Dimensions in Health : A Sample of Rural and Global Health Issues

We invite you to explore an array of issues touching culture, rurality, or both, in the following collection of essays. In this class, we have defined both culture and rurality broadly and in expansive contexts. Much remains to be done, both locally and globally, to improve the health status of our varied populations and residents. Please join us in the analysis and resolution of the health challenges, inequities, and noteworthy mysteries that characterize particular rural and cultural settings.https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/rural-cultural-health/1001/thumbnail.jp

2018 EURēCA Abstract Book

Listing of student participant abstracts

Implications of a Local Case Study for Crime Prevention Practice and Policy, and Criminology’s ‘Grand Narratives’

There has been a growing focus on crime prevention in the criminological literature in recent decades. Despite this growing interest, much remains unknown. This is true at both the practical, applied level and the conceptual, theoretical level. This thesis extends our understanding of crime prevention on both levels. This thesis comprehensively describes diverse methods of crime prevention operating in the Glebe postcode area (Sydney, Australia). This case study of the Glebe postcode area was developed to provide a looking glass into crime prevention practices. By having a narrow geographical focus for the research, it was possible to develop a deep understanding of the intricate networks and activities that directly and indirectly contribute to the prevention of crime in the area. Rarely has such close attention been paid to these dimensions of, and conditions and contexts for, crime prevention in Australia. Description and analysis of wider policies and programs provide important context for this case study. Trends in local forms of crime prevention and state-wide (that is, New South Wales) developments place the case study in a historical and policy context. Analysis of these wider trends and forces reveals the similarities of the findings from the Glebe case study with these longer-term trends. A number of findings emerged from this Glebe case study relevant to crime prevention policy and practice. Significantly, a plethora of activities and programs was identified that seek to prevent crime or contribute to the prevention of crime. By adopting a place-based analysis, it was possible to observe the layers of prevention operating in the area that other forms or scope of analysis risk missing. The limited previous capture of these crime prevention activities raises questions about what is known about prevention, the efficacy of a crime prevention evidence base, and subsequent theorising. One reason that these activities might not be generally visible is the absence of evaluation. There was little evidence of rigorous evaluation of the diverse initiatives and programs operating in the area. This might be explained by the generally low commitment to evaluation in Australia (English et al 2002; Homel 2007) and by the nature of some of the crime prevention initiatives. Many of the crime prevention measures adopted are the responsibility of individual home owners, car manufacturers, businesses and institutions. Evaluation, in the traditional social science sense, is not likely to be a priority for these individuals and entities. Moreover, many of the programs were embedded in human service systems. Isolating the impact of particular programs becomes difficult in this context (Hope 2005a). Calls for increased investment in evaluation, and especially approaches that are sensitive to ‘collective impacts’ (Kania & Kramer 2011, 2013), are supported by this research. The observation that many of the local crime prevention activities are guided by, and aspire to, socially inclusive outcomes is significant. Rather than being exclusionary and constituting an extension of the ‘net of social control’ (Cohen 1985), much crime prevention activity is animated by social-welfare traditions. For a small number of Glebe residents, the ‘surveillance society’ (Lyon 2007) is a daily reality, with frequent bail checks, reporting regimes to criminal justice agencies and intrusions by state housing representatives. However, for the vast majority, crime prevention is a partial or the primary reason why day care, parenting support programs, alternative education classes, mentoring schemes, exercise programs and breakfast clubs exist. People are more likely to experience the caring face of crime prevention, rather than an impersonal ‘surveillant assemblage’ (Haggerty & Ericson 2000). Analysis of crime data for the Glebe area over an 18-year period (1995–2012) revealed a dramatic decline in key volume (property) offences in the area from the late 1990s, and especially since 2007–08. This decline, generally consistent with trends in Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia (Weatherburn & Holmes 2013a, 2013b) and other jurisdictions (Zimring 2007; Farrell et al 2011; van Dijk et al 2012), provided a critical backdrop to the fieldwork. While difficult to prove, especially given the limited evaluation of local programs, it is highly likely that, based on research from elsewhere (see Skogan 2006;Farrell et al 2008; van Dijk et al 2012; Farrell 2013), these crime prevention measures have at least contributed to such declines at the local level. Irrespective of whether a causal link can be established between particular initiatives and falls in crime, there was evidence that this local crime decline in Glebe has had direct impact on responses to crime. Some inter-agency crime prevention structures have been dismantled in recent years and it was decided by local actors during the research period that a new or revised local crime prevention plan was not necessary due to the significant falls in some crime categories. These developments generally appear contrary to some previous suggestions of the expansionary tendencies of crime prevention actors (Gilling 1997). Local actors also mentioned their fears of experiencing the ‘prevention paradox’ — program funding being withdrawn as a consequence of falling crime. In this way, crime rates and crime prevention activities seemingly share a loose but important relationship. The sharp and sustained decline in many crime types in the last 10 to 12 years and the findings emerging from this research suggest the need for the rethinking and reworking of some previous criminological propositions. In particular, this research cautions against easy adoption of the ‘grand narratives’ that suggest we are being ‘governed through crime’/‘fear of crime’/‘uncertainty’/‘antisocial behaviour’ (Simon 2007; Lee 2007; Ericson 2007; Crawford 2009a) in the ‘pursuit of security’ (Zedner 2009). The quiet dismantling of some crime prevention structures, the reduced focus on crime in inter-agency meetings, the anecdotal suggestion that people are less fearful following falls in crime, and the decision not to develop a new local crime prevention plan, all revealed by the Glebe case study, point to (admittedly early and partial) signs that crime is not the organising principle that it once was. The public housing ‘crisis’, child protection reforms, mental health initiatives, and new funding models for human services, amongst other issues, attracted considerably greater attention than crime during this research. Claims about being ‘governed through crime’/‘fear of crime’/‘uncertainty’/‘antisocial behaviour’ (Simon 2007; Lee 2007; Ericson 2007; Crawford 2009a) and the role assumed by crime prevention in these governance processes look increasingly unstable during a time when other policy domains have taken centre stage and crime has fallen. Such developments should be a cause for optimism, if not celebration, and a salve for the dire predictions and commentaries commonly found in ‘criminologies of catastrophe’ (O’Malley 2000)

Foster care for unaccompanied refugee children in the Netherlands; what about the placement success?

There is hardly any knowledge on the outcomes of foster placements of unaccompanied refugee children. Especially, knowledge on the stability of foster placements for unaccompanied refugee children is lacking. Because placements in regular foster care change and develop over time, including the occurrence of placement breakdowns, the need for a study focusing on the stability of foster placements for unaccompanied refugee children is indicated. This study explores the association between the success of foster placements for unaccompanied refugee children and cultural, child and fostering factors, and examines the stability of these factors over time

Advancing the field of decision making and judgement in child welfare and protection:A look back and forward

Our knowledge of decision making in child welfare has evolved concurrent with the recognition that there is variability in the rates at which children and families experience no involvement to deeper involvement in the system from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and person to person. In this synthesis of concepts and studies we recap the reasons it is important and challenging to identify systematic causes for variability in decisions and what can be learned about them. Child protection systems have a history of relying on both formal and informal assessments of children and families. While research indicates that emphasis on assessment is warranted, errors and mistakes can happen in all the stages of the assessment and decision processes due to a range of system and human factors. We present some examples here