Profiling parental child sex abuse

Drawing on data from a sample of 213 offenders, this study augments knowledge about sex offender typologies by identifying ten key descriptive features of parental offenders. Foreword: Public policy initiatives to redress parental child sexual offenders have been hindered by the absence of an offending profile that characterises this core group of intrafamilial offenders. Drawing on data from a sample of 213 offenders, this study augments knowledge about sex offender typologies by identifying ten key descriptive features of parental offenders. The findings revealed that parental sex offenders have a distinctive profile unlike that of other child sexual offenders and are more criminally versatile than presupposed. This may provide useful information to support clinical practice and preventive interventions aimed at increasing offender desistance and reducing threats to the safety and welfare of young children and their families

Housing Court: The New York Tenant Experience

There is common agreement among New York\u27s tenant lawyers that the housing court fails to meet the needs of the people of New York and does not achieve its stated goals of providing safe, decent and habitable housing

Representations of the other in modern Hebrew literature

Bibliography: p. 323-332.This study posits that the concept of the Other is central in modern Hebrew literature. It traces its beginnings in Jewish thought to the Bible, and connects the creation and Eden narratives to contemporary psychoanalytic thought on ego formation and the Other. It considers the importance of the figure of the talush to the focus on the Other in modern Hebrew literature and suggests that the conflicts of the collective versus the individual that are expressed in the early stages of the literature do not disappear as it moves into the present day, but are discernible in different guise and can be seen in the burden of group consciousness which besets Hebrew authors and vitiates their attempts to configure the unique. The feminized Other is seen as especially important in this regard because of the collective textual and thus social repression of women in the tradition. Its presentation is thus taken as a useful measure of the successful resolution of individual as opposed to group narration. The modern Hebrew texts analyzed, beginning with a poem by the late Haskhalah poet, Y.L. Gordon through D. Baron, M.Y. Berdichewski, A. Kahana-Carman, S.Y. Agnon, A Appelfeld and ending with a novel by the contemporary Israeli writer, D. Grossman, support this decision as the collective is subjugated only in Kahana-Carman's text where the feminine is fully realized. The thesis examines the ways the eight narratives grapple with the awareness of the Other, and focuses on the aspects, including body, war and language, that are highlighted variously in each text. The struggles of modern Hebrew writers are also viewed as part of the difficulties entailed in the denotative endeavors of writing itself which strives, towards the always elusive Other that predates ego-formation and thus individuality itself. It is proposed that this intensifies the tensions about the Other in modern Hebrew literature which derive from its specific cultural heritage

Cultural Variation in Australia: Ethnicity, Host Community Residence, and Power-Distance Values

Effective communication within a multicultural society necessitates an understanding of how people’s values might vary according to their cultural background and immigration history. Etic approaches to the study of culture have indicated that national cultures are differentiated on the dimension of power-distance. Power-distance refers to the degree of inequality or hierarchy that people believe to be appropriate in societal and organisational authority structures. Recently, researchers have begun to investigate power-distance at an individual level. However, psychologists have not yet investigated systematic variation in power-distance within multicultural communities. This study examined whether power-distance varies within Australian society according to race/ethnicity. Based on previous research, we hypothesised that systematic variation in power-distance values would emerge within a university sample surveyed in Sydney, Australia. Results indicated that participants’ power-distance values varied across ethnic groups, but did not always correspond with power-distance indices of participants’ reported racial/ethnic backgrounds, qualified by length of residence in Australia. The power-distance variations described in this paper are discussed in terms of their implications for multicultural communities, and in particular, the way that people of different ethnic backgrounds within Australian society comprehend and evaluate their interactions with authority figures, such as employers

Development of an information sheet providing rapport advice for interpreters in police interviews

The present paper reports the development of an information sheet designed to aid interpreters in police interviews in recognizing, conveying and inadvertently obstructing rapport-building efforts by police interviewers. The contents of this sheet were informed by past research defining rapport, and rapport uses in police interviews. We used a mixed experimental design to test the information sheet. One group (Intervention, n = 35) was randomly assigned to read an information sheet before responding to short vignettes of police interviewing foreign non-English speaking suspects about international crimes, while another (Control) group (n = 37) simply responded to the vignettes. Perceptions of rapport cues by the intervention group exceeded that of the control group. However, the groups performed equally well at identifying appropriate methods to convey/avoid obstructing rapport. Feedback from the intervention group on the helpfulness of the information sheet was largely positive. The findings were used to improve the information sheet which can be used to alert interpreters to the importance of rapport in suspect interviews

