Theater and Revolution in Clinical Legal Education

Why does a revolutionary theatre method developed in the 1960s and 1970s by Brazilian intellectual and activist Augusto Boal belong in clinical legal education? Use of the transformative Forum Theatre method can greatly enhance legal education. Boal, a colleague and disciple of Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), developed Forum Theatre as a democratic, participatory, and collaborative production between the actors and the audience, to revolutionize traditional sit-and-watch theatre. Spectators in the audience become spect-actors, halt the oppressive element in a scenario, take the place of the actors, and eliminate oppression. The over-arching goal of Forum Theatre is to illuminate and achieve social justice. Because of the frequent use of role-playing methodologies in clinical legal education, and its client-centered approach to legal representation, law school clinics are an ideal laboratory to develop and explore Forum Theatre as an instructional exercise. Students learn to interrupt oppression, to observe and check their own paternalistic instincts, to empower vulnerable clients, and to transform the legal encounter into one that is more ethical and just. Three scripts the authors have developed and used in clinical training are included as an Appendix

Legacies of humanitarian neglect: long term experiences of children who returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda

Background: Much has been written about the short-term challenges facing children returning ‘home’ from rebel fighting groups, but little is known about the longer term day to day realities of return. This article presents findings from the first long-term assessment of the social and economic challenges facing an officially registered group of children who passed through an internationally-financed reception centre after a period of time with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Methods: Records from a reception centre were used to trace a random sample of individuals to their current location. Two hundred and thirty in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out and 40 follow-up interviews between 2013 and 2016. Interviews were informed by long-term ethnographic research in the region. These interviews were subsequently coded and analysed to describe the long-term day to day realities of return. Results: At the time of interview, 90% of formerly abducted people returned ‘home’ six or more years ago, and 75% returned nine or more years ago. The majority have managed to access family land for farming, but concerns about what they may have done to survive whilst living with the LRA adversely affects their day-to-day lives. However, some important differences were noted: those men and women who spent less time with the LRA are more likely to live on ancestral land with close relatives; and they are more likely to report experiencing stigma and a spiritual affliction called ‘cen’. In contrast, those who spent the longest time with the LRA are less likely to report these problems, they are mainly living in urban locations and tend to manage slightly better. Children born of war are vulnerable to abuse, irrespective of current residence. Conclusions: Research findings question the merits of post-conflict reintegration programmes emphasising immediate family reunifications, without follow-up monitoring, social protection, education and skills training. By overlooking the diverse experiences of those who lived and fought with the LRA, and failing to anticipate or respond to the long term socio-political and economic challenges facing children on their return, reception centre processes not only failed to foster social reintegration, but they also inadvertently exacerbated the vulnerability of returning children

From “business as usual” to sustainable “purpose‐driven business”: challenges facing the purpose ecosystem in the United Kingdom and Australia

Purpose‐driven businesses have a stated objective to contribute to the welfare of society and the planet alongside generating shareholder value. As interest in purpose‐driven businesses grows, an emerging “purpose ecosystem” of advisers, investors, and enablers offers different types of support for businesses wanting to transition to sustainability. This paper examines how the transition towards purpose‐driven business in Australia and the United Kingdom requires addressing challenges facing this support ecosystem at three levels. First, at the individual level where support providers need to build the capabilities of managers who are experiencing tensions around integrating societal and environmental purpose while facing pressure for maximizing shareholder value. Second, the support providers working within the purpose ecosystem offering professional advice and finance face their own tensions between environmental or social objectives and commercial pressures. Third, there are challenges facing actors in the ecosystems aiming to change the wider policy and institutional environment but facing lobbying from those wanting to keep “business as usual.” We identify practical implications for those parts of the purpose‐driven business ecosystem providing support. This includes building capabilities to combine social, environmental, and commercial purpose; coordination among support providers; and creating an institutional environment to avoid “purpose wash.

Theatre and Revolution in Clinical Legal Education

Why does a revolutionary theatre method developed in the 1960s and 1970s by Brazilian intellectual and activist Augusto Boal belong in clinical legal education? Use of the transformative Forum Theatre method can greatly enhance legal education. Boal, a colleague and disciple of Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), developed Forum Theatre as a democratic, participatory, and collaborative production between the actors and the audience, to revolutionize traditional sit-and-watch theatre. Spectators in the audience become spect-actors, halt the oppressive element in a scenario, take the place of the actors, and eliminate oppression. The over-arching goal of Forum Theatre is to illuminate and achieve social justice. Because of the frequent use of role-playing methodologies in clinical legal education, and its client-centered approach to legal representation, law school clinics are an ideal laboratory to develop and explore Forum Theatre as an instructional exercise. Students learn to interrupt oppression, to observe and check their own paternalistic instincts, to empower vulnerable clients, and to transform the legal encounter into one that is more ethical and just. Three scripts the authors have developed and used in clinical training are included as an Appendix

What Happened to Children Who Returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda?

