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Regeneration is an internationally popular policy for improving distressed neighbourhoods dominated by large social housing developments. Stimulating employment is often touted as a secondary benefit, but this claim has rarely been evaluated convincingly. In 2003, Glasgow City Council transferred ownership of its entire social housing stock to the Glasgow Housing Association and over £4 billion was invested in physical repairs, social services and other regeneration activities. Using a linked census database of individuals (Scottish Longitudinal Study), we evaluate the causal effect of the Stock Transfer on employment in Glasgow through a quasi-experimental design that exploits idiosyncrasies and changes in Glasgow’s administrative boundaries. We find that the Stock Transfer had a positive effect on employment for Glasgow residents who were not living in transferred social housing stock. We establish that this effect was mainly accomplished through the local employment multiplier effect of capital spending rather than through any other programmatic elements of the Stock Transfer. Exploratory analysis shows heterogeneous effects: individuals who were over 21, female, living with dependent children and with less education were less likely to benefit from the intervention. We did not find significant subgroup effects by neighbourhood deprivation.

The Introduction Programme offers language, employment and cultural training for new migrants in Norway. Attendance on the programme is mandatory for most refugees and family reunification migrants (with non-Nordic spouses). Migrants are given a special benefit for attendance (calculated by hours). The amount changes based on an age cut-off: under 25s earn benefits at 2/3 the rate of those over 25. Benefits are calculated per hour of programme attendance.The benefit age cut-off can be used to measure the effects of cash incentives on programme attendance and its knock-on effect on integration outcomes such as education and employment. We propose a Regression Kink Design (RKD) to answer our primary research questions:RQ1: What is the effect of the age-cut off (via benefit rate) on programme participation?RQ2: What is the effect of the age-cut off (via benefit rate) on integration outcomes inclusive of employment status, wages, and further education/ training?RQ3: What is the direct effect of programme participation on integration outcomes? This is estimated using the results of questions 1 and 2.RQ4: What is the variance in programme attendance effects across municipalities? This is looking at the effects identified in RQs 1 and 2 across different intervention sites.RQ5: Do heterogeneous effects exists for a) programme participation and b) integration outcome? This will involve subgroup analysis.RQ6: What are the effects of the changes in rights and obligations at age 55 on programme participation? Over 55s have the right but not the obligation to participate in the Introduction Programme.RQ6 is a scoping question; if a change in participation occurs around this age then this means that the age 55 cut-off can used for further studies (conditional on sample size).

A growing number of studies of European and North American cities have shown that poverty is moving away from urban centres in a process known as the decentralisation (or suburbanisation) of poverty. These findings raise important questions about the impact on the quality of life for poorer residents who face financial constraints with respect to their access to transport. This article investigates the implications of the decentralisation of poverty for access to amenities and employment. Using data on England and Wales, we find that the decentralisation of poverty has led to greater inequalities between poor and non-poor households in access to both employment and amenities in large urban areas. We also provide two methodological innovations: (1) we address the long-standing methodological problem of measuring centralisation for cities with multiple urban centres by developing a generalised formula for the RCI (relative centralisation index), and (2) we demonstrate the use of OpenStreetMap data for identifying urban centres.

Inthischapter, we highlight the importance of social frontiers—sharp spatial divisions in the residential make-up of adjacent communities—as a potentially important form of segregation. The handful of studies estimating the impacts of social frontiers have been based in the USA and the UK, both of which are free-market democracies with a long history of immigration, ethnic mix and segregation. There are currently no studies of social frontiers in former socialist countries, for example, or in countries where immigration and ethnic mix are only a recent phenomenon or non-existent. This chapter aims to address this research gap by estimating the impacts of social frontiers on crime rates in a post-socialistcountry, Czechia. We demonstrate how a Bayesianspatial conditional autoregressive estimation can be used to detect social frontiers in this setting, and we use a fixed effect quasi-Poisson model to investigate the impact on crime. Our results suggest that in new immigration destinations, social frontiers may not be associated with higher rates of crime, at least in the short run. Moreover, our use of cultural distance measures helps to promote a more nuanced approach to studying the impact of segregation and highlights the role of cultural diversity in understanding the link between immigrant segregation and crime. We reflect on how this approach could contribute to the study of segregation and inequality in the Chinese context.

