How integrated working affected the development of the Caring 4 Kids project (Sharing our experience, Practitioner-led research 2008-2009; PLR0809/025)

This project developed between two separate agencies and aimed to examine and identify, from a participant observer perspective, the specific effects of integrated working on the development of the Caring 4 Kids project. The project, Caring 4 Kids, was a collaborative piece of work between a voluntary sector provider of children’s centres, and a girls’ secondary school. This school has the highest rate of student pregnancy within the local authority. The research consisted largely of interviews with five of the professional participants in the Caring 4 Kids project, one from each discipline: teaching; nursery nursing; social work practitioner/management; social work; and early years consultancy. The participants were: • the director of the voluntary organization providing children’s centres, by background a social worker • the Community Liaison deputy head of a girls’ secondary school, by background a teacher • the manager of one of the children’s centre nurseries, by background a nursery nurse • an ex-social worker • an Early Years consultant with the local authority, by background a SENCO. The questions attempted to address the previous experiences of the interviewee in multidisciplinary working, their attitude to integrated working in relation to their agency’s attitude as they saw it, and their experiences of integrated working in this specific project. In addition to these questions, the research attempted to identify what the participants felt positive and negative about, and if possible to indicate what they might be taking back to their agency, or to their next experience of integrated working, from this present experience. The research identified that • integrated forums were dependent on the consent, real as well as formal, of the agencies seconding to them • the differing values derived from the different professional backgrounds of participants mattered less than the core remits of each of their agencies • some professionals may have identified more with the integrated forum in respect of some of their values than with their own agency • the success of the forum as a ‘workplace’ owed a great deal to participants not feeling disempowered with regard to higher ranking or higher status professionals

Use of high frequency analysis of acoustic emission signals to determine rolling element bearing condition

Acoustic Emission (AE) sensors were used to detect signals arising from a cylindrical roller bearing with artificial defects seeded onto the outer raceway. An SKF N204ECP roller bearing was placed between two double row spherical roller bearings, type SKF 22202E, and loaded between 0.29 and 1.79kN. Speed was constant at 5780rpm. High frequency analysis allowed insight into the condition of the bearings through the determination of an increase in the structural resonances of the system as the size of an artificial defect was increased. As higher loads were applied, frequencies around 100kHz were excited, indicating the release of AE possibly attributed to friction and the plastic deformation as peaks, induced through engraving of the raceway, were flattened and worn down. Sensitivity of AE to this level in bearings indicates the potential of the technique to detect the early stages of bearing failure during life tests