Mapping knowledge transfer in early childhood education and care in South Africa

This pilot study explores through participative methods the implicit models, situated understandings and processes of early childhood care and education in South Africa in the context of poverty. The intention is to expose and reconcile potential tensions between ‘official’ Western and classed child-rearing practices and indigenous beliefs and realities of poor communities in KwaZulu-Natal

A review of the evidence on the use of ICT in the Early Years Foundation Stage

This report reviewed existing evidence on the potential of technology to support the development of educational policy and practice in the context of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Reference is made to the use of ICT by young children from aged birth to five years and its potential impacts, positive and negative on their cognitive, social, emotional educational, visual and physical development

The Tutor's Role

This chapter addresses three questions about being an effective online tutor: 1. Why do we still think that online tutoring can principally draw its basis from face-to-face group processes and dynamics or traditional pedagogy? 2. Does the literature tell us anything more than we would make as an intelligent guess? 3. Do we really know what an ‘effective’ online tutor would be doing? The OTiS participants have gone some way to answering these questions, through the presentation and discussion of their own online tutoring experiences. Literature in this area is still limited, and suffers from the need for timeliness of publication to be useful. Intelligent guesses are all very well, but much better as a source of information for online tutors are the reflections and documented experiences of practitioners. These experiences reveal that face-to-face pedagogy has some elements to offer the online tutor, but that there are key differences and there is a need to examine the processes and dynamics of online learning to inform online tutoring

The Experiences of Minority Immigrant Families Receiving Child Welfare Services: Seeking to Understand How to Reduce Risk and Increase Protective Factors

Wide recognition that families in the child welfare system experience multiple stressors has resulted in the development of a range of prevention and intervention strategies at individual, family, and policy levels.1 This article reports on a research study with minority immigrant families. The aim was to understand stressors they perceived as contributing to child welfare interventions, and services they found helpful or unhelpful. Using the conservation of resource (COR) theory, the findings highlight the erosion of resources that increases their vulnerability. Themes that emerged were: loneliness, betrayal, hopelessness, and financial and language struggles. Application of the COR theory combined with contextual insights from participant perspectives can guide policy and practice to focus on resource gain and prevent resource attrition

Student midwives'views of caseloading: the BUMP study

In 2007 the Nursing and Midwifery Council recommended that across the UK all pre-registration, undergraduate student midwives should, as part of their education, have the opportunity to experience continuity of care through caseloading practice. This article reports on a qualitative exploration of student midwives’ views of caseloading a known group of women, which formed part of a larger action research project through Bournemouth University’s pre-registration, undergraduate midwifery programme. Analysis of the caseloading data revealed four themes: preparation to undertake a caseload; knowing your mentor; tri-partite meetings; and relevance of caseloading to their learning in becoming midwives. Caseloading was identified by the students as being a highly valuable learning experience. Attitudes of the midwife mentor and link tutor were seen as important and impacted on student confidence in preparing for, and learning from, their caseloading experience. Findings of this study highlight the importance of developing a shared understanding and commitment to agreed support mechanisms, which sustains and enriches the experience of the student through their caseloading

A social insight into bereavement and reproductive loss

Abstract not available

The social dimensions of reproductive loss

Abstract not available

Management practices: Are not-for-profits different?

Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of good management for firm performance. Here, we focus on management in not-for-profits (NFPs). We present a model predicting that management quality will be lower in NFPs compared to for-profits (FPs), but that outputs may not be worse if managers are altruistic. Using a tried and tested survey of management practices, we find that NFPs score lower than FPs but also that, while the relationship between management scores and outputs holds for FPs, the same is not true for NFPs. One implication is that management practices that work for FPs may be less effective in driving performance in NFPs.Not-for-profits, management, impure altruism

Understanding Trends in Poverty in the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area

In 2010, about one in eight residents (12.1 percent, or 280,000 people) in the Pittsburgh region had incomes below the poverty level, an increase of 8.5 percent since the Great Recession started in 2007. Although demographic factors such as the arrival of new immigrants and more single-parent households contributed to the growing number of people living at or near poverty, the economy was the driving force in changing poverty rates. What does this mean for our region and for the future of our nonprofit sector