3,295 research outputs found
Does reflective supervision have a future in English local authority child and family social work?
Purpose – (1) to discuss the underlying assumption that social workers need reflective
supervision specifically, as opposed to managerial or any other form of supervision or
support; and (2) to consider whether our focus on the provision of reflective supervision may
be preventing us from thinking more broadly and creatively about what support local
authority child and family social workers need and how best to provide it.
Methodology/approach – Argument based on own research and selective review of the
literature
Findings – Reflective supervision has no future in local authority child and family social
work because (1) there is no clear understanding of what reflective supervision is, (2) there is
no clear evidence for is effectiveness, and (3) a sizeable proportion of local authority child
and family social workers in England do not receive reflective supervision and many never
have.
Originality/value – Challenges the received wisdom about the value of reflective supervision
and advocates exploring alternative models for supporting best practice in child and family
social work
The knowing ear : an Australian test of universal claims about the semantic structure of sensory verbs and their extension into the domain of cognition
In this paper we test previous claims concerning the universality of patterns of polysemy and semantic change in perception verbs. Implicit in such claims are two elements: firstly, that the sharing of two related senses A and B by a given form is cross-linguistically widespread, and matched by a complementary lack of some rival polysemy, and secondly that the explanation for the ubiquity of a given pattern of polysemy is ultimately rooted in our shared human cognitive make-up. However, in comparison to the vigorous testing of claimed universals that has occurred in phonology, syntax and even basic lexical meaning, there has been little attempt to test proposed universals of semantic extension against a detailed areal study of non-European languages. To address this problem we examine a broad range of Australian languages to evaluate two hypothesized universals: one by Viberg (1984), concerning patterns of semantic extension across sensory modalities within the domain of perception verbs (i .e. intra-field extensions), and the other by Sweetser (1990), concerning the mapping of perception to cognition (i.e. trans-field extensions). Testing against the Australian data allows one claimed universal to survive, but demolishes the other, even though both assign primacy to vision among the senses
Nuclear quantum effects in water exchange around lithium and fluoride ions
We employ classical and ring polymer molecular dynamics simulations to study
the effect of nuclear quantum fluctuations on the structure and the water
exchange dynamics of aqueous solutions of lithium and fluoride ions. While we
obtain reasonably good agreement with experimental data for solutions of
lithium by augmenting the Coulombic interactions between the ion and the water
molecules with a standard Lennard-Jones ion-oxygen potential, the same is not
true for solutions of fluoride, for which we find that a potential with a
softer repulsive wall gives much better agreement. A small degree of
destabilization of the first hydration shell is found in quantum simulations of
both ions when compared with classical simulations, with the shell becoming
less sharply defined and the mean residence time of the water molecules in the
shell decreasing. In line with these modest differences, we find that the
mechanisms of the exchange processes are unaffected by quantization, so a
classical description of these reactions gives qualitatively correct and
quantitatively reasonable results. We also find that the quantum effects in
solutions of lithium are larger than in solutions of fluoride. This is partly
due to the stronger interaction of lithium with water molecules, partly due to
the lighter mass of lithium, and partly due to competing quantum effects in the
hydration of fluoride, which are absent in the hydration of lithium.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure
Mean-Field Theory of Water-Water Correlations in Electrolyte Solutions
Long-range ion induced water-water correlations were recently observed in
femtosecond elastic second harmonic scattering experiments of electrolyte
solutions. To further the qualitative understanding of these correlations, we
derive an analytical expression that quantifies ion induced dipole-dipole
correlations in a non-interacting gas of dipoles. This model is a logical
extension of Debye-H\"uckel theory that can be used to qualitatively understand
how the combined electric field of the ions induces correlations in the
orientational distributions of the water molecules in an aqueous solution. The
model agrees with results from molecular dynamics simulations and provides an
important starting point for further theoretical work
Automated title and abstract screening for scoping reviews using the GPT-4 Large Language Model
Scoping reviews, a type of literature review, require intensive human effort
to screen large numbers of scholarly sources for their relevance to the review
objectives. This manuscript introduces GPTscreenR, a package for the R
statistical programming language that uses the GPT-4 Large Language Model (LLM)
to automatically screen sources. The package makes use of the chain-of-thought
technique with the goal of maximising performance on complex screening tasks.
In validation against consensus human reviewer decisions, GPTscreenR performed
similarly to an alternative zero-shot technique, with a sensitivity of 71%,
specificity of 89%, and overall accuracy of 84%. Neither method achieved
perfect accuracy nor human levels of intraobserver agreement. GPTscreenR
demonstrates the potential for LLMs to support scholarly work and provides a
user-friendly software framework that can be integrated into existing review
processes.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
The use of theory and research knowledge in child protection social work practice: A study of disorganised attachment and child protection assessment
This thesis seeks to examine how child protection social workers use theory and research knowledge related to disorganised attachment in the course of their practice with potentially abused or neglected children. In order to facilitate this understanding, three supplementary research questions are posed – (1) ‘how do child protection social workers use the theory and research knowledge related to disorganised attachment in work with children who may be at risk of significant harm due to abuse or neglect?’ (2) ‘how do child protection social workers use theory and research knowledge related to disorganised attachment when assessing children who may be at risk of significant harm due to abuse or neglect?’ and (3) ‘how do child protection social workers incorporate the theory and research knowledge related to disorganised attachment into their existing social work practice?’
The research described in this thesis consists of the use of two methods – guided conversation interviews and Q-method. In answer to the primary research aim, it was found that child protection social workers, suitably trained, are able to usefully apply the theory and research knowledge related to disorganised attachment in practice and that they may do so in a small variety of ways related to developing a better understanding of the children and carers they work with; as a way of aiding them to help and support the carers of the child being assessed, and as a way of completing better assessments. Thematically, it was notable that all of the participants described their use of the theory and research knowledge related to disorganised attachment by reference to the methods and techniques they were able to put into practice, such as Adult and Child Attachment Interviews, and how their use of this theory and research knowledge was thus mediated or applied via the use of these and other similar techniques.
As a result of these findings, further research would be useful as to how the development of new techniques (or co-option of existing techniques) may be helpful as a way of facilitating the transfer of theory and research knowledge into social work practice. Further research regarding the impact of the use of theory and research knowledge related to disorganised attachment in child protection social work practice would also be useful, particularly whether the outcomes for children and families are improved as a result
- …