African American Men,Child Welfare,and Permanency Planning

Summary

Like social services generally, child welfare and permanency planning services have failed to incorporate African American men as significant and serious participants in the service delivery process. Child welfare and permanency planning services have marginalized African American men such that children fail to benefit from the inclusion of these men in the service delivery process. This incomplete and inappropriate approach to permanency planning specifically, and to child welfare services more generally, is a disservice to African American children. Corrective measures are proffered to promote greater inclusion of African American men in child welfare and permanency planning services.     

Post hoc procedures for planning and evaluation.

A model designed to isolate, in post hoc fashion, current program services is presented. Concepts from multidimensional scaling are united with program planning techniques to yield an approach which allows for the specification of the five basic dimensions of program (Clients, Problems, Services, Professionals, and Facilities). These five dimensions are also employed in priority setting procedures. Discussion of the application of the model in the field of program planning and evaluation is presented.     

Rediscovering the value of urban rivers

Rivers commonly serve as defining, founding features of human settlements, yet urbanisation has degraded them, often to the extent that they no longer provide the services to society from which the settlements developed. Urban river restoration has expanded in recent years and part of this can be attributed to the increased recognition of the interconnected benefits that restored ecosystems can provide to society. This paper reviews the impact of urbanisation on rivers and the ecosystem services that they provide, and explores the ecosystem approach to restoration. Techniques and tools for the practical application of the ecosystem services approach in conservation are considered, with reference to case studies. There is a need to internalise ecosystem service insights into pragmatic, transparent and readily-used and understood planning tools, based on the capacities of a range of ecosystem services in river corridors. This is necessary if we are to avoid the continued erosion of critical resources such as rivers, rediscovering their multiple values to society, and to accelerate the translation of these sustainability concepts into applied tools.     

Developing a Common Language in Children's Services through Research‐based Inter‐disciplinary Training

Two sources of inertia to improving services for children in need are the difficulties of getting evidence into practice and the complications of inter‐agency working. Current training arrangements in social work and disparities between children's services professions as regards training requirements are contributory factors. The Common Language project is a work in progress, adopting a research‐based, inter‐disciplinary approach to working with social workers and other children's services professionals. It comprises core ideas and methods to complement the more specialist knowledge and skills required in each profession. Underpinned by a child development perspective and a scientific development cycle, it rests on a conceptual framework including need, threshold, service and outcome. The approach has three components (each of which includes training): (1) the implementation of practice tools; (2) the planning and development of integrated services; and (3) supporting materials, including practitioner‐orientated modules and a curriculum for PhD students. Distinguishing features include research utilisation, notably a focus on inculcating research‐mindedness as opposed to imparting findings, and also collaborative professional working, in particular via practical connections between different agencies, stakeholders and countries. The project is being evaluated in terms of uptake, change in professional thinking and practice and effects on child well‐being. Next steps for the project relate to broader lessons for social work training emerging from research and development elsewhere.     

Singapore as a long-term case study for tropical urban ecosystem services

Ecosystem services have gained rapid interest for understanding urban-environment interactions. However, while the term “ecosystem services” is relatively novel, their principles have influenced urban planning for decades. This study assesses the wealth of urban ecosystem services research conducted in the tropical city state of Singapore, in particular their historical local use and implicit and explicit incorporation into land use planning, and shows how Singapore is exporting their experiences to other cities around the world. Singapore is an important model for urban ecosystem services research, as the nation has experienced rapid urban development and has a 100 % urban population. Singapore also historically utilized ecosystem services in urban decision making long before the concept was popularized. For example, forests were conserved since 1868 for climatic regulation and for the watershed protection services provided to Singapore’s first reservoirs, and green spaces have been conserved for cultural ecosystem services since the 1920s. Urban ecosystem services were formally incorporated into national planning in the 1960s through the “Garden City” urban planning vision. Singapore is now a leading case study for tropical urban climatology and carbon sequestration, exporting its experiences globally through bilateral agreements and the construction of eco-cities in China, and the creation and promotion of a global City Biodiversity Index to assess urban ecosystem service provision in cities across the globe. Consolidating and understanding case study cities such as Singapore is important if we are to understand how to incorporate multiple ecosystem services into large scale planning frameworks, and provides an important tropical example in a research field dominated by western, temperate case studies.     

