The politics of aspiration: neo-liberal education policy, 'low' parental aspirations, and primary school Extended Services in disadvantaged communities

Geographical research on education has grown rapidly in both volume and scope during the first decade of the twenty-first century, and one relatively new theme to emerge from this growing literature is that of education and aspiration. Much of the nascent interest in aspiration concerns access to quality schooling and University education. In this paper by contrast we highlight the importance of studying the ways aspirations are (re)produced within the school community. Our empirical focus is on low-income England under New Labour. Here we pursue a two-fold approach: firstly examining how education professionals define parental aspirations for primary-aged children as low; before secondly considering their alternative understandings of appropriate aspirations and the practices through which they seek to promote these, both in school and through the use of Extended Services for parents and children. In conclusion we highlight the importance of inward and outward geographies of education which ‘recouple’ schools with their social context, and discuss the moral and political ambiguities involved in practices designed to raise aspirations

The patient pathway in cardiovascular care: a position paper from the International Pharmacists for Anticoagulation Care Taskforce (iPACT)

"Background: This position paper highlights the opportunistic integral role of the pharmacist across the patient pathway utilizing cardiovascular care as an example. The paper aims to highlight the potential roles that pharmacists worldwide can have (or already have) to provide efficient patient care in the context of interprofessional collaboration. Methods: It results from a literature review and experts seeking advice to identify existing interventions and potential innovative interventions. We developed a conceptual framework highlighting seven critical phases in the patient pathway and for each of those listed some of the initiatives identified by our experts worldwide. Results: Existing pharmacists' interventions in each of these phases have been identified globally. Various examples in the area of prevention and self‐management were found to exist for long; the contribution for early detection and subsequently to timely diagnosis were also quite clear; integration of care was perhaps one of the areas needing greater development, although interventions in secondary care were also quite common. Tertiary care and end of life interventions were found to often be left for other healthcare professionals. Conclusion: On the basis of the findings, we can argue that much has been done but globally consider that pharmacists are still an untapped resource potentially useful for improved patient care."info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Glasgow 'Deep End' Links Worker Study Protocol: a quasi-experimental evaluation of a social prescribing intervention for patients with complex needs in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation

Background: ‘Social prescribing’ can be used to link patients with complex needs to local (non-medical) community resources. The ‘Deep End’ Links Worker Programme is being tested in general practices serving deprived populations in Glasgow, Scotland. Objectives: To assess the implementation and impact of the intervention at patient and practice levels. Methods: Study design: Quasi-experimental outcome evaluation with embedded theory-driven process evaluation in 15 practices randomized to receive the intervention or not. Complex intervention: Comprising a practice development fund, a practice-based community links practitioner (CLP), and management support. It aims to link patients to local community organizations and enhance practices’ social prescribing capacity. Study population: For intervention practices, staff and adult patients involved in referral to a CLP, and a sample of community organization staff. For comparison practices, all staff and a random sample of adult patients. Sample size: 286 intervention and 484 comparator patients. Outcomes: Primary patient outcome is health-related quality of life (EQ-5D-5L). Secondary patient outcomes include capacity, depression/anxiety, self-esteem, and healthcare utilization. Practice outcome measures include team climate, job satisfaction, morale, and burnout. Outcomes measured at baseline and 9 months. Processes: Barriers and facilitators to implementation of the programme and possible mechanisms through which outcomes are achieved. Analysis plan: For outcome, intention-to-treat analysis with differences between groups tested using mixed-effects regression models. For process, case-study approach with thematic analysis. Discussion: This evaluation will provide new evidence about the implementation and impact of social prescribing by general practices serving patients with complex needs living in areas of high deprivation

Childhood in crisis? Tracing the contours of ‘crisis’ and its impact upon contemporary parenting practices

At the beginning of the twenty-first century media commentary and public discourses on childhood commonly invoke a notion of ‘crisis’. This paper poses the question, what is new about the current invocation of crisis and how does it manifest itself? Specifically, the paper explores the ways in which media texts, cultural commentary and policy documents/initiatives collectively produce a dominant discourse of childhood in crisis. I aim to trace the anatomy of this so-called ‘crisis’ in childhood, to examine how far it exists and what the main features of such a crisis may look like from different perspectives. In doing so I consider and comment upon the relationship between the past and the present and the ways in which a historical perspective can be instructive in understanding how concerns about childhood are conceptualised and given meaning. Based on an analysis of cultural texts that promote or collude in the normative idea of a crisis in childhood, the paper provides alternative ways of conceptualising prevailing ideas and assumptions of crisis and calamity. The paper draws upon a textual analysis of pregnancy magazines to examine the ways in which parents may be responding to the idea of a crisis in childhood and the impact this has on their parenting practices. Finally, the paper argues that contemporary meanings of childhood are shaped by the links between the past and present, to be found in residual notions of childhood in the popular imagination and contemporary accounts of risk and crisis. In the context of contemporary childrearing, cultural texts and residual meanings cohere to produce a reconfigured version of childhood that can be seen as a generative mixture of romantic, late modern and scientific identifications