Changing Behaviour in a Residential Group Setting for Elderly People with Learning Difficulties

Correspondence to Ms K. Cigno, Department of Social Policy and Professional Studies, University of Hull, Hll HU6 7RX. Summary Group living is not an easy situation for residents and staff.A client with a long history of institutionalized care and aggressivebehaviour proves to be a challenge to care staff who attemptto improve the quality of her life and that of her fellow residentsthrough a behavioural intervention aimed at reducing the numberof disruptive incidents and increasing the use of social skillsand activities for this client. The results indicate a lesseningof incidents of ‘unreasonable behaviour’ and anincrease in self-esteem. The appropriateness of this approachto elderly clients' problems is discussed.     

Improving Intergroup Relations: Lessons Learned From Cooperative Learning Programs

This article discusses the need for cooperative learning groups in integrated schools in order to promote more cross-race relationships than might otherwise be the case. We review research on 8 cooperative learning procedures. Evidence for the effectiveness of these programs in facilitating cross-race peer interaction is presented.     

Informing UK Policy Development on the Regulation of CAM Practitioners: Lessons from Hong Kong?

Public policy discussions on how to regulate acupuncture and herbal medical practitioners have reached a stalemate in the United Kingdom. After considerable activity in the first half of the current decade a wider review of professional regulation has re-opened the discussion as to the most appropriate way to regulate the practice of all health-care practitioners. In the meantime, the public continues to consult complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners in large numbers and self-medicate with herbal products and other natural remedies, posing challenges for policy-makers as to how to ensure public safety. In the NHS, providers and purchasers struggle to reconcile demands for access to CAM services with their clinical governance requirements. Hong Kong implemented new arrangements for the statutory regulation of traditional Chinese medical practitioners in the 1990s and has experienced the challenges of regulating a large established private market as well as integrating Chinese medicine further into the public health system. This experience is analysed in order to see whether the approach adopted there could address the public policy challenges faced in the UK. The article finds that, despite key cultural and historical differences related to the provision and use of CAM services, the similarities between the health-care systems and the reasons for moves to professional regulation in Hong Kong and the UK provide useful insights into what is happening in the UK in relation to service provision and the relationship with the NHS and the medical profession. These are discussed in the light of current health policy developments in the UK.     

Temporal Discrimination and Parents with Learning Difficulties in the Child Protection System

This article shows how time works against parents with learningdifficulties in the child protection system and Children Actproceedings. The prevailing wisdom, embedded in policy and theliterature, is that delay in care cases is bad for the childand may jeopardize his or her future. This paper shows how thepressure to avoid delay might itself be harming some families,especially parents with learning difficulties. Drawing on interviewswith social work practitioners undertaken as part of a largerstudy, the authors describe the various forms of temporal discriminationthat impact on this group of disabled parents. They concludethat procedural time limits make it harder for parents withlearning difficulties to meet the standards and expectationsenforced by Children’s Services and the courts.     

Lessons Learned from Experiential Group Work Learning

This study evaluated the efficacy of student-led support groups designed to increase students' perceived knowledge of social group work. The student groups described here were based on theories of experiential learning described by Kolb and colleagues. The mixed-method evaluation used Clements' 17-item scale to measure readiness for group practice and narrative journal entries submitted by students about their experiences in the class. This was part of a larger study to determine whether student-led support groups decreased levels of stress among BSW students. Although limited in scope, this research suggests that student-led groups may improve BSW students' knowledge, skills, and readiness for group work practice.     

Parenting children with autism spectrum disorders: a crucible for couple relationships

As the incidence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) continues to rise, there is a growing need to understand how ASDs impact family life. This qualitative study explored the ways in which parenting a child with ASD impacts marriages. Using modified grounded theory, nine couples and one wife (n= 19) were interviewed. The dominant finding that emerged is that parenting a child with ASD acts as a crucible for couple relationships, exerting extraordinary pressure on partners that forces qualitative adaptations in their relationship. Two relationship phases emerged from the analysis: tag team and deeper intimacy and commitment. The resulting theoretical model can help clinicians tailor assessment and intervention for couples who are parenting a child with ASD.     

Beyond 'Vulnerability': An Ecological Model Approach to Conceptualizing Risk of Sexual Violence against People with Learning Difficulties

This paper presents an ecological model approach to conceptualizingrisk of sexual violence against people with learning difficulties,which takes account of the complex social processes involvedin the creation of risk. The concept ‘vulnerability’,often assumed to be a risk-creating characteristic of peoplewith learning difficulties, is too simplistic to take accountof all the processes involved in the formation of risk of sexualviolence. Risk is influenced by personal attributes, self-defenceskills, environments and socio-cultural factors. These riskfactors are closely interlinked and constantly interact withone another. The ecological model provides a tool for examiningthe impact that interactions between individuals and socialenvironments have on an individual’s learning and thedevelopment opportunities that have the potential to increaseself-defence skills.     

