Access and Child Contact Centres in England and Wales: An Ethnographic Perspective

SUMMARY. Access centres are a recent development in service provision for families facing difficulties over child contact following divorce or separation. The author has worked for over two years as a volunteer at an access centre and provides a personal view of key issues in the organisation and operation of access centres. Discussion of detailed case material throws light on the paradoxes which arise when a pro-access ideology is exercised in an informal setting.     

Increasing Opportunities for Co-production and Personalisation Through Social Work Student Placements in Disabled People's Organisations

Social work student practice placements in disabled people's organisations offer several advantages for individual students, their peers and tutors, and DPOs themselves, who can offer placements for students in supporting service users to give their views as well as delivering social care services. In this context professional skills and anti-discriminatory practice are fostered through learning directly from disabled people as experts without the constraints of local authority policies.

This paper draws on my experiences of such student placements at Wiltshire and Swindon Users' Network over a 15-year period, 1993–2008, in collaboration with different universities. The social work student on placement here experiences an alternative organisational culture which recognises service users' expertise over professionals. The student learns to value collective peer support and working with activists who view their experience through the framework of the social model of disability. This facilitates a two-way exchange as the student learns about user-led practice and the disabled activists appreciate the skills the student brings.

The advent of policies of personalisation, the Big Society and the decreased role of local authorities is challenging the traditional model of adult care social work within local authorities. The placement of social workers in local centres for independent living, in order to provide intensive one-to-one support in support planning for those in complex situations, is only likely to increase in future. This can be seen as a positive alternative which enables professionals to rediscover their professional values and practice and extends the opportunity for placements beyond DPOs concerned with user involvement only.     

Children and Families Seeking Asylum in Northern Norway: Living Conditions and Mental Health

The mental health of children seeking asylum and their families is a somewhat neglected area of research. Research on refugee children and children living with adversities suggests that environmental factors are crucial in preventing mental health problems. In this study, we aim to identify central environmental conditions that affect the mental health of children living with their families at governmental asylum processing centres in northern Norway. This study has a qualitative design, and is based on 11 focus group interviews with the staff at asylum processing centres. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed focusing on important risk and protective factors for mental health problems presented by the informants. The results highlighted time spent at asylum centres and the parent's mental health as the most important risk factors. Schooling, activities, general living conditions and poor economy were also seen as crucial. The findings suggest that these children are indeed vulnerable, and at high risk of developing mental health problems. Their rights are, however, open to local interpretations, and they fall between two stools; their right to proper health care, and national and international immigration policies.     

Hospital social work in Sweden and the UK: Access to chances of physical health and well-being

In Swedish and UK practice, interest is developing in social work's contribution to tackling service users' unequal chances and experience of physical health. This is through alleviating disadvantaged social conditions such as relative poverty which service users face and which are associated with health inequalities. Ready access to social work services is an essential preliminary if service users are to gain the material and social resources services can provide, to alleviate their adverse social circumstances and thereby improve their health prospects. However, despite hospital social work's well-established position, its significance as an access point for services has tended to be marginalized. Drawing on a comparative account of Swedish and UK practice featuring two action research projects, we explore how hospital social work is a key point of access to services for service users experiencing profound disadvantage. We analyse major barriers to such access, notably the underfunded nature of hospital social work, discriminatory procedures, and unequal professional service user power relations. Nevertheless, the action research projects show how these barriers may be breached to some degree, enabling service users as patients and carers to access resources which contribute to more equal chances of health and well-being in ill-health.     

Moving on from ramps? The utility of the social model of disability for facilitating experiences of nature for disabled children

Experiences of nature have been shown to be beneficial for disabled children; however, opportunities for disabled children to experience nature are often limited. The social model of disability may provide a theoretical base for increasing access to nature for pupils at Special Educational Needs (SEN) schools. Using results from interviews conducted with teachers from seven SEN schools, considered alongside responses from interviews with staff from six environmental centres, this paper seeks to identify the specific constraints that may act upon the opportunities for disabled pupils to visit environmental centres. The research finds that a ‘medicalised’ approach to access may impede upon environmental centres’ ability to cater effectively to the needs of SEN school groups. Dialogue between environmental centres and SEN school teachers is recommended as a means of facilitating SEN school group access.     

