The influence of a mentoring program (Big Brothers-Big Sisters) on the peer relationships of foster youth in relative and nonrelative care was examined. Youth were randomly assigned to either the treatment or control condition, and changes in their peer relationships were assessed after 18 months. Foster parents were more likely than nonfoster parents to report that their child showed improved ...

Effects of foster dams can be included in genetic evaluations using animal models with maternal effects in several ways. The alternatives discussed involve minor changes in computing strategies from strategies used with reduced animal models that predict breeding values for direct and maternal effects. The easiest alternative is to assign foster dams to groups by breed and time period and add e...

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C a firm that would like to commit to a focused business strategy because focus improves efficiency and thus increases profit. We identify two general conditions under which tougher competition strengthens the firm’s ability to commit to a focused strategy. Under these conditions, competition fosters commitment for two reasons: (i) competition reduces the value of the option to diversify (the c...

A diverse range of educational and activist programs have been created to foster empathy in participants. For example, it is often a priority in conflict resolution programs to encourage empathy between stakeholders on different sides of conflicts. Similarly, many interventions designed to reduce prejudice function by eliciting feelings of empathy towards victimized groups. Games are particular...

Family foster care placement decision-making has a weak scientific underpinning. Mostly a 'variable-oriented approach' is taken, which requires a lot of information that is not always available. The identification of clusters of foster children with similar characteristics may be a more viable decision strategy. In this study we investigated if foster children could indeed be clustered, which p...

CONTEXT Child maltreatment is a significant risk factor for adult mental disorders and physical illnesses. Although the child welfare system routinely places severely abused and/or neglected children in foster care, no controlled studies exist to determine the effectiveness of this intervention in improving the long-term health of maltreated youth. OBJECTIVE To present results of the first qu...