Safety Regulation in Professional Football: Empirical Evidence of Intended and Unintended Consequences

In response to increasing public awareness and negative long-term health effects of concussions, the National Football League implemented the “Crown-of-the-Helmet Rule” (CHR). The CHR imposes penalties on players who initiate contact using the top of the helmet. This paper examines the intended effect of this policy and its potential for unintended consequences. We find evidence supporting the intended effect of the policy- a reduction in weekly concussion reports among defensive players by as much as 32% (34% for all head and neck injuries), but also evidence of an increase in weekly lower extremity injury reports for offensive players by as much as 34%

No recourse to social work? statutory neglect, social exclusion and undocumented migrant families in the UK

© 2019 The Authors. Published by Cogitatio. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v6i3.1486Families in the UK with an irregular migration status are excluded from most mainstream welfare provision through the no recourse to public funds rule, and statutory children’s social work services are one of the few welfare services available to undocumented migrant families. This article draws on semi-structured interviews with undocumented migrant families who are accessing children’s services support to illustrate the sometimes uneasy relationship between child welfare law and immigration control. Outlining the legislative and policy context for social work with undocumented migrant families in the UK, the article argues that the exclusion of migrant families from the welfare state by government policy amounts to a form of statutory neglect which is incompatible with the global social work profession’s commitment to social justice and human rights

The interaction between deepwater channel systems and growing thrusts and folds, toe-thrust region of the deepwater Niger Delta

The Niger Delta fold and thrust belt occurs in an area of tectonic shortening – caused by the thin-skinned gravitational collapse of large deltaic sediment wedges above a ductile overpressured shale. Syn-sedimentary processes such as down-slope flowing gravity currents interact with the deforming seafloor topography to produce growth packages that record the deformation history of the folds. The thesis documents the spatial and temporal interaction between Pleistocene to Recent submarine channels, and folds/thrusts that have been growing since 12.8 million years ago (Ma). 3D seismic reflection data and key stratigraphic/horizon ages are used to constrain and analyse the spatial and temporal variation in shortening of major folds having seabed relief. Geomorphic techniques were applied to quantify the geomorphic responses of submarine channels developing coevally with structural deformation. This thesis documents two types of structures (fault-propagation folds and a detachment fold) whose cumulative strain (shortening) varies spatially and through time. The maximum interval shortening rate occurred between 9.5 Ma and 3.7 Ma, and has reduced significantly from that time to present. Channels show a range of interactions with structures, from simple deflection to fold tips to complete diversion. However, channels are capable of crossing the actively growing fault-propagation folds in positions of recent strain minima and at interval strain rates that are generally less than 15 m/Myr. In contrast, channels have been completely diverted by the broad detachment fold albeit growing at comparably lower rates. This thesis emphasizes that careful fold displacement – distance measurements which bracket the time interval of channel system development are very important for predicting sediment pathways in deepwater settings. Detailed geomorphic analysis showed that the bathymetry longitudinal profiles of the active channels are relatively linear with concavity values that range from -0.08 to ̵ 0.34, with an average profile gradient between 0.9[degrees] and 1[degrees]. In contrast, channel systems that have been abandoned and buried for long period of time, have longitudinal profiles that are more convex. The profiles of both the active and buried channels are characterized by knickzones that are apparent near mapped structures – and implicitly record variations in substrate uplift rate. The recently active channels (the modern thalweg) show no systematic width change down-system but they do show an increase in incision depth/erosion of up to 70 % at structural locations. However, the channel system (made of several cut-and-fill sequences), shows clear width narrowing together with time-integrated incision and erosion in response to time-integrated structural uplift. Estimates of the down-system variation in channel bed-shear stress and flow velocity, using the thalweg-geometry of the active channels, suggests that near growing folds and thrusts, the enhanced bed-shear stress-driven incision is up to 200 Pa. and the flow velocity is up to 5 m s-1. In essence, the linear nature of the active channel profiles, in comparison to the convex nature of the buried channel profiles, suggests that the active channels are able to keep pace with the time-integrated uplift of folds and thrusts, and therefore appear to be in topographic steady-state with respect to structural uplift since at least 1.7 Ma. Facies analysis using the seismic data showed that the main seismic facies include: (i) channel axes sands and top-channel sands (ii) sheet-sands or crevasse splays (iii) slump deposits and (iv) pelagic drapes. The growth of structures with seabed relief has affected the location of channel avulsion, the locus and the deposition/distribution of sheet-sands (splays). These splays can spill over the growing fault-propagation folds in areas of lower fold growth rates, and absence of seabed scarps; but are completely blocked, and subsequently incorporated onto the limb of a broad detachment fold in the east of the study area as incoming channels are forced to divert through time. This thesis has contributed to the understanding of: (1) Deformation by thrust-related folds that have been growing since ca. 12 Ma, and attained maximum interval growth rates between 9.5 Ma and 3.7 Ma. These maximum growth rates have reduced significantly in the last 3.7 million years during which submarine channels that are generally less than 1.3 million years old also occurred. (2) How modern seabed channels (i.e., recently active channels) have responded to the time-integrated growth of structures along their paths; and the related effect on the positioning of channels pathways, which in-turn, governs the depositional system – especially the distribution of sands in the toe-thrust area of the deepwater Niger Delta. (3) The time-integrated channel system erosivity, the evolution of the channel system geometry and the channel system fill as these systems interact with active structures through time. (4) How submarine channels in the deepwater Niger Delta achieve, and maintain bathymetric steady-state over periods of approximately 1 – 1.3 million years.Open Acces

