Prior work has conceptualized children's executive function and self-regulation skills as relatively stable across short periods of time. Grounded in long-standing contextual theories of human development, this study introduces a new observational tool for measuring children's regulatory skills across different naturally occurring situations within early childhood classrooms. Using 460 observations of 91 children (M age = 5.54 years) in 16 socio-demographically diverse Prekindergarten and Kindergarten classrooms, we found that this tool-the Regulation-Related Skills Measure (RRSM)-reliably captured observed dimensions of young children's attention control and inhibitorycontrol, but failed to appropriately represent more "internal" regulatory processes (e.g., working memory). Associations between the RRSM and other measures of children's executive function and self-regulation (i.e., direct assessments, adult reports) were low to moderate (r = 0.03 to 0.44), suggesting these tools are likely to be complementary in that they provide overlapping but ultimately distinct information regarding children's regulatory performance. Finally, results suggested substantial withinchild variation in regulatory behaviors across different situations within the classroom, with the same children demonstrating consistently stronger attention control and inhibitory control during transitions than during either teacher-or student-directed activities. These findings underscore the situationally-dependent nature of children's self-regulatory performance, with implications for both theory and practice. Future research is needed to replicate these findings in more diverse, representative samples of children.
Despite a growing field of knowledge related to the causes and correlates of secondary traumatic stress (STS), there is a dearth of research directly comparing STS across child welfare and mental health; rather, when the two are examined within the same study, it is often as part of a larger sample of “social workers,” which is not further differentiated during analysis (Bride, 2007). Furthermore, few studies consider the role of the macro- or mezzo-level environments, such as the influence of interprofessional collaboration or leadership on STS across child welfare (CW) and mental health (MH) populations. Thus, this study will use structural equation modeling to examine micro-, mezzo-, and macrolevel factors across public CW workers and mental health care providers serving children and families involved with the CW system in one small, rural, northeastern state. Results demonstrate significant and differential relationships between interprofessional collaboration and transformative leadership across CW and MH systems. The findings will provide guidance for differential prevention and intervention strategies across these helping professions.
Human services professionals from all fields may be exposed to dangerous and even traumatic experiences while fulfilling their job responsibilities. Despite the data identifying trauma exposure as a workforce problem, the literature focusing on policy and practice interventions is sparse. Using a safety culture framework, this article describes a case example of one statewide public child welfare agency that utilized innovative policies as one driver of a systemic shift toward enhanced safety culture in an attempt to mitigate the effects of trauma exposure among child welfare workers. Practice implications, next steps, and future research are discussed.
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