Parents' Perceptions of Services for Children and Youth with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Increased concern about the pervasive problems children and youth with emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD) experience has led to the planning and development of alternative approaches to serving these individuals and their families. One alternative approach includes the development of a comprehensive, community- based system of care. This study encouraged parent participation in a county-wide needs assessment designed to facilitate the development of a system of care. Parents were surveyed to gather their views regarding their experiences with various service agencies as well as their input into how comprehensive services could best be developed and implemented. The survey focused on (a) family needs, (b) existing barriers to comprehensive individualized care, and (c) specific service priorities for system development. Suggestions for future research and implications for developing such services are discussed.     

Child Protection,Public Services and the Chimera of Market Force Efficiency

The different agencies and professions that contribute towards child protection services have all recently had to begin to take account of the impact of market forces on their activities, yet detailed consideration of the consequences of this are slow to emerge. This article begins to consider these changes for child protection services. Having briefly described the child protection systems in England and Wales, it looks at the theoretical underpinning to the market forces approach which has become a significant ideological position in respect of public services in the UK and increasingly throughout the world. The article then considers the impact of a market forces approach on the organization of child protection services in relation to coordination versus fragmentation, profit versus professionalism, planning versus short-termism, and cooperation versus competition. It concludes that the argument that a market forces approach to child protection will lead to greater efficiency in relation to protecting children is a chimera. The article is thus of relevance for the different professions who contribute to child protection services in all countries where a market approach to public welfare is being suggested or implemented.     

Mental health needs assessment of children and adolescents

Needs assessment is essential input for program planning. Little data are, however, available about the various approaches and whether strategies for needs assessment are viable. It was found by an inexpensive methodology that opinions about the importance of various services, opinions about the potential acceptance of services, services provided, and the total need for services are interrelated. A hybrid approach that utilized data from teachers and the people that provide mental health services was also a practical means to obtain information about the unmet needs of children and adolescents in the country. Data supported the value of this technique for the assessment of the unmet needs of children and adolescents. Thus, an inexpensive methodology can provide useful information from multiple perspectives.     

Polymorphism-screening: genetic testing for predisposition—guidance for technology assessment

Health policy is increasingly confronted with the demand for financing genetic testing on inherited susceptibility to disease. Tests on polymorphism/SNP associated with multicausal and chronic conditions are already offered in private commercial institutions or in academic hospitals. The increasing pressure on public health services to offer SNP testing leads to first methodological approaches for a generally valid regulatory framework applicable for inclusion or refusal of genetic tests into the public health services. Systematic search in Medline, Embase and the Web for methodological papers or guidelines for the assessment of polymorphism-screening. Since genetic testing has not only clinical and economic effects on health care, but also primarily ethical consequences by profiling our understanding of “health” and “disease”, this paper gives an overview of relevant aspects and background information to consider in the assessment of genetic tests. Although 2–3 million SNPs are identified and the journals are full of reported “significant” associations between disease and mutation, only a few can be replicated unequivocally. The ACCE (Analytic and Clinical Validity, Clinical utility; Ethical, legal and social implications)-framework was developed by the Center of Disease Control for the assessment of genetic testing. This standardised appraisal approach proposes collecting and evaluating: (a) Prevalence, genotype-/phenotype-relation. (b) Clinical presentation: natural history; the different expressions of disease. (c) Performance of the genetic test. (d) Implications for therapy and prevention. (e) Conclusion for clinical applications of risk-profiling of health on their susceptibility to disease and/or for clarification of disease for therapy planning. Since genetic testing is urging its way into the health care system, the actual danger is, that population screening starts before valid evidence from big prospective studies have been carried out and delivered proofs of direct causal associations. Before diffusing into the health care system we are suggesting to take a cautious and standardised approach.     

Using Technology to Deliver Career Development Services: Supporting Today's Students in Higher Education

Career services professionals are increasingly involved in decisions regarding the use of technology. This article presents a number of considerations to be explored, including the characteristics and needs of today's students, available technologies, funding requirements, and confidentiality issues. The author recommends an approach that includes strategic planning, needs analyses, training, and ongoing support. Current asynchronous and synchronous technologies are described, and examples of the use of each in the context of career services are provided. The specific technologies presented are e‐mail, discussion boards, video, podcasts, websites, Internet‐based guidance and information systems, telephone, instant messages, and virtual rooms.     

