To what extent does current policy and practice pay adequate attention to the needs of the sons and daughters of foster carers, particularly in the context of planned or unplanned placement endings?

"Overall aim: To undertake an initial scoping study of current knowledge, policy and practice (including aspects of relevance to integrated working) in relation to the impact of placement endings for sons and daughters of foster carers... the work of the team has highlighted the invisibility of sons and daughters in policy, research and practice in fostering services. The research project was designed to test this knowledge base more empirically." - pp. 7-8

Creative connections: Parenting capacity, reading with children and practitioners assessment and intervention

This paper presents some findings from a study of the views of 33 parents from a diversity of backgrounds with children between 0 and 12. Twenty-two parents were using family support services. They were asked about their views on 'parenting capacity' based on the dimensions of The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families (Department of Health et al.) which are now incorporated into the Common Assessment Framework used in Every Child Matters (Department for Education and Skills). They were also asked about reading with their children and how this enhanced their parenting capacities. Their responses were analysed using the parenting capacity dimensions of The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families. It became apparent that this common activity (parent/child reading) contributed much to children's development and to the quality of the child/parent relationship. It also enhanced parenting capacity as described in the parenting capacity dimensions. This paper presents that part of the findings which illustrates the creative connections that exist between the activity of parents and children reading together and the parenting capacity dimensions social workers use in assessment and intervention. These findings are relevant to practitioners working within current policy and practice agendas in children's services, which promote multidisciplinary working and non-stigmatizing assessments and interventions

Trends in Banking 2017 and onwards

The changing nature of the relationship between a retail bank and its customers is examined, particularly with respect to new financial concepts, debt and regulation. The traditional image of a bank is portrayed as a physical building a classical Doric portico. This image conveys concepts of service, soundness, strength, stability and security ("five-S"). That "five-S" concept is changing, and the evidence for changes that affect customers directly is considered. A fundamental legal problem associated with those changes is highlighted: a bank is no longer solely responsible for the safeguard of customer monies. A solution to this problem is proposed: banks should be jointly liable with perpetrators of criminal activity in the event of frauds as an encouragement to recognise and mitigate fraud.Comment: Proceedings 29th SASE Conference, Lyon France, June-July 201

Knowledge management : critical perspectives on e-business activities

This article is both a review and an agenda-setting piece. It argues that knowledge management suffers from conceptual and definitional ambiguity, oversimplification of its development processes, and methodological limitations. Nevertheless, there is a consensus in business and academia that knowledge is a key component of success and allows firms to achieve and sustains competitive advantages. In a digital era, these advantages arise from the potential of data and information that can be gathered, processed, shared, and used to improve e-business activities. Thus, this research bridges the gap in the assessment of knowledge management and e-business relationship, by applying an SEM to a large database sample of KM activities performed by European firms.N/

Providing safe and supported accommodation for young people who are in the care system and who are at risk of, or experiencing, sexual exploitation or trafficking for sexual exploitation

This report presents the findings of a scoping study into accommodation for young people at risk of/experiencing sexual exploitation. The scoping study took place January to March 2011 and included a literature search, consultation with young people, consultation with practitioners and development of a full research proposal. The research was funded by the NSPCC

Faith Online

Presents findings from a survey conducted in November and December 2003, to document the use of the Internet for spiritual or religious purposes

Fostering Open Educational practices in cross-cultural contexts

The open content movement is breaking down traditional barriers to learning and resource sharing by promoting free access to Open Educational Resources (OERs) such as digital educational content and technological tools for teaching and learning. OERs have the potential to enable learners to champion their own learning by providing free access to educational content and tools that enable them to create, use and share knowledge. However, the design and uptake of OERs is often hampered by limited understanding of issues relating to the context in which learners access and use OERs. This paper discusses some of the approaches taken to foster open educational practices in learner use of OERs offered by The Open University’s open content initiative, OpenLearn. Drawing on these experiences, we then consider future ideas about supporting open educational practices in cross-cultural contexts, and, in collaboration with Tshwane University of Technology, examine potential impact of OERs in Africa

