“It’s a big deal, being given a person” – a study of the links between infertility and adoption

This study was commissioned and funded by Family Care and undertaken by Jo Ward and Joe Smeeton, both Principal Lecturers at Nottingham Trent University. It comprises a review of the literature relating to the links between adoption and infertility, a survey of the views of adoption from people who have experienced infertility, and 3 qualitative interviews with people who have experienced infertility but not adopted

Do-it-yourself shuffling and the number of runs under randomness

A common class of problem in statistical science is estimating, as a benchmark, the probability of some event under randomness. For example, in a sequence of events in which several outcomes are possible and the length of the sequence and number of outcomes of each type known, the number of runs gives an indication of whether the outcomes are random, clustered, or alternating. This note explains and illustrates a simple method of random shuffling that is often useful. We show how the conditional probability distribution of the number of runs may be derived easily in Stata, thus yielding p-values for testing the null hypothesis that the type of outcome is random. We also compare our direct approach with that using the simulate command. Copyright 2003 by StataCorp LP.alternation, categorical data, clustering, conditional distribution, forvalues, p-value, permutation, run, sequence, simulate, simulation

The end of non-consensual adoption? Promoting the wellbeing of children in care

In the UK the number of children in care has been increasing for several years; such children have backgrounds characterised by trauma, abuse and neglect. The UK is almost unique in Europe in promoting adoption for children in care. Since 2010 adoption has been promoted as a favoured means of enhancing the wellbeing of such children unable to return to their parents or birth family members, and the number of children being adopted has increased 50% in the last 2 years. Research carried out in the US and the UK has demonstrated developmental catch up and significant improvements in adopted children’s physical and emotional wellbeing. However, adoption is highly contested and has come under challenge in the UK courts. This paper will link research by the two authors into this policy conflict: whether we are facing the end of adoption in the UK, and the implications for practice

Spatial Separation and Working Memory Capacity Affect Selective Visual Attention in the Periphery

The current study aimed to examine the effects of spatial separation and working memory capacity on selective visual attention. We investigated differences in the ability to identify the two covertly attended stimuli that appeared either along one of the meridians (e.g., both along the horizontal) or along two of the meridians (e.g., one along the horizontal and one along the vertical) in the attention-window task. Two visual stimuli in the periphery could be perceived along wider extents of the attentional focus’ meridians (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal) when they were located along the same meridian (e.g., horizontal) compared to two different ones (e.g., horizontal and vertical). Subjects with high working memory capacity outperformed subjects with lower working memory capacity in both conditions and stimuli presented on two meridians were less accurately perceived. The findings support the proposal that individual differences in working memory capacity are important for selective spatial visual attention

In search of social work's post-risk paradigm

This paper describes a paradigmatic shift in child protection practice within the UK, arguing that there is a move away from the risk paradigm but that its replacement is not yet defined. The paper draws upon the critical literature to elucidate this shift and to give examples and arguments for why the risk paradigm is unsustainable and how this has created an essential tension within the profession. While the case against the risk perspective is strongly argued there is not yet a coherent perspective to replace it which is problematic as practitioners are left with a toolkit of technical interventions to guide their practice but what is missing is the capacity to develop an ethic of practice due to a failure of social work in the UK to engage with philosophical questions about its remit. The conclusion is drawn that social work needs to focus more on ethical fluency rather than being stuck on statistical understandings of practice and policy in order to achieve a shift in paradigm from ‘risk’ to ‘ethics’

Embodied social work practice within risk society

This paper critically discusses the limitations of theorising social work from psychological and sociological perspectives and argues that phenomenology offers more opportunity to understand the embodied experiences of service users and social workers themselves. The paper argues that psychology and sociology have a limited analysis of being-in-the-world, which ought to be social work’s primary consideration. The paper offers an overview of the sociology of risk before embarking on an extensive description and discussion of Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology applied to the lived experience of child protection social workers working within risk society. The argument is put that phenomenology is a useful tool for understanding the lived experience of social work practitioners