The use of illicit drugs among American youth is approaching epidemic proportions. The 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) prepared by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that 8.9% of adolescents and adults age 12 years or older use illicit drugs. The most disturbing trend, however, is the number of children in foster care who abuse alcohol or d...

Contract enforcement is probabilistic, but the probability depends on rules and processes. A stimulus to trade may induce traders to alter rules or processes to improve enforcement. In the model of this paper, such a positive knock-on effect occurs when the elasticity of supply of traders is sufficiently high. Negative knock-on is possible when the elasticity is low. Enforcement strategies in c...

Brood-parasitic village indigobirds, Vidua chalybeata, were bred in captivity and foster-reared by their normal host, red-billed firefinch, Lagonosticta senegala, or by an experimental foster species, Bengalese finch, Lonchura striata. Male indigobirds reared by Bengalese finches developed the songs of Bengalese finches, and males reared by firefinches developed songs of firefinches. Males copi...

In this paper, Robbie Gilligan sets out to highlight questions about the role and experiences of men as foster carers in fostering couples.1 The sparse literature relevant to the topic is reviewed; some of the therapeutic and practical reasons for the significance of the man’s role in foster care are considered; findings from a small exploratory study of male foster carers and their role are pr...

BACKGROUND The voice of foster families is a valuable tool in the development and improvement of foster family services. Regularly evaluating the satisfaction of foster carers can facilitate the early identification of a range of problems that might pose a risk to the placement. METHOD This article reports the experience of 200 Spanish foster families (kinship and non-kinship) with foster ser...

BACKGROUND Among children placed out of home, behavioral and relationship functioning is often problematic. When placed in foster care, problems tend to persist or even worsen and increase the risk of placement breakdown. Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for Preschoolers is an intensive behavior-focused program for young foster children (3 to 7 years) aiming to provide children with a pos...

State foster care systems are forcing many foster children to take high dosages of dangerous, mind-altering psychotropic medications. State actors have little medical background for each child and have limited time to diagnose disorders, thereby creating potential constitutional and human rights violations. States are only supposed to administer psychotropic medication to a child when necessary...

Hanna had suspected that Foster abused Trinity, and she knew that Foster “had been in trouble with Child Protective Services in the past.”2 Hanna told detectives that Foster “had a series of accidents with Trinity which always seemed to happen outside of Hanna’s view,” but that Foster denied hurting Trinity.3 Prior to her death, Trinity had endured a ten-day hospital visit to treat burns, and s...