Temporary Clusters and Knowledge Creation: The Case of Tourism@

With respect to the knowledge-based-view and management science, innovations contribute to a company's competitiveness. And for successful innovation process, companies need to share, create and combine their internal knowledge as well as managing their external relationships and opportunities. Consequently, it is widely accepted that clusters - systemic and local configurations - by supporting horizontal and vertical knowledge exchange could be a fundamental mean for innovation. However, the prolific literature on clusters analyse them only as durable and permanent entities. Yet, interestingly, some forms of temporary organizations as trade fairs, conventions and other professional gatherings, are similar to permanent clusters, but in a temporary, repeated and intensified form. Maskell, Bathelt and Malmberg (2004) even call them “temporary cluster” using the concept to define a short-lived hotspot of intense knowledge exchange, network building and idea generation. It gathers heterogeneous participants in the same spot enabling them to bring together their specific knowledge through intensive interactions. Nevertheless, to date, we observed that the literature focusing on temporary clusters is limited. Notwithstanding, it requires growing attention for management science. In fact, the literature existing on temporary clusters, had asserted that these transient events are important for companies to access markets and knowledge pools in different part of the world. Therefore we consider temporary clusters as a significant vector for the building of trans-local business relations in common situations of incomplete knowledge and uncertainty. Besides, temporary clusters help developing global knowledge pipelines to benefit from outside knowledge.In this context, the paper will analyze a specific empirical case of temporary organization related to the tourism industry. Two arguments support this choice. On the one hand, as stated by Maskell et al. (2005), ‘identifying, selecting, approaching and interacting with new partners is a tricky and costly process' and, we think, even more in the tourism industry. Indeed, the tourism industry is structured by dispersed activities in nature, time and space that need to be combined and assembled dynamically. On the other hand, the tourism industry has been one of the most innovative activities related to the development of ICT, almost 50% of the innovations in the e-commerce activity come from e-tourism or m-tourism. Therefore, the analysis of a temporary cluster dedicated to this ‘dispersed' activity is particularly relevant.The paper will thus focus on such an event called Tourism@. This major event gathers the main actors of e-tourism and is dedicated to the usages of ICT in the tourism industry. It appears as a unique international trade fair in Europe dedicated to start up innovative companies, high tech SMEs, academic research, as well as large multinationals. Tourism@' specificity lies in the fact that each year, since 2001, the event includes the organization of a competition rewarding projects for their creativity and commitment in developing and implementing either new technologies or new uses for the tourism industry. The projects involved in this competition (175 since 2001) will be the basic elements of the temporal database we have build, in which the nature of the projects is extensively described (nature of the firm, of the technology, of the team, capabilities implemented, level of innovation...). In order to analyze the evolution of innovative activities in e-tourism, the initial step will be to characterize the projects through three main features: the market they address, nature of the technology and their innovative intensity. The study reveals that, each year, a main technology or a main innovation in terms of uses emerges showing some kind of self organization. Then, two points of the case study will be examined: first, the evolution of the dominant technology over time, and secondly, the diffusion of the emerging technology. Therefrom, the empirical study will aim at analyzing if temporary proximity allows the different actors from tourism industry to set up or mobilize knowledge and social links without requiring durable co-location. Furthermore, it will aim at identifying if, in a dynamic context of annual event, the repeated face to face temporary relations can result in trust and durable cooperation between different organizations. It might be expected that Tourism@ trade fair, in the role of a temporary cluster, enables to develop or implement innovative solutions, supports technology transfers and backs the creation of new markets as well as the fostering of horizontal and vertical relations between stakeholders.The paper is structured as follows. First section will investigate the theory field of temporary clusters and question in what extent a temporary cluster can be considered as a specific temporary organization regarding the interactions it support that lead to knowledge creation. Section two will present the Tourism@ case study; the methodology used and will develop the statistical analysis of the database. Lastly, the third section will be dedicated to the discussion of temporary clusters as a specific form of inter-firm organization that allows intensive exchange of knowledge.Knowledge creation; Temporary cluster; Tourism; Technological innovation

A National Portrait of Domestic Violence Courts

A growing number of criminal courts nationwide handle domestic violence cases on separate calendars, termed domestic violence courts. There are now 208 confirmed domestic violence courts across the U.S. (Center for Court Innovation 2009). More than 150 similar projects have been established internationally. Some domestic violence courts emerged in the context of the broader "problem-solving court" movement and share characteristics with other specialized courts, such as separate dockets and specially trained judges. However, the origins of domestic violence courts are also distinct, growing out of the increased attention afforded domestic violence matters by the justice system over the past 30 years. With funding from the National Institute of Justice, this study explores how criminal domestic violence courts have evolved, their rationale, and how their operations vary across the U.S. This study does not test whether domestic violence courts reduce recidivism, protect victims, or achieve other specific effects -- although we provide a thorough literature review on these points. Rather, our aim is to present a comprehensive national portrait of the field as it exists today, laying the groundwork for future information exchange and research