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Background: Ensuring the safety of American children is one of the chief mandates of the U.S. Child Welfare System. Yet system differences, including privatization remain an area of concern for whether safety of children is achieved., Objective: This study examined the effect of privatization policy on the performance of state child welfare systems in terms of achieving national safety outcome standards., Participants and Setting: N 1 = 10 states systems (5 privatized and 5 public systems) with N 2  = 118,761 foster care cases located throughout the U.S., Method: Using data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), safety outcome performance measures were assessed, as were child-/case factors to predict the likelihood of the system types meeting the national safety outcome standards., Results: Logistic regression models of child, case, and system factors predicting the likelihood state systems met national safety outcome performance standards were statistically significant. Private systems, compared to non-private systems, were found to have lower odds of meeting the safety outcome 1 standard (OR = 0.41, 95% CI = 0.40-0.42), but greater odds of meeting the safety outcome 2 standard (OR = 6.79, 95% CI = 6.56-7.02)., Conclusions: The implementation of privatization policy in state child welfare/foster care service delivery was found to have mixed results in terms of the national safety outcome standards., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: This article examines the publication productivity of the (N = 14) top-ranked U.S. Black/African American scholars in the U.S. News and World Report Schools of Social Work, as identified by Huggins-Hoyt, Holosko, Briggs, and Barner (2015)., Method: Publication information for each participant were taken from the Publish or Perish software site with an "author impact" search criteria that examined their lifetime publication history., Results: Results suggested that these authors: (a) published collaboratively, (b) published highly on issues pertaining to Black/African American inequality, and (c) published in journals with both high-impact scores and high-impact readership., Findings: Despite the low numbers of Black/African American scholars serving as full professors in U.S. colleges and universities, the techniques they used to circumvent systematic and structural academic barriers provide helpful tips that younger Black/African American scholars could employ when writing and publishing their research findings. However, additional research is needed to further unearth differences, and/or expectations, based on numerous variables, which includes but not limited to: (a) academic rank, (b) funded research,, ((c) promotion and tenure expectations, and (d) advancement of more Black/African American academic scholarship.)

Background: Gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) individuals appear to have an increased likelihood of alcohol use disorders and treatment utilization for alcohol related problems compared to heterosexual individuals. Despite this increase, treatment utilization rates among GLB individuals remain low. In an effort to address this, our paper examined whether or not GLB individuals encounter unique barriers when pursuing treatment for alcohol related problems., Methods: Using data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol Related Conditions (NESARC), we examined service sector specific factors, some of which included (a) utilization rates, (b) self-reported treatment barriers, and (c) whether or not there were emergent differences among GLB individuals, after controlling for socio-demographic and clinical characteristics., Results: Findings indicated that GLB individuals reported higher severity rates for alcohol use disorders when compared to heterosexual individuals, and were significantly more likely to utilize treatment services for alcohol related problems, however, not across all treatment sectors. While similar patterns were observed when examining barriers to treatment, bisexual individuals reported significantly more barriers than heterosexual and gay/lesbian individuals., Conclusion: These findings underscored the importance of identifying and developing interventions that addresses treatment barriers associated with alcohol use service utilization among GLB populations, and creating improved outreach and education programs to better address stigmas associated with substance use and sexuality., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)