Reflections on Student,Service User and Carer Involvement in Social Work Research

This article will reflect on the experience of undertaking a participatory action research influenced study within a module of a social work degree programme. In doing so it will touch on some of the literature associated with student, service user and carer involvement in qualifying programmes, and in particular on research and module design. It will outline the history of service user and carer involvement in respect of a specific module within a singular degree course. It will provide an overview and some findings of the study, which sought to evaluate the involvement of an inherent service user and carer group within that degree course. However, as service user and carer involvement within degree programmes has had significant attention within the wider literature, the current study seeks to present a reflexive commentary on student, service user and carer involvement in research modules and participatory action research. Whilst the research presented here should be regarded as an initial foray with acknowledged limitations, it equally highlights some perspectives that lead to an understanding of how greater levels of student, service user and carer involvement within social work research might be achieved, in particular in the context of social work qualifying programmes.     

Diversity of vascular plants growing on walls of a Brazilian city

City walls are very specialized environments, conditioned by human activities. There is little information about plants that invade human-made habitats, and no study done in Brazil with plants growing up on walls. The aim of the present study was to survey the wall vascular flora of a Brazilian city, comparing the diversity found in its downtown and neighborhoods. Fieldwork was done in Jundiaí, São Paulo State, where data was collected in downtown and in five neighborhoods. In each place, three transects of 1 km were established and every plant individual was registered. Twenty-eight species were identified, all of them on the downtown transect and most also on the neighborhood transects. Five species were the most frequent, although none were dominant. The diversity indicies of the six transects were not significantly different, with an overall diversity of H′ = 2.93.     

Carers of People with Learning Disabilities, and their Experience of the 1995 Carers Act

Summary This paper seeks to highlight the impact of the Carers (Recognitionand Services) Act of 1995 on carers of people with learningdisabilities. It draws on research conducted in the south westbetween 1997 and 1999, which examined the views and experiencesof carers who had an assessment of their needs, together withthose of the person they care for and the professional conductingthe assessment. It concludes that the Carers Act is not widelyused, or understood, by this group of carers. Recommendationsfor improving practice include changes to the current terminology,new triggers for a carer's needs assessment, and a greater inputfrom other agencies, especially health services. Although thecurrent paper focuses on the views and experiences of carers,an exploration of the Carers Act, and its effect on potentialconflicts of interest with the person with learning disabilities,is available elsewhere (Williams and Robinson, 2001).     

Systemic Consultation in Intellectual Disability Case Management

Systemic consultation is a form of tertiary case supervision derived from the principles of systemic family therapy. The present study defines the process and outcomes of systemic consultation through the experiences of case managers (CMs) working with people who have an intellectual disability. CMs were invited to present and discuss one of their complex cases with a team of consultants and attend a follow up session 4 to 6 weeks later. Measures of levels of stress, perception of workplace functioning, and workflow information were completed pre and post‐intervention and compared to measures completed by a second group of CMs receiving regular supervision only. After participation in systemic consultation, the networks of people CMs consulted about the case were significantly smaller and they scored significantly higher on a network measure of efficiency of information flow. The CMs experienced lower levels of stress and higher perception of workplace functioning, these differences approached significance. After attending the consultation outcome, themes included a reduced sense of being stuck and stressed, becoming an agent of change and taking perspective. The approach allows CMs space for reflection on practice and new perspectives to be heard. Case management has been under‐represented in documented research and evidence‐based training and supervision models, and is an area in which professional theory appears to be lacking.     

Selection of Predictors in Distance-Based Regression

Distance-based regression is a prediction method consisting of two steps: from distances between observations we obtain latent variables which, in turn, are the regressors in an ordinary least squares linear model. Distances are computed from actually observed predictors by means of a suitable dissimilarity function. Being generally nonlinearly related with the response, their selection by the usual F tests is unavailable. In this article, we propose a solution to this predictor selection problem by defining generalized test statistics and adapting a nonparametric bootstrap method to estimate their p-values. We include a numerical example with automobile insurance data.     

