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Data from the UK Local BMD, a volunteer project to transcribe the birth, marriage and death records of England and Wales, is a rare onomastic resource, being one of the few public datasets to contain full names. However, it has yet to be presented in a form amenable to large-scale analysis. This article processes 25,213,860 birth and 9,887,244 death records--collectively representing 204,427 names across 289 years-into a resource for community use. The data are presented alongside a number of summary statistics and both internal and external validation of its integrity. The data, along with the code used to generate it, are available at http://www.github.com/sjbush/uk%5Fbmd for non-commercial research purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with Parkinson's disease (PD) may find it difficult to identify and access the wide number of services they need and are entitled to along their complex PD journey. As part of the project OPTIM‐PARK – Optimisation of community resources and systems of support to enhance the process of living with Parkinson's Disease, document analysis was developed to create overviews of existing resources and systems of support in Denmark, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom. Documents on community resources, policies, guidelines and professional recommendations were the main sources of information. They were sought systematically at official websites of the public sector (national and regional levels) and websites of non‐governmental organisations and scientific societies; searches were performed in October 2020 and updated in September 2021. A higher‐level cross‐national content analysis integrated all the country‐specific information. Data‐ and concept‐driven coding frames were developed; trial coding and peer review strengthened face validity and reliability. The analysis led to overviews of: (1) Key aims at patient and societal levels. (2) Key elements in form of professional approaches. (3) Community resources. (4) Legally anchored services. In general, clear descriptions of how to implement care pathways and tools to facilitate delivery were missing in the included documents, and pathways and guidelines did not include referral to general social support, social security support or labour and employment support. The results shed light on the complex support systems and resources and can inspire the planning of more comprehensive care pathways for people with PD and other long‐term conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust is an essential if often implicit aspect of co-design particularly when working in community-based, political and sensitive settings. Current co-design literature, however, remains fairly limited focusing on interactions between people as primary agents of trust. Drawing on research conducted with a poverty alleviation charity based in the UK, we illustrate how trust and distrust can also be mediated through material resources used in the co-design process. The paper highlights the significance of materials in negotiating the interdependencies of trust, in how distrust can be leveraged and trust can be supported through sensitive socio-material exchange conducted with resource limited community organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Resource constraints are a challenge for social enterprises, prompting interest in innovative approaches to address these deficiencies. In this study, we contribute to the literature on resourcing practices in small, early stage, social enterprises by examining the role of socially oriented bootstrapping for resource access. We use data from eight UK social enterprises to reveal organizational practices – building credibility, leveraging persuasion and creating resource communities – that shape a diverse set of bootstrapping mechanisms to facilitate exchange relationships and to enable resource acquisition and mobilization. We argue that the unique position of social enterprises allows them to benefit from socially orientated bootstrapping and they display a complex approach that is shaped by a creative interplay of practices to support value creation through resource exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite volunteering being a feature of community life in the UK, differences as to who volunteers are evident. Reporting on a rapid review of the evidence on volunteering and inequalities, the aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the breadth and interconnectedness of barriers to volunteering for potentially disadvantaged groups. Sixty-seven articles were identified, to produce a map of factors affecting volunteer participation. Findings suggest that whilst different demographic groups experience specific barriers to volunteering, there are areas of commonality. Analysis shifts the onus of volunteering away from the level of individual choice (a dominant emphasis in policy and practical discussions around promoting volunteering) and towards the influence of structural factors related to broader exclusionary processes. Those who potentially have the most to gain from volunteering are the least likely to participate. Whilst the benefits of volunteering are increasingly documented by research and championed by policy, there are questions about the success of this approach given that the underlying social inequalities present substantive barriers to volunteering and must be addressed to promote greater access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Harmful gambling is a significant public health concern with impacts on the individual, their families, and society. Approximately 2.2 million individuals are at risk or experiencing harms in the UK (NHS England, 2022) with only a very small percentage accessing treatment. A new service model has been implemented in the West Midlands region, as part of the NHS England investment in treatment. Methods: The present study will present an innovative service model based on eight principles, including: (i) a person-centred, recovery/outcomes oriented delivery; (ii) constructional approaches-building on individual and local community resources; (iii) specialist, evidence-based treatment combined with the use of new technologies and informal support networks; and (iv) use of psychometrically valid outcome measures that track service users' progress on a sessional basis. Results/Discussion: The study will present a new service model for gambling treatment in its first year of operation. Service users' outcome data will be discussed along with the key components of the service model, challenges in delivery and lessons learned. The Inclusion service model for gambling treatment is based on interactive, evidence-based, innovative tracking and digital technologies to deliver specialist gambling harms treatment through a centralised hub with local communities and neighbourhoods supporting recovery and inclusion. Conclusion: Effectiveness of treatment for gambling-related harms in the UK remains relatively unexplored. An evaluation of the Inclusion model and how it enables recovery over the longer term can inform subsequent