. It puts a spotlight on the backlog of the 82,175 individuals who are currently (as of March 2015) waiting to have their asylum cases heard. These individuals fleeing torture, political persecution, or persecution due to their race, religion, ethnicity, or membership in a particular social group are especially vulnerable. We identify the essential human rights of asylum seekers who are children and their family members, including the right to seek asylum, the right of family members to be protected from harm, and the right to family life, family unity, and reunification. Throughout, the principle of what is in the best interest of the child is highlighted. Using the example of how resources have been shifted to process the cases of Central American families crossing the US southern border, the authors question the effectiveness of a crisis-focused US immigration policy. We call for broad immigration reform in the USA with resulting policies that do not focus on the needs and rights of one group of vulnerable children at the expense of another. Thus, we call for an immigration policy that puts the rights of all children at its center.

Yahudi Düğün Gelenekleri

The traditional Jewish wedding has so far unchanged for centuries in the basic elements, although each congregation has demonstrated little differences due to settled customs. The Jewish wedding traditions carries proper religious properties for the the sanctity of family unity which conduce to the continuation of the Jewish generation. The community attaches great importance to this united ceremony, combining the engagement (erusin/kiddushin) and the marriage (nisuin) which had been done separately at first. The most important parts of this wedding are; fitting rings under Huppah, giving the Ketuba which is a kind of marriage contract, reading the seven Beraha, and breaking glasses. This article in the Jewish wedding traditions will be examined in two parts: pre-wedding preparations and the wedding. And also the similarities with some wedding traditions practiced in Anatolia will be indicated. The traditional Jewish wedding has so far unchanged for centuries in the basic elements, although each congregation has demonstrated little differences due to settled customs. The Jewish wedding traditions carries proper religious properties for the the sanctity of family unity which conduce to the continuation of the Jewish generation. The community attaches great importance to this united ceremony, combining the engagement (erusin/kiddushin) and the marriage (nisuin) which had been done separately at first. The most important parts of this wedding are; fitting rings under Huppah, giving the Ketuba which is a kind of marriage contract, reading the seven Beraha, and breaking glasses. This article in the Jewish wedding traditions will be examined in two parts: pre-wedding preparations and the wedding. And also the similarities with some wedding traditions practiced in Anatolia will be indicated.

Rights, Economics, or Family?Frame Resonance, Political Ideology, and the Immigrant Rights Movement

Although social movement scholars in the United States have long ignored activism over immigration, this movement raises important theoretical and empirical questions, especially given many immigrants’ lack of citizenship. Is the rights “master” frame, used extensively by other US social movements, persuasive in making claims for noncitizens? If not, which other movement frames resonate with the public? We leverage survey experiments—largely the domain of political scientists and public opinion researchers—to examine how much human/citizenship rights, economics, and family framing contests shape Californians’ views about legalization and immigrants’ access to public benefits. We pay particular attention to how potentially distinct “pub lics,” or subgroups, react, finding significant differences in frame resonance between groups distinguished by political ideology. However, alternative framings resonate with—at best—one political subgroup and, dauntingly, frames that resonate with one group sometimes alienate others. While activists and political theorists may hope that human rights appeals can expand American notions of membership, such a frame does not help the movement build support for legalization. Instead, the most expansive change in legalization attitudes occurs when framed as about family unity, but this holds only among self-reported conservatives. These findings underscore the challenges confronting the immigrant movement and the need to reevaluate the assumption that historically progressive rights language is effective for immigrant claims-making. When making claims for immigrants, which frames are most resonant for ordinary Americans? Social movement scholars have long argued that activists can

Performance, Identity, and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness by Guterman Gad