Disability and Afghan Reconstruction: Some Policy Issues

Conflicts within Afghanistan have severely disrupted the few formal rehabilitation services for disabled Afghans. The unsettled situation, together with prevailing socio-economic underdevelopment, poses massive problems for reconstruction. Realistically, Afghans with disabilities will have to manage their lives largely with traditional skills and community resources for many years to come. Their indigenous resources may be supplemented with modern rehabilitation information (skills and knowledge) using an 'information-based' approach to planning. Some implications of this approach are examined, with examples of information systems in practice.     

The Perspective from the Field on Computer Literacy Training Needs

Summary

Rapidly evolving computer technology is changing agency life and social work practice and challenging schools of social work to incorporate such information technology into their curriculum in order to prepare students for these changes. This article describes one effort to meet this challenge: a planning and data-gathering approach utilized by the School of Social Work at the University of Washington to integrate classroom and practicum preparation with computer applications in the field. As part of this process, human service agencies that serve as practicum training sites and potential employers for master's level students within the Seattle metropolitan area were surveyed.

Based upon findings from this survey, this article presents an agency-based perspective on computer literacy training needs through addressing the questions of who is using what computer tools, toward what service ends, with what expected level of proficiency, and with what future needs and directions in mind. Implications of these field-based findings for curriculum planning, for prac-ticum development, and for the conceptualization of computer literacy within human services are identified.     

The optimal treatment approach to needs assessment

This paper describes a needs assessment technique which has not been considered in previous discussions. Basically the Optimal Treatment approach to needs assessment consists of comparing the most desirable set of services for a client with the services actually recommended or received. Discrepancies due to unavailable resources are noted and aggregated across clients. Systematic shortcomings may be taken to represent service needs.The advantages and disadvantages of this and other procedures are considered, especially with respect to political factors and the utility of data for planning and decision making in the local agency context.     

Utilizing grassroots workers in family planning programs in India: prospects and problems

In order to rapidly expand the network of delivery systems and speed up the process of acceptance of family planning messages and methods, a shift took place in the Indian family planning program from the bureaucratic "clinical" approach to the people oriented "extension" approach. As a result, there is an increasing emphasis on moving the family planning efforts closer to the grassroots level. A key methodological issue centers on the proper selection, cultural acceptability, and the effectiveness of the grassroots workers who are to be trained and through whom family planning motivational messages and methods are to be introduced. The Indian government, from time to time, has trained and utilized different groups of grassroots workers in its family planning promotional efforts. Anthropological field studies were conducted in two different regions in India to examine the potential and actual roles of two groups of grassroots workers--opinion leaders and traditional birth attendants--in the delivery of family planning services in the rural areas. These studies revealed that while the traditional birth attendants can be trained and utilized to a limited extent in promoting family planning efforts, especially to the eligible female clients, the role of the opinion leaders in such efforts is at best questionable. Based on these field studies, cultural and technical (including bureaucratic) problems in training and utilizing opinion leaders and traditional birth attendants are explored in detail. Modifications in the training program strategies are suggested to improve and expand the family planning delivery system in rural India.     

A Framework for Enabling Evidence-based Practice in Allied Health

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is upheld as best practice in health and human services but there is a need for more research on how this approach can be enabled in day-to-day practice. This qualitative study examined EBP with allied health managers and practitioners in a health service network (n = 17). The findings highlight the systemic nature of EBP and the extent to which it involves both individual and environmental attributes. Individual attributes include clear understanding of EBP, relevant knowledge and skills, and motivation and passion. Environmental attributes are the presence of an organisational culture that values and prioritises EBP and an integrated mix of research support services, professional development activities, supervision and mentorship, and university partnerships. Theoretical frameworks can be useful for making sense of complex processes, planning, and evaluating change. Therefore, the findings are presented as a framework incorporating reflective questions relating to the elements identified as enabling EBP.     

