Suchergebnisse

Sustainable intensification is a process by which agricultural productivity is enhanced whilst also creating environmental and social benefits. We aimed to identify practices likely to deliver sustainable intensification, currently available for UK farms but not yet widely adopted. We compiled a list of 18 farm management practices with the greatest potential to deliver sustainable intensification in the UK, following a well‐developed stepwise methodology for identifying priority solutions, using a group decision‐making technique with key agricultural experts. The list of priority management practices can provide the focal point of efforts to achieve sustainable intensification of agriculture, as the UK develops post‐Brexit agricultural policy, and pursues the second Sustainable Development Goal, which aims to end hunger and promote sustainable agriculture. The practices largely reflect a technological, production‐focused view of sustainable intensification, including for example, precision farming and animal health diagnostics, with less emphasis on the social and environmental aspects of sustainability. However, they do reflect an integrated approach to farming, covering many different aspects, from business organization and planning, to soil and crop management, to landscape and nature conservation. For a subset of ten of the priority practices, we gathered data on the level of existing uptake in English and Welsh farms through a stratified survey in seven focal regions. We find substantial existing uptake of most of the priority practices, indicating that UK farming is an innovative sector. The data identify two specific practices for which uptake is relatively low, but which some UK farmers find appealing and would consider adopting. These practices are: prediction of pest and disease outbreaks, especially for livestock farms; staff training on environmental issues, especially on arable farms. ; This work was funded by the Department for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Welsh Government, as part of the Sustainable Intensification Research Platform . LVD is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant codes NE/K015419/1 and NE/N014472/1). WJS is funded by Arcadia.

AbstractOne-to-one supervision has been widely acknowledged in the social work literature as the gold-standard approach in field education. However, the sustainability of this approach has been challenged in recent decades amidst the managerial mandates permeating both education and health/human service sectors. Universities and placement organisations have experimented with alternative supervision approaches in response to these contextual pressures, although the research on these alternatives is limited at this point. In an attempt to contribute to the emerging research base, this article reports on a three-year trial of a multi-modal supervision approach involving the systematic application of individual and collective supervision modes within each student placement. The study explored the supervision experiences of 128 Master of Social Work students participating in the multi-modal supervision trial across five health networks in Melbourne, Australia. The study adopted a mixed-methods research design involving surveys followed by interviews. The findings suggest that, although one-to-one supervision is integral, students value the combination of one-to-one and collective supervision, provided that supervision content is student-centred; and that inter-personal trust and mutual engagement imbue the supervisory process. Ultimately, the study points to the importance of both content and relationships in the supervisory process, irrespective of the supervision mode employed.

Evaluation is currently receiving significant attention in the not-for-profit sector in Australia as a changing external environment augments its role in human service organisations. These bodies typically make use of three models to carry out evaluation activities to meet funding and organisational requirements: the use of external evaluators to carry out specific projects; creating internal evaluation functions to manage evaluation needs independently; or a combination of the two. This article outlines the characteristics of an internal evaluation culture in the context of a learning organisation, and describes the increasingly common approach of evaluation capacity building. In conclusion, the relevance of utilising an organisational change process to create sustainable and valued cultural change is discussed.