service developments and add to a stronger evidence base for tackling gambling harms at a policy level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning of the creation of national parks is related to the foundation of Yellowstone National Park in the USA in 1872. National parks (or NP), according to our ordinary understanding, are territories of complex preservation, having priorities of conservation, recuperation, recreation and in some cases farming, according to the program of general protection and usage. These are the territories, dedicated to preserving and managing landscapes of national importance. It took almost a century to achieve such a complex national park concept. The American example had a strong influence on other countries. The first national parks in Europe began to be founded at the beginning of the twentieth century, they were much smaller in their area and were based upon the USA management model. The United Kingdom is the first country to be analysed in this article. National parks in this country started to be propagated as a method to save vegetation and animal life and fulfil an increasing need or recreation for the society. National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act was formed in 1949, which defined national parks as rural areas, including villages and small towns. The first national parks were founded in 1951, in Scotland only in 2000. Unfortunately, Northern Ireland has no national parks founded until this day. The first national park projects in France appeared in 1909, causing a lot of discussions. Creation of national parks was delayed for decades due to many factors. Only after World War II main works were started. The National Park Law was enacted in 1960, which separated national parks into three zones and in the revision of 2006 into two zones: “le coeur” and “l'aire optimale d'adhésion”. There are currently 10 national parks founded in France. They seek to preserve flora, fauna, soil, underground, air, water and protect all natural environment from interference. There was no official definition for a national park in Germany until 1970. A big contribution to creating the concept of national parks in Germany was made by the IUCN conference in New Delhi in 1969. During the conference, the first common rules, goals and perspectives were set for national parks. The biggest impact was made in 1973 when the definition of a national park was introduced into the Bavarian Environmental Protection Act and after few years it was introduced into the Federation Environmental Protection Act. National parks in Germany are for the preservation of representative natural landscapes, e. g. for the protection of biodiversity and especially creating an option for natural processes to take place without any human influences. Uneven differentiation of national parks in landscape is determined by different priority for a particular type of landscape and its protection in each country. Landscape of the United Kingdom's national parks is mostly hills and mountains, less frequent are lakes and heath landscapes. French national parks are located mostly in mountainous and coastal territories. Also, national parks in overseas departments are exceptional for their tropical landscape. German national parks stand out from others for their coastal and forest landscapes, which comprise half of all national parks. However, it must be noted that one national park territory can belong to more than one landscape type. So, the best way to define a dominant landscape in national parks is to define it according to the degree of naturalness: United Kingdom's national parks belong to cultural, French national parks to natural or sub-natural, Germany's natural parks to natural landscape. Protection, usage and management of national parks in the selected countries is regulated by law. In all three countries, the management structure is different. In the United Kingdom, these protected areas are managed as protected community resources, where permanent human community is not usually involved, and are quite different from the ones in other countries, where they usually belong to the government. The national park purpose there is to include large settlements and human land use, which is a part of the landscape. Additionally, due to its lack of territorial integrity, the United Kingdom has separate legal bases for national parks: one of them is for the English and Welsh system and the other one for the Scotland national parks system. However, in France and Germany, unlike Britain, creation and management of national parks depends on the country. In France, after the law reform in 2006, municipalities can also take part in development of national parks, lowering the negative public attitude towards protected areas. In Germany, the biggest part of national park's territory belongs to the country, so there are no problems with land owners there. The main conclusions of the article are these: 1) The United Kingdom, France and Germany have developed different kinds of NP concepts, what proves that these concepts are determined by the state itself, without one IUCN format specified. 2) NP unequal representation of the landscape type is determined by different country's priority for a specific type of landscape and its protection: cultural landscape in the United Kingdom, natural or subnatural landscape in France, natural landscape in Germany. 3) The British NP model and the French [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work aims to assess whether cohousing communities might generate positive effects in terms of social housing. Cohousing projects are 'supportive' communities where many types of informal support networks arise, referring to the concept of sharing spaces, facilities, but also properties, the decision-making process, and experiences. The costs of the sites and construction are often higher than a 'normal condominium' (especially if they are resident-led communities), and sometimes, they might be responsible for the failure of the groups: inhabitants of those communities born spontaneously, without any kind of public aid, are mainly from a medium-high socio-economic status. However, in the UK, where cohousing follows mainly a grassroots model, some communities are able to keep the costs down, in particular by the creation of mixed tenure systems, collaboration with Housing Associations and self-building processes. The Threshold Centre in England allocates 50 % of the residential units for social housing. The collaboration with a Housing Association produced a 'good housing' model, which allowed both a reduction in construction time and a guarantee of the creation of a heterogeneous group (but with a compact identity), as well as the inclusion of socio-economically vulnerable people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the resurgence of community organizing in Great Britain. The high profile of Citizens UK have attracted the attention of politicians, trades unions and faith organizations. The government that came to power in 2010 made a commitment to train 5000 community organizers through a four-year Community Organizers Program.