Reviewed by: Performance, Identity, and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness by Guterman Gad Ana Elena Puga Guterman, Gad. Performance, Identity, and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014: 225pp. The slogan “no human being is illegal” has been repeated so often in recent years that it has attained the status of a cliché. Yet as Gad Guterman’s perceptive study of fifteen contemporary plays about immigrants from around the world amply demonstrates, the task of de-criminalizing immigrant identities is far from done. Rather than focus exclusively on one ethnicity or another, as many studies do, Guterman’s study ably compares plays that feature immigrant protagonists who hail from China, Ireland, Italy, and Uganda as well as Mexico, Ecuador, and other parts of Latin America. Instead of dividing chapters by national origin, the book’s organizational framework corresponds to various crucial elements of the legal construction of immigrant identity, as indicated by chapter titles taken from sections of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act. My personal favorite is the absurdly bureaucratic title, “Act 212(a)(9)(B)(iii)(III),” subtitled “Family Unity.” The other five chapter titles indicate the book’s legal span: “Act 237 (a) (1) (B)—Present in Violation of Law,” “Act 275 (a)—Improper Entry by Alien,” “Act 274 A—Unlawful Employment of Aliens,” “Act 331—Alien Enemies,” and “Act 505—Appeals.” Skillfully interweaving pertinent information about immigration law throughout his critical interpretations of theatrical works, Guterman does more than create a context for the plays; he creates a dialogue between the law and theatre. Guterman draws fruitful connections between dramatic protagonists constructed as subjects of the law, the theatricality of the law itself (as underscored by the dual meaning of “act”), performances that the legal system requires of immigrants, and the treatment of law as a theme in many plays that feature immigrant protagonists. His methodology offers new insights into how the violence of immigration law has both deformed lives and prompted artistic resistance. Such resistance exposes legal violence, although at times it falls short of its full emancipatory intent. Throughout the volume, Guterman builds primarily on the theoretical work of anthropologist Susan Bibler Coutin, profitably applying to the field of Theatre/Performance Studies many of her groundbreaking observations on how the undocumented manage the contradictions of “non-existence.” [End Page 185] Chapter One juxtaposes two mid-twentieth-century works: Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge (1956) and the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song (1958). Whether depicting Italian male immigrants or a Chinese female protagonist, Guterman persuasively argues, both works suggest that illegality can be erased through marriage, thus promoting an “exit strategy” that relies entirely on individual efforts rather than on more lasting social change. Moreover, Guterman delineates how both the publicity surrounding the 1961 film version of Flower Drum Song and David Henry Hwang’s 2001 stage also effectively erase the young Chinese woman’s status as “illegal.” Guterman concludes that “[a]n unauthorized immigrant might no longer prove as viable a protagonist for a major commercial endeavor as might have been the case in the late 1950s” (30). Chapter Two follows a similar Latino-Asian American comparative strategy, with analyses of Culture Clash’s Bordertown (1998) and Josefina Lopez’s Latina classic Real Women Have Curves (1990), set alongside an analysis of Chinese-American Genny Lim’s Paper Angels (1980). Here, Guterman explores what he calls “border scenarios”—whether they take place in Tijuana, Mexico, in the San Francisco Bay area, or in a character’s own imagination. Only Chapter Three focuses exclusively on plays with Latina protagonists, specifically domestic workers: Milcha Sánchez-Scott’s Latina, Lisa Loomer’s Living Out, and Octavio Solis’s Lydia. The plays are analyzed in relationship to legal and historical events, such as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) and “Nannygate,” the 1993 child-care scandal that forced then-President Bill Clinton to withdraw the name of his nominee for attorney general, Zoë Baird, from consideration in the wake of the revelation that she had hired undocumented immigrants. One of Guterman’s most innovative theoretical contributions is the ingenious concept of “undocumentedface,” which...

Designing model for improving relationship of wives with men with erectile dysfunction

Designing model for improving relationship of wives with men with erectile dysfunction

US refugee resettlement policy and international human rights treaty obligations: a mixed record

This article analyses the extent to which the USA's current refugee resettlement policy in the areas of healthcare and family unity comports with its obligations under those relevant international human rights treaties which the USA has ratified or otherwise acceded to (i.e., the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and 1967 Protocol, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination). The theoretical framework for this article is the treaty effectiveness literature, which identifies those factors associated with treaty compliance by states parties. Some of the factors identified in that literature are present in the USA (e.g., strong democratic institutions and an active civil society that pressures the government to comply with its treaty obligations) but others are not (the USA has incorporated few human rights treaties into its domestic law). Thus, as the literature would predict, the USA falls short of its treaty obligations in some areas of refugee resettlement policy but meets it in others.

