What matters in practice? Understanding 'quality' in the routine supervision of offenders in Scotland

Little is known about the nature, character and construction of quality in the routine supervision of offenders in Scotland. Quality is an important yet contested concept with multiple facets and features, but its meanings for practitioners are under-researched. This article will present findings from a study using Appreciative Inquiry to reveal how Scottish criminal justice social workers attempt to conceptualise and construct meanings of quality in their daily practice with people who have offended. Our findings conclude that, despite significant fluctuation in criminal justice policy and practice, practitioners' ideas of quality seem to suggest resilience to both managerialism and punitiveness. Practitioners ultimately located quality within relational processes underpinned by social work values, but also saw it as being underscored by (or undermined by the lack of) adequate resourcing, professional supervision, flexibility and training

Linking Structural Capabilities and Workplace Climate in Community Health Centers.

Many strategies to improve health care quality focus on improving the structural capabilities of primary care practices, including quality infrastructure and registry use, which are critical to managing chronic diseases. However, improving structural capabilities requires practices to expend significant resources and can be especially disruptive to community health centers (CHCs) serving high proportions of socioeconomically vulnerable patients. We explore the relationship between the structural capabilities and workplace climate in CHCs. The final sample for this analysis includes 25 CHC sites that could be matched across CHC site director surveys of structural capabilities and CHC adult primary care clinicians and staff (n = 446). To estimate the association between structural capabilities and dimensions of workplace climate, we estimated multivariate linear regression models that included the climate scales as dependent variables and the 5 structural capability scales as the main independent variables, with the 3 clinic-level and 2 staff-level covariates. More manageable clinic workload was associated with lower electronic record functionality (β = -0.47, P = .007), but positively associated with quality infrastructure (β = 0.92, P = .007). Staff relationships and quality improvement orientation were positively associated with quality infrastructure (β = 1.09, P = .006 and β = 0.87, P = .005). Manager readiness was associated with more robust quality infrastructure (β = 1.35, P = .016), but lower electronic record functionality (β = -0.48, P = .015) and less proactive patient outreach (β = -1.32, P = .025). Complex relationships between structural capabilities and workplace climate were found in CHCs. Further clarification of these complex connections may enable policy makers and practitioners to design and implement nuanced strategies to improve quality of care in CHCs

The Single Image Narrative: Sometimes It Chooses You

I recently wrote an article for World Press Photo exploring the issues many photographers have in creating a visual narrative with their work. In short the difficulty of finding, defining and telling a story with photographs. It seems to have hit a nerve and sparked the interest of many photographers receiving over 32 thousand views in just a few weeks. Amongst the many informed and considered comments made concerning the article was one by a photographer who suggested that he would be interested in my thoughts on narrative within the single image, something I have been giving much consideration to over the years and so I replied that I would be looking at this aspect of narrative in a future article

Becoming The Narrative…

Graham Macindoe was born in Scotland but unintentionally found success as a commercial photographer in Manhattan at the end of the Nineties. Susan Stellin was a reporter and contributor to The New York Times with a degree in Political Science from Stanford University. Susan asked Graham to photograph her for an upcoming travel book she had written but neither of them could have ever imagined the series of events that were to follow that meeting and the narrative that unfolded over the following fourteen years. Grant Scott spoke to them about their experiences so powerfully documented in their jointly authored title Chancers

Teaching Photography as a Visual Language

It is interesting to me that those born since the digital revolution; the students whom populate our schools, colleges and universities seem to have the hardest time in re-imaging the role of photography in the world today. At least that is my experience when speaking to them about their understanding of photography as a subject to study within some form of further or higher education. Theirs is an understanding defined and sculpted by established education’s need to grade, mark and rate both work and students throughout their learning journey. As with so many of the creative arts the study of photography is too often placed within the same results based criteria as any other subject from maths to biology, from a modern language to geography. This causes fundamental issues for the student who decides to continue their study of photography outside of that criteria. It has been in the process of trying to solve these issues that I have chosen to use the metaphor of ‘learning a language’ in my own teaching when attempting to explain what photography can be and what it can give a student in transferable creative and life skills

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Photographer

I first wrote an article with this title approximately five years ago for a mainstream printed photography magazine that I edited. At the time, it seemed like a risk, a risk to write and publish a truthful and honest reflection on the emotional, mental and spiritual realities faced by many photographers within a title supported by camera manufacturer advertising. The article proved to be the most commented on and responded to feature that the magazine published in my three years as editor. It provoked letters from photographers thanking us for raising the issue and one in particular which is now available to read here https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2016/01/22/im-a-photographer-and-i-have-a-problem has in itself provoked a similar level of interest and response

Photography Festivals: An Opportunity Repeatedly Missed?

Opinion piec

AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY IN ALBERTA DAIRY PRODUCTION

The World Trade Organization is currently formulating an agenda for a new round of global trade negotiations. Therefore, the likelihood of increased competition within Canada's supply managed dairy industry is probable. Consequently, there is agreater need for producers to be concerned with efficiency and with their competitiveness in the international marketplace. This study assessed the cost efficiency and competitiveness of Alberta dairy producers by estimating the economic costs associated with milk production, and deriving the physical and economic efficiency of producers. Results support the presence of economies of size and economies of yield within Alberta milk production. A link between increased herd size, labour productivity, and lower total labour costs was identified in the analysis.Productivity Analysis,

Subscriber churn in the Australian ISP market

Rapid growth in Internet use, combined with easy market entry by Internet service providers (ISPs), has resulted in a highly competitive supply of Internet services. Australian ISPs range in size from a few large national operators to niche ISPs focused on specialised service. With many ISPs currently not profitable, subscriber retention is an important aspect of survival. This study develops a model which relates the probability of subscriber churn to various service attributes and subscriber characteristics. Estimation results show that churn probability is positively associated with monthly ISP expenditure, but inversely related to household income. Pricing also matters with subscribers preferring ISPs which offer flat-rate pricing arrangements.