FrAmework for Multi-Agency Environments (FAME) : Final Report of the Learning & Evaluation Strand

Framework for Multi-agency Environments (FAME) was one of the Local Government On-Line funded National Projects sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM). Within FAME there were six local projects (known as strands) led by English local authorities in partnership with service providers. Each strand aimed to improve a particular set of services (for example, to vulnerable older people or disabled children) through effective and appropriate exchange of information. These local projects worked with IT suppliers (known as technology partners) to produce a technical system to facilitate the exchange and management of client / patient information across agency boundaries. Not all the outputs of FAME were in the form of IT systems. Improvements to business processes and information sharing practices were also expected. Newcastle University led two further strands, the Generic Framework and Learning & Evaluation. The Generic Framework identifies and describes nine building blocks that are essential to effective multi-agency working. The FAME website http://www.fame-uk.org contains details of these building blocks, together with a ‘how to’ guide and a toolkit to support local authorities and their partners in assessing their ‘readiness’ for multi-agency working. This is the report of the Learning & Evaluation strand. The Learning & Evaluation team worked closely with the local FAME project teams, who were supportive of our work and generous with their time. Throughout the project we reported back to the local teams both individually and collectively. Evaluation was thoroughgoing and critical, not an exercise in public relations or advocacy. It is important to stress that learning is likely to be gained from what did not work as well as from what did. Problems and setbacks, as well as successes, are therefore documented and analysed in the report

Reason and Faith: A Study of Interwar Chilean Eugenic Discourse, 1900-1950

This dissertation examines how social reform discourse that rationalized gender difference allowed Chilean Catholics to play a critical role in the development of eugenic science between 1900 and 1950. Building on scholarship relating to the development of a modernized, patriarchal system during the 1920s and 1930s and the rise of eugenics among scientists during the same period, this dissertation posits that eugenic science in Chile was the result of a complex interaction between Catholic and secular intellectuals vying for dominance in the reconstruction of the modern Chilean social order. Political liberals characterized the Catholic Church as a dogmatic monolith that was antithetical to social progressivism and disconnected from the realities of modern life. At the same time, Chilean Catholics used the social disruptions caused by capitalist industrialization to assert their social, moral, and scientific superiority. The dissertation asserts that anti-clerical discourse popular among progressive actors served to obscure the scientific and social contributions, both conservative and progressive, of the Catholic Church and its supporters in Chile. Each chapter in this dissertation examines how Catholics responded to secular efforts to oust them from their traditional places of social influence - hospitals, orphanages, schools, charities, and family life - through the application of eugenic science. Secular reformers contrasted their own presumably rational, scientific responses to social problems while feminizing religious practice and Church or Catholic perspectives. Chilean Catholics responded by asserting the compatibility of science and religion, particularly in the field of eugenics. Catholic scholars suggested, for instance, that they had to be involved in eugenic practices to ensure the most ethical application of scientific principles

Agriculture at a crossroads: Perceptions of Irish Agricultural Sustainability

Ireland’s current agricultural development paradigm is increasingly leaning towards high - input, intensive farming particularly incentivising the beef and dairy sectors while simultaneously laying claim to the sector’s sustainability. In response to pressin g issues such as climate change and food security, ‘sustainable intensification’ has become an accepted way forward within the dominant agricultural narrative. Alternative models question the long - term impacts of agricultural intensification on sustainabi lity while conventional, input - intensive farming appears to accept the narrative to scale up and intensify. This research paper proposes to explore how farmers and experts from various agricultural models perceive the current status quo in Irish agricult ure. Alternative approaches such as: agroecology, permaculture as well as organic farming question the issues around sustainable farming in Ireland and provide possible ways forward. In giving voice to different opinions and various interpretations of sus tainability this paper examines the debates in Irish agriculture through a different lens and offers an alternative perspective on how Irish agriculture could become truly sustainable

Nonprofit organizations in the making of civic community : exploring how the structure of nonprofit sectors matters for community wellbeing

In this dissertation, through the lens of the civic community perspective, I examine the role of nonprofit organizations in enhancing community wellbeing. The primary contribution of this dissertation to existing literature on civic communities is the theoretical development of the concept of civically engaging institutions. I take a multifaceted approach to the understanding and investigation of civically engaged institutions, in which I expand the concept beyond civic congregations and associations, to include all organizations categorized as nonprofit. Synthesizing literatures on nonprofit organizations and civic communities, I argue that nonprofits can be considered locally oriented and civically engaged as they are economically embedded in locales and dependent on local populations as sources of volunteers and labor and as consumers for services; they often are exclusively local and/or tailor their services to local populations; they often are oriented towards the public good; and they are often sites and sources of association and civic activities. This dissertation also contributes to civic community scholarship through the investigation of nonprofits as civic institutions; I examine how the size of local nonprofit sectors is related to community wellbeing. Also, believing that different types of nonprofits offer potentially unique benefits to locales, I examine how local wellbeing is related to the composition of local nonprofit sectors in terms of organizational diversity organizational evenness, and organizational concentration. I examine these relationships using three analytic models, which explore three components of wellbeing on which past research has found civic institutions to have a positive effect – these are local economic wellbeing, safety, and health. Though findings both support and negate my hypothesized relationships, results demonstrate that nonprofit sector structure is a significant determinant of local quality of life

Predicting mental well-being in assisted living communities : the roles of social capital and the built environment.