Written evidence submitted by Dr Andrew Jolly & Dr Bozena Sojka Institute for Community Research and Development (ICRD), University of Wolverhampton

IET0005 - Immigration Enforcement. Written evidence submitted to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee inquiry on Immigration Enforcement. The full report can be accessed here: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/2633/documents/26242/default

Statutory neglect and care in a pandemic

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by SAGE in International Social Work on 23/07/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872820941916 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Much has been written about the prevalence of COVID-19 infections in care homes in Europe and North America, with claims that the high mortality rate has been worsened by the policy decisions taken by governments. This essay argues that the concept of statutory neglect is a useful framework for understanding situations where neglect results from law or policy rather than the lack of action by an individual caregiver.Published onlin

From the Windrush Generation to the ‘Air Jamaica generation’: local authority support for families with no recourse to public funds

Over the past year, immigration has been a continued focus of policy debates in the global north, with governments in Hungary and Italy elected on openly anti-immigration and ‘welfare chauvinist’ platforms. On the other side of the Atlantic the US federal government family separations policy has also been a source of fierce dispute. In the UK, the potential implications of Brexit for EU migrants in the UK and the treatment of the children of the ‘Windrush Generation’ under the hostile (or ‘compliant’) environment has caused particular controversy and the precipitated the resignation of the Home Secretary

Consulting the oracle: Using the Delphi method in research with undocumented migrant children

Although there are estimates of the number of undocumented migrant families resident in the UK, there are currently no estimates at local authority level. As a result, undocumented migrant families are often invisible in local discussions of child poverty and safeguarding, can be excluded from services to safeguard their welfare, and face the risk of destitution. This paper explores the Delphi method as a way of using expert consensus to estimate numbers of undocumented migrant families. Fieldwork was completed in Birmingham, West Midlands, but uses a methodology transferrable to other areas. A median estimate of 1,500 families, containing 1,900 children was reached. The paper concludes with a discussion of the methodological difficulties encountered, and recommendations for use of the method in the future

Household food secuirty and statutory neglect amongst undocumented migrant families in Birmingham

Undocumented migrant children and families face exclusion from most state welfare provision in the UK through the no recourse to public funds rule and the ‘hostile environment’. They are therefore vulnerable to destitution and other forms of extreme poverty. Although there has been a renewed academic and policy interest in the rise of food poverty and insecurity in the UK in recent years, there has been little analysis of how food insecurity and immigration status interact with each other. This gap is particularly acute when considering access to local authority social care for undocumented migrant children under Section 17 of the Children Act (1989). This thesis uses an exploratory mixed-methods approach to explore and understand the experiences of food insecurity amongst undocumented migrant families in Birmingham, using the themes of ‘(in)adequacy’; ‘abandonment’; ‘access’; ‘abundance’; and ‘agency’. These themes are then analysed using four explanatory theoretical frameworks of the ‘Air Jamaica generation’; ‘statutory neglect’; ‘reverse panopticism’; and ‘hospitable environments’. Findings indicated that the numbers of undocumented migrant families in Birmingham were likely to be in the low thousands, and more than nine out of ten families who participated in the study were food insecure. This insecurity was rooted in the way that legislation neglects and abandons undocumented migrant children through a process of ‘unseeing’. Despite this exclusionary process and the insecurity that it reproduced, families experienced times of ‘abundance’, made possible by the networks of ‘hospitable environments’ and mutual aid they were part of