Working Report #4: Range of Services (Service Provider Perspectives)

This working report examines the differences in range of services across central, integrated, and school/community based sites including referrals to other services, direct support, advocacy, and collaborative efforts to provide services to families. Which models provide the most service options for families? How do service providers view the service options available to them in their work with families? How helpful are services to families? The range of services available within agency based settings seemed the narrowest in comparison to other types of service delivery settings. Integrated service models appeared to increase the range and access to many formal services. Community and school based programs seemed to increase the range of services available to families by broadening the scope of service options, using formal and informal partnerships and linkages, and participating in some preventative and community development approaches

Working Report #2: Client and Community Relations (Service Provider Perspectives)

This report addresses two important questions: how much emphasis is placed on building positive relationships with families and communities across agency based, integrated service, and community and school based models of service delivery? And, how successful is each model at building relationships, minimizing stigma for families, and improving the image of child welfare in the community? Educating clients and the community about child welfare services was identified as an important role for workers in some sites and not in others. While families’ fears of child protection services were a concern, some workers also expressed a fear of their clients and feared for their own personal safety in their work. Service providers within each model seemed to be oriented to different aspects of relationship building and also had different advantages and disadvantages. For example, community based and school based models provided unique forums for engaging with clients and other service providers. Heightened awareness and concern about stigma in many agency based settings was noted; while, in community based and school based settings workers saw themselves on the front-line of improving the agency’s image and building relationships with the community

Implementing Care Aims in an integrated team

Care Aims is increasingly being used as a model of care within NHS services, particularly by allied health professionals. This article reports the findings of a pilot study exploring the impact of implementing Care Aims in an integrated community health team. It describes the main findings, and discusses the factors that appeared to impact on the implementation and use of the Care Aims approach in these teams. The model has been traditionally used in uni-professional teams rather than integrated teams. This case study suggests Care Aims has potential to support integrated team working. In this study, clinicians perceived Care Aims was a model that could improve care for patients, support professionals working together and support self-management. However, it is unclear whether it was Care Aims itself or the training and discussion that took place that enabled this team to develop and agree more consistent working practices. Similar to previous studies, this study has shown how team and professional culture can influence how team members work together and provide care in an integrated way. Team and professional cultures are also shown to influence how team members approach and embrace that change. As such, Care Aims may be more challenging to some staff groups to implement

Does case management improve outcomes for people with schizophrenia?

The Australian and New Zealand clinical practice guidelines recommend intensive case management for people with first-episode psychosis or an acute relapse of schizophrenia. Often initiated following discharge from hospital or transfer from community-based acute care, case management is a collaborative, community-based program designed to ensure people receive quality health care and integrated support services. Case management may provide substantial benefits for people suffering severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia, however, before case management services are made universally available, more work needs to be done to determine when, and for whom, these services are most effective

Service sector reform: a roadmap for community and human services reform

This paper examines strategies to improve the way that government and community services work together to address the needs of vulnerable community members.Introduction In late 2012 I was appointed to lead the Service Sector Reform project. The goal was to explore how government and non-government service providers can work together to improve outcomes for Victorians. I was asked to lead a process that engaged all stakeholders in a discussion about community and human services and in particular, to examine how support for Victoria’s most vulnerable people could be delivered in a more integrated way.An intensive five-month consultation process took place between February and July 2013. During this period my project principal, Dr Bronte Adams, and I listened to the views of people in the community sector, public administration and the private sector. Consultation included public forums, individual meetings, focus groups and a submission process. We talked to ministers and departmental secretaries as well as frontline staff, case managers and community workers. We also heard from service users.This report is a summarised account of many hours of discussions and more than a hundred submissions. The report represents my findings, although it is clear it also seeks to capture the voice of the community

Dimensions of Neural-symbolic Integration - A Structured Survey

Research on integrated neural-symbolic systems has made significant progress in the recent past. In particular the understanding of ways to deal with symbolic knowledge within connectionist systems (also called artificial neural networks) has reached a critical mass which enables the community to strive for applicable implementations and use cases. Recent work has covered a great variety of logics used in artificial intelligence and provides a multitude of techniques for dealing with them within the context of artificial neural networks. We present a comprehensive survey of the field of neural-symbolic integration, including a new classification of system according to their architectures and abilities.Comment: 28 page