Minnesota Department of Human Services

This paper reports new evidence that giving financial rewards for adopting a child from foster care or becoming a kin guardian improves the later school performance of these children.It uses linked administrative data to examine a policy change in Minnesota.This change increased the payments to adoptive parents and kin guardians for children ages 6 and older, making them equal to what foster care payments were, but didn't raise payments as much for younger children.Difference-in-differences analysis shows that this policy of equalizing payments increased the average academic achievement of foster children by 31 percent of a standard deviation three years after their cases began.Additionally, the policy raised the total value of payments to these children by about $2,000 during this period.It also led to a 29 percent increase in the monthly chance of moving from foster care to adoption or kin guardianship, improved school stability, and reduced school suspensions.This research contributes to the limited evidence on how financial incentives can encourage adoptions and is one of the first to provide evidence of its positive effects on outcomes beyond the child welfare system.

Refugees, immigrants and migrants often have barriers to travel medicine. Community Advisory Boards (CAB) are a vital but underutilized tool for understanding and meeting healthcare needs and challenges, providing communities with a voice, and finding solutions. The paper discusses a malaria prevention community-based participatory research project informed by a CAB.

PurposeResponse style evaluation is a fundamental component of forensic examinations. This retrospective study aims to evaluate how measures of feigning performed with individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) who were undergoing competency to proceed to trial evaluations.Design/methodology/approachUsing a known-groups design (ID vs non-ID) with 145 individuals, 37 individuals met diagnostic criteria for ID. The individuals were administered the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M-FAST; Miller, 2001), the Inventory Legal Knowledge (ILK; Musick and Otto, 2010), the Evaluation Competency to Stand Trial-Revised, atypical presentation scale (ATP; Rogers et al., 2004b) and the Competence Assessment for Standing Trial-Mental Retardation (Everington and Luckasson, 1992).FindingsThe total ILK demonstrated differences between groups with a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.02). Six items on the ILK had over a 30% difference as a function of group. However, two revised scales from the ILK, the R-ILK-90 and the R-ILK-95 (Rogers et al., 2017), did not demonstrate differences as a function of group membership with small effect sizes (Cohen’s ds = 0.02 and 0.29). The M-FAST total score and ATP scales were not different between groups, although results demonstrated that individuals with ID would be potentially more at risk to for misclassification as feigning on the M-FAST.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has several limitations. It is a retrospective study with a relatively small sample size so additional research is needed to substantiate the results. However, this study highlights the potential for individuals with intellectual disabilities to be disadvantaged when undergoing competency to stand trial evaluations.Practical implicationsThis manuscript shows that individuals with ID are at-risk for being mislabeled as feigning when employing standard measures of response style testing if appropriate cautions are not used. However, revised measures that take into account baseline information of legal knowledge offer a way forward that may prevent false positives with individuals with ID.Social implicationsThe mislabeling of individuals with ID could lead to significant problems, including harsh sentences and unnecessary incarcerations. This manuscript provides real-world data and encourages clinicians to be mindful when evaluation individuals with ID for court-ordered evaluations.Originality/valueThis manuscript is critical, as it shows that caution is needed when using instruments of feigning with individuals with ID who are undergoing competency evaluations. This has value for clinicians who are tasked with completing these evaluations for the courts.

ABSTRACT The U.S. Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) funds comprehensive services for people living with HIV to support viral suppression (VS). We analyzed five years of RWHAP data from the Minneapolis-St. Paul region to (1) assess variation and (2) evaluate the causal effect of each RWHAP service on sustained VS by race/ethnicity. Sixteen medical and support services were included. Descriptive analyses assessed service use and trends over time. Causal analyses used generalized estimating equations and propensity scores to adjust for the probability of service use. Receipt of AIDS Drug Assistance Program and financial aid consistently showed higher probabilities of sustained VS, while food aid and transportation aid had positive impacts on VS at higher levels of service encounters; however, the impact of services could vary by race/ethnicity. For example, financial aid increased the probability of sustained VS by at least 3 percentage points for white, Hispanic and Black/African American clients, but only 1.6 points for Black/African-born clients. This study found that services addressing socioeconomic needs typically had positive impacts on viral suppression, yet service use and impact of services often varied by race/ethnicity. This highlights a need to ensure these services are designed and delivered in ways that equitably serve all clients.

The concept of "successful" psychopathy has intrigued the field, yet relatively little actual science exists to understand what makes those high in psychopathic traits more or less successful, or even what constitutes "success." In the current study, we examined the validity of the moderated expression hypothesis, including an elaborated version that considers differential configuration of psychopathy traits, as accounting for differences in criminal and noncriminal (the most common operationalization of "success") expressions of psychopathy. The latter was conceptualized from the perspective of the triarchic psychopathy model. We recruited a community sample (n = 212) that had been overweighted toward psychopathic personality traits. The triarchic psychopathy domains of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition were modeled as latent constructs based on scores from multiple psychopathy measures. We examined affective processing dysfunction, various executive cognitive deficits, substance misuse, and socioeconomic indicators (income, education) as potential moderators of associations between psychopathy and criminality. We estimated a series of latent regression models in which we tested interaction effects between hypothesized moderators and a latent criminality variable. We found that affective processing dysfunction, substance misuse, and the triarchic psychopathy domain of disinhibition all moderated the association between meanness and criminality, in that the latter association was stronger as these moderators increased in severity. Disinhibition was also moderated by substance misuse and boldness by both personal income and commission errors from a go/no-go task, though in the case of the latter domain, these moderators served as protective factors against criminality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

This theme issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies addresses government/civic partnerships. Do government services always orient toward hierarchies of domination? Our answer is a resounding no. This article offers as evidence the actions of one government funder that removed hierarchical barriers, working in partnership with diverse grantees to envision a program that prioritizes community relevance and participation. Even as our article revolves around a strategic visioning event, it is a culmination of a government funder living out its guiding principles of mutual respect, joint problem solving, and valuing diversity, as well as the values, experiences, and collaborative spirit that diverse grantees brought. Our collective stories offer a clear example of how a partnership-based government program can engage and promote the strengths, needs, and priorities of the community not only because it is the appropriate and respectful approach, but also because it leads to stronger program results.

Objectives: This study examines racial/ethnic differences in self-rated health (SRH) and sense of control among older adults receiving publicly funded home- and community-based services (HCBS) and tests the mediating role of functional, emotional, and financial stressors. Methods: Data are from 2015 National Core Indicators-Aging and Disability Survey collected from face-to-face interviews with 1936 older adults aged 65years or older receiving HCBS in Minnesota. Path analysis based on logistic regression was used. Results: Racial/ethnic minority HCBS users had lower SRH and sense of control than white participants, with Asian participants reporting the lowest scores. Whereas functional impairment was a common explanatory factor for the racial/ethnic differences, negative mood and financial strain were mediators for Asian and Hispanic/Latino participants, respectively. Discussion: Racial/ethnic disparities in well-being exist among older HCBS users, with different mediators at play. Customized services are needed to meet diverse needs of older adults of different racial/ethnic groups.