This article reflects on the experience of a large interdisciplinary research team that included geographers in a study of older people's participation in community life in areas of rural Britain. The mechanisms used for facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration around the development of a collective conceptual framework and associated methodologies for investigating aspects of rural community inclusion in later life are outlined. Lessons relevant to geography education learned about the benefits and “messy reality” of interdisciplinary working are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The nature of community is a question which has increasingly exercised historians, anthropologists, and sociologists since the middle of the twentieth century. Traditionally understood as an ideal which promoted belonging, support, inclusion, and protection, more recent work has emphasised fluidity and contingency, taking account of less positive dynamics of exclusion and xenophobia attached to these feelings. Through a study of the Forest of Dean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, this article argues for complexity in local senses of community. It also suggests that the nature of these affective bonds, regional loyalties and patterns of conflict was closely related to the particular conditions of the mining industry which had dominated the local economy since the later Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a bright future for the public library if it can focus more resources on learning. In a knowledge intensive world the individual's need for informal learning and support of formal learning becomes paramount. The public library, through its community presence, local resource base and professional staff, can support unique modes of learning which make essential contributions to personal fulfilment and a better society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with irregular migrants in the UK, this article shows how the condition of 'illegality' permeates migrants' everyday lives, gradually invading their social worlds and social and community networks. The article will focus on three aspects in particular: firstly, the impact of being undocumented on the ways migrants choose who to interact with and how; secondly, the range of social activities undocumented migrants engage in and the places where they socialise; and thirdly, the interaction with community organisations, churches and mainstream support agencies. Overall, by revealing differences as well as commonalities in the ways 'illegality' impact on migrants' social worlds, the paper argues for a conceptualisation of 'illegality' that takes into account analytically how this intersects with specific legal and policy arrangements and broader socio-economic context, as well as with migrants' expectations and histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debates have suggested that increasing social diversity within Western economies is associated with adverse social consequences such as loss of community and decline of civic society, including an erosion of collective efficacy (ie shared expectations of and mutual engagement by residents in social control). In the UK and US, these debates have been given impetus by concerns about the effects of growing ethnic heterogeneity on community life. Here there is an assumption that heterogeneity undermines social cohesion and makes the established population less willing to share resources, trust fellow citizens, so that it eventually 'hunkers down' and withdraws from collective life. To date there are few studies that have examined this in detail across England at the small-area level. The research presented here explores this terrain by exploiting information from the British Crime Survey on two recognised dimensions of collective efficacy: namely, social cohesion and trust, and informal social control. Multivariate, multilevel models were used to determine the importance of individual and area characteristics in the possible explanation of these outcomes, and particular attention was paid to the relative importance of neighbourhood disadvantage over and above neigh- bourhood diversity. Results suggest that both diversity and disadvantage are statistically associated with reduced levels of social cohesion and trust, and informal social control, but greater substantive importance is attached to neighbourhood disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the experience of the Scottish Jewish community in the Gorbals district of Glasgow during the inter-war period through the prism of autobiography. There are a number of published autobiographical accounts of this community, which provide an insight into many aspects of its life. Taken together, these works provide a variety of perspectives on the life of the district. This article will consider these autobiographies from several angles. It will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of autobiographies as an historical source, as well as considering what these autobiographies tell us about life within the Gorbals in this period, particularly in relation to differences between the first and second generation of Jewish migrants to Glasgow, and attitudes towards religion and politics. In addition, the notion of 'community' in general needs to be considered critically, and the extent to which the Gorbals formed a coherent community also needs to be questioned. It will be argued that the Gorbals was a community according to the definition offered by Robert Redfield, in that it was distinctive, small and self-sufficient (inasmuch as it provided for all of the needs of the people within it, and was thus a 'cradle-to-the-grave arrangement').1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traveller education takes place through family and community life regardless