Embarking on self-directed support in Scotland: a focused scoping review of the literature

This article presents findings from a focused scoping review of the published literature on self-directed support (SDS), the term adopted by the Scottish Government to refer to its policy to improve social care outcomes and choices for people using publicly funded services and to distinguish it from personalisation, the term more commonly used in England, and from consumer-directed-care and cash for counselling. The review was undertaken to inform an evaluation of the early adopters of SDS, funded by the Scottish Government 2009–2011, and was updated with later literature. It focused on the evidence base available to inform the Test Sites' (pilot local authorities) efforts to reduce bureaucracy or ‘red tape’ for people choosing their own social care and support; the available evidence about leadership and training to support these changes and about the use of specific transitional funding to ease the process of implementation. The findings of the literature review around these three themes are presented and discussed. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential for such focused literature reviews to inform policy-makers, researchers, and social work practitioners across Europe of the options available when seeking to combine rapid yet rigorous approaches to evidence.     

Explaining Social exclusion: Towards Social Inclusion for Indigenous Australians

Current policy often focuses on ‘Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage’ by simultaneously addressing multiple deficits that many Indigenous people experience relative to other Australians. International literature often frames such issues in terms of the contested concepts of social exclusion and social inclusion. This paper attempts to analyse what Indigenous social inclusion might look like in a plural society such as Australia. In addition to contextualising Australian policy in broader debates, this paper also briefly introduces several relevant theories of justice, diversity and Indigenous rights to provide a theoretical framework for conceptualising social inclusion. The article concludes with some reflections on some practical suggestions to move the debate forward. In principle, enhancing Indigenous social and political participation in policy design should both increase inclusion and reduce disadvantage by enhancing the effectiveness of programs that have a substantial Indigenous client base.     

The social and economic impacts of drought

Although the environmental and economic impacts of drought have been widely studied, few large‐scale studies have examined the broader social impacts of drought. To fill this knowledge gap, the Australian Institute of Family Studies undertook the Regional and Rural Families Survey in 2007, when a significant part of Australia was experiencing a severe drought. This paper analyses that survey to measure the extent to which drought affects a range of economic, health and social outcomes. Drought is found to have a substantial negative economic and health impact on farmers and others employed in the agricultural sector. There is some evidence that groups that are not employed in agriculture are adversely affected, with a widespread loss of services in drought‐affected areas and some marginal labour market groups (e.g. carers) experiencing poor employment outcomes in a drought‐affected local economy. Policymakers need to take these impacts into account in designing effective responses to future droughts.     

Outcomes focused user involvement in social work education: applying knowledge to practice

Abstract

This paper discusses an innovative approach connecting service user and carer involvement (SUCI) in social work education to social work practice. The research team, comprised service users, carers, social work students and module leader, worked collaboratively democratising the research process. At the University of Dundee, a core social work module facilitates students to spend 15 h with a service user and/or carer (host) gaining a unique insight into their everyday lives. During this time, hosts and students discuss two policy practice questions, responses to these questions are generating annual qualitative data, with study findings being disseminated at local and national level. The experiential learning students acquire from spending time with their host becomes the site of knowledge creation through involvement that is applied to practice. This paper reports on the narratives emerging from the longitudinal data (2012–2015, n = 90) on the changing landscape of social care in Scotland and the dissemination of project findings. We explore the intersection where the voices of service users and carers, student learning and social work practice coalesce. A model of outcomes focused SUCI is introduced as a template for meaningful, sustainable and outcomes-focused SUCI in social work education.     

Expected Power for the False Discovery Rate with Independence

The Benjamini–Hochberg procedure is widely used in multiple comparisons. Previous power results for this procedure have been based on simulations. This article produces theoretical expressions for expected power. To derive them, we make assumptions about the number of hypotheses being tested, which null hypotheses are true, which are false, and the distributions of the test statistics under each null and alternative. We use these assumptions to derive bounds for multiple dimensional rejection regions. With these bounds and a permanent based representation of the joint density function of the largest p-values, we use the law of total probability to derive the distribution of the total number of rejections. We derive the joint distribution of the total number of rejections and the number of rejections when the null hypothesis is true. We give an analytic expression for the expected power for a false discovery rate procedure that assumes the hypotheses are independent.     

Place,identity and football: Catalonia,Catalanisme and Football Club Barcelona, 1899–1975

A growing body of work considers sport and the social construction of identities. Drawing from that research, this article considers how football clubs are involved in the construction of national identities by making explicit the connections between sport, identity and place. The first part of the article examines the literature addressing sport and collective identification/representation and considers critical approaches that uncover the power relations that frame the sport/identity nexus. The second part of the article applies these ideas to a discussion of Football Club Barcelona's role in the social construction of Catalan nationalism and national identity from 1899 to 1975.     

Environmental and policy change to support healthy aging

Given the growing evidence of the influence of the environment on older adult health, the need to design and implement effective environmental policy around healthy and vital aging is urgent. This article describes issues amenable to improvement through policy change, evidence supporting specific policy approaches and outcomes, and promising strategies for implementing those approaches. Key areas of focus are neighborhood design and safety, housing, transportation, and mobility. Strategies to build capacity for policy change are also addressed. Our goals are to foster greater attention to environmental change in support of healthy aging and to illuminate directions for policy change.