147 research outputs found
The challenges of joint working: lessons from the Supporting People Health Pilot evaluation
Purpose: This paper reports the findings of the evaluation of the Supporting People Health Pilots programme which was established to demonstrate the policy links between housing support services and health and social care services by encouraging the development of integrated services. The paper highlights the challenges of working across housing, health and social care boundaries. <br><br> Method: The evaluation of the 6 health pilots rested on two main sources of data collection: Quarterly Project Evaluation Reports collected process data as well as reporting progress against aims and objectives. Semi-structured interviews - conducted across all key professional stakeholder groups and agencies and with people who used services - explored their experiences of these new services. <br><br> Results: The ability of pilots to work across organisational boundaries to achieve their aims and objectives was associated not only with agencies sharing an understanding of the purpose of the joint venture, a history of joint working and clear and efficient governance arrangements but on two other characteristics: the extent and nature of statutory sector participation and, whether or not the service is defined by a history of voluntary sector involvement. In particular the pilots demonstrated how voluntary sector agencies appeared to be less constrained by organisational priorities and professional agenda and more able to respond flexibly to meet the complex needs of individuals. <br><br> Conclusion and discussion: The pilots demonstrate that integrating services to support people with complex needs works best when the service is determined by the characteristics of those who use the service rather than pre-existing organisational structures
It Is a Scandal: What Are the Results of Media Scandals on Nursing Home Policy?
The media helps bring the larger picture into
personal concerns. It can then help to take
these concerns to the public, which could
create change to policy. Media focus on nursing
care scandals helped people to question the
current belief that the for-profit sectors will
provide better, more effective, care services in
nursing homes.Knowledge Mobilization at York
York’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit provides
services for faculty, graduate students,
community and government seeking to maximize
the impact of academic research and expertise
on public policy, social programming, and
professional practice. This summary has been
supported by the Office of the Vice-President
Research and Innovation at York and project
funding from SSHRC and CIHR.
[email protected]
www.researchimpact.c
Taking Clinical Legal Education Online: Songs of Innocence and Experience
In common with the wider higher education sector, clinical legal education practitioners are facing the challenge of how to adapt their teaching practices to accommodate the restrictions imposed by governmental responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. Facilitating distance learning via online technologies has unsurprisingly become an area of increasing interest in the hope that it may offer a potential solution to the problem of how to continue teaching undergraduates in a socially distanced environment.
This paper seeks to provide clinical legal education practitioners with evidence-based insights into the challenges and opportunities afforded by using digital technologies to deliver clinical legal education. It adopts a case study approach by reflecting on the Open Justice Centre’s four-year experience of experimenting with online technologies to provide meaningful and socially useful legal pro bono projects for students studying a credit bearing undergraduate law module. It will analyse how a number of different types of pro bono activity were translated into an online environment, identify common obstacles and posit possible solutions. In doing so, this paper aims to provide a timely contribution to the literature on clinical legal education and offer a means to support colleagues in law schools in the UK and internationally, who are grappling with the challenges presented by taking clinical legal education online
The contribution of volunteers in social care services for older people
Faced with unprecedented challenges, the adult social care sector in England has seen increasing attention given to the potential of volunteers to contribute to service provision. This article reports the findings of a qualitative study that explored the contribution made by volunteers to social care services for older people. The article draws attention to the difficulties associated with recruiting and training volunteers to work in the sector, particularly during a period of reduced public expenditure, which is putting the sector under strain. Given the challenges faced, the article considers whether it is appropriate to involve volunteers in care work
‘Extra hands’ or the ‘icing on the cake’?:The boundaries of the volunteer role in formal care settings in England
The adult social care sector in England has been encouraged to increase the role of volunteers in service delivery. To understand the volunteer role in care delivery and its impact upon paid care work, we undertook 94 qualitative interviews in seven care settings for older people in England. While the boundaries between care worker and volunteer were clearly established in some organisations, they were more indistinguishable in others. We discuss how both clear and murky boundary making, especially regarding ‘emotional’ and ‘bodily’ aspects of care, can contribute towards paid care work’s invisibility, lack of recognition and poor remuneration
Exploring the role of volunteers in social care for older adults
Purpose
This paper aims to report the findings of a study that explores the contribution volunteers make to social care for older adults, identifying lessons for the social care sector and policymakers.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory multiple case study design was used to capture the perspectives and experiences of managers of services, volunteer co-ordinators, volunteers, paid care staff and older people. Seven diverse social care organisations took part in the study drawn from three locations in the South West of England.
Findings
This study identified three distinct models of volunteer contribution to social care services for older people. Although the contributions made by volunteers to services are valued, the study drew attention to some of the challenges related to their involvement.
Research limitations/implications
The organisations taking part in this small-scale study were all based in the South West of England, and the findings are therefore not generalisable but contribute to the growing evidence base related to this important field.
Practical implications
This study demonstrates the importance of the volunteer co-ordinator role and suggests that it is properly funded and resourced. It also confirms the importance of volunteers receiving appropriate training and support.
Originality/value
Given the increasing involvement of volunteers in the provision of social care, this paper provides lessons to ensure the role of volunteers in social care enhances rather than diminishes the quality of care provided
The problem with Kappa
It is becoming clear that traditional
evaluation measures used in
Computational Linguistics (including
Error Rates, Accuracy, Recall, Precision
and F-measure) are of limited value for
unbiased evaluation of systems, and are
not meaningful for comparison of
algorithms unless both the dataset and
algorithm parameters are strictly
controlled for skew (Prevalence and
Bias). The use of techniques originally
designed for other purposes, in particular
Receiver Operating Characteristics Area
Under Curve, plus variants of Kappa,
have been proposed to fill the void.
This paper aims to clear up some of the
confusion relating to evaluation, by
demonstrating that the usefulness of each
evaluation method is highly dependent on
the assumptions made about the
distributions of the dataset and the
underlying populations. The behaviour of
a number of evaluation measures is
compared under common assumptions.
Deploying a system in a context which
has the opposite skew from its validation
set can be expected to approximately
negate Fleiss Kappa and halve Cohen
Kappa but leave Powers Kappa
unchanged. For most performance
evaluation purposes, the latter is thus
most appropriate, whilst for comparison
of behaviour, Matthews Correlation is
recommended
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