of formal school input. This paper defines the benefits or otherwise of education to support the social and economic mobility of Gypsy/Travellers. It outlines the background of the struggle against discrimination in education in the UK and the EU, and demonstrates how increasingly supportive legislation has made a slow and small rise in Gypsy/Traveller numbers in schools and other educational institutions. Research from Europe and the UK is used to show the endemic issues that illustrate Traveller resistance to 'mainstream' initiatives on their behalf throughout. However, the question consistently arises whether educational efforts are viewed by them as positive or are seen to fail because Travellers are doing what they always have done and still do, and that is taking control for themselves and choosing what specific educational opportunities on offer will benefit them. Finally, the way forward is seen to lie in ensuring that Gypsy/Traveller cultures are recognised and welcomed as a critical aspect of social capital which needs to be developed, shared and acknowledged, through its transparent inclusion in the process and outcomes of education and preparation for employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We investigated the effect of financial hardship on mortality risk in a community-dwelling sample of adults 50 years of age and olderin the United States. Method: The 1996 Health and Retirement Study cohorts were followed prospectively to 2004 (N =8,377). Gender-stratified grouped Cox models were used to estimate the difference in the relative risk (RR) of mortality between a specific number of financial hardships (one, two, or three or more) and no hardships; and the predictive utility of each individual financial hardship for mortality during the follow-up period. Results: Gender-stratified models adjusted for demographics, socioeconomic characteristics, and functional limitations in 1996 showed that women reporting one (hazard ratio [HR]=1.42; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05–1.92) or three or more (HR=1.60; 95% CI: 1.05–2.46) and men reporting two (HR=1.80; 95% CI: 1.21–2.69) financial hardships had a substantially higher probability of mortality compared to those reporting no financial hardships. Individual financial hardships that predicted mortality in fully adjusted models for women included receiving Medicaid (HR=2.23; 95% CI: 1.68–2.98) and for men receiving Medicaid (HR=2.11; 95% CI: 1.57–2.84) and receiving food stamps (HR=1.59; 95% CI: 1.09–2.33). Conclusions: These findings suggest that over and above the influence of traditional measures of socioeconomic status, financial hardship exerts an influence on the risk of mortality among older adults and that the number and type of hardships important in predicting mortality may differ for men and women. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Fathers are particularly difficult to recruit to voluntary parenting programmes, despite the advantages of such programmes for confidence and skills in parenting and associated improvements in child behaviour. The apparent reluctance of fathers to engage in parenting services is recognised as a problem by health and social care practitioners, and the Department of Health identifies the engagement of fathers as a key service target. This review gathers information on barriers to fathers' engagement with parenting support services and identifies best practice for recruitment. It draws on published academic literature, government and community organisation reports and empirical data collection through interviews with parenting experts (n=9) and focus groups and questionnaires with fathers (n=29). The barriers identified were lack of awareness, work commitments, female-orientated services, lack of organisational support and concerns over programme content. Aspects of best practice included actively promoting services to fathers rather than parents, offering alternative forms of provision, prioritising fathers within organisations and taking different cultural and ethnic perspectives into account. Achieving greater engagement of fathers in parenting support programmes requires a greater understanding of the perspectives of fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civic-republican theories suggest that an active citizenry is associated with community cohesion, better political institutions and inclusive democratic decision making. The influence of these arguments on the UK Labour government has led policy makers to focus attention on strategies to promote citizenship at a local level. In particular, English local authorities are expected to provide 'support for citizenship' as part of their wider duty to promote 'effective community engagement'. The ways in which they can do this are various, ranging from the simple provision of information to direct support for community networks and groups. This article reports the findings of an extensive study of English councils' efforts to engage, educate and empower local citizens. The paper concludes that although local authorities have made significant progress in recent years in widening the structures for communicating with, and engaging citizens, there remains considerable scope for improving activities that address the learning implications of effective citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the effects of climate change and ecodesign and offers updates on the issues and trends in the field. It reports that modeling is being carried out by the government of Great Britain, business and community organization. The call for immediate response to climate change is continuous, particularly the need for more ecodesign and rapid innovation for sustainability. These projects include Sustainable Everyday Project (SED) and the recent Design of the Times (DOTT) project in Great Britain.

