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The project on which this paper is grounded is the first in-depth empirical study of the impacts of COVID-19 on each stage of the English and Welsh Youth Justice System. We take the notion of a child's right to a fair trial as the lens by which we detail the findings from our research. The paper documents the experiences of professionals working in the courts and children who had contact with the courts during the pandemic. While we concentrate on processes in England and Wales as an exemplar of the impact of COVID-19, recognising that globally, courts were experiencing similar challenges, initiates a discourse about how to re-envision their role in wider criminal justice systems in a COVID-19 world. Our research demonstrates an urgent need for renewed consideration of what support children need to effectively participate in court, and where and how children's cases should be heard. The pandemic demonstrated that creativity is possible and creates a timely opportunity to review the evidence and think more radically about a welfare-based, trauma-informed court process for children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Childcare policy responses towards Covid-19 differed in European welfare states. • Policy responses cause informalization of childcare to different degrees. • Informalization of childcare is mainly connected with social risks for women. • Cultural and institutional differences help to understand varying policy responses. The closure of extra-familial childcare facilities by European governments in 2020 was an important part of interventions against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. One consequence was that childcare was provided by parents at home, mainly by women. As a result, women mainly experienced financial and employment risks related to this "informalization" of childcare. The childcare policies of European welfare states differ in the extent to which they include measures to reduce the social risks related to informalization. Against this backdrop, this paper asks: How should one understand cross-national differences in childcare policies during the pandemic? We are also particularly interested in the effects of childcare policies on the social risks connected with the informalization of childcare and what these mean for the gendered division of paid work and care. Differences in childcare policies during the pandemic are commonly explained in terms of the path dependence of such policies. Using the theoretical approach of "care arrangement," this article introduces a broader theoretical framework that considers the role of cultural and institutional factors for understanding the cross-national differences in childcare policies during the pandemic. We introduce the findings of a comparative empirical study of childcare policies in three European welfare states—Denmark, Germany and England—that represent different types of care arrangements. This paper uses policy and media documents, quantitative data on childcare and women's employment, cultural ideas and secondary analysis of empirical studies. We find that governments did not per se respond to the pandemic based on institutional path dependence regarding childcare policies, while the integration of culture into the theoretical framework allows for a more comprehensive understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, legislation was enacted in England and Wales to criminalise coercive control. While there has been considerable debate on the merits of the law, there has been little empirical study of its use in practice. This paper presents findings from a focused ethnography conducted in two police forces in England. Field observations with first response officers and specialist investigators reveal structural and social-cultural contexts that mitigate against successful implementation of the law. Specifically, we identify officer knowledge and attitudes, resourcing and the framing of the legislation itself as impeding its wider use. While we did not observe the unintended consequences feared by some observers, we conclude that systemic change is required if the theoretical benefits of the legislation are to be fully realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, there has been growing awareness about issues of sexual consent. This has resulted in a global shift towards prioritising education and campaigns which address consent and sexual violence. Yet much discourse about consent continues to reinforce legalistic and binary notions of consent/rape which do not map onto young people's experiences of navigating sex and relationships. This paper draws on findings from an innovative 2-year participatory action research project about sexual consent with young people that involved a series of educational and action-based projects at seven sites in Southern England. By drawing on important feminist work about continuums, this paper considers the generative potential of theorising and teaching about consent using the device of a continuum. It offers insight into how young people construct consent and develops an expanded model of consent using 'continuum thinking'. Findings suggest the need to encourage and embrace a wider variety of terminology regarding consent and sexual violence in order to invite more people into the consent conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Meals on Wheels (MoW) services have been in a state of decline as austerity policies have become entrenched. However, this decline is occurring with little knowledge of the impact withdrawal of MoW services has on the health and well‐being of those who use them. The pandemic has raised awareness of precarity and vulnerability in relation to food that affects many people in the UK and other Westernised countries and this provides further context for the analysis presented. This paper presents findings of a mixed methods ethnographic study drawing on qualitative interviews and visual methods underpinned by social practice theory to explore the household food practices of older people receiving MoW services. Interviews were conducted with 14 older people receiving MoW, eight MoW staff delivering MoW services in the east of England and one expert. The Covid‐19 