Quasirational models of sentencing

Cognitive continuum theory points to the middle-ground between the intuitive and analytic modes of cognition, called quasirationality. In the context of sentencing, we discuss how legal models prescribe the use of different modes of cognition. These models aim to help judges perform the cognitive balancing act required between factors indicating a more or less severe penalty for an offender. We compare sentencing in three common law jurisdictions (i.e., Australia, the US, and England and Wales). Each places a different emphasis on the use of intuition and analysis; but all are quasirational. We conclude that the most appropriate mode of cognition will likely be that which corresponds best with properties of the sentencingtask. Finally, we discuss the implications of this cognition-task correspondence approach for researchers and legal policy-makers

“I am a Health Visitor now”: An Investigation of Student Health Visitors’ perceptions of their Professional Identity

In many health care professions professional identity is considered to be important because it aids recruitment and retention and improves quality of care. Professional identity in nursing has been examined in depth in relation to students joining the profession but it has not been considered in detail in relation to those who change roles in nursing. Professional identity in health visiting is significant because health visiting has a complex history from independent practice to a specialist branch of nursing. Health visitors are qualified nurses who complete a year-long post-qualification course and this thesis explores whether these preparation and transition programmes have a role in their professional identity development. Therefore, this study aims to examine professional identity in an under-researched professional group and to identify implications for educationalists involved in the professional preparation of HVs. This study involved a narrative inquiry wherein five student health visitors took part in three unstructured interviews during their year-long Specialist Community Public Health Nursing course. Participants told their stories about their career choices and their perceptions of their professional identity. Using the Wengerian notion of Communities of Practice as a theoretical framework and an analytical lens, the resulting interviews were analysed using a two-stage approach: a thematic analysis focussing on the content of the interviews and dialogic analysis to increase the depth of analysis The findings suggested that there were three overarching categories that impacted on the participants’ perceptions of their professional identity: their previous experience; their personal qualities (both pre-and post-participation in the course) and their conception of the health visitor’s role. This study thus adds to what is known about student health visitor professional identity and confirms comparable research findings in relation to other groups of health care professionals. It confirms a view of identity development as a process dependent on expectations, shared understanding of their role and was influenced by practitioners prior experience. These findings are important for: individuals who are considering undertaking a Health Visitor programme; for policy makers; for organisations that influence health visiting; for Higher Education Institutions who deliver programmes; for Commissioners of Education for health visiting and for employers who wish to retain student health visitors and improve quality of care

Reducing user fees for primary health care in Kenya: Policy on paper or policy in practice?

BACKGROUND: Removing user fees in primary health care services is one of the most critical policy issues being considered in Africa. User fees were introduced in many African countries during the 1980s and their impacts are well documented. Concerns regarding the negative impacts of user fees have led to a recent shift in health financing debates in Africa. Kenya is one of the countries that have implemented a user fees reduction policy. Like in many other settings, the new policy was evaluated less that one year after implementation, the period when expected positive impacts are likely to be highest. This early evaluation showed that the policy was widely implemented, that levels of utilization increased and that it was popular among patients. Whether or not the positive impacts of user fees removal policies are sustained has hardly been explored. We conducted this study to document the extent to which primary health care facilities in Kenya continue to adhere to a 'new' charging policy 3 years after its implementation. METHODS: Data were collected in two districts (Kwale and Makueni). Multiple methods of data collection were applied including a cross-sectional survey (n = 184 households Kwale; 141 Makueni), Focus Group Discussions (n = 12) and patient exit interviews (n = 175 Kwale; 184 Makueni). RESULTS: Approximately one third of the survey respondents could not correctly state the recommended charges for dispensaries, while half did not know what the official charges for health centres were. Adherence to the policy was poor in both districts, but facilities in Makueni were more likely to adhere than those in Kwale. Only 4 facilities in Kwale adhered to the policy compared to 10 in Makueni. Drug shortage, declining revenue, poor policy design and implementation processes were the main reasons given for poor adherence to the policy. CONCLUSION: We conclude that reducing user fees in primary health care in Kenya is a policy on paper that is yet to be implemented fully. We recommend that caution be taken when deciding on how to reduce or abolish user fees and that all potential consequences are carefully considered

Awareness of Meningococcal disease among travelers from the United Kingdom to the meningitis belt in Africa

Meningococcal disease causes considerable morbidity and has a high case-fatality rate. In the United Kingdom, the meningococcal quadrivalent vaccine is recommended for travelers visiting the meningitis belt of Africa. We analyzed 302 responses to a cross-sectional study conducted in 2010 of travelers who had visited the meningitis belt recently or were shortly due to travel there. Using the results of an online questionnaire, we assessed knowledge and understanding of meningococcal disease and likelihood of uptake of meningococcal immunization before travel. Meningococcal vaccine uptake was 30.1%. Although global scores in the questionnaire did not correlate with vaccine uptake, knowledge of the meningitis belt and knowledge of certain key symptoms or signs were statistically associated with high vaccine uptake. We conclude that improved education of travelers may improve vaccine uptake before travel to the meningitis belt in Africa