Aerodynamic roughness variation with vegetation: analysis in a suburban neighbourhood and a city park

Urban Ecosystems - Local aerodynamic roughness parameters (zero-plane displacement, z d , and aerodynamic roughness length, z 0 ) are determined for an urban park and a suburban neighbourhood with...     

Not just a number? NEETs,data and datalogical systems

This paper draws on empirical research with NEET populations (16–24-year-olds not in education, employment or training) in the U.K. in order to engage with issues around identification, data and metrics produced through datalogical systems. Our aim is to bridge contemporary discourses around data, digital bureaucracy and datalogical systems with empirical material drawn from a long-term ethnographic project with NEET groups in Leeds, U.K. in order to highlight the way datalogical systems ideologically and politically shape people’s lives. We argue that NEET is a long-standing data category that does work and has resonance within wider datalogical systems. Secondly, that these systems are decision-making and far from benign. They have real impact on people’s lives – not just in a straightforwardly, but in obscure, complex and uneven ways which makes the potential for disruption or intervention increasingly problematic. Finally, these datalogical systems also implicate and are generated by us, even as we seek to critique them.     

Making the familiar strange and making the strange familiar: understanding Korean children’s experiences of living with an autistic sibling

Based on the findings of a small‐scale study using visual ethnographic techniques with nine South Korean children, this article explores the role of culture in understanding autism. While autism is embedded within the ‘strange’ and ‘unfamiliar’, linked to exclusion and discrimination in Korean society, the children focussed on reframing their experiences of living with autism as ‘ordinary’. Despite the limitations of the small sample, the richness and depth of data generated by children themselves offers new insights into children’s interpretations and experiences of autism and raises interesting questions for cross cultural research in the field of disability.     

Motivators for Resolving or Seeking Help for Gambling Problems: A Review of the Empirical Literature

This literature review summarizes recent empirical research on the reasons disordered gamblers try, through treatment or otherwise, to resolve or reduce their gambling problems. Relevant databases and bibliographies were searched for English-language studies, published since 1998, that asked gamblers themselves about motivators for action. Found were ten studies addressing reasons for trying to resolve or reduce gambling problems, five addressing reasons for seeking help and four addressing reasons for requesting self-exclusion from casinos. Help-seeking occurred largely in response to gambling-related harms (especially financial problems, relationship issues and negative emotions) that had already happened or that were imminent. Resolution was often motivated by the same kinds of harms but evaluation/decision-making and changes in lifestyle or environment played a more prominent role. Self-exclusion was motivated by harms, evaluation/decision-making and a wish to regain control. Awareness and educational materials could incorporate messages that might encourage heavy gamblers to make changes before harms became too great. Intervention development could also benefit from more research on the motivators leading to successful (vs. failed) resolution, as well as on the ways in which disordered gamblers are able to overcome specific barriers to seeking help or reaching resolution.     

An Evaluation of Caller Satisfaction with Solution-Focused Telephone Counselling

Abstract

‘Practice Forum’ is intended to provide a forum for social work practitioners to share their practice with others; to describe what they are doing and assess its effectiveness.

We extend an invitation to all social work practitioners to submit articles for ‘Practice Forum’ and we look forward to receiving your contribution.

The telephone is a potentially valuable intervention tool in family counselling. The Child, Adolescent & Family Health Service has been experimenting with a response which combines the traditional advantages of telephone counselling with aspects of Steve deShazer's solution-focused approach (deShazer 1985). In 1990 a study was conducted to evaluate caller satisfaction with this approach. Results indicate a high level of satisfaction with the counselling. At a time of increasing funding cuts and lengthening waiting lists, it is important that as many options as possible remain available to our clients. An expansion in effective telephone counselling services may well be one way of achieving this.     

Connecting and Strengthening Young Aboriginal Men: A Family Wellbeing Pilot Study

A significant proportion of young people in Australia are currently not being engaged in school and other social systems. This article presents the results of a mixed-methods study of a pilot Family Wellbeing intervention designed to enhance the social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) of young Aboriginal men and improve engagement in education, employment, and other social participation. A questionnaire incorporating the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale and respondent self-assessment SEWB questions was administered to program participants pre and post intervention (N = 30) and qualitative data were collected from program organisers (N = 6). The results suggest that the Family Wellbeing intervention has the capacity to make a marked contribution to the SEWB of young Aboriginal men; participants experienced strong improvement in capacity to manage relationships, engagement in education and employment, and mental and physical health. The factors that enabled the program to be adapted to the target group and setting are documented.     

Funding Civil Society? Bilateral Government Support for Development NGOs

Research on the determinants of foreign aid tends to focus on the relationship between donor country priorities and recipient state characteristics, but donors also make decisions about which organizations and programs within countries will receive assistance. Although NGOs increasingly have been recipients of foreign aid, few data are available to investigate which organizations within a given country receive that funding. Donors may prioritize structural characteristics of NGOs or their local ties—or they may seek a combination that blends concern about efficiency and accountability with an interest in developing national civil society. We use original data from Cambodia to explore whether aid is likely to go to managerial organizations (professionalized NGOs and NGOs that utilize modern management tools) or to organizations that are embedded in the domestic context. We argue that managerialism provides legitimacy for NGOs by signaling capacity and accountability to donors, increasing the likelihood of government funding. We argue that local embeddedness also confers legitimacy by aligning community ties and networks to rights-based development, increasing the likelihood of government funding. We find general support for the managerialism argument, but donor agencies do not prioritize direct funding for “indigenous” NGOs—not even among those with high levels of managerialism.     

Ideologies & Narratives in Relation to ‘Fat’ Children as Bullies, ‘Easy Targets’ and Victims

In this study, we explore narratives in relation to ‘fatness’, drawing on focus group interviews with parents, early years practitioners, teachers and young people. The study is located in a larger study on bullying and resilience, with no specific focus on obesity or ‘fatness’. Analysis of the interview data highlighted a recurrent focus on ‘fatness’ within the participants’ narratives, by labelling and stigmatising the ‘fat kid’ and ‘bigger children’. We conclude that obesity and fatness, as abnormalities, are now included in commonsense talk in relation to ‘easy targets’, victims and bullies.