How does FDAC succeed with parents with substance misuse problems?:Exploring relational practices within the English Family Drug Alcohol Court

Parental substance misuse is a significant risk factor for child maltreatment and is frequently involved in care proceedings. Outcomes are often poor and family reunification is prone to breakdown. In this article, the contribution of the English Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) is examined. Adapted from the US family drug treatment court model, FDAC offers a radically different approach to ordinary care proceedings by treating parents as well as adjudicating. The article draws on a mixed‐methods evaluation of FDAC which reports better recovery and reunification rates than ordinary court. It presents findings from interviews with 42 parents and 154 court observations of 89 cases, focusing on FDAC's relational practices. The article concludes that these relational practices offer hope to substance‐misusing parents and that the approach merits wider attention because of its therapeutic potential and distinctive approach to justice. Key Practitioner Messages FDAC is a helpful approach to care proceedings for substance‐misusing parents. Parents value clear, consistent and honest messages about their progress when delivered in the context of trusted relationships and intensive support. Parents need holistic help that takes into account damaging early‐life experiences

Birth weight and cognitive performance in older women: the Rancho Bernardo study

Low birth weight is associated with poorer cognitive function from infancy through early adulthood, but little is known about low birth weight and cognitive performance in the elderly. This study examines the association of birth weight with cognitive function in community-dwelling older women. Participants were 292 community-dwelling women aged 55–89 (median = 71 years) who attended a 1988–91 clinic visit when cognitive function was assessed, and responded to a 1991 mailed questionnaire assessing birth weight. All analyses were adjusted for age and education. Birth weight ranged from 2 to 12 pounds (lbs; mean = 7.4 ± 1.9). When birth weight was categorized into tertiles (2–6.9 lbs, 7–8 lbs, and 8.1–12.4 lbs), women in the lowest tertile had significantly lower (“poorer”) scores on Serial 7’s, a test of concentration and calculation (p < 0.05). Other birth weight categorizations (lowest quartile or quintile, or birth weight <5.5 lbs vs. 5.6–8.9 lbs and ≥9 lbs) did not improve the prediction of poor performance on Serial 7’s. Birth weight as a continuous variable was significantly and positively associated with Serial 7’s test scores (p = 0.04). Results suggest that small decrements in cognitive function tasks involving calculation may persist throughout life in women who were of relatively low birth weight. Although this association could be spurious, it deserves further evaluation

Leisure, Popular Culture and Memory: The Invention of Dark Age Britain, Wales, England, and Middle-earth in the songs of Led Zeppelin

In the period of high modernity, and in the process of establishing the imperial nation-state of Great Britain, historians, archaeologists and enthusiastic amateurs searched high and low for material evidence and primary sources from what was called the Dark Ages. There is a gap in knowledge about this past, and all discussion rests on finding meaning in fading inscriptions, or dark earth, or trusting completely the writings of Bede and Gildas. The search for an identity and history for the nation for Great Britain was based on nationalist beliefs about Englishness, Britishness or Welshness. In the twentieth-century, the problem of Englishness, place and myth led Tolkien to write his Middle-earth stories in his leisure time. At the same time, the problem of Welshness or Britishness saw a growth in interest – in film and books - in Arthurian traditions, and a tourist interest in the Celtic fringe of Britain. In this paper, I show how the songs and album covers of Led Zeppelin, and their film The Song Remains the Same, draw upon both the work of Tolkien and the Arthurian traditions to construct ideas of masculine belonging in some mythological medieval time and place. While this constriction is idiosyncratic to the artists, they are drawing on and justifying the wider problem of England, Wales and Britain in leisure and culture

From Cinderella to Consumer: How Crime Victims Can Go to the Ball

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