Along the continuum of poor to good health, mental well-being refers to the positive state of being. Mental well-being connotes the ability to manage stress, maintain independence, and is indicative of happiness and improved quality of life. Mental well-being is critical to overall health throughout the lifespan, but it is of particular importance in the context of healthy aging since older adults are more likely to experience compromised mental health. Existing research has identified factors that reduce the risk of poor mental health outcomes: the built environment and individual and community social capital are associated with overall health status and the incidence of mental illness. This study explores the relationship between these variables and mental wellness, currently a gap in the literature. This dissertation assessed the roles of social capital and the built environment on promoting and maintaining positive mental health, specifically for assisted living residents. The study utilized a quantitative design to determine if built environment quality, community social capital and individual social connectedness were predictive of mental well-being. Site audits were used to assess built environment quality surrounding twelve assisted living facilities in Greater Louisville. Of these twelve sites, six authorized individual interviews with their residents, and subsequently 76 individuals were surveyed. Social connectedness explained about 15% of the variance in mental well-being. For older adults, knowing people who can provide them with resources or favors is predictive of increased happiness and enhanced mental well-being. Although built environment quality did not emerge as a meaningful variable for predicting mental well-being, social connectedness and social capital explained about 27% of the variance in mental well-being. In addition to the resources they may know, increased perceptions of community trust and reciprocity are associated with increased mental well-being for older adults. In this regard, social capital and social connectedness are important predictors of mental wellness for older adults residing in assisted living communities. Beyond reducing the risk of illness, this study demonstrates that social capital and social connectedness are associated with mental wellness. In light of this, assisted living communities should evaluate the impact of their activities and programmatic offerings on resident social capital. Every effort should be made to help residents maintain their pre-existing community ties as well as forge new relationships

Comparing Antonovsky's sense of coherence scale across three UK post-industrial cities

Objectives: High levels of ‘excess’ mortality (ie, that seemingly not explained by deprivation) have been shown for Scotland compared to England and Wales and, especially, for its largest city, Glasgow, compared to the similarly deprived English cities of Liverpool and Manchester. It has been suggested that this excess may be related to differences in ‘Sense of Coherence’ (SoC) between the populations. The aim of this study was to ascertain whether levels of SoC differed between these cities and whether, therefore, this could be a plausible explanation for the ‘excess’. Setting: Three post-industrial UK cities: Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. Participants: A representative sample of more than 3700 adults (over 1200 in each city). Primary and secondary outcome measures: SoC was measured using Antonovsky's 13-item scale (SOC-13). Multivariate linear regression was used to compare SoC between the cities while controlling for characteristics (age, gender, SES etc) of the samples. Additional modelling explored whether differences in SoC moderated city differences in levels of self-assessed health (SAH). Results: SoC was higher, not lower, among the Glasgow sample. Fully adjusted mean SoC scores for residents of Liverpool and Manchester were, respectively, 5.1 (−5.1 (95% CI −6.0 to −4.1)) and 8.1 (−8.1 (−9.1 to −7.2)) lower than those in Glasgow. The additional modelling confirmed the relationship between SoC and SAH: a 1 unit increase in SoC predicted approximately 3% lower likelihood of reporting bad/very bad health (OR=0.97 (95% CI 0.96 to 0.98)): given the slightly worse SAH in Glasgow, this resulted in slightly lower odds of reporting bad/very bad health for the Liverpool and Manchester samples compared to Glasgow. Conclusions: The reasons for the high levels of ‘excess’ mortality seen in Scotland and particularly Glasgow remain unclear. However, on the basis of these analyses, it appears unlikely that a low SoC provides any explanation

Stability and Change in Students\u27 Views of the Origin of the Universe: A Selected Review of the Literature

The creation/evolution education debate has been raging for the last century in schools, school board meetings, and communities creating a divide between those who believe in the Judeo-Christian creation account and those who believe in naturalistic evolutionary theory. This paper seeks to decipher the effect of this controversy on high school and college students, particularly in the public educational realm by a literature review. Evolutionary educational researchers are found to advocate a one-sided view in the teaching of origins to the point of indoctrination through their techniques, resources, measurement instruments, etc. Parents of public school students, and the students themselves, who reject evolutionary theory would benefit from this study as it enables them to prepare for possible situations arising in the science classroom