pandemic interrupted the study, and once the first lockdown began visits to the homes of older people were terminated and the remaining interviews were undertaken by telephone. The study found that a number of threats accumulated to change food practices and moved people towards vulnerability to food insecurity. Threats included difficulty accessing food and cooking due to sensory and physical challenges. The MoW service increased participants' coping capacity. As well as benefiting from the food provided, the relational aspect of the service was important. Brief encounters between MoW staff built caring relationships that developed over time to ensure older people felt valued and cared for. The study demonstrates how MoW services make a positive contribution to food practices, supporting vulnerable adults to continue living well in their own homes and protecting them from food insecurity and ill‐being. Local authorities looking to make cost savings through ending MoW services should consider the impact this would have on the well‐being of older residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the complex issue of the embodiment of grief. It explores how a theoretical shift to the body has influenced scholarly literature about grief and bereavement. Despite this shift, we argue that bodily interpretations and experiences are undertheorised in western psychological literature on bereavement. Specifically, we argue that linear stage models of grief have encouraged the view that grief needs 'working through' in the mind, and not necessarily the body. We draw on empirical data from interviews with bereaved people undertaken in England to illustrate aspects of the embodied experience of grief that differ from how psychological grief theories conceive of the bereaved person's body. Findings highlight the role of the bereaved person's body in managing grief and how the absence and continuing presence of the deceased person is managed through embodied practices. We conclude that understanding grief as an embodied experience can enable the development of grief theories that better capture the complex negotiation between the psychological processes of grief and the materiality of bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The professed aim of any social welfare or legal intervention in family life is often to bring about "better outcomes for the children." But there is considerable ambiguity about "outcomes," and the term is far too often used in far too simplistic a way. This paper draws on empirical research into the outcomes of care proceedings for a randomly selected sample of 616 children in England and Wales, about half starting proceedings in 2009–2010 and the others in 2014–2015. The paper considers the challenges of achieving and assessing "good outcomes" for the children. Outcomes are complex and fluid for all children, whatever the court order. One has to assess the progress of the children in the light of their individual needs and in the context of "normal" child development, and in terms of the legal provisions and policy expectations. A core paradox is that some of the most uncertain outcomes are for children who remain with or return to their parents; yet law and policy require that first consideration is given to this option. Greater transparency about the uncertainty of outcomes is a necessary step towards better understanding the risks and potential benefits of care proceedings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon empirical research carried out by the author, this paper demonstrates that the current law in England and Wales on privacy fails to provide appropriate recourse for a person who feels aggrieved at their photograph being taken and shared, particularly where this evokes emotions of embarrassment or humiliation. Whilst some improvements to the current law are discussed to improve protection for the photographed's privacy rights, the main conclusion suggests that a greater focus on education and guidance would be a pragmatic and cost-effective solution, with this shift in emphasis concentrating efforts on the actions of the photographer. In turn, this would protect the interests of the photographed as a form of preventative measure, rather than reactionary move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), used widely in England, is an important tool for social need and inequality identification. It summarises deprivation across seven dimensions (income, employment, health, education, housing and services, environment, and crime) to measure an area's multidimensional deprivation. The IMD aggregates the dimensions that are differentially weighted using expert judgement. In this paper, we test how close these weights are to society's preferences about the relative importance of each dimension to overall deprivation. There is not agreement in the literature on how to do this. This paper, therefore, develops and compares three empirical methods for estimating preference-based weights. We find the weights are similar across the methods, and between our empirical methods and the current IMD, but our findings suggest a change to two of the weights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Advocacy for people using health and social care services is widely promoted but its theoretical foundation is under-developed and its impact poorly conceptualised. This paper explores the liberatory potential of independent advocacy, using Fricker's concept of 'epistemic injustice' as a framework. People experiencing mental distress are particularly vulnerable to epistemic injustices as a consequence of deeply embedded social stigma resulting in a priori assumptions of irrationality and unreliability such that their knowledge is often discounted or downgraded. The mental health service user/survivor movement is at the forefront of validating personal experience and narrative to secure a different ontological and epistemological basis for mental distress. A foundational strand of this is advocacy to enable people to give voice to their experience. The case of independent mental health advocacy (IMHA) services under mental health legislation in England, provides an opportunity to critically examine whether advocacy can promote epistemic justice as a result of the legally sanctioned encounter between clinical assessment and subjective experience, pivoting on judgements about risk. This paper draws on empirical data from a national evaluation of IMHA services, which included 90 individual interviews with people subject to detention and three focus groups with mental health service users. Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice is used as a lens to investigate how this type of advocacy might mitigate forms of epistemic injustice, and thereby promote greater social justice in mental health. The concept of epistemic injustice provides a valuable theoretical basis for understanding the worth of advocacy in addressing testimonial injustice as well as its relative weakness in overcoming hermeneutical injustice. The challenge of independent advocacy to the dominant discourse within mental health is considered and questions raised about the place of advocacy in modern democratic mental health systems. Highlights • Analyses service user accounts of independent mental health advocacy (IMHA). • The concept of 'epistemic injustice' is used to identify if IMHA promotes equality. • The epistemic agency of those detained under MH legislation is compromised. • IMHA promotes testimonial justice but has limited impact on hermeneutic injustice. • Epistemic injustice is helpful in advancing more democratic mental health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An endemic challenge facing healthcare systems around the world is how to spread innovation more widely and sustainably. A common response to this challenge involves conducting pilot implementation studies to generate evidence of the innovation's benefits. However, despite the key role that such studies play in the local adoption of innovation, their contribution to the wider spread and sustainability of innovation is relatively under-researched and under-theorized. In this paper we examine this contribution through an empirical examination of the experiences of an innovation intermediary organization in the English NHS (National Health Service). We find that their work in mobilizing pilot-based evidence involves three main strands; configuring to context; transitioning evidence; and managing the transition. Through this analysis we contribute to theory by showing how the agency afforded by intermediary roles can support the effective transitioning of pilot-based evidence across different phases in the innovation journey, and across different occupational groups, and can thus help to create a positive feedback loop from localized early implementers of an innovation to later more widespread adoption and sustainability. Based on these findings, we develop insights on the reasons for the unnecessary repetition of pilots – so-called 'pilotitis'- and offer policy recommendations on how to enhance the role of pilots in the wider spread and sustainability of innovation. • Innovation intermediaries mobilize evidence from pilot studies to spread innovation. • Pilot-based evidence can link early adoption to wider spread and sustainability. • Mobilizing involves co-creating multiple forms of evidence with different groups. • Intermediary roles allow transitioning of pilot-based evidence into wider adoption. • Pilotitis involves a failure to transition evidence along the innovation journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present findings from face-to-face interviews undertaken with 16 care and nursing home managers employed in homes situated in two English local authorities. The research sought to explore managers’ perceptions of the role of contract monitoring in the prevention of abuse.Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 16 care and nursing home managers.Findings Though personnel employed by the local authority who conducted contract monitoring were generally thought of positively by care home managers on a personal level, their effectiveness was perceived to be limited as a result of their lack of experience and knowledge of providing care, and the methods that they were required to use.Research limitations/implications Though the research draws upon the experiences of only 16 care and nursing home managers in two local authorities, data suggest that current contract monitoring activity is of limited utility in determining the true nature of care and the presence of abuse.Originality/value Unusually, the paper explores care and nursing home managers’ perceptions of contract monitoring processes in terms of how they perceive their effectiveness in preventing abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Using an interactionist perspective to test on‐the‐job embeddedness and off‐the‐job embeddedness as possible moderators for the predictive effects of job satisfaction and job stress on nurses' turnover intentions. Background: As turnover worsens nurse shortages across the globe, researchers needs to find ways to work out and reduce nurses' turnover intentions. By exploring contributory factors, namely on‐the‐job and off‐the‐job embeddedness as two distinctive forms that both act as moderators, we add to the literature on effective nurse retention and highlight that incorporating off‐the‐job factors can provide a more realistic understanding of why people consider leaving their organization. Design: Survey of 361 nurses of the United Kingdom's (UK's) National Health Service, in 2016. Method: We conducted hierarchical multiple regression and simple slope analyses. Results: Job satisfaction was negatively associated with turnover intentions, and this negative relationship was stronger when off‐the‐job embeddedness was high (vs. low). Job stress was positively related to turnover intentions, yet high (vs. low) off‐the‐job embeddedness buffered this relationship. In contrast, when on‐the‐job embeddedness was high (vs. low), the relationship between job stress and turnover intentions were even stronger. Conclusion: Results showed that using an interactionist perspective is useful in predicting nurse turnover. Nursing management should be made aware of the importance of being embedded off‐the‐job to prevent nurse turnover. This paper issues guidelines to form a more comprehensive staff retention programme for the healthcare sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of