The UK Chinese community has long been perceived to have a high degree of solidarity and self-sufficiency. On the other hand, it is argued that the sense of community and mutual help among Chinese people has been weakened by their competitive approach to business. Based on findings from an ESRC-funded national study of the UK Chinese people's help-seeking behaviour, this study found that Chinese people, both where their population is dispersed and where it is concentrated, actively formed organizations to meet their social and cultural needs. However, Chinese organizations were weakened by inadequate resources and the diverse needs of different Chinese groups. Thus, the UK Chinese people were neither self-sufficient nor isolated from each other. The experiences of Chinese organizations further show that in spite of government expectations of community organizations, state input has been mainly in terms of regulations and control. Without financial support, UK Chinese organizations will slip from being weak organizations into 'silent' ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the emergence of social centres and their role in both the development of autonomous politics and the growing urban resistance movement in the UK to the corporate takeover, enclosure and alienation of everyday life. In European terms, social centres are not new and, as Montagna in this issue demonstrates, have played a particularly important role in the political and cultural world of Italy's autonomist scene. Previously marginal in British radical movements, since the eruption of global anti-capitalism in the late 1990s, the number of occupied or legalized social centres and other autonomous spaces in the UK has been on the increase, playing crucial roles in confrontational politics from reclaiming public space to mass mobilizations such as the G8 summit at Gleneagles. This paper, written by action researchers heavily implicated in the social centre movement, critically examines the experience of social centres so far and offers some thoughts on their future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gypsies and Travellers have lived in Britain for over 500 years and yet the country's `original and oldest ethnic minority' (Pateman 2004, 42) remains the least tolerated by the majority This paper provides a brief cultural analysis based on the Gypsy Traveller way of life and how current policies and service provision create barriers to this culture and tradition. Library and information service requirements are identified in relation to specific needs, based on the issues that directly affect this minority group. An examination of current policies and service provision will also identify existing barriers to enabling access to information. Proposals are made for providing library and information services appropriate to this minority community in order to break down these barriers, enable access to information pertinent to their needs and tackle the issues that contribute to the social exclusion of the Gypsy Traveller community in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In May 1915, a wave of anti-alien rioting spread through the poorer neighborhoods of Liverpool, Manchester, London, and other English cities, resulting in the most wide-spread civic unrest in modern British history. The ostensible cause of the rioting was the sinking of the passenger liner "Lusitania" on May 7, 1915 by a German U-boat hiding off the Irish coast. This essay examines the riots in the context of neighborhood politics and family life, focusing particularly on the impact of the riots on interpersonal relations. While the German navy sank the "Lusitania," ordinary Britons ransacked, beat, and looted German neighbors who were often long-time associates and friends. Unable to stem the riots though police measures and legal action alone, the government responded to popular hostility with the internment of enemy aliens and the repatriations of large numbers of ethnic Germans. This paper draws on archival and published materials to make sense of the local and interpersonal dimensions of the "Lusitania" riots and to explore the emotional dimensions of civic expulsion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to propose a sustainability evaluation framework at a neighborhood level and to draw out any transferable lessons for future development by analyzing a cutting-edge project towards sustainable neighborhood design, the Greenwich Millennium Village (GMV) Project, using that framework The results of the analysis suggest that the sustainability evaluation framework devised by this research can be used to effectively measure the project's level of progress towards sustainability, although further research is essential to more extensively apply, test, and modify the framework. The results also suggest that, overall, the GMV project aimed to achieve a significantly higher level of progress towards sustainability in most of the evaluation criteria, compared to conventional practice in the U.K. However, this project is moving slowly towards sustainability. In many aspects, the project's current practices in phases I and II have failed to meet the sustainability targets indicated in the competition proposal. Therefore, there are considerable doubts as to the project's likely success in creating a socially mixed and environmentally friendly sustainable community as envisioned. In addition, the research suggests that there exist perceptual, economic, institutional, and implementation barriers toward sustainability within current planning and design practices, and it highlights the need for setting sustainability targets, indicators, and benchmarks at a very early stage in order to prevent potential conflicts between key actors, which hinder progress towards s ustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research has provided very strong circumstantial evidence of the existence of neighbourhood effects in voting patterns at recent UK general elections. The usual reason adduced to account for these spatial variations is the neighbourhood effect This hypothesises that people are influenced in their decisionmaking and behavioural patterns by their neighbours, with interpersonal conversation being the main means of transmitting such influence. Although there is an increasing body of evidence showing the impact of such conversations—that people who talk together, vote together— relatively little of this has grounded the geography of such conversations in the individuals' local neighbourhoods. Those who interact locally should show more evidence of 'neighbourhood- effect-like' patterns than those who do not. To inquire whether this is indeed so, this paper extends recent work on voting patterns in the United Kingdom by investigating the behaviour of individuals with different levels of participation in their local milieux—what we define below as neighbourhood social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The