Extending The Jamaican Early Childhood Development Intervention

We review the development of the Jamaican home visiting intervention for children under 4 years and its evidence base. The intervention has focused on supporting mothers to promote the development of their children through interacting in a responsive way, labelling the environment and activities. The curriculum is structured and cognitively orientated. It has been used in 13 studies in 4 countries, 7 in Jamaica, 6 in Bangladesh, one each in Colombia and Peru. In all studies some benefit to children’s cognitive and language development has been found. Different types of children from severely malnourished to children living in poverty have benefited. Three long term follow ups have found sustained benefits to cognition; the longest study went to 22 years and found comprehensive benefits, to behaviour, school attainment and achievement, IQ, depression and wages. The curriculum is currently being used in 8 different countries and different delivery strategies are being evaluated including mother and child groups with meetings of different frequencies. A web package, Reach Up, to facilitate training with manuals and demonstration videos has been developed. Some unanswered questions include, what is the most effective age and duration for the intervention to have sustained benefits? Research is needed to find cost-effective implementation models and how to monitor and maintain intervention quality when going to scale

Wharekauri, Rēkohu, Chatham Islands health and social needs

This report is an independent review of the health and social needs of Chatham Islanders. Executive summary Background: Whānau Ora is about the transformation of whānau/family – with whānau/family setting their direction. Whānau Ora is driven by a focus on outcomes: that whānau/family will be self-managing; living healthy lifestyles; participating fully in society; confidently participating in te ao Māori (the Māori world); economically secure and successfully involved in wealth creation; and cohesive, resilient and nurturing. Ha O Te Ora O Wharekauri Trust – Māori Community Services (‘Māori Community Services’) is one of 34 Whānau Ora provider collectives across New Zealand. Within these Whānau Ora provider collectives, there are approximately 180 service providers. The number of providers within each provider collective varies from 1 to 20. Ha O Te Ora O Wharekauri Trust is one of the few Whānau Ora provider collectives with only one provider: their service arm Māori Community Services. Te Whānau Whāriki: Whānau Ora Business Plan was developed by Māori Community Services (2011) to ensure business continuity, enhance management and governance, and put in place adequate infrastructure and appropriately trained staff to support Whānau Ora-based delivery programmes. The business plan seeks innovative opportunities to do things differently to support whānau/families to realise their aspirations. The Ministry of Health commissioned a report on the health and social needs of Chatham Islands. Māori Community Services intends to use the report to guide their work based on the aspirations and realities of whānau/families living on Chatham Islands. Māori Community Services were also keen to explore the feasibility of holding a Health and Wellbeing Day on Chatham Island, potentially using a model similar to PHARMAC’s One Heart Many Lives Program. It is intended that this report will inform other health and social organisations based on Chatham Islands and on the ‘mainland’, so they can work together to support whānau/families on Chatham Islands to realise their aspirations in both the short and long term

Partnerships - cracking under the pressure of organisational change?

A dissertation submitted to the Business School of University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Human Resource ManagementThe concept of partnership and its success or failure has attracted much debate since its inception as a model in the early 1990s. It has become apparent that partnership can entail changing deeply held beliefs and attitudes on both the management and union sides of the relationship. The pace of change has increased exponentially in recent times, necessitating new organisational responses. These responses can be seen by some as sympathetic to the development of partnership work, but at the same time it is acknowledged that organisational change can become a pressure on partnership. The purpose of this research is to look at existing partnerships as they experience the pressures of organisational change over a period of time, and analyse the effect these pressures have on both managers and union representatives, the partnership itself, and the success of organisational change. Extrapolated from key literature, theoretical models were developed to demonstrate the changes in partnership. Using an explanatory causal comparative case study approach, across two organisations; the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust; and the Royal Mail. The research uses primary and secondary data obtained through a series of semi-structured questionnaires completed by key leads involved in the partnership, on both the union and management sides; and study of academic and professional literature with a key focus on both partnerships in the subject organisations. The resulting data was analysed using a matrixed pattern matching technique. The research identifies that there are many influences involved in the deterioration, or stability of partnership: whether the approach to the creation of partnership is cynical or positive; whether management and union attitudes are allowed to deteriorate, or the partnership seeks for ways to overcome these pressures; the strength of the partnership does help it to endure, but there are contributing factors to this strength, such as the embedding of partnership, and equal voice to management. The research concludes that partnership does not necessarity deteriorate under the pressure of organisational change, but rather establishes that they can survive these pressures through a focused application of partnership strategy on both the management and union sides. The existing typologies for definition of the strengths of partnership were demonstrated to have neglected the wider more complex variables existing that make a partnership weak or strong, and rather that the theoretical models proposed, demonstrated a more valid theory of this complex environment and therefore could be said to demonstrate what occurs to partnerships enduring the pressures of organisational change, and therefore could be used for prediction purposes. It is suggested that this presents an opportunity for further research focused on the stability of partnership, utitising the validated models proposed herewith