Single-Case Evaluation Designs for Practitioners

ABSTRACT

This article examines single-case designs that omit baseline phases, contain shorter reversal phases, administer treatment across fewer baselines, or have other features that make them easier for practitioners to use in evaluating their own interventions. Particular attention is given to the Repeated Pretest-Posttest and the Periodic Treatments Designs, the Nonconcurrent Multiple-Baseline Design, the short reversal design, the short multiple-baseline design, and the short alternating treatments design. Also discussed and illustrated is how these streamlined designs can raise practitioners' sensitivity to intervention outcomes, assist practitioners in providing evidence-based services while adjusting for client diversity, and advance practitioners' knowledge.     

Informal Carers of Adolescents and Adults with Learning Difficulties from the South Asian Communities: Family Circumstances, Service Support and Carer Stress

Corrrespondence to Chris Hatton, Research Fellow, Hester Adrian Research Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. Summary On the basis of a total identification survey in two metropolitanboroughs, 54 people from the south Asian communities caringfor people with learning difficulties aged 14 or over were interviewedregarding family circumstances, service supports and levelsof stress. In general, families were living in circumstancesof material disadvantage and reported a high need for services,due to a lack of informal support and the considerable supportneeds of many of the people with learning difficulties. Carerawareness and receipt of specialist intellectual disabilityservices were, however, low. A lack of information and staffwith appropriate language skills, coupled with a general neglectof the cultural and religious needs of service users and carers,appeared to result in low service uptake and low levels of satisfactionwith services. Eight per cent of carers reported levels of stressindicative of psychiatric problems, and also reported high levelsof contact with health services. There was some evidence thatservices were not allocated according to need; carers with lowhousehold incomes reported higher levels of stress, but carerswith higher household incomes received a wider range of services.The implications of these findings for services are discussed.     

Parenting: Can Skills be Learned?

The effectiveness of parent education courses conducted in the northern suburbs of Sydney was assessed in terms of Hereford's Parent Attitude Scale after norms for this area had been established. The results indicated that on completion of these courses participants had greater confidence in their abilities as parents, were more aware of the influence of environment on their children and had a more trusting relationship with their children. Kavanagh doubted the relevance of a course such as PET to parents of lower socioeconomic status—these parents have also been shown to score lower on the PAS. However in this study participants who scored lowest initially improved most, showing that the course is reaching those who are not very well informed about childrearing.     

Marginalized Mothers: Parenting Without a Home

The authors of this study used participatory and interpretive methods to capture the lived experience, strengths, and needs of homeless mothers. The interview data obtained challenge unfounded stereotypes and provide information about women's coping behaviors and resilience. The findings were developed in collaboration with shelter guests and staff and have important implications for public and university policy and shelter programs. For example, researchers need to become more aware of the limitations of current psychological theories and assessment tools designed to measure "effective coping" in disenfranchised individuals. To accomplish this goal, increased collaboration among researchers, activists, policy makers, and homeless families is recommended (e.g., by instituting roundtable discussions as a standard part of shelter programs). It is also suggested that professional staff who work with women living in poverty avoid using deficit-oriented, victim-based models of intervention, and that staff provide women with opportunities to participate in the development of the curriculum for parenting classes.     

Parenting fostered adolescents: skills and strategies

This paper discusses findings from a recently completed study of adolescent foster care, which included a detailed assessment of the parenting approaches and strategies used by the foster carers of adolescents in long‐term placements. Sixty‐eight foster carers were interviewed at two points in time. The first interview was conducted two months after the start of a new adolescent placement and the second after the placement had been continuing for a year, or at the point of disruption if this occurred earlier. The interview schedules were designed specifically for this study and were based upon well‐established techniques developed in other studies of parenting. They enabled the researchers to make summary ratings for each carer on established dimensions of parenting such as control and discipline, responsiveness and the level of engagement with the child. The researchers assessed how these strategies changed and developed in relation to the young person's behaviour and whether these approaches influenced either the likelihood of placement disruption or the quality of the placement for the child. This paper describes the parenting strategies used by the foster carers, highlighting the areas of parenting that significantly affected the placement outcomes and the corresponding implications for policy and practice.     

