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We examined the tendency for high status children to bully their classmates. Children liked by peers only (LPO), liked by teachers only (LTO), liked by both (Both), liked by neither (Neither), and ...

INTRODUCTION In this study, we examined patients' readiness to change behavior (their stage of change) in a primary care behavioral health (PCBH) setting. We examined sociodemographic and health correlates of patients' stage of change and whether stage of change related to follow-up visit attendance. METHOD One-hundred eleven adult primary care patients completed self-report measures of psychiatric symptoms, hope, and stage of change at their initial behavioral health session. Demographic, health information, and follow-up visit attendance were gathered from patient electronic health records. RESULTS Results suggest most patients referred to PCBH providers were in preparation and action stages of change. At the bivariate level, older age and non-Latinx ethnicity were associated with greater readiness to change. At the multivariate level, older age and higher levels of hope were associated with later stages of change. Patients in preparation, but not action, stages of change were significantly more likely to attend a follow-up behavioral health appointment than were patients in precontemplation/contemplation. DISCUSSION Findings suggest most PCBH patients are prepared to take action or have already taken action to improve their behavioral health. Further, a single item assessing patients' stage of change is associated with continued retention in behavioral health treatment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Contemporary society is characterized by social isolation, polarization, and increased mobility. For many families, naturally-occurring support systems are changing and possibly fading. When parents face child-rearing without adequate support networks, they experience high parenting stress, diminished health, and greater risk of maltreating their children. Children in socially-isolated families are prone to a range of social, emotional, and academic difficulties. Formal mentoring programs can help by connecting children with supportive nonparental adults, but the demand for mentoring outpaces program capacity, and formal mentoring programs are seldom designed to partner with parents. Additional, resourceful approaches are needed. In this study, we explored the potential for developing an approach that fosters parents’ capacity to be gatekeepers to their children’s adult support networks. We used a daylong collaborative workshop to partner with six parents from a low-income housing service and five youth-serving professionals from the community. Participants generated potential strategies by which parents can cultivate informal mentoring relationships and identified specific ideas for helping parents (a) see the value of actively seeking informal mentors, (b) recognize and manage potential risks, and (c) identify and make requests of potential informal mentors. Findings from our workshop were used to develop a Caregiver-Initiated Mentoring approach that could be utilized by clinical social workers and other helping professionals. The approach integrates our findings with empirical research from youth mentoring and conceptual underpinnings from parent help-seeking models, the Transtheoretical Model of Change, and Motivational Interviewing.