Policies for resettling refugees are of utmost salience across Europe. The Home Office introduced the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) in 1999, which pursued a policy of evicting refugees from social housing within 28 days of gaining permission to remain in the UK. By contrast, changes in Scottish housing policy beginning in 2001 prioritised refugees for social housing. We investigate whether the Scottish policy reduced refugee homelessness eight months after permission to remain, using nonresponse rates of the 2005-2009 Survey of New Refugees as a lower-bound proxy for homelessness. NASS’s quasi-random scheme for allocating refugees across the UK represents a natural experiment for measuring plausibly causal effects. We find that refugees assigned to Glasgow, Scotland had a significantly lower homelessness rate than comparable refugees assigned to live elsewhere in the UK. We attribute this effect to allowing refugees priority access to social housing, discounting potential confounders and other mediators.

Relatively little is known about the characteristics of fathers who receive social worker contact. This lack of knowledge also extends to male partners of mothers who, while not biologically related to the children, may also be significant caregivers. Increased knowledge is vital to inform the provision of services for whole families. This research note examines the characteristics of these men using a sample of individuals from a large-scale British cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). We compare the characteristics of fathers with those of mothers who have had social work contact. Furthermore we demonstrate the use of classification tree models (Breiman, Friedman, Olshen, & Stone, 1984) as a means of predicting whether fathers or mothers are more likely to receive social work contact. Classification trees have a distinct advantage in terms of modeling complex interactions and interpretation compared with the more commonly used logistic regression model.

Objective: Using data from our evaluation of the Frontline fast-track social work training program, introduced by the Government in England, we compare the performance of the first cohort of Frontline trainees with students from regular social work programs using simulated practice. Method: Forty-nine Frontline trainees were compared with 36 postgraduate students in high-tariff universities and 30 students from a range of other regular programs. Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to compare the performance of the three groups in interviews and written reflections. Results: Frontline trainees were rated significantly higher than comparison groups for the quality of their interviewing and written reflection. Despite these higher ratings for practice quality, the Frontline trainees’ rating of their own confidence in their abilities was lower than their counterparts on regular programs. Conclusions: The practice quality of Frontline graduates is promising. Longitudinal research is needed in real practice settings.

Highlights • Examines children whose mothers had social worker contact in an English cohort study. • Found substantial levels of underreporting of social worker contact in the study. • Identified factors associated with an increased chance of social worker contact. • Worse child emotional and behavioural problems were associated with contact., Background There is little evidence on the degree of underreporting of social work contact in survey studies. There are also few studies about the emotional and behavioural problems of children in families who have contact with social workers, despite the adversities they face. Objective We examine underreporting of social work contact; the predictors of social work contact with families; and links between social work contact and emotional and behavioural outcomes for children. Participants and setting The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children follows the health and development of 14,062 children born in 1991–2 to women living in and around the City of Bristol. The study includes self-reported information about mothers’ contact with social workers and children’s emotional and behavioural outcomes using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Methods Self-reporting of social work contact in ALSPAC is compared with administrative data from the child protection register to examine rates of underreporting. We use a fixed-effects model to account for measurement error in estimating the association between social work contact and potential predictors, namely gender of the child and maternal factors: marital status, trouble with law, hospitalisation, cannabis and alcohol use, employment, financial difficulty and experience of cruelty from a partner. SDQ scores are explored using linear regression with lagged indicators of social work contact. Results The probability of a false negative for self-report of social work contact ranged from 22% to 34% across three survey waves. Mothers who married within the last 12 months were less likely to receive social work contact (OR: 0.13, CI95%: 0.01–1.34). Those who had either been hospitalised (OR: 1.52, CI95%: 1.01 – 2.28) or increased their rate of alcohol consumption (OR: 2.14, CI95%: 0.91 – 5.07) within the last 12 months were more likely to receive such contact. Overall children whose mothers report social work contact were much more likely to have emotional and behavioural problems within the first seven years of their lives (p