community dance movement in the United Kingdom has been very active in organizing and delivering dance projects for disenfranchised communities and individuals for several decades. But initiatives have gained momentum following a shift in policy for arts funding after the 1997 General Election. This article examines how dance social-inclusion projects seek not only to allow those excluded from mainstream opportunities to participate in dance, but also to empower them. The aim of the paper is critically to examine these aims while acknowledging the work that the dance community has done in welcoming participation from groups traditionally not associated with the art form. Sara Houston firstly sets the political and social context that welcomes notions of empowerment to take root within arts projects, then goes on to debate what practitioners mean by the term within the context of championing a social inclusion policy, and discusses how examples of claims manifest themselves in practice, if they do at all. She examines one three-year initiative for residents of a sheltered housing unit and an eighteen-month project in an adult male maximum security prison, outlining what the projects offered and considering the limits of recording evidence of empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government policy in both the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) has given increased importance to the concept and practice of partnership. Indeed, partnerships have become a key requirement of most community-based activities. This article explores the nature of partnerships and the need to see partnership as a process committed to engaging all participants. Some examples of partnerships with university-community links from both countries demonstrate the use of a range of consulting skills and creative techniques for facilitating effective collaborative action among community organizations and university partners. The article features the role of consultants in planning, developing, and implementing high engagement techniques in the development of community partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study the Nurses Stress Scale and Nurses Coping With Stress Questionnaire were used to investigate work-related stress in 18 nurses providing palliative care in a UK NHS community hospital. These instruments were administered twice before and twice after a stress-reduction programme. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted before and after the programme and a 12-item questionnaire was used to assess whether the nurses found the programme useful. The findings indicated that most nurses did not find their work particularly stressful, and most felt well-equipped to cope with palliative care stress. However, the interviews identified a small group of nurses who felt ill-equipped to cope and routinely found their work stressful. The principal sources of support for both groups of nurses were family and friends at home rather than colleagues at work, and most felt there was little opportunity to share experiences a-id feelings with their colleagues. likewise, few (only 33%) had found an opportunity to practice the relaxation skills they had learnt during the stress-reduction programme. This might explain why there was no evidence of any general improvement in stress and coping scorns following the stress-reduction programme. Although the nurses enjoyed the programme and found it helpful, such programmes need to tackle contextual battlers to coping with stress as well as improving the individual coping skills of staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United Kingdom, out-of-school-hours learning (OSHL) is incorporated into education policy. This is the story of how demonstration projects, political lobbying, and funding combined with training, youth work, and schools to make such innovation mainstream “across the pond.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid to late 1940s displaced people in camps in Germany were recruited by the British Government to work in industries in which labour market shortages were severe. This article looks at the recruitment of women who were originally from Latvia for domestic work in hospitals, other institutions and private households and as textile workers. The author argues that as well as reconstructing a sense of belonging to Latvia through the creation of imagined communities in exile, waged work was also a significant part of these women's lives. The author explores the ways in which different types of work influenced the future lives of EVW (European Volunteer Worker) women, both as workers and as members of locally based networks, and discusses the connections between employment and home/community life in the social construction of identity among Latvian women in Britain. The article draws on recent oral testimonies of twenty-five women who came to Britain under the Bait Cygnet and Westward Ho schemes between 1946 and 1949, have lived in this country since then and are now retired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth in the provision of gardens has been an important feature of housing in the UK during the 20th century, and yet the significance of the humble domestic garden has been neglected in studies of housing and home. This paper examines the role of the garden in the meaning of home, and draws on theoretical discussions of nature, environmental risk and social uncertainty in late modernity. Secondary empirical data is used to investigate the changing uses of gardens and practices of gardening. A survey of garden owners provides primary empirical data to examine meanings of gardens and personal experiences of nature. The paper concludes that the garden is an important site for privacy, sociability and sensual connections to nature, and these activities can be understood as negotiations and practices to address the social and environmental paradoxes of late modern life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'Idea Store' is a new kind of service, developed to be relevant to an inner city borough with a highly 'socially-excluded' population which has in the past made relatively little use of public libraries and adult education services. In this paper the Programme Director describes how the concept was developed and operationalised and demonstrates the differences between an Idea Store and other new public library developments. The paper concludes with a number of quotations from Idea Store users, illustrating their improved perceptions of the services offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents findings from a U.K. Health Development Agency project on the relationship between social capital, health, and gender. This was a qualitative case study of a socially deprived community involving interviews with 77 community members. Of these, 39 men took part, including 18 older men. For these older men, community