The interplay of public and private spaces in internet access

The creation of public internet access facilities is one of the principal policy instruments adopted by governments in addressing 'digital divide' issues. The lack of plans for ongoing funding, in North America at least, suggests that this mode is regarded mainly as transitional, with private, home-based access being perceived as superior. The assumption apparently is that as domestic internet penetration rates rise, public access facilities will no longer be needed. Central to this issue are the varied characteristics of publicly provided and privately owned access sites and their implications for non-employment internet activities. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of these two access modes? More fundamentally, how do people conceptualize public and private spaces and how does this perception influence their online activities? Finally, why do people choose one over the other, and how do they navigate between the two? This article attempts to answer these questions by drawing on data generated within the Everyday Internet Project, a 'neighborhood ethnography' of internet usage. It argues that the conventional view of private and public access facilities as immiscible, fixed alternatives is inadequate. Rather than 'pure' types, they are better understood as offering hybrid spaces whose identity and character are fluid, perceived differently by individuals in light of the activities being performed, life experiences, infrastructure and architecture. The picture emerging from our study is one where public and private access modes intertwine with each other in a variety of ways, their combination offering significant additional value for many users. From a public policy perspective, these findings suggest that if universal access is to be achieved, there is a continuing need for publicly supported broad-spectrum facilities with integrated technical support and learning opportunities, even if domestic penetration rates approach that of the telephone.     

Household Structure and Living Conditions in Nigeria

Data on 7,632 households from the 1999 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey are used to examine household structure and living conditions in Nigeria. The study finds significant disadvantage in living conditions of single‐adult, female‐ and single‐adult, male‐headed households relative to two‐parent households. Extended households show no significant advantage in living conditions over two‐parent households if headed by women but are consistently advantaged if headed by men. Although extended households do not entirely wipe out the disadvantage of female headship on household living conditions, they show a significant mitigating potential. Efforts to understand and alleviate poverty in Nigeria may need to address simultaneously gender imbalances in access to livelihood opportunities and factors that foster nucleation of family structure into single‐adult households.     

Promises and Pitfalls: Involving Service Users and Carers in Social Work Manager Education

Partnership working occupies an increasing amount of social work managers' time and budget, requiring skills and abilities not always developed previously within social work programmes. Much discussion around partnership working centres on building collaborative inter-agency and inter-professional relationships with less emphasis on the need to ensure good working relationships with service users and carers, despite their being the ultimate recipients of the process. This article explores efforts to develop a focus on service users and carers within a module for social work managers as part of post-qualifying (PQ) social work education. It documents a process where, initially, service users and carers provided personal testimonies of being recipients of services and then subsequently occupied more authoritative roles within teaching, to the current position when they are again less actively involved.

In describing these developments it explores possible reasons why involving service users and carers within this module has proved challenging. The article acknowledges that there is relatively limited literature about the involvement of service users and carers in PQ education. It suggests that lessons learned from involving service users and carers in qualifying social work training cannot directly be transposed to the post-qualifying context.     

Life after Growing Up in Care: Informing Policy and Practice through Research

Abstract

Existing research on the impact of growing up in care focuses upon either the care experience itself or the period of transition from care to independence. Our knowledge of outcomes largely ceases when former residents of the care system reach their early twenties. There are strong social justice reasons for extending research into the older adult lives of such young people. We know a great deal about the multiple disadvantages that such individuals face as children. But research is largely silent about their subsequent adult lives. While we must be cautious in drawing causal links to the childhood care experience as the time period since life in care extends, we know that early experiences can affect care-leavers across their life course—just as childhood experience affects all adults in a variety of ways. In this review, we highlight evidence drawn from research in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, and the United States, with particular attention paid to the first two of those countries. We use a wide range of sources and identify areas for further consideration, including access to personal records, mental health, education, and parenting. By doing so, we seek to open up this area for further research with the hope that such research will lead to an increasing recognition of care-leavers' needs and thus to improvements in social policy and service provision.     

Patterns of Crime and Drug Use Trajectories in Relation to Treatment Initiation and 5-Year Outcomes: An Application of Growth Mixture Modeling Across Three Datasets

Drug abusers vary considerably in their drug use and criminal behavior over time, and these trajectories are likely to influence drug treatment participation and treatment outcomes. Drawing on longitudinal natural history data from three samples of adult male drug users, we identify four groups with distinctive drug use and crime trajectories over the 5 years prior to their first treatment episode. The groups' characteristics of initial treatment are compared. The trajectory groups are then included in Poisson growth curve models to predict drug use, incarceration, and employment over the 5 years following first treatment. Findings indicate that posttreatment drug use decreased and posttreatment employment increased. There was little change in posttreatment incarceration. Posttreatment trajectories for drug use, incarceration, and employment were significantly different across the four trajectory groups.     

