Still not receiving the support they deserve ... final evaluation report for the Stella Project Young Women's Initiative

AVA’s Stella Project has been working to improve services for adult women affected by overlapping Domestic Violence (DV) and Problematic Substance Use (PSU) for over ten years. Through provision of training and development work with practitioners, the organisation received frequent requests to advise agencies about how these matters affected younger women. Although this was an issue that was increasingly identified by practitioners, the UK evidence base on how to effectively support such young women was weak. In 2010, AVA successfully sought funding from the John Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust for a research and development project to address this gap in the evidence base. Following an open invitation to tender, AVA commissioned Forensic Psychological Services at Middlesex University to conduct the research phase of the project and to evaluate the Stella Project’s intervention with agencies working with young women affected by DV and Sexual Violence (SV) and PSU. The project’s scope allowed the Stella Project to support two London boroughs in developing their responses to these young women. AVA invited all London boroughs to submit an Expression of Interest to be involved. From 14 interested boroughs, AVA selected the London Borough of Enfield (LBE) and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), primarily because they are different demographically but also based on their strategic commitment to the project and the existence of relevant agencies to participate in the project. In both boroughs, the Domestic Violence Co-ordinator and the Drug and Alcohol Action Team Manager nominated four relevant agencies to participate in the project. Within each borough, agencies were selected to represent both the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and substance misuse sectors, and to cover the full age range of young women whose needs the project would address (14 to 25 years). In both boroughs, this resulted in representation from the Independent Domestic Violence Advocacy services, the young people’s substance misuse services and the Drug Intervention Programmes (DIPs), and in Enfield, the Youth Offending Service

More training and awareness are needed to improve the recognition of undernutrition in hospitalised children

Aim Reports suggest that 10% of hospitalised children in Europe are undernourished. We investigated whether nutritional screening tools (NST) were used in Belgian secondary-level hospitals, examined strategies for detecting undernutrition and identified barriers preventing the systematic management of undernutrition. Methods A nationwide questionnaire-based survey of paediatric departments in Belgian secondary-level hospitals was carried out from September 2013 to February 2014. Respondents were dived into French-speaking (Walloon + Brussels) and Dutch-speaking (Flemish) departments. Results We received replies from 71 of the 97 (73.2%) departments. Half of the departments - 39.5% Flemish speaking and 71.4% Walloon speaking - carried out nutritional screening. Undernutrition was identified by measuring weight and length or height (92.7% of cases), clinical appraisal (74.7%), mid-upper arm circumference and/or skin fold thickness (19.7%). There was no protocol for undernutrition in many Flemish (60.5%)- and Walloon (28.6%)-speaking departments. Reasons given for not screening were as follows: lack of training (46.9%), ignorance of NST (42.2%) and lack of time (29.7%). Conclusion Half of the paediatric departments in Belgian secondary-level hospitals did not carry out nutritional screening, and differences in current practices and attitudes may be due to cultural and/or educational differences.SCOPUS: ar.jSCOPUS: ar.jFLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Potential Impact of Fertilization Practices on Human Dietary Intake of Dioxins in Belgium

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