life was constructed around health, family, and employment status. The deterioration of their health status necessitated renegotiation of their sense of manhood within the context of community decline. Many failed to participate in community life, feeling physically vulnerable, undervalued, and socially and psychologically disempowered. Moreover, mistrust of young men on the estate, together with perceived dominance of older women in community spaces, excluded the men from venues affording them the potential to develop social capital. For the few who did participate in community life, informal helping of neighbors was more common than collective action, thereby developing the capacity for building social networks, albeit on a limited basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses ecosocialism, which has in-depth historial root in Great Britain. Politically, social credit has deep roots in Great Britain. During the 1930s, working class activists in the Coventry League of the Unemployed and the Kibbo Kift Kin, a bizarrely named socialist scouting body, came together to found the Social Credit Greenshirts. Social credit has also been politically significant in Australia and New Zealand. Indeed, the New Zealand Labor Party is said to have won a general election on a social credit program. The danger that social credit, along with other right wing political economies, presents within the anti-globalization movement is examined. The case of social credit indicates why ecosocialism has the potential to degrade into ecofascism and how such degradation can be fought as part of a vitally important hegemonic battle within the anti-globalization movement.

The citizenship literature includes remarkably few empirical studies. In this article we report on how young people in a British city perceive citizenship and their own transitions as citizens. Of five models which emerged, the most dominant was 'universal status', followed by 'respectable economic independence', 'constructive social participation' and, less frequently, 'social-contractual' and 'right to a voice'. The extent to which the young people identified themselves as citizens reflected these models and their own life experiences. They drew clear distinctions between what it means to be a 'good' and a 'first class' citizen and had greater difficulty articulating their rights than their responsibilities. Overall, their responses drew on fluid understandings of citizenship but pointed more towards communitarian than liberal or civic-republican citizenship paradigms. They also underlined how everyday understandings of citizenship can have both inclusionary and exclusionary implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 20 years there has been a steady increase in the number of black welfare-based community organisations. This is said to be an outcome of black people's increased collective mobilisation in response to feelings of disengagement, disillusionment and disaffection with 'mainstream' municipal bodies. It has also been suggested that (perceived) changes in the black family have encouraged individuals to turn away from extended family members and instead rely upon black welfare-based community organisations to fulfil caring and parenting functions. This article draws on theoretical analyses and descriptive accounts from social actors themselves to identify whether 'community parenting' is becoming a central feature of black communities in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1998, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, launched New Labour's policy on neighbourhood renewal. New Labour has argued for a central role for the community based on notions of community leadership and community self‐help. In this paper, we will argue that this new approach may only amount to a re‐working of old polices and practices and could result in another costly long‐term failure. We argue for further dialogue around a number of proposals that seek to enable residents to initiate and shape their own debate as a prelude to new forms of local and area regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is about the Women's Circumpolar Conference, that has been in Whitehorse (Yukon, Canada) in November 1999. Hundreds of women, coming from artic nations like Scandinavia, Greenland, Russia, Alaska, Canada (but also from warmer countries like Great Britain and the Mediterranean) go together to talk about problems of their social and common life. The event, developed into the spirit of Bejiing's conference, and due to the active community life in Whitehorse, allowed the representative (many of them coming from native communities) to discuss about themes particularly dramatic in the world such as ecology, social isolation and what is leads to, youth politics, physical and cultural survival of native populations. Reading the event, a few months after, helped by some privileged witness, interviewed in Whitehorse in June 2000, 1 can clearly under- line some strong anthropological themes: the peculiarity of Canadian population in the Articregions in which old and new group of immigrants live together; the delicate balance between man and Artic environment, that is now endangered by multinational economic operations, women's role yester- day and today in building social links and cultural meanings that can allow people to dive in this wide and desolate land; the search for common threads that go for beyond national borders, through which plan future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of joined up government has been interpreted mainly in terms of the need for horizontal integration between services which traditionally have been delivered through stand-alone departments, specialist professions, and 'silo' organizational structures. Two parallel concepts within the Government's modernization programme, namely 'citizen-centred governance' and 'community leadership', imply the need also for vertical integration between different levels of governance. This article explores multi-level governance in terms of the complex inter-relationships between UK central government, local government, and civil society, drawing on an evaluation of the Cabinet Office-led programme of Better Government for Older People (BGOP). New structures, on their own, are inadequate without the necessary changes in the inter-connections and inter-relationships. A number of suggestions are made on how the Government might bring about the type of cultural changes required to make multi-level networked governance a reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the relationship between British football clubs and urban communities and explores the reason for the continuation of the negative effects of football despite stadium innovations. Forms of conceptualizing the notion of community; Representation of a city by a football club; Development of football stadiums and marketing strategies to integrate revenue.

