498 research outputs found
Safe recruitment, social justice, and ethical practice: should people who have criminal convictions be allowed to train as social workers?
Decision making in relation to admitting people to train as social workers is, either explicitly or implicitly, an ethical activity. This paper considers ethical and practical issues related to the processing of applicants to social work training in England who have criminal convictions. These issues are explored by focusing on policies that strengthen regulations that exclude ex-offenders from working with children and vulnerable adults. The admissions processes for social work education are analysed in terms of how they contribute to, or counteract, processes of social exclusion. The advice and guidance from the General Social Care Council of England (GSCC) is summarised and analysed. A case study of a social work education partnership grounds the ethical discussion by illustrating the complexities of engaging with combating social exclusion whilst seeking to ensure that the public is protected.</p
Domain wall pinning and potential landscapes created by constrictions and protrusions in ferromagnetic nanowires
The potential experienced by transverse domain walls (TDWs) in the vicinity
of asymmetric constrictions or protrusions in thin Permalloy nanowires is
probed using spatially resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements. Both
types of traps are found to act as pinning centers for DWs. The strength of
pinning is found to depend on the trap type as well as on the chirality of the
incoming DW; both types of traps are seen to act either as potential wells or
potential barriers, also depending on the chirality of the DW. Micromagnetic
simulations have been performed that are in good qualitative agreement with the
experimental results.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure
Social work admissions : applicants with criminal convictions - the challenge of ethical risk assessment
The decision to admit an ex-offender to social work training may play a part in combating the social exclusion of people who have committed criminal offences, but it may also knowingly place social work service users and carers in positions of increased vulnerability. This paper brings together critical perspectives on both the nature of risk and ethical decision making in the context of social work admissions of applicants with criminal convictions. It locates the concepts of risk and risk assessment within General Social Care Council (GSCC) guidance. The epistemological assumptions underpinning risk assessments are explored and the differences in psychological and sociological approaches to understanding risk are outlined. However, decisions to admit or reject an ex-offender involve ethical and moral judgements. The contribution of ethical thinking to decision making, in relation the admission of ex-offenders, to social work training is described. The paper concludes by suggesting that social work admissions procedures need to be informed by: an explicit epistemological standpoint, transparent risk assessment procedures and clearly articulated ethical thinking
Professional boundaries: research report
In 2008 the General Social Care Council (GSCC) published Raising standards: Social work conduct in England 2003-2008. This constituted the GSCC’s first report covering the work undertaken to uphold standards and protect people who use social care services. The GSCC’s analysis revealed that a considerable proportion of conduct cases, some 40%, involved allegations of 'inappropriate relations'. In the light of this finding, and the release by the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) of sexual boundaries guidance for healthcare workers at the beginning of this year (Halter et al, 2009), the GSCC committed itself to exploring the possibility of producing professional boundaries guidance for social workers.
To begin this exploration, the GSCC commissioned a study in early 2009.This is the report of that study. There were two main purposes. First, to establish what professional boundaries1 guidance currently exists for social workers, or for sections of the workforce that includes social workers in the United Kingdom, and the content of any such guidance. Secondly, to identify and discuss a number of other examples of professional boundaries guidance to act as points of reference for the GSCC’s project. The aim was to identify and discuss examples relevant to the GSCC’s project
Evolution and stability of a magnetic vortex in small cylindrical ferromagnetic particle under applied field
The energy of a displaced magnetic vortex in a cylindrical particle made of
isotropic ferromagnetic material (magnetic dot) is calculated taking into
account the magnetic dipolar and the exchange interactions. Under the
simplifying assumption of small dot thickness the closed-form expressions for
the dot energy is written in a non-perturbative way as a function of the
coordinate of the vortex center. Then, the process of losing the stability of
the vortex under the influence of the externally applied magnetic field is
considered. The field destabilizing the vortex as well as the field when the
vortex energy is equal to the energy of a uniformly magnetized state are
calculated and presented as a function of dot geometry. The results (containing
no adjustable parameters) are compared to the recent experiment and are in good
agreement.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, RevTe
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