Visualizing The Whole Family

Visualizing The Whole Family Wesley Beal (bio) We often take it as axiomatic that the American moderns were dismissive, even suspicious of the family. This is largely true of the bohemian and avant-garde communities, which found the family to be anathema to their projects—perceiving it as a bourgeois, Victorian relic to be discarded in the creation of the new. In keeping with this position, modernist studies often omits the family from the raft of contexts and social conditions—immigration, urbanization, the development of formal schools of creative production, and so on—by which we historicize the aesthetic experiments of the early 1900s. Social scientists, however, trace these same conditions alongside formative developments in the family, which shares many of the same underlying tensions, and which should be considered equally constructive of modernist experiments. Indeed, the family demonstrates the same dialectical tensions that typify the modern milieu, rendering the polarities of fragment and totality in terms of the struggle between the individual and the family as a whole—a tension peaking in the crisis of the family at the turn of the century. This entanglement of family and modernism is best illustrated, surprisingly, in a project undertaken by one of the American proponents of literary realism, William Dean Howells. When Howells devised The Whole Family, the collaborative project that was serialized in Harper’s Bazar1 from 1907–1908 and published in 1908 as a complete work, he envisioned an unambitious piece of domestic fiction. It would feature, Howells wrote, a family “in middling circumstances, of average culture and experiences” and demonstrate a “feeling for the great American average” (Howard 14). To this end, he had two goals that he set out for himself and his eleven co-contributors: the stories, each centering on a different family member as protagonist, would uphold an ideal of familial unity in a time of increasing individualism, as well as investigate the then-topical controversy of coeducation. Or so Howells expected. Instead, what played out in the eleven stories that followed Howells’s inaugural piece rendered a bold, modern reorganization of family that appeared to border on cacophony, as the authors dispensed with any pretense of familial harmony and vied for control of the narrative and each other’s characters. The tensions between the authors manifested in contentious potshots in their published writing, and their private bickering was the stuff of gossip among New York literati (Howard 19–20, 102). The importance of the Harper’s project derives not from its contributors, however, but from its formal rendering of modern family organization and social organization through a textual scheme demanding that we consider the narrative visually. The form is itself an allegory of family, and Howells’s bid for a harmonious unit signals a moment [End Page 45] of crisis in the institution. The shape of the text was unique in its time: Elizabeth Jordan, editor at Harper’s, coined the term “composite novel” to describe the project’s unique form (Howard 26–27). The novelty of The Whole Family’s form speaks directly to the concerns modern sociologists voiced when they described the family as fluctuating between “organization” and “disorganization”—keywords signaling a biological family’s harmonious or discordant qualities, in the parlance of Chicago School thinkers like Ernest Burgess, Harvey Locke, and Ernest Mowrer—and corresponds to the rise of anthropological studies of family and kinship at the turn of the century. Aiming for a tidy “organization” of the family, Howells had anticipated that the stories would unfold more or less in the fashion of a family tree, beginning with the eldest and concluding with the youngest member of the Talbert family of Eastridge, New York. But in the reshuffling of Howells’s original outline, the text began to gesture toward new modes of family that would not be merely cacophonous and dysfunctional, nor even “disorganized” in the contemporary sense of the term, but would embrace a new model of organization that is less tree-like and more akin to a distributed network. The two models—the former made visible by Howells’s original table of contents, and the latter by data visualization techniques—mark the shift from realist coherence to...

Effects of Urban Agriculture Program on the Formation of Family Unity and Intimacy

This research was tried to determine the effects of the family unity and intimacy, the recognition about urban agriculture, and the preference of urban agricultural program on the member of urban agriculture experience program. The family cohesion was shown the increasing average significantly in participated group, but there were no difference in control group. It’s means that agricultural experiences affected on the family cohesion. The determination of recognition about urban agriculture, participated group had been appeared the significantly increasing value between before and after applied experience program. This result had shown the effect to recognition of urban agriculture program in joining group. The preference of urban garden program after program participated, building the kitchen garden program was chosen the best program and fellowed seeding, sowing of potato, herbal lecture with making herbal vinegar, harvesting of lotus leaf with cooking lotus leaf rice. Investigation of the urban agriculture program satisfaction after participated, participant were reported the effect of decreasing stress and increasing family unity, intimacy, and dialog. Also, participant were highly satisfied the garden soil condition and program. Keywords: Agricultural experiences, Urban garden program

The Unlikelihood of Family: A Photographic Essay on Transnational Experiences

In this photo essay, Cristina Llerena Navarro captures moments in the everyday lives of mixed-status families. Through her narrative and images, Llerena shares the stories of these families, their journeys to the United States as well as the consequences of deportation on the family unity. She evokes the children's deep yearning to be reunited with their families on American soil, the parents' determination to provide their children with lives better than their own, and the realities of current immigration policy in preventing the fulfillment of these dreams.

Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., and the International Rosary Crusade, 1948–1959

For the twenty year period after World War II, Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C. (1909–1992) became an international “superstar” as he traversed all the habitable continents of the world proclaiming a message of family unity and prayer through the rosary. Recovering somewhat miraculously from a near fatal bout with tuberculosis as a seminarian, Peyton dedicated his fifty year ministry as a Holy Cross priest to promoting devotion to the Blessed Version Mary utilizing a simple but profound message, “The family that prays together stays together.” Beginning in 1948, his international crusades drew millions, making him a household name in Catholic circles. His ministry, while standing as a good example of the post war evangelistic spirit in American religion, as typified by notables such as Billy Graham, was rather unique for Catholics and, therefore, significant in U.S. Church history.

Performance, identity, and immigration law: a theatre of undocumentedness

1. Act 237(a)(1)(B): Present in Violation of Law 2. Act 275(a): Improper Entry by Alien 3. Act 274A: Unlawful Employment of Aliens 4. Act 212(a)(9)(B)(iii)(III): Family Unity 5. Act 331: Alien Enemies 6. Act 505: Appeals

Carers and families: life and suffering among Bangladeshi psychiatric patients and their families in London – an interview study 3

ABSTRACTThis paper looks at the role of Bangladeshi families in the provision of care and help seeking: the burden on family members but also their presumed role in the causation of illness. It deploys data deriving from an interview study examining understandings and health-related practices among British Bangladeshis with mental and physical illness and their carers. While families generally support the mentally ill, the emotional and physical burden on them can be extensive. Conflicts between individuals may result in accusations of sorcery, especially when envy is suspected. Regular travel between desh and bidesh attempts to maintain family unity and continues traditional understandings of serious sickness and disability.

Dynamics of intergenerational family relationships from the viewpoint of elderly residents in the city of Jequié (Bahia), Brazil.

This study aimed to describe the dynamics of intergenerational family relationships from the viewpoint of the elderly. It is a study of qualitative approach, developed with 32 elderly people registered in the coverage area of a Family Health Program in a city in the state of Bahia. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews during the first half of 2013, through home visits. We applied to thematic content analysis, and four categories emerged: harmonic intergenerational family relationships; conflicting intergenerational family relationships; family relationships permeated by intergenerational carefor the elderly; intergenerational relationships permeated by elderly caring for their grandchildren. The categories enabled an understanding of the dynamics of intergenerational family relationships from the viewpoint of elderly, unveiling family relationships guided in the care, support, family unity and even conflicts.

Towards unity of families: anti-SU(7) from Z 12−I orbifold compactification

The problem of families, "Why are there three families of fermions?", is a long awaited question to be answered within a reasonable framework. We propose anti-SU($N$) groups for the unification of families in grand unification (GUT) groups, where the separation of color and weak gauge groups in the GUT is achieved by antisymmetric tensor Brout-Englert-Higgs boson instead of an adjoint representation. Theories of anti-SU($N$)'s are proposed for the unification of families. The minimal model is found as \antiSD \, GUT with the fermion representation [3]+2[2]+8[\bar-1]. We present an example in a Z(12-I) orbifold compactification, where the missing partner mechanism is also realized.

Family Reunification and the Limits of Immigration Reform: Impact and Legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act

Immigration scholars and politicians recognize the importance of family reunification, lauding its role in diversifying the United States’ racial and ethnic makeup, modernizing the American immigration system, and uniting families. As the centerpiece of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, family reunification replaced the racially discriminatory national origins quota system. Commentators typically view family reunification policy as a uniquely modern political achievement connected to 1960s civil rights–era laws and emblematic of democratic liberalism. I challenge this characterization by examining immigration policy during the exclusion era and show that family reunification has been a crucial element of American immigration policy since the United States began regulating immigration. In addition, support for family unity sometimes results from exclusionary efforts. I illustrate this further by tracing the legislative history of passage of the 1965 Immigration Act. I conclude that a reassessment of the liberal valuation of family reunification policy is warranted and suggest that there may be limits to immigration reform that targets family.