Frontline is a fast-track training scheme for social workers in children’s services in England, which aims to attract ‘outstanding’ graduates who may not previously have considered a career in social work. This implies that students recruited onto the Frontline programme will be of a higher academic quality than those on mainstream social work courses. This article presents findings from an independent evaluation of the Frontline pilot stage which compared the pre-training characteristics of Frontline participants with those of social work training enrolments in England for 2013–14, derived from Higher Education Statistics Agency data, the Frontline participant database and a questionnaire administered to postgraduate students in five ‘high-tariff’ universities. Frontline participants have significantly better prior academic qualifications than students on mainstream programmes. They are significantly younger, more likely to have parents who are graduates and more likely to have attended private schools. The Frontline programme has fewer minority ethnic students than mainstream programmes. Frontline’s objective of attracting those who may not have previously considered social work as a career has featured recruitment of a more socially advantaged and less diverse group of entrants. How likely Frontline trainees are to stay in the profession remains to be seen.

One important indication of the strength of a discipline is the state of its doctoral research. An important milestone for the official recognition of social work in the UK has been its inclusion in Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) doctoral funding schemes. The current study assesses the longer-term impact of these schemes, via a 2013 survey, following up a previous one in 2008. A web-based survey of social work doctoral candidates in the UK (n = 216) was conducted, to profile student demographics, research topics, methods, challenges of and supports for doctoral work. Most doctoral candidates (70 per cent) were using a primarily qualitative research strategy and only 4 per cent were using a primarily quantitative approach. Social work doctoral candidates were slightly less satisfied with their research degree programme than the general population of doctoral students. Key areas of similarity with the 2008 survey included the demographical profile (gender, age, ethnicity) and the percentage who were qualified social workers; key differences included increased percentages of candidates who were registered full time, funded by the ESRC and doing a Ph.D., as opposed to a professional doctorate. The findings highlight a need for capacity building in quantitative research methods and improved support for this academic community.

Embedded within quantitative longitudinal panel or cohort studies is narrative potential that\ud is arguably untapped but might enrich our understanding of individual and social lives across\ud time. This paper discusses a methodology to assemble the life history narratives of families\ud using social work by drawing on quantitative data from the British Household Panel Survey. It\ud explores whether this person-centred approach helps us to understand the counterintuitive\ud results of a parallel multivariate analyses, which suggest that families using social work fare\ud worse than similar others over time. Our findings are tentative, due to the experimental use\ud of this narrative method and the limits of social work information in the dataset. Nonetheless,\ud the life histories presented bring to light complexities, diversity and the non-linear pathways\ud between families’ needs, support and outcomes that the aggregates obscure. We conclude\ud that reconstructing families’ lives in this way, especially in the absence of complementary\ud longitudinal qualitative data, affords the wider opportunity to interrogate and better\ud understand the findings of quantitative longitudinal studies.

Abstract. Background: Concern has been expressed about the potentially contagious effect of television soap opera suicides and suicidal language in social media. Aims: Twitter content was analyzed during the week in which a fictional assisted suicide was broadcast on a British television soap opera, "Coronation Street." Method: Tweets were collected if they contained language indicating possible suicidal intent or used the word suicide. The modified Thompson tau method was used to test for any differences in the volume of tweets in both categories on the day of screening. Content analysis broke down the use of the word suicide into six thematic categories. Results: There was no evidence on the day of screening of an increase in tweets expressing possible suicidal intent but there was an increase in tweets containing the word suicide. Content analysis found the most common thematic category to be information or support, followed by the raising of moral issues in relation to suicide. Conclusion: It is possible that for certain high-profile media events Twitter may be used more as a civic reactive forum than as a medium for introspection or disclosure of distress.