Affirming Strengths-Based Models of Practice

Affirming and strengths- based practice with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals and communities started to become more mainstream in the 1970s and 1980s and continues today. Whereas stigmatization of LGBTQ individuals and communities was once the accepted norm, most mainstream professional organizations in social work and allied helping professions today treat LGBTQ identity as part of the normal spectrum of human experience and support affirming and strengths- based models of practice with LGBTQ communities (American Counseling Association, 2013; American Psychological Association [APA], 2008; Council on Social Work Education [CSWE], 2015; National Association of Social Workers, 2005). In this chapter, we describe affirming and strengths- based practice with LGBTQ individuals and communities and consider the context in which these practice models emerged. Additionally, we explore the various theoretical and practice models that are the foundation of affirming and strengths- based practice with LGBTQ communities and consider the efficacy of these service approaches

Book review: Teaching virtue: the contribution of religious education

This is Professor Brian Gates' review of the book 'Teaching virtue: the contribution of religious education' edited by Marius Felderhof and Penny Thompson, London, Bloomsbury, 2014. The book discusses the 2007 Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for religious education. This is a book of great promise and mixed results. It rests on the ambitions of the 2007 Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for RE but its outcomes do not really match up to these. Conceptually, it is well organised. Part One, Orientations, comprises four chapters setting out the theoretical orientations to support a positive association between Religious and Moral Education. Part Two, Dispositions, provides individual reflections on eight of the 24 ‘dispositions’ (listed 23) which the Syllabus identifies as common concerns agreed by the leaders of the faith communities which make up the rich diversity of the City of Birmingham’s population. These are being: honest, compassionate, just, courageous, hopeful, temperate, wise and faithful. Part Three, Exemplars, is a compilation of curriculum suggestions based on this theme. There is also an Appendix which outlines a Birmingham RE Survey for reviewing the impact of RE in schools

Peter Woodward obituary

Peter Woodward, a key figure in UK religious education, especially through his involvement in the Shap Working Party, died recently, aged 86. This obituary is written by Professor Brian Gates. Throughout the 50 years since April 1969, the Shap Working Party strove to broaden the range and depth of education by reference to the world’s religious traditions (Jackson, R. 2019. “50 Years On: The Shap Working Party on World Religions in Education and Its Publications.” Journal of Beliefs and Values 40 (1): pp 45–54). It did so by tuning into the processes of teacher education, in both its initial and continuing forms, and providing help to overcome the related knowledge deficit. Peter Woodward, the last survivor of those present at that very first conference gathering (at Shap Wells Hotel in Cumbria), has died at the age of 86. Without hint of self-promotion, he had served as Treasurer (1969–71), Secretary (1972–73 and 2016–19), Chair (1978–80), Mailing and Journal Editor (1969–77), and Calendar Editor (1969–75, 1995–99 and 2009–19)

‘Doing God’ in ethics and education: a play in five acts

This is a story of the intertwining of moral education with religious education in a professional lifetime. It is told episodically. Instead of the purported intellectual respectability of total separation of one from the other, even elimination of one by the other, it favours their mutual critique. It begins with strong sentiment, inspired in part by an early exposure to American Social Gospel thinking. It unwinds and rewinds to create a tapestry for lifespan research which considers how children and young people begin an engagement with religion and ethics which will extend into their future lives. Alongside this is the development of a university curriculum in which Christianity is challenged by other faiths and philosophies, and equal attention is given to Social Ethics as to Religion. Empathy and mutual enrichment are prioritised throughout, and provide a procedural base for national ecumenical endeavour. Finally, it reflects on the moral learning which has taken place during this process, with implications for the Journal of Moral Education