Competing for tots: operating objectives and characteristics of for-profit and not-for-profit child care centres in the Pacific Northwest

Child care services are provided by profit-oriented businesses, not-forprofit agencies and governmental units. This paper compares goal priorities and operating characteristics of not-for-profit and for-profit child care centres in parts of Canada and the United States. Directors of 292 Pacific Northwest centres responded to a survey about their financial and non-financial operating objectives. The relative rankings of objectives were similar for not-for-profit and for-profit centres, and for centres in both countries. Non-financial objectives were rated higher than financial objectives. Satisfying the developmental and educational needs of children was the single most important operating objective. Providing access to eligible children was the next most important objective, particularly for not-for-profit centres and for those with government-subsidised children. The remaining objectives, in order of importance, were minimising costs, maximising utilisation, maximising revenues and maximising profits. Profit maximisation was ranked low by both not-for-profit and for-profit respondents. Not-for-profit and for-profit centres exhibited differences on a number of operating characteristics, services provided and employee benefits. Such characteristics were found to be associated with auspices (not-for-profit or for-profit) and location (US or Canada). Results suggest that centres operating under both auspices are capable of altruistic behaviour. Differences in motivation between organisational forms were very small. However, variations in operating characteristics and services suggest that the objectives are achieved in dissimilar ways.     

A longitudinal analysis of the effects of open enrollment on equity and academic achievement: Evidence from Minneapolis,Minnesota

Open enrollment was expected to provide students in urban school settings with equal opportunity to access schools with abundant educational resources that led to improved student achievement. The One-way ANOVA and Linear Mixed Models used a propensity score matching method were administered to identify to what extent urban students utilized inter-district open enrollment in a Midwestern city and to compare their performances on standardized tests before and after the school transfer had occurred. The results indicated that open enrollment provided black students and students in the child welfare system with equal access to racially and socioeconomically integrated schools. However, these students' academic performance was not significantly enhanced by their open enrollment, except the 3rd grade student achievement in math. The results raised questions about the characteristics of open enrollment. Recommendations for future research are made; study limitations are addressed.     

Abusing victims: detention of child sexual abuse victims in secure accommodation

Sexually abused children and adolescents, in limbo between revelation of abuse and trial of an alleged offender, or in emotional turmoil after such abuse, need special care and support. Evidence indicates that a number of such children are held in local authority secure centres, on various grounds: to protect them from further sexual assaults by an adult offender; because of their persistent absconding from non-secure residential centres; and because of their disturbed behaviour (including suicidal behaviours), which may have been caused by the assault. Victims of sexual abuse are held with juveniles on remand for serious crimes (including rape and murder), or (because they are too young for youth detention centres) with young adolescents who are held in detention following conviction for such crimes. Evidence is produced from case histories, and from a survey of 15 of the 27 secure detention centres for children and young people in England, that the mix of abused, disturbed and very aggressive children is highly problematic. In worst case scenarios, victims of child sexual abuse are sexually assaulted by juvenile rapists with whom they are housed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mapping the two levels of digital divide: Internet access and social network site adoption among older adults in the USA

Older adults have increasingly adopted Internet and social network sites (SNSs), but little communication scholarship has explored systematic differences in access within this population. Using a nationally representative sample of Americans over the age of 50 years from the 2012 Health and Retirement Study, we examine Internet access (N?=?18,851) and SNS adoption patterns (N?=?869) among this sample and explore how these patterns vary by age. Regarding Internet access, results suggest that while the gender divide has reversed in favor of women, older adults who are economically, socioculturally, or physically disadvantaged are less likely to have reliable Internet access. In addition, the view that the various divides in Internet access are less of a concern for those who are younger is only partially supported, as some access-related divides do not vary by age or even decrease with age. For SNS adoption, we found that access to technological resources (diversity of online activities) positively predicts SNS use. Moreover, SNS users are more likely to be younger, female, widowed, and homemakers, perhaps because these individuals are more motivated to use SNSs to complement or compensate for their existing social status. These findings reveal unique challenges and motivations in relation to Internet access and SNS adoption patterns across the later life span.     