This paper examines changes to the community life of older people living in three urban areas of England: Bethnal Green, Wolverhampton and Woodford. All three were the subject of classic community studies in the 1940s and 1950s, these providing rich material about the lives of groups such as elderly people. Using this earlier research as a baseline, the paper presents data on how the experience of living in urban neighbourhoods has changed for older people in the intervening years. The article reviews the relationship between elderly people and their neighbours, drawing on quantitative as well as qualitative data. In conclusion, the paper identifies a number of general arguments pointing to the value of a community and locality perspective for understanding the impact of social changes on later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hidden economy working amongst unemployed people can be defined in terms of working for financial gain without declaration for tax purposes while also claiming social welfare benefits. The extent, nature, and experience of hidden economy working among the unemployed in Britain is, as yet, little understood. As part of an in-depth interview study of 44 long-term unemployed men, 17 of the men talked about their experiences of working in the hidden economy. This paper reports on the extent, nature and experience of hidden economy working amongst these long-term unemployed men, and the meaning of such work to them, their families and local community. The complex matrix of feelings (including guilt, anxiety and pleasure), combined with the financial gains, fear of losing welfare benefit and the ability to practise work-related skills contributed to creating a lifeworld for these men which had implications for their experience of family and community life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a multilevel empirical test of a systemic theory of community attachment in mass society. The data bases are derived from a recent national sample of 10,905 residents of 238 localities in Great Britain that vary across an urban-rural continuum. The first stage of analysis examines the structural determinants of between-community variations in local friendship ties, collective attachment, and rates of local social participation. Community residential stability has positive effects on all three dimensions of community social integration, independent of urbanization, density, and numerous other controls. The second stage of analysis examines the extent to which community characteristics affect individual-level local social bonds. Residential stability has both individual-level and contextual effects on locality-based friendships and on participation in social and leisure activities. The results support the systemic model and demonstrate the importance of linking the micro- and macro-level dimensions of local community bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article assesses benefits and limitations of law centers in servicing the claims of poor and low-income people in the field of social welfare law. The principal aim of law centers is to service the claims of poor and low-income people in the field of social welfare law. Levels of demand, the satisfaction of unmet legal needs and the role played by law centers in the spectrum of advice services are important factors in assessing their mission. No assessment can be complete, however, without taking into account the internal problems faced by law centers, such as, funding, caseload levels, and rationing procedures. This article argues that the formation of a national network of law centers would help to solve many of their operational difficulties and to position them more effectively within the spectrum of legal advice services. The law center movement in Great Britain has pioneered novel ways of delivering legal services to poor people, particularly those living in inner city areas. By virtue of their high street locations, normally free service and relaxed and non-intimidating atmosphere, law centers have proved to be highly accessible to clients seeking advice on matters such as housing and landlord-tenant disputes, employment and unfair dismissal, child care law, sex discrimination, and immigration matters. Law centers have suffered, however, from chronic under funding and from a number of political and operational problems that have retarded their development.

The article provides information on the Safer Cities programme in Great Britain, which was part of the government's wider programme to deal with the various burglary problems in some larger urban areas. The programme was inaugurated in 1988 with the goals of reducing crime, lessening fear of crime, and developing safer environments within which economic enterprise and community life could expand. Below 300 schemes in the first 16 cities were targeted by the programme at residential burglary at the local level up to summer of 1992. The average programme funds spent for every burglary scheme was 8,700 British pounds.