The Trouble With Fathers: The Impact of Time and Gendered-Thinking on Working Relationships Between Fathers and Social Workers in Child Protection Practice in England

The lives of families entering the child protection arena may be shaped by a range of troubles, including material deprivation, physical and mental health problems, and substance misuse or domestic abuse. Despite the interest in whole family approaches, the issue of how professionals fail to work effectively with fathers is long-standing and resistant to change. This article illustrates challenges in building working relationships with men, including the challenge of avoiding binary thinking in the assessment of fathers as “risk” or “resource.” Drawing on our qualitative longitudinal study of men’s experiences of child protection in England, we highlight how both organizational (clashing time perspectives) and cultural (gendered-thinking) factors can trouble the potential relationship between social workers and fathers. We argue for a more gender sensitive approach to social work practice, which can respond more fully and effectively to the experiences of fathers and mothers

The effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving access to health and mental health services for looked after children and young people: a systematic review

Background: Compared with children and young people in the general population, looked after children and young people (LACYP) are more likely to experience behavioural, physical and psychological problems. Consequently, LACYP are likely to have greater need of health and mental health services to address any specific problems. This systematic review aimed to identify and synthesise evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to improve access to services accessed by LACYP. Methods: Searches of health, social science and social care databases were conducted and records were screened for relevance. Results: Five studies were included (four prospective cohort studies and one non-comparative study). There was considerable variation in terms of the services, interventions and outcomes reported. Conclusions: Little appropriate evidence was identified by this review, suggesting that the evidence base is at a very early stage

ELISA: a cryocooled 10 GHz oscillator with 10-15 frequency stability

This article reports the design, the breadboarding and the validation of an ultra-stable Cryogenic Sapphire Oscillator operated in an autonomous cryocooler. The objective of this project was to demonstrate the feasibility of a frequency stability of 3x10-15 between 1 s and 1,000 s for the European Space Agency deep space stations. This represents the lowest fractional frequency instability ever achieved with cryocoolers. The preliminary results presented in this paper validate the design we adopted for the sapphire resonator, the cold source and the oscillator loop.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

The selection of search sources influences the findings of a systematic review of people’s views: a case study in public health

Background For systematic reviews providing evidence for policy decisions in specific geographical regions, there is a need to minimise regional bias when seeking out relevant research studies. Studies on people’s views tend to be dispersed across a range of bibliographic databases and other search sources. It is recognised that a comprehensive literature search can provide unique evidence not found from a focused search; however, the geographical focus of databases as a potential source of bias on the findings of a research review is less clear. This case study describes search source selection for research about people’s views and how supplementary searches designed to redress geographical bias influenced the findings of a systematic review. Our research questions are: a) what was the impact of search methods employed to redress potential database selection bias on the overall findings of the review? and b) how did each search source contribute to the identification of all the research studies included in the review? Methods The contribution of 25 search sources in locating 28 studies included within a systematic review on UK children’s views of body size, shape and weight was analysed retrospectively. The impact of utilising seven search sources chosen to identify UK-based literature on the review’s findings was assessed. Results Over a sixth (5 out of 28) of the studies were located only through supplementary searches of three sources. These five studies were of a disproportionally high quality compared with the other studies in the review. The retrieval of these studies added direction, detail and strength to the overall findings of the review. All studies in the review were located within 21 search sources. Precision for 21 sources ranged from 0.21% to 1.64%. Conclusions For reducing geographical bias and increasing the coverage and context-specificity of systematic reviews of people’s perspectives and experiences, searching that is sensitive and aimed at reducing geographical bias in database sources is recommended

End of life care for people who use alcohol and other drugs: findings from a Rapid Evidence Assessment.

People who use alcohol and other drugs(hereafter ‘substances’) and who are over the age of 40 are now more likely to die of a non-drug related cause than people who use substances under the age of 40. This population will therefore potentially need greater access to palliative and end-of-life care services. Initially, the purpose of this rapid evidence assessment (REA), conducted August 2016- August 2017, was to explore the peer-reviewed evidence base in relation to end-of-life care for people with problematic substance use. The following databases were searched using date parameters of 1st January 2004-1st August 2016: Amed, Psycharticles, Ovid, Ageinfo, Medline, Ebscohost, ASSIA, Social Care Online, Web of Knowledge, Web of Science, SSCI, Samsha, NIAAA. Data were extracted using a pre-defined protocol incorporating inclusion and exclusion criteria. Given the dearth of evidence emerging on interventions and practice responses to problematic substance use, the inclusion criteria were broadened to include any peer-reviewed literature focussing on substance use specifically and end of life care. There were 60 papers that met the inclusion criteria. These were quality assessed and rated low, moderate or high quality. Using a textual thematic approach to categorise findings, papers fell into three broad groups i) pain and symptom management, ii) homeless and marginalised groups, and iii) alcohol-related papers. In general, this small and diverse literature lacked depth and quality. The papers suggest there are clear challenges for health and social care professionals in meeting the end-of-life needs of people who use substances. Addressing issues like safe prescribing for pain management becomes more challenging in the presence of substance use and requires flexible service provision from both alcohol/drug services and end of life care providers. Work is needed to develop models of good practice in working with co-existing substance use and end of life conditions as well as prevalence studies to provide a wider context for policy and practice development