Protecting children from faith-based abuse through accusations of witchcraft and spirit possession: understanding contexts and informing practice

Faith-based abuse relating to the practice of witchcraft and spirit possession is a controversial and not well-understood form of child abuse. From its ‘discovery’ in the UK as a cause of abuse, serious injury and death for children, in 2000 to the present, the recent history of witchcraft and spirit possession involves some high-profile cases, involving serious harm and death for some children, which attracted significant publicity. This article reviews research and commentary, including grey literature, and the emerging policy framework. It discusses the underpinning relationship between faith-based practices and abuse, and takes a post-colonial perspective to discuss the social explanations for the continuing practice of witchcraft and spirit possession in contemporary society. These discussions are then shown to inform practice. Practice priorities are informed assessment of suspected cases, through early and statutory interventions, care for survivors, and an important focus on community engagement to prevent this form of child abuse

Jury Justice from the Classic Greeks

Trial by jury is a constitutionally guaranteed right, and the concept of being judged by one’s peers is a foundational principle in Western society. It is assumed that criminal cases are best and most equitably decided by juries and general consensus is that a judicial case decided by a jury is inherently more acceptable than any alternative. With that said, the foundations for the modern Western judicial practice, like most other essential practices, rests in the Golden Age of Athens and Greece. While the chain of descent is long and varied, in Greece, one can find the first trace of legitimized trial by jury in keeping with the Western tradition. As such, in order to fully grasp the complexities of the system including its shortcomings and its successes, one must first consider its origins. To that end, a contrast of the trial of Socrates and the trial of Orestes can be considered. While the trial of Orestes is entirely fictional and intended foremost to entertain, it is nonetheless an accurate telling of the myth upon which Greek jury trials were founded. Conversely, the trial of Socrates as presented in Plato’s Apology is considered almost entirely factual and is the subject of considerable scholarly research. Yet in both of these cases one can see the full gamut of both esteemed and undesirable attributes inherent to jury trials. They are excellent illustrations of how jury trials originated and also provide considerable commentary on the mechanisms of the court proceeding itself. Beyond their value as examples of a foundational principle’s development, the trials have literary and political weight in and of themselves that are particularly noticeable when they are contrasted against each other

Climate adaptation manual for local government: embedding resilience to climate change

This manual highlights leading case studies and practical resources from Australian municipalities and overseas, and includes a step-by-step framework for effectively embedding climate risk into council operations. The resource will be useful for council staff involved in climate risk assessment and planning such as asset managers, strategic planners, and corporate and community services staff.   This ACELG Research Partnership Scheme project was undertaken with local councils from all Australian states: City of Canada Bay (NSW), City of Randwick (NSW), Pittwater Council (NSW), City of Greater Geelong (VIC), City of Port Phillip (VIC), City of Melbourne (VIC), City of Townsville (QLD), City of Onkaparinga (SA), City of Clarence (Tas) and City of Greater Geraldton (WA)

Professional Judgment, Practitioner Expertise and Organisational Culture in Child Protection: An Ethnographic Study

Child protection social workers must make difficult decisions in real life circumstances that often involve limited knowledge, uncertainty, conflicting values, time pressures and powerful emotions. These circumstances can pose a significant challenge to reasoning skills, especially when the cost of errors and poor judgment can be unacceptably high. This study explores the psychological processes that underpin how child protection practitioners form judgments and how these are influenced by the organisational settings that they work within. The study has an ethnographic design with two sites; a local authority children's intake service and a NHS multi-disciplinary court assessment service. The sites were chosen as contrasting organisational settings within which to study practitioner decision making. Forty days of observation and twenty-four interviews with practitioners were completed across the two sites over a two-and-a-half year period. The study found that practitioners' reasoning processes were a dynamic interplay of intuitive and analytic processes with emotionally-informed intuitive processes as the primary driver. As practitioners became more experienced, they engaged in progressively more sophisticated pattern recognition and story building processes to analyse and evaluate complex information. However, practitioners of all experience levels were vulnerable to the same predictable errors arising from cognitive vulnerabilities that affect the whole population. Comparison of the two sites identified the following themes concerning the influence of organisational context; the timescales that practitioners worked within, the opportunities for case discussion, and the cultures of accountability within the organisation. In response to considerable time pressures and increased demand, local authority social workers at times engaged in a range of operational defences and speed practices. This was combined with a pervasive accountability culture that inadvertently led to local authority social workers being more likely to manage anxiety through practices that acted as a form of pre-emptive exoneration. The study contributes towards the existing literature by examining everyday child protection practice using a theoretical approach that combines insights from psychological and psychoanalytic approaches. The study identifies new insights into practitioner decision making, suggests new ways of understanding accountability, and has implications for how organisations can help both reduce errors and support expert practice

History as tragedy, never as farce: tracing the long cultural narrative of child protection in England

Editoria

Bamboo traps as refugia for Pristimantis olivaceus (Anura: Craugastoridae) and as breeding site for Osteocephalus castaneicola (Anura: Hylidae)

No abstract available

Effect of nanoholes on the plasmonic properties of star nanostructures

The transmission and localized electric field distribution of nanostructures are the most important parameters in the plasmonic field for nano-optics and nanobiosensors. In this paper, we propose a novel nanostructure which may be used for nanobiosensor applications. The effect of nanoholes on the plasmonic properties of star nanostructure was studied via numerical simulation, using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. In the model, the material type and size of the nanostructures was fixed, but the distance between the monotor and the surface of the nanoholes was varied. For example, nanoholes were located in the center of the nanostructures. The simulation method was as follows. Initially, the wavelength of incident light was varied from 400 to 1200 nm and the transmission spectrum and the electric field distribution were simulated. Then at the resonance wavelength (wavelength where the transmission spectrum has a minimum), the localized electric field distribution was calculated at different distances from the surface of the nanostructures. This study shows that the position of nanoholes has a significant effect on the transmission and localized electric field distribution of star nanostructures. The condition for achieving the maximum localized electric field distribution can be used in nano-optics and nanobiosensors in the future