Sustainable Professional Practice

The project aims were to examine the ways in which the two distance learning social work programmes (The Open University (OU)and Charles Sturt University(CSU)) operate - looking at pedagogies and in particular how learning and teaching works in the practicum. Exchange visits were organised with Associate Professor Bowles spending 10 days at The Open University in June 2009, and Mick McCormick pending time at CSU in August/September 2009. Our aim was to investigate the different and similar ways in which we approached the teaching of practitioners in social work. We gained many benefits from our contacts and had opportunity to meet and work with social work academics and input to teaching and learning within respective academic institutions. Many of our findings are reflected in recently published work, or work in publication. Findings also have an ongoing impact on the production, delivery and review of our respective practice learning social work programmes

Comparing and Connecting: Comacchio and the Early Medieval Trading Towns

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History's Changing Climate: Climate Science, Genomics, and the Emerging Consilient Approach to Interdisciplinary History

Consilience refers to the quality of investigations that draw conclusions from forms of evidence that are epistemologically distinct. The term seems particularly apt for conclusions produced by natural-scientific investigations on the one hand and by historical and archaeological studies on the other. Consilience points to areas of underlying unity of humanistic and scientific investigation— a unity arising from that of reality itself; it represents a convergence in parallel but independent investigations that results in deductions that are much more robust than any investigation would be able to produce on its own.Histor

Prepared for Practice? Exploring and Evaluating the First Six Months of Post-qualified Practice in Social Work

This project explores how effective the Social work degree has been in enabling graduates to feel prepared for the practice of social work. Quantitative and qualitative data from online questionnaires and interviews with twelve graduates revealed that graduates perceived they were more confident, despite coming from a background where they were already practicing. They identified ways that this confidence (including in ICT and IL skills) has contributed to their preparedness for practice and their willingness to shape and challenge practices. Areas of practice where graduates felt least prepared included working with hostile service users. In terms of ICT skills development, variations in systems and technologyrelated practices resulted in tensions between the degree providing supportive guidance which fit particular software or social work settings compared with less supportive generic guidance which might be more widely applicable. IL skills were perceived to have more generic applicability

Gastrointestinal stromal tumour as a rare association with neurofibromatosis type 1

Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) are rare tumours of mesenchymal origin. These can be associated with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), which is an autosomal dominant disorder. The prevalence of GIST in NF1 is estimated at 3.9-25%. This paper describes the presentation of a GIST arising from the jejenum in a 75-year-old lady with NF1, who presented with gastrointestinal bleeding. This was diagnosed by CT angiography. She was managed with laparotomy, with resection of small bowel, and an ischaemic segment of large bowel with two primary anastomoses. Pathology showed GIST of spindle cell type (Figs 3 and 4), 90 mm in size, with complete local excision. The patient was discharged on the eighth post-operative day and is currently undergoing regular clinic follow-up after multidisciplinary team meeting discussion