research about adolescent neglect funded by the Department of Children, Schools and Families (now the Department for Education) and the Department of Health. The paper examines what is known from literature about the causes of adolescent neglect, together with its potential consequences for well-being. Drawing on qualitative data, the concept of neglect is explored from the perspectives of young people themselves and the professionals who work with them. Consideration is given to examples of interventions and preventative models geared towards addressing adolescent neglect. Key findings indicate that there is a need for both a re-examination of current definitions of neglect in the light of age-related distinctions and perspectives, and a fuller understanding of the particular needs of adolescents who are experiencing neglect. Additionally, the research highlights that there is a lack of research knowledge about neglectful parenting and the behaviour of young people, as well as limited understanding of interventions with neglected adolescents. Key themes from the research are discussed in terms of their implications for future practice, policy and research in relation to working to improve the welfare of neglected young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an empirical research project designed to enhance knowledge of the current extent and nature of abuse in contemporary care homes for older people.Design/methodology/approach A self-completion, postal questionnaire was used to elicit both numerical and textual data that was subsequently subjected to both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The questionnaire was distributed to newly appointed care staff in six participating care homes providing care to older people to determine the nature of any abuse they may have witnessed in the homes in which they had previously worked.Findings A significant proportion of respondents described instances of predominantly psychological and physical abuse and neglect.Research limitations/implications Though the research draws upon the experiences of only 194 anonymous questionnaire respondents, of whom 140 had witnessed abuse; data suggest that abuse continues to occur in some care homes for older people.Originality/value The research has revealed staffs’ recent experiences of a range of abusive acts and practices. Findings suggest that changes are required to current methods of external scrutiny and investigation of practices in care homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment and the documentation of learning is an international issue in early childhood education (ECE) and has increasingly become a way for governments to exercise direct control over the practitioners working with young children. This paper details recent statutory guidance about assessment and documentation for English ECE settings and deconstructs the latest English ECE policies, highlighting that these often give contradictory messages to practitioners. It suggests that practitioners are caught up in playing a game: trying to make compatible assessment practices that address both the scientific discourse of empiricism and a more recent internationally influenced sociocultural discourse, as outlined by Soler and Miller. However, we concede that it is unrealistic to reproduce practices that have deeply culturally embedded significance elsewhere. The paper therefore outlines key challenges for English practitioners: how to use documentation as a generative assessment tool and how to make assessment more collaborative. We suggest that addressing these issues through building pedagogical knowledge could enable practitioners to develop greater confidence when playing the assessment game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Excellent social work can transform people’s lives. The Munro Review of Child Protection reinforced this message by advocating higher practice standards, and the development of organisational learning cultures. One of Professor Munro’s recommendations was the appointment of principal child and family social workers toward this end. The authors of this paper discuss the setting up and delivering on this new role in two very different English local authorities. The first two years’ experience of being in post is drawn on to show that this is one of the most exciting opportunities and developments for English social work in some time. Bridging the practice front line and senior management domains offers a unique contribution to understanding how social work is delivered and experienced. Suggestions for systems change to enhance social work are thus empirically informed and practice-driven. The principal child and family social worker can bringgravitasto practice debates at a time of unprecedented fiscal challenge. In the paper, we reflect on the role and consider our successes and challenges. Any new role benefits from debate about its set-up, the promise and opportunity, and aims and outcomes. This paper starts the debate about the principal child and family social worker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst personal knowledge networks between organisations have been argued to be important for regional economic development, their functioning and, within this context, the exact role of spatial proximity has been empirically underexplored. This paper addresses these issues by, first, examining the dynamic mechanisms of the formation, maintenance, and knowledge interaction of important knowledge relationships of R&D workers in the Cambridge information technology cluster in the UK. It is demonstrated that personal relations tended to transform from an initially professional context into privately governed relationships. Furthermore, it is argued that a sophisticated understanding of the role of spatial proximity requires an investigation of the spatiality of several stages of the network mechanisms. The results show that permanent spatial proximity and face-to-face interaction are more important for the formation of relationships than for the maintenance stage and, in particular, for work-related knowledge interactions. Finally, it is argued that, in contrast to the emphasis in much of the literature on communities of practice and epistemic communities, the knowledge