Writing clearly for clients and colleagues - The human service practitioner's guide, Lyceum Books, 2015

Book revie

What makes a looked after child happy and unhappy?

What is good for a looked after child is usually decided by adults with the child’s voice often peripheral. One way to make the child central to decision-making is to ask them what makes them happy or unhappy. In doing this, the definition of happiness has to be neither a description of what has gone well in life nor an immediate state of mind, but should encompass the Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia. This is often translated as happiness but also incorporates notions of well-being and flourishing. The study reported here was undertaken as part of a children’s health needs assessment in an English local authority. It sought to understand why looked after children experience such high levels of poor mental health and make growing demands on therapeutic services. The proportion of young people displaying above average scores on validated measures, such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), is growing each year. The aim was to find out what looked after children say makes them happy and unhappy and what they see as likely to increase their well-being, and to compare their suggestions with those of the professionals and carers involved in their lives. Focus groups with children and professionals then discussed the same question, with the professionals also examining their understanding of SDQ results and their relevance to practice. The study found significant differences between the views of the children and professionals in both the range and emphasis of what is seen as important. Moreover, these adult assumptions were rarely tested by meaningful discussions with young people when key decisions were made; indeed, these seemed to be made about rather than with the children. In addition, the SDQ was not widely used by professionals to assess children’s emotional health and well-being needs. The study concluded that discussions about happiness can usefully support holistic understandings of looked after children’s experiences and aid planning and practice development

Cracking the code : an approach to developing professional writing skills

The development of writing skills sufficient to meet the complexities of contemporary social work practice is a growing demand of employers and practice educators. This paper explores the development, implementation and evaluation of a university writing skills programme for social work students. The paper explores current pedagogical debate relating to student support and the development of writing skills and relates this debate to meeting the needs of social work students engaged in practice learning and professional practice. A number of questions are raised about current social work education in England and the needs of students entering from non-traditional academic backgrounds facing the increasingly rigorous demands of professional report writing. The discussion is then grounded in a practice example of staff from a university social work course and education guidance service working together to meet student need in respect of developing writing skills. The paper concludes by setting out a range of challenges arising from experience of the programme and a consideration of theory, and points to potential ways forward based on a social practice approach to teaching writing skills

Addressing the Challenges of Semantic Citizen-Sensing

Preprin

Where academia and policy meet: A cross-national perspective on the involvement of social work academics in social policy, Oxford University Press, 2017

Book revie

Freight logistics services for rural economies : User needs and future challenges

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Still seldom heard and hard to reach. Still drinking? NEET young people and alcohol in a northern town

In 2008 the researchers undertook a study exploring the drinking careers of young people who are not in education, employment and training (NEET) in a small post-industrial town in England, (Nelson and Tabberer 2015). This report presents research which repeated the study with the same cohort of young people described as NEET, in the same geographical location, to see if anything has changed over the ensuing 10 years, and to further investigate this under researched group. Key findings • Many young people described as NEET are drinking little or no alcohol and drinking plays no part in their lives. • Experimental drinking starts at a young age and can include risky and harmful behaviour but has been grown out of by the age of 17. • Social media plays little part of NEET young people’s lives and acts to discourage drinking. • Park and street drinking is for those in their early teens. When those in their later teens do drink it is at home or with those they trust at friends’ houses

Providing Older Adults With Real-time Passenger Information via SMS

Peer reviewedPostprin

Making safeguarding personal temperature check

Adult safeguarding has been the recipient of much criticism regarding policy, process and practice, brought to widespread public attention following media exposure and which subsequent initiatives have sought to address. The Care Act 2014 gave a statutory basis to safeguarding reforms and brought together the concepts of personalisation and wellbeing, whereby all safeguarding adults work is to be person-led, outcome-focused, engage with the person and enhance their involvement, choice and control, intending to improving quality of life, wellbeing and safety. This approach and inherent values are operationalised in the initiative Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP). The research reported sought to explore managerial understanding and the current level of implementation of MSP within statutory and private service providers in one area in the north of England. The data collection adopted a constructivist epistemological perspective and undertook semi-structured interviews with middle managers in 17 organisations in one safeguarding board area. These included local authority adult services, police, fire service, housing and private care providers amongst others. The data was subject to framework analysis. A key finding is that policies and procedures may be in place across organisations but the extent to which they are implemented depends on the organisational culture and whether value change as well as policy change has occurred. The report concludes by identifying a typology of organisational implementation which agencies and service providers can use to understand their journey in the implementation of Making Safeguarding Personal in practice