Financing Georgia's Future

This report explores how Georgia finances its expenditures through various revenue sources and compares Georgia's taxes across states and over time on multiple dimensions

Early childhood portfolios as a tool for enhancing learning during the transition to school

From 2005-2008 Mangere Bridge Kindergarten in New Zealand carried out a Centre of Innovation research project exploring the transition between early childhood education and school. A flexible action research approach was used, with the three teacher researchers, supported by two university research associates, developing and researching a range of strategies for supporting children’s learning as the children and their families ‘crossed the border’ from early childhood education to school. Many of these initiatives involved working closely with teachers in the local school setting. This paper focuses on one aspect of the findings, the ways in which the early childhood portfolios could be used to enhance children’s learning during the transition to school. Portfolios were identified as a belonging and empowerment tool; a means for school teachers to access to children’s funds of knowledge; playing a role in constructing a positive self-image about learning; and as valuable literacy artefacts

From Object to Mediator: The Agency of Documents

This paper takes as a starting point one particular development in social theory – the concept of mediation – and applies it to the document. Central to this discussion is a conceptualisation of documents as objects, albeit one which fails if we assume the document to be nothing more than a receptacle of content. Drawing from contemporary social theories which give mediating objects a pivotal role in human affairs, many researchers find that viewing documents as mediators allows us to concentrate on function over content. Indeed, evidence indicates that viewing documents as mediating objects is well accepted and largely unproblematic. However, some of these social theories have taken mediation to a new conceptual level and now attribute agency to non-human entities. A small but interesting body of research suggests that agency can similarly be attributed to documentary objects

Constraint and innovation in the traditional fiddle repertoire of Cape Breton

Publisher PD

Policy Learning and the Development of Renewable Energy Policy in the United Kingdom

Despite the UK’s abundance of renewable energy sources and the imperative for renewable energy to make a significant contribution to addressing the problems of climate change and fossil-fuel dependency, renewable energy capacity in the UK has developed slowly compared with some other EU states. The UK has introduced a succession of policies to promote renewable energy, but so far these have failed to meet national and EU targets. This signals the need for detailed examination of the reasons for these ‘failures’ and, in particular, the extent, nature and constraints on ‘policy learning’ within UK renewable energy policy. Policy learning has emerged in recent years as an innovative way of exploring the roles of knowledge acquisition and use in policy change. This study examines the contribution of policy learning to the development of UK renewable energy policy. It is argued that interpreting UK renewable energy policy development through the lens of policy learning yields fresh perspectives on why policies develop in certain directions and not others. In so doing, it critically examines problems caused by failings in policy learning and identifies options for the further promotion of renewable energies in the UK. The study distinguishes four different forms of policy learning: technical, conceptual, social and political. Little research has been conducted on the characteristics of these different learning types, the conditions under which they occur, the psychological, institutional and cultural factors that stimulate or constrain learning, and how they interact to shape policy change. The study utilises a qualitative methodology to analyse and explain changes in UK renewable energy policy over the past 20 years. The main methods employed are content analysis of policy documents (including legislative acts and instruments, consultations and select committee reports); and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders from government, industry, NGOs, academia and the media. It is argued in the thesis that UK energy policy has tended to become ‘locked’ into low-level forms of technical learning because current government learning mechanisms do not challenge the parameters of existing policy and, thus, fail to stimulate broader processes of conceptual and social learning that might encourage more radical policy change. These forms of policy learning are particularly constrained by hierarchical institutional structures that hinder communication and learning between policy areas. Furthermore, the current style of policy making for renewable energy in the UK privileges the interests of incumbent energy companies, giving them the ability to filter or block new ideas that do not align with their commercial interests. Political learning was shown to operate alongside other types of policy learning and to take multiple forms but focused predominantly on political risk management rather than political innovation: thus, it tended to narrow rather than extend the parameters of debate. These findings were used to develop a model of policy learning in UK renewable energy policy. This was used to conceptualise relationships between different learning types, highlight specific barriers to policy learning, and illustrate dynamics of policy learning and change that might be extended to other policy areas and countries. Finally, it is argued that many of the barriers identified might be overcome by fostering more evidence-based policy making and learning mechanisms that engage with a broader range of stakeholders to stimulate more pluralistic government processes