relationships do not tend to be anchored in collective groups. Instead, the paper highlights the usefulness of the concept of individualised networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper explores non-relinquishing birth parents' experiences of contested child care and adoption proceedings. It highlights the perceptions and voices of birth parents which are rarely prioritized in dominant discourses of professional practice in this area. The paper reviews previous related research and also discusses a small-scale empirical study which elicited the perspectives of three birth parents whose children had been made subject to care proceedings and placed for adoption in England. Drawing on previous research and this study, the paper makes range of practice recommendations for sensitive professional practice with birth parents during contested child care and adoption proceedings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The achievement of integration and a reduction in the social exclusion of ethnic minority communities in England are policy matters of major concern. This paper argues that policy-makers and service providers pursuing these aims need to understand the language support needs of minority ethnic groups at a fine level of detail: groupings such as 'Black' or even 'Black African' are of limited utility. Although much ethnicity research has tended to view Black Africans as a homogenous group, appreciation of their diverse language use is important because people from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa face different language barriers on arrival in the UK. This paper examines evidence available from large-scale survey data on the association between language and indicators often used to assess integration and social exclusion. The paper provides empirical statistical evidence on Black Africans living in England and languages in the form of tables and maps using data-sets not previously analysed for this purpose. These are (1) the Labour Force Survey (LFS); and (2) the National Pupil Database (NPD). The results show that Black Africans speak a very wide range of languages at home. Somalis are by far the least integrated and most socially excluded of the major language groups, followed by Ghanaians. Zimbabweans and Nigerians, on the other hand, face only slight language barriers. The paper concludes with some implications of the findings for policy-makers and service providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positioning itself with regards to debates on the role of regionalization in the industrial revolution and on consumer and retailing revolutions, this paper uses the records of John Shaw, hardware factor of Wolverhampton, to examine how commercial travel created real spatial interactions across the industrializing economy of northern England in the period 1810–15. The paper argues that by integrating production and consumption, commercial travel played a vital part in advancing and reconciling the concurrent but apparently conflicting processes of economic regionalization and economic integration that characterized the period. Empirically, the paper contributes original data indicating concrete patterns of interaction across the space economy of early nineteenth century northern England in terms of both ‘routes’ and the intensity of interactions. The empirical material also allows for discussion of customer identities, the structure of geographically dispersed commodity chains and regional variations, if any, the nature of customer relationships. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Whilst there has been a resurgence of interest in community in many fields in the UK this has been singularly missing in relation to domestic violence. Relatively little is known about informal community networks and their responsiveness to survivors of domestic violence and the intersections of these with formal agency networks. This paper argues that (mis)understandings of domestic violence, a focus on agency/state responses and the traditional association of discourses of caring with women have all been important contributory factors here. Drawing on an empirical study on the informal support of survivors in the north of England in the mid 1990s and current research with survivors in the south of England this paper reviews the evidence for arguing that, whilst community-based work against domestic violence raises particularly complex challenges, it is nevertheless essential to explore this as an additional strategy in tackling domestic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a selection of the findings of a larger empirical research study into the mode of trial decisions in two English magistrates' courts (Cammiss 2005). While the interests of victims within the criminal justice process have recently risen up the political agenda, researchers and policy makers have said little on the place of the victim within the mode of trial hearing. This paper addresses the treatment of domestic violence victims in the mode of trial hearing and shows how, when compared with similar offences, cases of domestic violence are more likely to be disposed of in the magistrates' court rather than the Crown Court. The role of the prosecutor in managing information placed before the court is examined and the consequences for the airing of victims' stories are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For pilot or experimental employment programme results to apply beyond their test bed, researchers must select ‘clusters’ (i.e. the job centres delivering the new intervention) that are reasonably representative of the whole territory. More specifically, this requirement must account for conditions that could artificially inflate the effect of a programme, such as the fluidity of the local labour market or the performance of the local job centre. Failure to achieve representativeness results in Cluster Sampling Bias (CSB). This paper makes three contributions to the literature. Theoretically, it approaches the notion of CSB as a human behaviour. It offers a comprehensive theory, whereby researchers with limited resources and conflicting priorities tend to oversample ‘effect-enhancing’ clusters when piloting a new intervention. Methodologically, it advocates