Parenting education for young fathers in prison

This paper explores the effectiveness of delivering an intensive parenting class to groups of young fathers in prison. Evaluation was based on course feedback from a total of 75 participants. Results demonstrate that even within a group of young prisoners of similar ages there were diverse parenting educational requirements, indicating a need for courses to remain flexible and participant‐led. In considering parenting support needs, three‐quarters of all course participants highlighted the importance of better visiting procedures to allow them to keep in contact with their children whilst in prison. Participants expressed reluctance in accessing parenting support services after release, with the majority of the young fathers indicating that they did not need or want to access formal post‐release provision. Results suggest that further efforts need to be made to support young fathers in custody and after release, with implications for preventing reoffending and engaging young men in parenting education.     

近代日本学习欧美教育经验简析

近代日本教育的快速发展 ,引起了世人的瞩目。其快速发展的原因在于日本走了一条学习和借鉴外国先进教育经验的“捷径”。日本的成功为落后国家的发展 ,提供了许多可资借鉴的经验 :勇于和善于学习外国的教育经验 ,学习与创新相结合的原则 ,适时调整相应的学习方针 ,建立健全留学制度 ,等等。     

Learning Lessons from the Past or Re-Visiting Old Mistakes: Social Work and Community Development in Northern Ireland

Correspondence to Dr Deirdre Heenan, School of Policy Studies, University of Ulster, Magee Campus, Londonderry BT48 7JL, UK. E-mail: DA.Heenan{at}ulster.ac.uk Summary In recent years there has been a re-emphasis on community developmentapproaches in health and social work in Northern Ireland. Underpinningthese approaches is the belief that local communities can beorganized to address health and social needs and to work withgovernment agencies, voluntary bodies and local authoritiesin delivering services and local solutions to problems. Thesemethods of working challenge the traditional social work focuson individual and family casework interventions. Governmentin Northern Ireland has stressed that community developmentshould no longer simply be an afterthought in key aspects ofHealth and Social Services, but should instead be at the coreof their work. It is now officially recognized that communitydevelopment has the potential to make a significant impact ona broad spectrum of policies and programmes, which are deliveredthrough agencies in both the statutory and voluntary sectors.This commitment to community development has been outlined ina number of key documents and reports. This paper assesses therelationship between social work and community development inNorthern Ireland. The first section looks briefly at the historyof community development and social work and then sets out thecontext in which this move towards the promotion of a communitysocial work approach is occurring. Against this backdrop, acase study of a Family Support Team, which provides a rangeof services in a community setting, is used to illustrate howthe strategy has already been adopted and the lessons of thisexperience are explored and discussed. It is concluded thatwhile this approach has a lot to offer it is not without itsdifficulties. Far from being a new philosophy, community developmentis being reinvented and reapplied. It is therefore crucial thatold mistakes are not revisited and old prejudices rekindled.It is hoped that this article will provide a useful contributionto the current important and necessary debate.     

Practitioners preferences of care coordination for older people: A discrete choice experiment

These findings demonstrate the importance of organisations providing care coordination for older people receiving long-term funding. Further research is required to investigate the influence of service setting on practitioner preferences.

This study explored practitioner preferences about the relative value of attributes of care coordination services for older people. A Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) survey was used to identify the views of 120 practitioners from 17 services in England in 2015. The survey design was informed by an analysis of standards of care coordination, a postal survey and a consultation with carers of older people. Results of the DCE survey were supplemented by a content analysis of qualitative comments and fieldwork notes. Most respondents were over 30 years of age, female and almost half worked part-time. Continuity of care (care provided by the same care coordinator) and the ability to access the range of services outlined in the care plan were the most important service attributes. Service setting influenced practitioner preferences. Those in specialist services for people with dementia identified the length of time a service was provided as another important attribute. The DCE methodology has provided the opportunity to systematically canvas practitioner preferences.     

Service Users and Practitioners Reunited: The Key Component for Social Work Reform

Correspondence to Professor Peter Beresford, Centre for Citizen Participation, Brunel University, Osterley Campus, Borough Road, Osterley, Middlesex, TW7 5DU, UK. E-mail: peter.beresford{at}brunel.ac.uk or Suzy Croft, Senior Social Worker, St John's Hospice, 60 Grove End Road, London, NW8 9NH, UK. E-mail: suzy.croft{at}hje.org.uk Summary This article explores the pressures towards both regulatoryand liberatory social work. It identifies a range of factorsoperating to push social work in each direction. It discussesthe key significance for more liberatory social work of theroles and engagement of social work practitioners and serviceusers. Highlighting four key characteristics in the currentpolitical and policy context of social work: ambiguity, uncertainty,complexity and contradiction, it argues that social work isunlikely to develop a more emancipatory role, unless socialwork practitioners gain more support to play a central rolein its construction and develop much closer links and allianceswith service users and their organizations and movements.