The notion of partnership has swept our society's image makers' imagination and invaded our policy designers' conception of the desirable, the rational, and the marketable. This is particularly true in the field of mental health which is now earnestly investing in its operationalization. This paper presents the case of Quebec, a province which has legislated partnership within its recent mental health policy. The author examines the many responses this concept has provoked among the key stakeholders involved. Such an analysis provides us with a unique and direct insight into the many challenges government-legislated partnership is to meet in the human services, if it is ever to be viable.

This paper uncovers some dimensions of Singapore's mental health practices which, compared with western ones, indicate an alternative view on “community.” Singapore's culture is rich in community life based on larger systems of reference like language, religion, history, and tradition. This gives more salience to social dimensions often ignored or poorly taken into account by western specialists speaking about community approaches. The author puts forward the idea, through an analysis of interviews done with practitioners in the mental health field, that community redefined as it is in Singapore penetrates the institutions of mental health practice. Consequently, a community development model need not be limited to local and immediate community issues: It could also address more global community references systems, which create deep and lively cultural grounds for people's lives.

This paper offers an overview of the psychiatric vocational rehabilitation system using brief descriptions of Canadian program models to describe employment preparation services and vocational programs. The psychiatric rehabilitation literature clearly demonstrates that persons with psychiatric disabilities are potentially employable if they are provided with appropriate services, employment programs, and support. Although vocational programs are proliferating in all provinces across Canada, there are strong indications that more programming and funding is urgently needed.

Dans cette enquête, les auteurs ont voulu mesurer les orientations communautaires d'équipes de santé mentale en région éloignée. Un questionnaire à deux voicts a permis de noter les opinions des intervenants à l'égard de l'approche communautaire en psychiatrie. Les résultats montrent qu'une très grnde importance est accordée au travail en équipe multidisciplinaire, que l'approche individualisée prime sur le travail de mobilisation de l'environnement social et que l'on accorde la priorité à la prévention secondaire et tertiaire. Les équipes considèrent l'approche communautaire comme très importante, progressiste, pertinente, et très nécessaire, mais reconnaissent aussi qu'elle est complexe et controversée.

There is increasing evidence that persons suffering from major mental disorders are entering the criminal justice system. It was hypothesized that inadequate community care may be a contributing factor. The present investigation followed 112 chronically mentally disabled persons for two years. Half the participants resided in supervised apartments, half on their own. Groups were matched for risk of criminal justice system contact and for risk of readmission to hospital. During the course of the study, four subjects from each group were arrested for minor criminal offenses. The provision of supervision and housing appeared to have no effect on frequency of contact with the criminal justice system. Alternate explanations for this finding are discussed.

The role of police officers in dealing with the problem of domestic assaults against women is critical, since the police are usually the first service providers involved in such situations. In the study reported in this paper, one sample of police officers was asked about how they view and react to spouse abuse: its causes, their role, what works, and what should be done differently. Since this research replicates an earlier study of three Iowa communities, a comparison of samples of officers from rather different contexts is included among the reported findings.

A community mental health survey of 750 women aged 18 to 27 in a large urban centre established mental health profiles using a variety of measures, including investigations of any history of child abuse (including sexual abuse, defined as the unwanted fondling of the child's genital area, or attempted or achieved penetration of the child's body before the age of 17). Overall, 32% of respondents recalled abuse of this type. Of the 750 women, 6.8% had experienced sexual abuse which went on for more than one week. This long-term category included virtually all of those who experienced abuse by a trusted, authority figure. The Trauma Symptom Checklist (TSC) was found to be the most useful instrument among the several used in identifying sexual abuse histories. Scores of 30 or more on the TSC identified 72% of victims of long-term abuse, while 23% of those with scores of 30 + had experienced short-term sexual abuse. Seven percent of individuals with 30 + scores had never experienced (or did not recall) sexual abuse. No particular sub-scale of the TSC had better utility in identifying former victims than did the scale total.