for a ‘narrow and deep’ scope, as opposed to the ‘wide and shallow’ scope, which has prevailed so far. The PILOT-2 dataset was developed to test this idea. Empirically, it provides evidence on the prevalence of CSB. In conditions similar to the PILOT-2 case study, investigators (1) do not sample clusters with a view to maximise generalisability; (2) do not oversample ‘effect-enhancing’ clusters; (3) consistently oversample some clusters, including those with higher-than-average client caseloads; and (4) report their sampling decisions in an inconsistent and generally poor manner. In conclusion, although CSB is prevalent, it is still unclear whether it is intentional and meant to mislead stakeholders about the expected effect of the intervention or due to higher-level constraints or other considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its inception in the 1980s, the growing body of Therapeutic Jurisprudence scholarship has continued to challenge and optimise not only our understanding of what the law "is", but also how we can leverage its agency to improve the ways in which we apply, observe and evaluate the law. By focusing on the emotional, human and psychological consequences of legal processes, Therapeutic Jurisprudence empowers practitioners to design emotionally intelligent and remedial strategies to either minimise harmful consequences or enhance restorative legal goals and outcomes. As the influence of Therapeutic Jurisprudence scholarship and its practical applications has continued to gain traction in rapid and organic growth, collaborations brokered with a wide range of social science disciplines have called for a more robust focus on validated measurement scales. To that end, there is a clear and growing need for a suite of Therapeutic Jurisprudence specific tools for empirical evaluation. As there has been no formal attempt within the Therapeutic Jurisprudence research community to begin this process, this paper breaks new ground by providing a validated tool for empirical measurement of the therapeutic quality of judicial officers' behavioural and interactional styles in problem-solving court jurisdictions. Using original empirical data recently collected at a problem-solving court in England, the paper takes the reader through the journey of statistically validating the levied scaling systems by performing Principal Component Analysis and Cronbach's Alpha. In doing so, the paper offers an original contribution to Therapeutic Jurisprudence methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article considers lay participation in modelling as part of a much larger trend – the inclusion of non-expert publics in areas of environmental decision-making that have traditionally been the domain of those with specialist expertise. The authors note that in the natural and managerial sciences, participatory practices and the inclusion of non-expert publics in ‘expert’ policy domains such as the environment are often portrayed with considerable optimism, especially if they are viewed as potentially able to lead to better decision-making. In the social and political sciences, on the other hand, such participatory practices have often been characterised as intensely disillusioning. The article explores the reasons for these different appraisals of participation. It reports, in particular, upon studies carried out in the social sciences that have analysed and critiqued recent participatory trends, aiming to make these critiques open for debate within the modelling community. The second half of the article documents the creation of a new forum, the Loweswater Care Project (LCP), which has used such critiques to guide its ways of approaching the practice of participation. The paper thus provides an empirical case study, showing what might be gained by basing the practice of participation upon critical social science theory. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Geographical variations in voluntary sector activity are important where they lead to inequity in service provision and differences in the opportunity to participate in voluntary group activities. However, despite important theoretical work, very little work has demonstrated variation empirically, particularly variation at the local (neighbourhood) level. This paper, for the first time, examines nationally representative data to illustrate the very real geographical differences across England in the prevalence of voluntary organisations working at a neighbourhood scale. Overall, less deprived local areas have a much higher prevalence than more deprived local areas. While certain kinds of organisations are more prevalent in more deprived areas, including those working in the field of economic well-being, this reflects the presence of organisations which receive public funds. These patterns are consistent with a key element of 'voluntary sector failure', resource insufficiency, and the important role of government in ensuring resources are available in areas of particular need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scand J Caring Sci; 2011; 25; 653-660 Paraprofessionals and caring practice: negotiating the use of self Responding to increasing concerns with the quality of care in both Sweden and England, this paper explores the way in which caring practice emerges out of the interplay between personal and social agency. Working from a socio-cultural perspective, results from an English and a Swedish study conducted independently of each other were used to explore the construction of caring practice. The English study drew on practice observations and four interviews conducted at monthly intervals collecting data on life history and critical incidents. The Swedish study drew on group interviews and two interviews with each participant - one at the beginning of an in-service recognition of prior learning process and one at the end. Interview data was transcribed and thematic analysis identified common themes. The findings from both studies suggest that caring practice involves the intentional use of self to build relationships, understand users and provide personalised interventions. Although practice presented as personal and individualistic, it took place within an organisational context requiring co-configured activity. The