Book review: Religion and atheism: beyond the divide

This is a very significant publication. If it’s dangerous falsely to concretise religion and religions, it’s no less so non-religious and atheism. Similarly, it’s arbitrary to exclude any engagement with atheisms from inter-religious dialogue or to characterise humanism as necessarily anti-religious. By contrast this book brings Religion and Atheism together into the same room in a common universe which is their shared home. They may be mutually challenging, but categorically, in their respective preoccupations with questions of human meaning, they show a degree of shared intimacy which is remarkable. The book is edited by Anthony Carroll of Heythrop, in Jesuit guise, and Richard Norman from Kent, kitted as a Humanist philosopher. In its background shaping it also owes much to Brian Pearce, renowned as the enabler of the Inter Faith Network, and here in the Foreword identifying questions at the heart of both the book and ongoing challenge. The two editors are joined by 19 others in producing individual chapters. Their perspectives are diverse ranging across literature and poetry, continental European philosophy past and present, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, medical and political sciences, Humanisms and secularity

On the number of partition weights with Kostka multiplicity one

Given a positive integer n, and partitions lambda and mu of n, let K-lambda mu denote the Kostka number, which is the number of semistandard Young tableaux of shape lambda and weight mu. Let J(lambda) denote the number of mu such that K lambda mu = 1. By applying a result of Berenshtein and Zelevinskii, we obtain a formula for J(lambda) in terms of restricted partition functions, which is recursive in the number of distinct part sizes of lambda. We use this to classify all partitions lambda such that J(lambda) = 1 and all lambda such that J(lambda) = 2. We then consider signed tableaux, where a semistandard signed tableau of shape lambda has entries from the ordered set {0 \u3c \u3c 1 \u3c (2) over bar \u3c 2 \u3c ...}, and such that i and (i) over bar contribute equally to the weight. For a weight (omega(0), mu) with mu a partition, the signed Kostka number K-lambda(omega 0, mu)(+/-) is defined as the number of semistandard signed tableaux of shape lambda and weight (omega(0), mu), and J(+/-)(lambda) is then defined to be the number of weights (omega(0), mu) such that K-lambda(omega 0,mu)(+/-) = 1. Using different methods than in the unsigned case, we find that the only nonzero value which J((lambda))(+/-) can take is 1, and we find all sequences of partitions with this property. We conclude with an application of these results on signed tableaux to the character theory of finite unitary groups

The Exact Superconformal R-Symmetry Maximizes a

An exact and general solution is presented for a previously open problem. We show that the superconformal R-symmetry of any 4d SCFT is exactly and uniquely determined by a maximization principle: it is the R-symmetry, among all possibilities, which (locally) maximizes the combination of 't Hooft anomalies a_{trial}(R) \equiv (9 Tr R^3-3 Tr R)/32. The maximal value of a_{trial} is then, by a result of Anselmi et. al., the central charge \it{a} of the SCFT. Our a_{trial} maximization principle almost immediately ensures that the central charge \it{a} decreases upon any RG flow, since relevant deformations force a_{trial} to be maximized over a subset of the previously possible R-symmetries. Using a_{trial} maximization, we find the exact superconformal R-symmetry (and thus the exact anomalous dimensions of all chiral operators) in a variety of previously mysterious 4d N=1 SCFTs. As a check, we verify that our exact results reproduce the perturbative anomalous dimensions in all perturbatively accessible RG fixed points. Our result implies that N =1 SCFTs are algebraic: the exact scaling dimensions of all chiral primary operators, and the central charges \it{a} and \it{c}, are always algebraic numbers.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure. v2: added comments. v3: added comment

Strengths-based Behavioral Telehealth with Sexual and Gender Diverse Clients at Center on Halsted

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated an immediate response and rapid transition from traditional face-to-face behavioral health services to behavioral telehealth at an organization serving sexual and gender diverse (SGD) individuals in Chicago. In this practice innovations article, we explore the unfolding public health crisis and the impact on service delivery for SGD individuals. Using a large multi-service organization as a case study, this paper describes how key members of the staff and leadership team shifted services online as a means of responding to isolation, loneliness, and disparities in access to healthcare for Chicago SGD communities. Lessons learned and practice recommendations are presented