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Parental substance misuse is a significant child welfare issue and associated with increased risk of child maltreatment. The aim of the present study was to understand what social care outcomes children who live with parental substance misuse have, and to assess factors associated with those social care outcomes over a two‐year period. The paper reports on a retrospective longitudinal study of 299 children all living with parental substance misuse and referred to one local authority in England. Data were collected from children's social work case files about procedural social care outcomes and factors which may be associated with those outcomes. Using cluster analysis, a new typology of children's longitudinal trajectories through the children's social care system was developed, consisting of five distinct types. Analysis indicated that some children received too little intervention from children's social care despite ongoing concerns, while other children were potentially unnecessarily caught up in the social care system. Factors associated with children having the poorest outcomes were: caregiver instability resulting from substance misuse, parenting capacity and household instability. The study's findings indicate that some children who live with parental substance misuse are at significant risk of harm, but others are not and may be better supported through non‐statutory services such as early help. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Signs of Safety is a strengths-based approach to work with children and families where there are concerns about abuse or neglect. Signs of Safety is widely used in the UK and internationally, and there is a growing range of empirical research exploring its use within statutory children's social work. However, there is little research exploring how, and to what effect, Signs of Safety is being used by other childcare professionals. This paper reports on an independent evaluation of the use of Signs of Safety by an early help agency in the South West of England. At time of evaluation, the agency was commissioned by the local authority to support children and families with multiple and complex needs who did not meet the threshold for statutory children's social care involvement. The study was multiple methods with two strands. To better understand the work that the agency did, data were collected from case files, to develop a profile of families engaging with the agency. Interviews were undertaken with five practitioners about their experiences of using Signs of Safety. Saliency analysis was used to explore the qualitative data. Overall practitioners felt that Signs of Safety was accessible, supported clear communication with children and families and aided critical reflection. However, existing tensions—relating to statutory threshold decisions and multi-agency relationships—were reflected and magnified via the Signs of Safety tools. The implications of these findings are discussed, providing original insights about an issue highly relevant to national and international audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One in five children in the UK are affected by domestic violence and abuse. However, primary care clinicians (GPs and nurses) struggle to effectively identify and support children and young people living in homes where it is present. The IRIS+ (Enhanced Identification and Referral to Improve Safety) training and advocacy support intervention aimed to improve how clinicians respond to children and young people affected by domestic violence and abuse. IRIS+ training was delivered as part of a feasibility study to four general practices in an urban area in England (UK). Our mixed method design included interviews and questionnaires about the IRIS+ intervention with general practice patients, including children and young people as well as with clinicians and advocacy service providers. We collected the number of identifications and referrals by clinicians of children experiencing domestic violence and abuse through a retrospective search of medical and agency records 10 months after the intervention. Forty‐nine children exposed to domestic violence and abuse were recorded in medical records. Thirty‐five children were referred to a specialist domestic violence and abuse support service over a period of 10 months. Of these, 22 received direct or indirect support. The qualitative findings indicated that children benefitted from being referred by clinicians to the service. However, several barriers at the patient and professional level prevented children and young people from being identified and supported. Some of these barriers can be addressed through modifications to professional training and guidance, but others require systematic and structural changes to the way health and social care services work with children affected by domestic violence and abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding more about the discharge of care orders is vital—whether a care order remains in place has significant implications for children and their families and for local authorities. While there has been comprehensive research about the process and outcomes of care proceedings, much less is known about the discharge of care orders—particularly how, why and when care orders are ended and the differences between applications that are granted and those that are not. The present study combined data from an anonymized administrative data on discharge applications, a detailed analysis of children's e‐records and qualitative interviews with family justice