An exploration of the concept of community and its impact on participatory governance policy and service delivery in poor areas of Cape Town, South Africa

The inclusion of citizen participation as a means to the equitable delivery of public services has distinguished South Africa’s democratic development trajectory over the last 20 years. While equitable resource allocation remains high on the agenda of more recently democratised states, most of which have highly diverse and unequally resourced populations. Influencing the design of more inclusive participation is the notion of a universal citizenship that applies the concept of the equality of individuals to the needs, identities and sense of agency of citizens both between and within states. The liberal democratic theoretical conceptualisation of the individual centres on the notion of universal citizen, who is the recipient and embodiment of democracy through the rights bestowed through the democratic model. This conceptualisation has been criticised for its inability to deal with the imprecision of individual and collective political identities, especially as these evolve in newly democratic contexts. The construction of a single identity citizen living in communities imbued with homogenous characteristics is carried forward into the policy construction of participatory governance. This article explores and challenges the notion of the single identity citizen that belongs to one homogenous community that can be identified and drawn into formally constructed government spaces. The paper explores the construction of political and socio-economic identities and how notions of community are constructed by citizens, on the one hand, and government policies, on the other.IS

Service delivery and intervention intensity for phonology-based speech sound disorders

Background: When planning evidence-based intervention services for children with phonology-based speech sound disorders (SSD), speech and language therapists (SLTs) need to integrate research evidence regarding service delivery and intervention intensity within their clinical practice. However, relatively little is known about the optimal intensity of phonological interventions and whether SLTs’ services align with the research evidence.Aims: The aims are twofold. First, to review external evidence (i.e., empirical research evidence external to day-today clinical practice) regarding service delivery and intervention intensity for phonological interventions. Second,to investigate SLTs’ clinical practice with children with phonology-based SSD in Australia, focusing on service delivery and intensity. By considering these complementary sources of evidence, SLTs and researchers will be better placed to understand the state of the external evidence regarding the delivery of phonological interventions and appreciate the challenges facing SLTs in providing evidence-based services.Methods & Procedures: Two studies are presented. The first is a review of phonological intervention research published between 1979 and 2016. Details regarding service delivery and intervention intensity were extractedfrom the 199 papers that met inclusion criteria identified through a systematic search. The second study was an online survey of 288 SLTs working in Australia, focused on the service delivery and intensity of intervention provided in clinical practice.Main Contributions: There is a gap between the external evidence regarding service delivery and intervention intensity and the internal evidence from clinical practice. Most published intervention research has reported toprovide intervention two to three times per week in individual sessions delivered by an SLT in a university clinic, in sessions lasting 30–60 min comprising 100 production trials. SLTs reported providing services at intensities below that found in the literature. Further, they reported workplace, client and clinician factors that influenced the intensity of intervention they were able to provide to children with phonology-based SSD.Conclusions & Implications: Insufficient detail in the reporting of intervention intensity within published research coupled with service delivery constraints may affect the implementation of empirical evidence into everyday clinical practice. Research investigating innovative solutions to service delivery challenges is needed to provide SLTs with evidence that is relevant and feasible for clinical practice

Qualitative Impact Assessment of Land Management Interventions on Ecosystem Services (“QEIA”). Report-1: Executive Summary: QEIA Evidence Review & Integrated Assessment

The focus of this project was to provide an expert-led, rapid qualitative assessment of land management interventions on Ecosystem Services (ES) proposed for inclusion in Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. This involved a review of the current evidence base for 741 land management actions on 33 Ecosystem Services and 53 Ecosystem Service indicators by ten teams involving 45 experts drawn from the independent research community in a consistent series of Evidence Reviews covering the broad topics of: • Air quality • Greenhouse gas emissions • Soils • Water management • Biodiversity: croplands • Biodiversity: improved grassland • Biodiversity: semi-natural habitats • Biodiversity: integrated systems-based actions • Carbon sequestration • Cultural services (including recreation, geodiversity and regulatory services). It should be noted that this piece of work is just one element of the wider underpinning work Defra has commissioned to support the development of the ELM schemes

Qualitative impact assessment of land management interventions on Ecosystem Services (‘QEIA’). Report-2: Integrated Assessment

The focus of this project was to provide an expert-led, rapid qualitative assessment of land management interventions on Ecosystem Services (ES) proposed for inclusion in Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. This involved a review of the current evidence base for 741 land management actions on 33 Ecosystem Services and 53 Ecosystem Service indicators by ten expert teams drawn from the independent research community in a consistent series of ten Evidence Reviews covering the broad topics of; • Air quality • Greenhouse gas emissions • Soils • Water management • Biodiversity: croplands • Biodiversity: improved grassland • Biodiversity: semi-natural habitats • Biodiversity: integrated systems-based actions • Carbon sequestration • Cultural services (including recreation, geodiversity and regulatory services) These reviews were undertaken rapidly at Defra’s request by ten teams involving 45 experts who together captured more than 2,400 individual sources of evidence. This was followed by the Integrated Assessment (IA) reported here to provide a more accessible summary of these evidence reviews with a focus on capturing the actions with the greatest potential magnitude of change for the intended ES, and their potential co-benefits and trade-offs for the other ES

The Children Act

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