Abstract In northern Uganda, more than 50,000 people were recruited by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) between the late 1980s and 2004, mostly by force. Around half of those taken were children (under 18 years old). A large number were never seen by their families again, but more than 20,000 returned through aid-financed reception centres. Endeavours were made to reunite them with their relatives, who were mostly living in insecure displacement camps. Relatively few were subsequently visited, even after the fighting ended in 2006. Thousands of vulnerable children were largely left to their own devices. This article draws on research carried out in 2004–06 and from 2012 to 2018, and compares findings with other publications on reintegration in the region. It argues that implementing best-practice guidelines for relocating displaced children with their immediate relatives had negative consequences. The majority of children who passed through a reception centre are now settled as young adults on ancestral land, where they are commonly abused because of their LRA past. With few exceptions, it is only those who spent a long period with the LRA and who are not living on ancestral land who have managed to avoid such experiences.</jats:p

Rating general practitioner consultation performance in cancer care: Does the specialty of assessors matter? A simulated patient study

Background: Patients treated for prostate cancer may present to general practitioners (GPs) for treatment follow up, but may be reticent to have their consultations recorded. Therefore the use of simulated patients allows practitioner consultations to be rated. The aim of this study was to determine whether the speciality of the assessor has an impact on how GP consultation performance is rated. Methods: Six pairs of scenarios were developed for professional actors in two series of consultations by GPs. The scenarios included: chronic radiation proctitis, Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) ‘bounce’, recurrence of cancer, urethral stricture, erectile dysfunction and depression or anxiety. Participating GPs were furnished with the patient’s past medical history, current medication, prostate cancer details and treatment, details of physical examinations. Consultations were video recorded and assessed for quality by two sets of assessors- a team of two GPs and two Radiation Oncologists deploying the Leicester Assessment Package (LAP). LAP scores by the GPs and Radiation Oncologists were compared. Results: Eight GPs participated. In Series 1 the range of LAP scores by GP assessors was 61%-80%, and 67%-86% for Radiation Oncologist assessors. The range for GP LAP scores in Series 2 was 51%- 82%, and 56%-89% for Radiation Oncologist assessors. Within GP assessor correlations for LAP scores were 0.31 and 0.87 in Series 1 and 2 respectively. Within Radiation Oncologist assessor correlations were 0.50 and 0.72 in Series 1 and 2 respectively. Radiation Oncologist and GP assessor scores were significantly different for 4 doctors and for some scenarios. Anticipatory care was the only domain where GPs scored participants higher than Radiation Oncologist assessors. Conclusion: The assessment of GP consultation performance is not consistent across assessors from different disciplines even when they deploy the same assessment tool

Risk of Ovarian Cancer and Inherited Variants in Relapse-Associated Genes

Background: We previously identified a panel of genes associated with outcome of ovarian cancer. The purpose of the current study was to assess whether variants in these genes correlated with ovarian cancer risk. Methods and Findings: Women with and without invasive ovarian cancer (749 cases, 1,041 controls) were genotyped at 136 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within 13 candidate genes. Risk was estimated for each SNP and for overall variation within each gene. At the gene-level, variation within MSL1 (male-specific lethal-1 homolog) was associated with risk of serous cancer (p = 0.03); haplotypes within PRPF31 (PRP31 pre-mRNA processing factor 31 homolog) were associated with risk of invasive disease (p = 0.03). MSL1 rs7211770 was associated with decreased risk of serous disease (OR 0.81, 95 % CI 0.66–0.98; p = 0.03). SNPs in MFSD7, BTN3A3, ZNF200, PTPRS, and CCND1A were inversely associated with risk (p,0.05), and there was increased risk at HEXIM1 rs1053578 (p = 0.04, OR 1.40, 95 % CI 1.02–1.91). Conclusions: Tumor studies can reveal novel genes worthy of follow-up for cancer susceptibility. Here, we found that inherited markers in the gene encoding MSL1, part of a complex that modifies the histone H4, may decrease risk of invasiv