浅析城市博物馆

本文首先讨论两项影响当前和日后关于博物馆(尤其是城市博物馆)研究的主题:藏品以及专门陈列藏品的建筑。然后探讨设立城市博物馆的城市(大都市或小城镇)规模的问题。最后,运用档案学、图像学和地图学的资源以及多媒体工具来展现城市在一段历史长河中的更迭,这对于与不同类型的博物馆受众(如游客、市民、新移民和儿童等)进行交流而言是非常必要的。     

Not for everyone: intra-organisational divides and the stratification of access to work–life policies

Prior research documented a number of factors pertaining to employees or to organisational cultures that can prevent employees from accessing employer-driven work–life policies (WLP). Our study focuses on factors originating in the jobs themselves. We conducted 98 in-depth employee interviews in two multinational companies based in Europe and led feedback sessions with human resources executives. Three mechanisms explained the observed stratification of access to WLP across jobs: (1) the intra-organisational digital divide prevented ‘less digital’ employees from collecting information about WLP on the intranet and thus impaired awareness of the policies; (2) the divide in worksite size prevented employees on smaller worksites from accessing childcare centres, sports or health facilities and (3) the divide in job types restricted access to WLP for specific occupations. The stratification of access to WLP was not strategically driven by human resources; rather the divides were largely unintentional. Our study uncovers inequalities of access originating in the jobs themselves and provides a theoretical integration of the various sets of factors that may promote or hinder employee awareness of WLP. Our findings suggest that organisations should strive to identify these inequalities and to provide ways to cope for these, for instance by offering other forms of support.     

Quality of Life of Afghan Immigrants in Tehran city

By 2015, there were more than two million Afghan immigrants, both legal and illegal, living in Iran. Although, over the recent years, there has been a growing interest among social scientists, policymakers and national and international institutes in investigation of the quality of life (QoL) of immigrants, research on the QoL of Afghan immigrants in Iran is still in its infancy. The present article aims to study the QoL of Afghan immigrants in Iran and identify its influential dimensions and factors. This study relies on a perception survey of 347 Afghan households in Tehran city. Based on the 5‐point Likert Scale, the mean of overall life satisfaction of the Afghan immigrants was found as 3.22, which shows satisfactory QoL of Afghan immigrants in Iran. The highest level of satisfaction, with a mean value of 3.96, is related to public transport access followed by satisfaction in social relations with friends, relatives and fellow immigrants living in Iran, and access to cultural centres such as the mosque, library, and cinema. The lowest level of satisfaction, with a mean value of 1.90, was seen at border services like entry and exit from Iran, followed by the Iranian government policy towards Afghan refugees, and saving abilities. In addition, the most important predictors of immigrants' QoL include indicators of health, security, work status, and income, which are closely interrelated with the main reasons for Afghans' immigration to Iran. After immigration to Iran, the QoL status of the immigrants has improved significantly, especially in the fields of security and education; nevertheless, their employment in jobs with low skill and income, along with the decrease in the economic growth of Iran over the recent years, have caused problems for the economic and financial status of the immigrants. The results and findings of this study will be useful for designing and implementing plans and policies necessary to improve QoL of Afghan immigrants in Iran.     

'They don't quite fit the way we organise our services'—results from a UK field study of marginalised groups and dementia care

The accessibility of dementia services to two groups of marginalised service users (people under 65 years of age and people from minority ethnic groups) was examined as part of a UK field study. In 61 interviews with a purposeful sample of professionals and paid carers in dementia care, the main issue in service access related to the small numbers of potential service users and their geographical dispersal. Other issues reflected those faced by people with dementia in general. At present, it seems as though decisions on care are based mainly on financial considerations and perceptions of the risk and dangerousness posed by people with dementia. These findings are linked to broader debates within the social model of disability about the need to address issues relating to people with learning impairments.     

Open adoption records,the human rights of adopted people,and discrimination: the case of Odièvre v France 2003

The recent judgement by the European Court of Human Rights in the Odièvre v France case has denied some adopted people the right to access identifying information about their family of origin. Yet, in the UK, adopted people have enjoyed the right to access identifying information for many years. The evidence from practice and research has demonstrated the positive benefits adopted people and their birth and adoptive relatives have gained from an open record policy. In this paper, the authors argue that denying some adopted people access to information that could enhance their personal identity creates an act of discrimination.