An Exploratory Study of the Attitudes among Hospital Social Workers in Relationship to Managed Care

Hospital social workers today face many challenges due to the swift and evolving scene of health care. To a large degree. managed care has been the primary force influencing health care in recent years. In fact, the inception and development of managed care has created new conditions for the hospital social worker. These conditions have meant greater responsibility as well as higher expectations for the hospital social worker. This exploratory study examined the current and future role of the hospital social worker, the functions performed and, the attitudes among hospital social workers in relationship to managed care. Results indicate that hospital social workers are spending the majority of their time performing discharge planning. Results also indicate that hospital social workers feel strongly about certain themes related to managed care

Annual report of the town officers of Stark, New Hampshire for the year ending December 31, 2014.

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire

Community Down: The Loss of Sergeant Joe Bergeron

What local government officials, administrators, and staff can expect and how to can help in the aftermath of a peace officer’s line-of-duty death within their community

From Registration to Recounts Revisited: Developments in the Election Ecosystems of Five Midwestern States

As a follow-up to a study of problems during the 2006 elections, examines the states' continuing adjustments to institutional arrangements, voter registration databases, convenience voting, and post-election processes in the 2008 elections

How Distributed School Leadership Practices are Implemented in a Rural Northeast Georgia Elementary School

Recent leadership literature calls for distributed leadership where the principal is not the sole leader in the building. Despite already being overloaded with classroom and other responsibilities, teachers are taking on leadership roles and school leadership is becoming distributed among many individuals. This study was an examination to discover how leadership becomes distributed in one rural Northeast Georgia elementary school recognized for its collaborative efforts to improve teaching and learning. A case study was conducted, and leadership practices were observed. Four questions guided this study: How is leadership distributed? What operational practices are in place so leadership can be extended to many leaders in the school? How do leaders complete their tasks? How have relationships between teachers and between the principal and teachers been affected as a result of distributed leadership? Data were gathered through individual interviews, focus group interviews, observations, and the analysis of documents. The data show that leadership becomes distributed in three ways: committee work, leadership based on expertise, and informal leaders engaged in leadership actions. Distributed leadership results from faculty meetings, task force meetings, and grade level horizontal team meetings. The results of this study suggest several implications for practice. First, the positional leader must be committed to distributing leadership among many individuals. Second, a collaborative culture must be in place in order for distributed leadership to occur. Third, everyone must be working toward the same vision and goals. Fourth, distributed leadership practices must be tied to student achievement, and fifth, practices must be embedded into the school culture to allow for distributed leadership

State of Inequity: Three Essays on Disparities in Justice Provision

Inequities in public service provision refer to disparate outputs and outcomes among social groups. This dissertation addresses inequalities in justice provision in American society and has three objectives. The first objective is to test whether the race and ethnicity of top elected law-enforcement officials mitigate disparities in juvenile justice provision among social groups. The second objective is to examine whether the gender of top elected law-enforcement officials affects the severity of justice outcomes at the street level. The third objective is to analyze institutional responses on social media platforms to police misconduct and social unrest after the death of George Floyd. Each objective is addressed in a separate essay. The first essay examines racial and ethnic inequities in the juvenile justice system by comparing the outcomes among minority youth. The study hypothesizes that the sheriff and state attorney’s party affiliation and race/ethnicity mitigate the inequalities in justice provision among social groups. Data from all 67 Florida counties between 2015 and 2020 demonstrate that the effect goes more through race than ideology. In this sense, representative bureaucracy theory appears more relevant than political control in explaining the distribution of justice outcomes. The second essay inquiries if arrests and prosecutions among youth vary as a function of sheriffs’ and state attorneys’ sex. Drawing on data from Florida counties between 2015 and 2020, the analysis shows that counties with female sheriffs and state attorneys experience fewer youth arrests and prosecutions than those led by men, especially among minority and female offenders. The finding that women’s leadership is positively associated with less severe outcomes for delinquent young lends more support to emotional labor than theories of gendered organizational socialization and representative bureaucracy. The third essay analyzes the content and timing of initial statements by mayors and police chiefs on nationwide demonstrations against unequal treatment of minorities. Responsiveness is conceptualized through the lenses of political control and representative bureaucracy theories. The study’s findings reveal that mayors’ responsiveness goes along the party lines but not for police chiefs. The statements of Black police chiefs support the expectations of representative bureaucracy theory but only in terms of content and not in timing. The broader social value of this dissertation lies in documenting the presence of vast inequalities in justice provision among social groups, often with life-lasting consequences for young offenders, and proposing possible mechanisms to remedy them

Leadership experience of London-based Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANP): A case study analysis

The National Health Service is widely applauded as the highest quality healthcare system in the world (Grint and Holt 2011). However, there have been many changes to healthcare provision in the UK in the last eight years. These included the introduction of the Health and Social Care Act (2012) in response to rising costs and increasing clinical delivery demands on the National Health Service (NHS). Later the Mid Staffordshire Public Inquiry (HM Government 2013) identified failings in leadership throughout the NHS. These failings were linked to leadership lacking clear definition across all professions within the healthcare team (HM Government 2013). Within the nursing profession, the role of the Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) is seen as part of the solution to this leadership dilemma. In this study, eight London-based ANPs were interviewed to explore how they define, understand, express and enact their leadership practice. Using an instrumental and collective case study methodological approach, each participant ANP was considered individually and then comparatively. The findings were focused around five themes. How the ANP viewed their leadership role and whether this was from within or at the forefront of the multidisciplinary team, their ‘placement on the leadership pyramid’. The leadership position the ANPs often adopted was empowering and ‘motivating the team’. The ANPs had a strong nursing identity, which, at times, they would relate to, by ‘retreating to the safety of the nursing profession’. Influences upon the ANP’s expressed understanding of leadership included their relationship with medical colleagues and whether the ANP, ‘assumed and accepted medical hierarchy’. The impact of the ANP role on improving healthcare relates clearly to ‘ANPs impact on patient outcomes’. ANPs have a pivotal leadership role in current healthcare provision. The participant ANP’s demonstrable leadership, enables nursing and the multi-professional team, in meeting the increasingly complex needs and expectations of patients