Ethnic Diversity and Child Protection

SUMMARY: Black and minority ethnic children in need of protection receive a poor response from health and social services. Practitioners are reluctant to intervene, and when intervention does take place it reflects a eurocentric approach that fails to engage with the ethnic diversity of vulnerable children. Increasing the levels of safety far all children, black and white, suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, requires taking positive action: collecting ethnically relevant data, a commitment to an equitable distribution of resources, consulting children and parents and involving them in planning and designing services.     

Coupling ecosystem services supply and human ecological demand to identify landscape ecological security pattern: A case study in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region,China

Landscape ecological security pattern (LESP) can effectively safeguard urban ecological security, which is vital for urban sustainable development. Previous studies have not adequately considered the ability to fulfill people’s demand for ecosystem services when identifying sources of LESP. To address this gap, we sought to develop a more comprehensive approach coupling ecosystem services supply and human ecological demand to construct LESP for Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. We proposed a new evaluation framework integrating ecosystem services importance assessment and landscape connectivity analysis with human ecological demand importance assessment to identify ecological sources. Afterwards, ecological corridors were identified using Minimum Cumulative Resistance model based on sources and resistance surface modified through nighttime light data. Combined with ecological sources and corridors, LESP for Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region can be constructed. The ecological sources are mainly located in western Beijing and southwestern Chengde. The ecological source area totals 36,245.50 km², accounting for 21.26% of the ecological land in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. The ecological corridors cross the whole region, from northeast to southwest, similar to the direction of the Yanshan–Taihang Mountain Chain. All the national nature reserves and 91.4% of the provincial nature reserves are distributed within the LESP. The validity of our methodology is confirmed by the distribution of the nature reserves. This study adds new insights into the methodology of LESP construction, and its results provide information about local ecological characteristics that can provide an important reference for decision-making concerning urban planning and ecological conservation.     

The Development of a Black and Ethnic minority health policy at the department of health

Britain is a truly multiracial and multicultural society. Immigration into Britain in 1960s and 1970s was mainly fiom South East Asia, Africa and the West Indies. A large number of immigrants have now become residents of Britain and we have a second generation of Black and ethnic minority groups in this country who were bom in Britain. More recently we have been joined by a number of refugee groups and asylum seekers. In the last 10 years, there have been a number of initiatives which have been taken to develop appropriate policies to improve access to health services by ethnic groups and to understand their health and disease patterns. The main issues are: (1) What policies have been developed? (2) The main areas of concern. (3) The differing health and disease patterns among ethnic minority groups. (4) How the policies are being implemented at the health service level and the lessons learned. (5) How the health professionals are being trained to deliver appropriate services to these groups. (6) How volunteer groups are invoked in planning services. (7) The national health services have recently been reformed and have introduced the idea of separating the delivery of health care from its planning and of the purchasing of services by health authorities. It is important to examine whether these have an impact in changing health services to make them more accessible to ethnic minority groups. (8) What the future plans in this area of work are.     

Financial Planning Strategies of High School Seniors: Removing Barriers to Career Success

This study explored the postsecondary financial planning of graduating 12th graders as a barrier to educational and career decision making and success. Seniors planning on pursuing postsecondary education (N = 744) from 16 high schools completed an online survey measuring their plans for financing their postsecondary education. They also provided information regarding their academic achievement, motivation, certainty, and postsecondary goals and plans. Students clustered into 4 distinct financial planning strategy groups. These financial planning clusters were evident across a diverse sample of high schools. Almost half of all graduating 12th graders had limited financial planning strategies. Groupings and strategies employed by students were significantly related to career development theory and research. The critical role for career development services in promoting student success is discussed.     

Co-producing Across Organisational Boundaries: Promoting Asylum Seeker Integration in Scotland

This paper questions whether asylum seeker integration is promoted through inter-organisational relationships between non-profit and voluntary organisations (NPVOs) and government agencies. It focuses particularly on the role of NPVOs in service delivery (co-management) and in the delivery and planning of public services (co-governance). It presents a research study on the public services provided to asylum seekers in Glasgow and asks the following questions: What role do NPVOs play in the planning and delivery of public services? When planning and delivering public services, to what extent do NPVOs work across organisational boundaries and what kind of relationships exist? And in practice, what makes inter-organisational relationships work? This paper offers new empirical evidence and also contributes to the theoretical debate around the integration of asylum seekers.