practitioners' negotiations with work teams were often conflictual or contested. It is argued that workplaces may enhance caring practice by enabling affordances for the use of self through the design of in-house training programmes, supervision and the organisation of teams. Reflexive practice may also be an important part of the effective use of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Assisted conception involving donor insemination challenges cultural idioms of parenthood and family; there is now a growing body of work exploring how women and couples negotiate becoming a family in this way. But sperm donation also raises questions on the more intimate levels of sex, sexuality and sexual bodies, and these have received little sustained attention in the literature. Lesbian couples in the UK increasingly negotiate access to medicalised donor insemination, but many also conceive in informal arrangements with donors where they themselves negotiate proximity and contact with donors when retrieving donor sperm. I explore in this paper how lesbian couples manage and perceive sperm donations, how they seek to negotiate their intimate, sexual and bodily overtones, and how the medical and non-medical settings enable them to do this in different ways. I draw on empirical data from an interview study conducted from 2006 to 2009 in England and Wales comprising 25 lesbian couples. I suggest that sperm donation raises dilemmas of intimacy for lesbian couples, and that couples try to resolve such dilemmas by carefully and intentionally choreographing donation events through managing patterns of movement and action. The different institutional, medical and regulatory frameworks governing clinical and non-clinical sperm donation shape that management in significant and different ways. I argue that sperm donation choreographies enable couples to negotiate the private, sexual and intimate tensions surrounding sperm donations, and also the subjectivity of the sperm donor. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: There has been extensive conceptual and empirical work on the associations between social relations and health in recent years. However, the specific pathways through which social interactions impact on health have not been fully elucidated. The aim of this paper is to estimate associations between Leisure Time Physical Activity (LTPA) and social networks and support. Using data from a cross-sectional household survey in 40 disadvantaged lower super-output areas in London, we applied a multilevel model to investigate psychosocial and environmental determinants of physical activity in these populations. Our findings present a strong case for the influence of individual-level social networks on the level of LTPA, although the associations between the types of social support and LTPA were insignificant. We also found that crime rate was an important area-level correlates of LTPA. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Ever since the United Kingdom published its second sustainable development strategy in 1999, the legitimacy-governing construct of quality of life has been refashioned in the English policy context to accommodate a novel intergenerational dimension. This paper examines the magnitude of this sustainability transformation by examining the operationalisation and reported outcomes of formally established sustainable quality of life data in conjunction with commensurate quality of life information compiled twenty years previously, amongst 63 matched city locations. Conceptually, we find that although the sustainable quality of life data is comparatively more sophisticated in its environmental connotation it has not managed to reconcile this effort with the social and economic domains of sustainability, tending instead to neutralise the distributive, class-based tenor of its predecessor. Empirically, meanwhile, we find that whereas Northern-based city locations perform comparatively worse on the sustainable quality of life rankings Southern ones do much better. We also find that while the lowest scoring localities tend to be afflicted by similar types of quality of life deficiencies the top ones shine on a diverse range of issues. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper we review the current policy approach to skills and knowledge for sustainable communities. The aspatial and target-led nature of these approaches around the attainment of fixed skill sets is discussed and then contrasted with educationalist literatures which provide an alternative pedagogical approach to learning. That is, one that places a much greater emphasis on 'learners' as individuals and `learning' as achieved through experience. The role and influence of people in place are implicit within these `learner-centred' models. This reflects an understanding of the need to approach learning strategies in a way that relates to people's everyday lives. Drawing on ongoing empirical research conducted in the English town of Stroud (Gloucestershire, UK), we demonstrate some of the insights which can be gained from understanding skills and knowledge for sustainable communities in the context of these more experiential and process-orientated approaches. We do so by looking at the accounts and practices not of professionals, but of community members who are actively engaged with sustainable communities initiatives. We explore the relationships between their knowledge and understandings of sustainability and how they have sought to encompass and actively develop principles of sustainable communities as part of their everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) is used as the basis for predicting beach profile changes over a timescale of years. In particular, datasets of wave measurements and beach profiles at two locations with different sediment types and wave exposure are used. The study sites are located in Christchurch Bay (South Coast of England) in which the beaches are classified as mixed shingle and sand beaches and in North Carolina (East Coast of the USA) which has sandy beaches. The datasets comprise detailed bathymetric surveys of beach profiles covering a period of more than 15years for the New Forest dataset and over 27years for the Duck dataset. The structure of the datasets and the data handling methods are described. The application of the CCA method is discussed as well as the ability of the CCA to provide useful forecasts of the beach profile at each site. Some results and interpretation of the analysis are presented. Predicted beach profiles elevations agreed well with the measured for up to eight years of forecast at both of the sites. This implies that there is no clear degradation in prediction accuracy over the forecast period. Furthermore the level of error obtained using this approach is commensurate with that found with dynamical modelling. This kind of prediction could be of practical use for engineers and planners. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper is concerned with the way we understand and investigate the relationship between human functioning and social setting. The central argument draws on the work of Bernstein and Vygotsky. A novel approach to the study of the mutual shaping of human action and institutional settings is developed and an empirical example of its application is presented and discussed. The research reported here is drawn from a four-year ESRC-TLRP-funded study of professional learning in and for interagency working in children's services in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an empirical study that investigated associations between the quality of care received by older people in residential settings and features of the care homes in which they live. Data were gathered from the first announced inspection reports (2002–2003) of all 258 care homes for older people in one county of England (Surrey). The number of inspected standards failed in each home was used as the main indicator of quality of care. Independent variables (for each home) were: size, type, specialist registration, on-site nursing, ownership, year registered, location, maximum fee, vacancies, resident dependency, whether the home took publicly funded residents, care staff qualifications and managerial quality. Quality of care was modelled using a Poisson count maximum likelihood method based on 245 (91%) of the inspected homes for which relevant data were available. The results showed that quality of care (as defined by failures on national standards) was statistically associated with features of care homes and their residents. A higher probability of failing a standard was significantly associated with being a home that: was a for-profit small business (adjusted risk ratio (RR) = 1.17); was registered before 2000 (adj. RR = 1.22), accommodated publicly funded residents (adj. RR = 1.12); was registered to provide nursing care (adj. RR = 1.12). Fewer failures were associated with homes that were corporate for-profit (adj. RR = 0.82); held a specialist registration (adj. RR = 0.91); charged higher maximum fees (adj. RR = 0.98 per 100 pound sterling unit). A secondary analysis revealed a stronger model: higher scores on managerial standards correlated with fewer failures on other standards ( r = 0.65, P < 0.001). The results of this study may help inform future policy. They are discussed in the context of alternative approaches to measuring quality of residential care, and in terms of their generalisability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This paper is a report of a study to examine the impact of social factors on the management of tuberculosis including engagement with services, hospitalization and extended treatment. Background. Rates of tuberculosis in major European cities have increased greatly in the last 10 years. The changing epidemiology of the disease, concentrated in marginalized groups, presents new challenges to the control of tuberculosis. Methods. A prospective cohort study of 250 newly diagnosed tuberculosis patients was conducted in London between January 2003 and January 2005. Data were collected by means of a risk assessment tool and from medical records. Outcome measures included missed appointments, frequency and duration of hospitalization and length of treatment. Results. The median age of the study sample was 33.82 (range 16.4-92.5) and 56.8% were male. Thirty-two per cent were hostel/street homeless or temporarily sharing accommodation with friends or relatives. Thirty-nine per cent were in receipt of welfare benefits and 13.2% had no income. Over a third anticipated difficulties taking their medicines and 30.3% had noone to remind them of this. Increased hospitalization was associated with hostel/street homelessness, drug or alcohol use and having noone to remind them to take their medicines (all P

Vulnerability is a problematic label routinely applied to people with dementia, yet their situated experiences of vulnerability have not been prioritised or documented. Drawing on empirical data collected using a novel methodology - walking interviews with 15 people with dementia living in Southern England, followed by a sit-down interview that included a nominated family member - this paper advances understanding of how vulnerability is experienced and dealt with by people with dementia when outdoors, and at times shared with family carers. Data were analysed using abductive techniques; a thematic coding framework was created from the dataset, in addition to the application of critical theories of vulnerability and disability. We found that vulnerability is characterised by a sense of 'ontological vulnerability' for the person diagnosed with the condition - that is, an awareness of failing knowledge about oneself or the 'rules' of outdoor life, which individuals experienced emotionally and dealt with civically. People with dementia attempted to manage risks and anxieties, often doing this independently so as not to burden family members. These findings highlight how people with dementia experience and deal with vulnerability when outdoors, which others need to acknowledge and support to enable people with dementia and their families to work though these challenges, in a family-orientated way when risk planning. • When outdoors, people with dementia showed awareness of vulnerabilities exposed. • People with dementia may attempt to hide or mask their feelings of vulnerability. • Ontological vulnerability is relational and maybe shared with family members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]