The present article reports the results of a study of 550 Shawinigan Cégep students enrolled in their first year of college. The study attempts to establish the prevalence of suicidal behaviours and to describe predisposing factors identified by the authors such as family problems, lack of social support, depression, stressful events having a negative impact, and attitudes toward life and death. The information was gathered using a questionnaire combining several elements: (a) a questionnaire similar to the one used by Lamontagne (1986) and Tousignant, Bastien, Hamel, and Hanigan (1986) to identify family problems; (b) the Sarason, Levine, Basham, and Sarason (1983) Social Support Questionnaire, translated and adapted by De Man (1986), which evaluates social support; (c) the Aneshensel, Clark, and Fredrichs test (1983) which indicates the presence or absence of depression; (d) the Sarason, Johnson, and Siegel (1978) Life Experience Survey, measuring the quantity of stressful events experienced, and their impact on personal life; and (e) Beck's (1979) Scale of Suicide Ideation which measures attitudes toward life and death. Two questions were added for the present study: Did you ever attempt suicide? If yes, how many times? Three hundred and fifty-five students answered the questionnaire, making the level of participation 71% (355/550). Participants were divided into four groups; those having made a suicidal attempt (n = 28) or planned suicide (n = 16), those having a score of 30 or more on the test relating to suicidal ideation (n = 18), and those regarded as “normal” (n = 278). The cut-off point of 30 on the scale of suicidal ideation was determined by averaging the scores of those who made a suicide attempt and confirmed by a discriminant analysis. The students who had attempted suicide had major family problems, lacked social support, presented depressive tendencies, and had experienced stressful events having a negative impact on their lives. Furthermore, they manifested problems in their attitudes toward life and death. However, the study did not determine the contribution of each variable. The participants who had planned suicide, at first sight, did not seem to present more problems than those designated “normal,” which seems astonishing. This was explained by the fact that the planned suicide was not recent or was a cry for help which found a response. Participants with a score of 30 or more on the test of suicidal ideation are considered at high risk because they present problems similar to those who have attempted suicide. Finally, as would be expected, no major problems were presented by the subjects classified as “normal.” The present study has attempted to describe the difficulties encountered by participants presenting problems, that is to say, those who have attempted or planned suicide; and to identify those who up to now, have not been considered at risk because they have never made an attempt, but who are experiencing difficulties and in certain cases, are veritable “time bombs waiting to go off.” Despite the fact that the participants did not constitute a representative sample of the Quebec population, the results confirm those obtained in previous studies identifying predisposing factors in suicide. The information gathered in the course of the present study has enabled us to implement preventive intervention at the Shawinigan Cégep.

The needs of lesbian and gay adolescents for service provision are discussed in this paper. These needs are identified through research investigating milestones in the coming-out process. In addition, the way in which the research results influenced community development initiatives is described. The social context in which the research was conducted is also described.

The authors evaluated two brief small-group creative drama programs for enhancing special-needs students' peer relations. In Study 1, 12 early adolescents participated in a fall group and nine in a winter group within a delayed-treatment design. The fall group did not significantly exceed the winter group on self-report, teacher, and parent measures of social-emotional skill. However, the fall group maintained its progress at follow-up, the winter group made gains on self-report and parent measures after its program, and 16 of the 21 students in both groups improved. In Study 2, seven latency-aged children participated in a younger group and eight in an older group; nine students served as comparison participants. The 15 treated children significantly exceeded the untreated children on self-report and a more specific teacher measure; 13 of the 15 students improved. These studies demonstrate that small-group creative drama can positively affect peer interaction skills of children and early adolescents.

The birth of a first child results in an important period of transition for new parents. A systemic intervention was planned and implemented with a group of couples during the prenatal period. This intervention was based upon concepts related to systemic family intervention and multiple family intervention. One of the main objectives was to allow participants to improve their functioning as couples in the areas of communication, feeling response, role distribution, and conflict resolution. The analysis describes the dynamics of the group and the couples as well as changes that occurred during the intervention. Group support allowed the couples to experiment new modes of communication and to improve their methods of conflict resolution. The author discusses the importance of integrating some aspects of this intervention in traditional prenatal groups, in particular, discussions on individual expectations and needs of future parents. She emphasizes the importance of educating nurses in family intervention given their active role with families at this particular stage of family development.