professionals to create the first detailed profile of discharge applications across England and Wales. This paper reports, for the first time, the number of discharge applications and outcomes across England and Wales, highlighting regional as well as between‐country variation. Drawing on data from children's e‐records and interviews with professionals, highlighting how and why local authorities are more likely to submit discharge applications, and to have applications granted, than parents. Recommendations are made for how to adapt professional practice and policy around discharge applications to better meet the needs of children and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) are often used as cleaner fish inside salmonid sea cages for biological control of ectoparasitic sea lice. We compared traditional morphological diet assessments with DNA metabarcoding as methods of estimating lumpfish cleaning efficacy as a function of its size, and of its ingestion of alternative prey. Traditional morphological analysis was performed on 122 ethanol-preserved stomachs. The stomachs were removed in the field - following eDNA protocols – from lumpfish collected from industrial Atlantic salmon sea cages in southern Newfoundland. Morphological stomach analysis gave semi-quantitative estimates of prey counts and/or biomass at the order or family level; it showed that shorter lumpfish ate more gammarid amphipods whereas longer lumpfish ate more formulated feed pellets designed for salmon. No sea lice were confidentially morphologically identified in the lumpfish stomachs. In contrast, COI metabarcoding was able to confidently identify the presence of the salmon louse (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) in 61 of 82 successfully barcoded lumpfish stomachs. Metabarcoding showed that diurnally-migrating krill and gammarid amphipods were present in more stomachs in 2018 whereas formulated feed pellets – identified from COI sequences classified as domestic poultry and non-indigenous fish species - were present in more stomachs in 2020. We argue that, when weighed by the total number of reads, the counts per stomach of the number of Global Estimated Sequence Variants (ESV) classified as a particular prey species could be used to estimate the single-species indices of abundance needed for lumpfish breeding values. The number of ESVs classified as the salmon louse could be used to estimate an index of lumpfish cleaning efficacy. As proof-of-concept, we show that 83% of the variance in the number of Norwegian krill heads observed per stomach was explained by two weighed covariates: 1) Norwegian krill ESV counts and 2) lumpfish stomach contents weight. [Display omitted] • Breeding values for lice-cleaning efficacy are needed for individual lumpfish. • Morphological analysis and DNA metabarcoding was completed for 122 lumpfish stomachs. • No lice were conclusively morphologically identified in the ethanol-preserved stomachs. • COI metabarcoding identified the salmon louse in 68 barcoded lumpfish stomachs. • COI metabarcoding was used to estimate index of krill consumption for lumpfish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental substance misuse is a significant public health and children's rights issue. In the United Kingdom, social workers frequently work with children and families affected by substance misuse. However, relatively little is known about this population, particularly at point of referral to children's social care. This paper reports on the largest known study of parental substance misuse as a feature of children's social care work in England. The paper provides a cross‐sectional profile of 299 children living with parental substance misuse and referred to children's social care in one local authority in England. Data were collected from social work case files at the point of referral to social care about the child, family, the wider environment, and parental substance misuse. The findings show that children affected by parental substance misuse frequently had other support needs relating to their well‐being and mental health. Children were also likely to be experiencing other parental and environmental risk factors. The significant historical—and in some cases intergenerational—social care involvement for some families indicates potential issues with the capacity of services to meet needs. Recommendations for practice are discussed with a particular focus on the need for early, comprehensive support for children and families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Primary care needs to respond effectively to patients experiencing or perpetrating domestic violence and abuse (DVA) and their children, but there is uncertainty about the value of integrated programmes. The aim of the study was to develop and test the feasibility of an integrated primary care system-level training and support intervention, called IRIS+ (Enhanced Identification and Referral to Improve Safety), for all patients affected by DVA. IRIS+ was an adaptation of the original IRIS (Identification and Referral to Improve Safety) model designed to reach female survivors of DVA. Methods: Observation of training; pre/post intervention questionnaires with clinicians and patients; data extracted from medical records and DVA agency; semi-structured interviews with clinicians, service providers and referred adults and children. Data collection took place between May 2017 and April 2018. Mixed method analysis was undertaken to triangulate data from various sources to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention. Results: Clinicians and service providers