Introducing the policy commentary

Last November, I received an email from Dr. Sandy Butler in Maine, USA, regarding her interest in sharing information with readers about the voter-initiated referendum establishing no or low-cost universal home care that has just been defeated on the 2018 ballot. The referendum was unique in both its proposed benefits and funding. Despite the overwhelming rejection of the proposal, Dr. Butler contended that the referendum process and universal home care policy has lessons in it for social workers focused on issues of aging and older adults and she queried me about sharing those. Dr. Butler’s commentary on the universal home care initative appears in this issue as the first article. Her proposal of sharing policy issues and lessons in a brief and  focused format prompted the idea of brief policy commentaries for the Journal of Gerontological Social Work and adding this type of article to our publishing portfolio.

You will see other policy commentaries come along in future issues. These commentaries are short, focused, and provide statements about current policy issues that are relevant to gerontological social work. I hope these commentaries prove to be valuable to readers . At this time of when there is much political division and divisive policy activity , the JGSW has the opportunity to forward productive discourse in our own field. Authors who are interested in contributing a policy commentary can email me directly with inquiries. We continue to encourage submission of full-length manuscripts that provide technical analysis and assessment of policy issues as well.

The articles that follow Dr. Butler’s commentary cover a range of topics. Dr. Vivian Miller has the second article in this issue, presenting a systematic review of barriers to family visitation of nursing home residents in the U.S. That piece is followed by an analysis of home care services for indigenous populations in Taiwan by Dr. Chien-Chou Hou and Dr. TsuAnn Kuo, as the third article in this issue. Fourth is the evaluation of acaregiver's self-appraisal of change scale from a study led by Drs. Mavandadi, Wray, and Toseland. Next, in line is an article by Dr. Lisa Juckett and Dr. Monica Robinson discussing social workers' implementation of fall prevention guidelines. Our sixth article is by Dr. Fernanda Daniel and colleagues regarding the psychometric assessment of the Portuguese version of the Hartford Geriatric Social Work Competency Scale II. Our final research article is a systematic literature review focused on protective factors against suicidal ideation among older adults in South Korea by Sukyung Yoon and Dr. Sherry Cummings.

In 2015, the Journal of Gerontological Social Work re-launched its book review section as a broader review section titled Book, Media and Resource Review. The start-up of that section took some time and we have spent the past year revisioning our approach to this section. The new editor of this section is Dr. Nancy Kusmaul at the University of Maryland. We thank Dr. Jennifer Greenfield for her prior service as editor. Dr. Kusmaul presents a summary of how to submit a review as part of the introduction to this section. In this issue, Vivian Miller reviews the book How to Choose a Nursing Home and Michelle Hand reviews the documentary film Every Three Seconds.

As always, thank you for your readership.