Suchergebnisse

This paper reports and assesses the outcomes of a pilot programme in London to reduce the duration of child protection court proceedings. The initiative, known as the 'Tri-borough Care Proceedings Pilot', was intended to reduce the usual duration to 26 weeks, ahead of national moves in that direction. The paper locates the issue of court delay in a wider political and child welfare context, highlighting the dilemmas of balancing principles of family autonomy and child safety, support and protection, thoroughness and speed, welfare practices and court processes. It compares the policy, legal and court contexts in the USA and England, showing that what might appear at first sight a local initiative actually relates to a much wider, long-lasting and international debate about how to reach important decisions about children in a reasonable timescale. The paper concludes that there will always be, and must always be, tensions between the courts, national government and local welfare agencies. The pilot shows that greater speed can be achieved by a concerted effort from all the agencies, but at the same time the division of powers and responsibilities is a bedrock for protecting individual rights in liberal democratic societies. Welfare and legal practitioners alike need to appreciate this tension in child protection policy and practice, and resist recrimination when there are differences of opinion. Knowing that other countries face the same challenges can help to promote a more realistic and sophisticated understanding of the dilemmas and the implications for practice, and so help to bring about better decisions for children.

This paper provides a six-point definition of what parity of esteem for mental health means in practice. It highlights examples of the current disparity between mental and physical health and the importance of redressing this. The significance of securing a legislative basis for parity in England is discussed. The authors make a call for action, and pose six questions for international readers to consider and respond to.

ABSTRACTThe Department of Health has funded the development of a set of schedules for collating information on and monitoring the progress of children looked after by local authorities. An additional aspiration underlying official encouragement of the use of these 'Looking After Children' (LAC) materials was that they would provide aggregate data to feed into national and local policy and planning. Progress on this aim has been slow, in part because instruments designed to aid practice in individual cases have not adapted easily to the hoped for dual role, and in part because completion rates have been patchy and often poor. This paper describes an action research project designed to use the children's reviewing system to collect aggregate data on the LAC dimensions of well‐being. It comments on the viability of this method of aggregate data collection as well as locating the information on a cohort of 96 children in the context of other studies, and debates about whether the state can be a 'good parent'.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on findings from an evaluative research study which looked at a timed intervention model of practice comprising of up to 24 weeks of intensive meetings with adult service users set up by one local authority in England, to prevent and delay the need for care and support. A particular focus of this paper is on adults who hoard.


Design/methodology/approach
The study employed a mixed-methods design, consisting of interviews with service users (n=13), social workers (n=3), social work managers (n=2) and stakeholders from external services and agencies (n=6). It included a costing analysis of staff time and an analysis of goals of service users and "satisfaction with life" self-report questionnaires (n=20), completed at pre- and post-intervention stages.


Findings
There was evidence that social workers used strengths, relationship-based and outcome-based focused approaches in their work. The techniques used by social workers to engage, achieve change and assess effectiveness with service users varied. These techniques included the use of photographs to enable the service user to map and assess their own progress over time, encouraging hoarders to declutter and reclaim their living space. The service users valued the time the social workers spent with them and the way that they were treated with sensitivity and respect.


Research limitations/implications
The study focused on one local authority in England; there was no comparison group. This, and the small sample size, means that statistical generalisations cannot be made and only limited conclusions can be drawn from the quantitative data.


Originality/value
The paper provides insights into the work undertaken by social workers with adults who hoard. It contributes to the body of knowledge on effective social work interventions with adults who hoard.

This article is based on a study that was commissioned by the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. We report on the learning profiles and education needs of a cohort of young offenders who were recruited for the study. The research was a national cross‐sectional survey of 301 young offenders who were resident in custodial settings or attending youth offending teams in the community. The young people were assessed using the WASI and the WORD measures to obtain psychometric information (IQ scores and reading/reading comprehension ages). One in five (20%) young people met the ICD‐10 criteria for mental retardation (IQ<70), while problems with reading (52%) and reading comprehension (61%) were common. Verbal IQ scores were found to be significantly lower than performance IQ scores, particularly in male offenders. It is clear from these results that a large proportion of juvenile offenders have a learning disability, as characterised by an IQ<70 and significantly low reading and reading comprehension ages. The underlying aetiology of this association is less clear and may be a consequence of both an increased prevalence of neurocognitive deficits and the impact of poor schooling. There is some evidence that developmental pathways may be different for boys compared with girls.

Brexit and the troubled state of the NHS call for re-thinking the UK's approach to health. The EU referendum vote reveals deep social divisions as well as presenting the country with important decisions and negotiations about the future. At the same time, health problems are growing; the NHS faces severe financial constraints and appears to lurch from crisis to crisis, with leaving the European Union likely to exacerbate many problems including staffing issues across the whole sector. However, new scientific developments and digital technology offer societies everywhere massive and unprecedented opportunities for improving health. It is vital for the country that the NHS is able to adopt these discoveries and see them translated into improved patient care and population health, but also that the UK benefits from its capabilities and strengths in these areas.