believed that the IRIS+ intervention had filled a service gap and was a valuable resource in identifying and referring women, men and children affected by DVA. Despite increased levels of preparedness reported by clinicians after training in managing the complexity of DVA in their practice, the intervention proved to be insufficient to catalyse identification and specialist referral of men and direct identification and referral (without their non-abusive parents) of children and young people. The study also revealed that reports provided to general practice by other agencies are important sources of information about adult and children patients affected by DVA. However, in the absence of guidance about how to use this information in patient care, there are uncertainties and variation in practice. Conclusions: The study demonstrates that the IRIS+ intervention is not feasible in the form and timeframe we evaluated. Further adaptation is required to achieve identification and referral of men and children in primary care: an enhanced focus on engagement with men, direct engagement with children, and improved guidance and training on responding to reports of DVA received from other agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students in the United Kingdom (UK) are found to lack knowledge and skills in quantitative research methods. To address this gap, a quantitative research method and statistical analysis curriculum comprising 10 individual lessons was developed, piloted, and evaluated at two universities The evaluation found that BSW students’ (N = 81) self-efficacy improved significantly from pre- to posttest, but statistical knowledge improved only slightly and the improvement was not statistically significant. The findings point to recommendations for social work educators in the UK and beyond to consider when integrating the 10-input quantitative method curriculum and when teaching research methods and statistics to undergraduate social work students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) is an ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid abundant in fish oil that exerts a wide spectrum of documented beneficial health effects in humans. Because dietary interventions are relatively inexpensive and are widely assumed to be safe, they have broad public appeal. Their endorsement can potentially have a major impact on human health, but hard mechanistic evidence that specifies how these derivatives work at the cellular level is limited. EPA (50 µM) caused a small elevation of cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]) in intact NCM460 human colonic epithelial cells as measured by fura 2 and profound drop of [Ca2+] within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of permeabilized cells as monitored by compartmentalized mag-fura 2. Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy showed that this loss of ER store [Ca2+] led to translocation of the ER-resident transmembrane Ca2+ sensor STIM1. Using sensitive FRET-based sensors for cAMP in single cells, we further found that EPA caused a substantial increase in cellular cAMP concentration, a large fraction of which was dependent on the drop in ER [Ca2+], but independent of cytosolic Ca2+. An additional component of the EPA-induced cAMP signal was sensitive to the phosphodiesterase inhibitor isobutyl methylxanthine. We conclude that EPA slowly releases ER Ca2+ stores, resulting in the generation of cAMP. The elevated cAMP is apparently independent of classical G protein-coupled receptor activation and is likely the consequence of a newly described "store-operated" cAMP signaling pathway that is mediated by STIM1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents classroom activities that may be used with the children's books "Bats on Parade" and "Bat Jamboree" for middle school students in studying functions and mathematical relations. The objective of these activities is to help students understand quadratic functions. The activities require the formation of small groups. It helps students find and understand the connections among quadratic function family members and the different representations for the functions.

Hippocampal subregions differ in specialization and vulnerability to cell death. Neuron death and hippocampal atrophy have been a marker for the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Relatively few studies have examined neuronal loss in the human brain using stereology. We characterize an automated high-throughput deep learning pipeline to segment hippocampal pyramidal neurons, generate pyramidal neuron estimates within the human hippocampal subfields, and relate our results to stereology neuron counts. Based on seven cases and 168 partitions, we vet deep learning parameters to segment hippocampal pyramidal neurons from the background using the open-source CellPose algorithm, and show the automated removal of false-positive segmentations. There was no difference in Dice scores between neurons segmented by the deep learning pipeline and manual segmentations (Independent Samples t-Test: t(28) = 0.33, p = 0.742). Deep-learning neuron estimates strongly correlate with manual stereological counts per subregion (Spearman's correlation (n = 9): r(7) = 0.97, p < 0.001), and for each partition individually (Spearman's correlation (n = 168): r(166) = 0.90, p <0.001). The high-throughput deep-learning pipeline provides validation to existing standards. This deep learning approach may benefit future studies in tracking baseline and resilient healthy aging to the earliest disease progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]