Non-parametric bootstrap recycling

The double bootstrap provides diagnostics for bootstrap calculations and, if need be, appropriate adjustments. The amount of computation involved is usually considerable, and recycling provides a less computer intensive alternative. Recycling consists of using repeatedly the same samples drawn from a recycling distribution G for estimation under each first-level bootstrap distribution, rather than independently repeating the simulation and estimation steps for each of these.Recycling is successful in parametric applications of the bootstrap, as demonstrated by M.A. Newton and C.J. Geyer (J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 89: 905–912, 1994). We show that it is bound to fail in non-parametric bootstrap applications, and suggest a modification that makes the method work. The modification consists of smoothing the first-level bootstrap distributions, with the desired consequence that this removes the zero probabilities in the multinomial distributions that define them. We also discuss efficient choices of recycling distributions, both in terms of estimator efficiency and simulation efficiency.     

Book-a-Book: Facilitating Access to Learning Materials for Students With Disabilities

Abstract

Until 2019, each higher education institution in Flanders had to develop their own workflows to handle requests for digital study materials for students with disabilities. At KU Leuven these requests are processed by KU Leuven Libraries Central Services. This unit, among other things, supports the core tasks of KU Leuven Libraries in the area of acquisitions and licensing negotiations with publishers. This article will focus on the creation and development of Book-a-Book, which has its origin in the service the KU Leuven Libraries Central Services has been providing for students with disabilities for KU Leuven students since 2011. Book-a-Book is a web application that facilitates access to learning materials for students with disabilities enrolled in Flemish higher education institutions. It is the first online tool to serve all higher education students with disabilities in Flanders and is the result of a collaboration between The Support Center for Inclusive Higher Education (SIHO), KU Leuven Libraries, and LIBIS (Leuven Integrated Library and Information System). SIHO is as a collaboration between the associations of the Flemish universities and colleges on the one side, and the Flemish government on the other side. The core responsibility of the SIHO lies in the support of all higher education institutions in realizing inclusive higher education for students with a disability. On September 12, 2019, Book-a-Book was launched on the international conference “Enhancing Student Experience: Innovative Support Tools for Students with Disabilities” in Brussels, Belgium.     

The Working Families’ Tax Credit and Some European Tax Reforms in A Collective Setting

A framework for simplified implementation of the collective model of labor supply decisions is presented in the context of fiscal reforms in the UK. Through its collective form the model accounts for the well known problem of distribution between wallet and purse, a broadly debated issue which has so far been impossible to model due to the limitations of the unitary model of household behavior. A calibrated data set is used to model the effects of introducing two forms of the Working Families’ Tax Credit. We also summarize results of estimations and calibrations obtained using the same methodology on data from five other European countries. The results underline the importance of taking account of the intrahousehold decision process and suggest that who receives government transfers does matter from the point of view of labor supply and welfare of household members. They also highlight the need for more research into models of household behavior.

Collective Models of Labor Supply with Nonconvex Budget Sets and Nonparticipation: A Calibration Approach

We suggest a methodology to calibrate a collective model with household-specific bargaining rules and marriage-specific preferences that incorporate leisure externalities. The empirical identification relies on the assumption that some aspects of individual preferences remain the same after marriage, so that estimation on single individuals can be used. The procedure maps the complete Pareto frontier of each household in the dataset and we define alternative measures of a power index. The latter is then regressed on relevant bargaining factors, including a set of variables retracing the potential relative contributions of the spouses to household disposable income. In its capacity to handle complex budget sets and labor force participation decisions of both spouses, this framework allows the comparison of unitary and collective predictions of labor supply reactions and welfare changes entailed by fiscal reforms in a realistic setting (see Michal Myck et al., 2006; Denis Beninger et al., 2006).

The role of mutuals and community-based insurance in social health protection systems: International experience on delegated functions

The institutional architecture for the provision of social health protection varies across countries, as do the actors and organizations involved. In some countries, mutual benefit societies and community-based health insurance organizations (CBHI) play a role in this area. In the 1990s, these were promoted particularly as a means of extending social security coverage, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. In the current context, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, as well as renewed political will to realize universal coverage, has led to a questioning of the role of mutuals/CBHI. However, the literature on the roles they play in national social security systems remains limited. For this scoping review, 49 documents were analysed, covering 18 countries worldwide, focused on the delegation of functions to mutuals/CBHI in national social health protection systems. The results reveal the dynamics of the delegation of functions within social protection systems over time and their implementation processes. These provide areas for reflection that can inform policy processes.