Using concurrent planning to establish permanency for looked after young children

Many looked after children spend lengthy periods in impermanent care, and their frequent moves probably contribute to subsequent disturbed behaviour. Concurrent planning aims to reduce the number of moves and the length of time before placement in a permanent family. In this study 24 young children in three concurrent planning (CP) projects and 44 from two ‘traditional’ adoption teams were followed for 12–15 months. Records were obtained of the number of moves between households and the dates of key events before the child's permanent family placement was confirmed by the courts. The CP children moved into permanent families significantly faster and with significantly fewer previous moves than the two comparison groups. Unexpectedly, the CP children were significantly younger than the children following ‘traditional’ adoption programmes, making direct comparison impossible. Among those birth parents who were interviewed, the majority saw advantages in the CP approach. Concurrent planning carers reported high levels of personal anxiety but positive views of the advantages for the children. We conclude that CP can be used to achieve earlier permanence and fewer moves between carers for young children from selected birth families. The success of a CP team is dependent on the support of other professionals involved in determining permanent placements, based on a shared acknowledgement of the damaging effects of delay for the looked after child.     

WHO'S NOT PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE: PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF THE AUSTRALIAN TAX SYSTEM

Data from the Community Hopes, Fears and Actions Survey are used to examine how pervasive the view is that the more privileged in society are failing to pay their fair share of tax, to understand the beliefs that underpin such perceptions, and the reforms that are needed to open dialogue with the Australian public about the issue. Support is found for five hypotheses. Economic self‐interest provides a partial explanation for perceptions of vertical inequity, but more important are disillusionment with the Australian democracy and perceptions of insufficient procedural justice from the tax office. Values about how Australian society should develop also play a part. Those looking for a more equal, caring and compassionate Australia perceive there to be a high level of vertical inequity. Such perceptions are not shared by those aspiring to an Australia that pursues competitive advantage either economically or politically. Tax authorities are brokers for social order and harmony in democracies. They can not determine the policies that are supposed to deliver these goals, nor the rules by which individuals are expected to contribute to the government coffers. But they carry responsibility for making it all happen — collecting taxes and providing government with revenue. As such, their integrity is pivotal to smooth democratic functioning. Integrity for a tax authority involves having purposeful and sound goals, appropriate and ethical procedures for pursuing such goals, and processes allowing reflection and evolution of their operation in response to the democratic will (Braithwaite 2003). This paper is a contribution to the process of reflection on how the tax system is working for its citizens. Its purpose is to investigate the extent to which the Australian community believes that their tax authority is pursuing one of its goals, collecting revenue, in a sound and purposeful way. Three questions are addressed: (a) Are different social groups in our society paying their fair share of tax? (b) What are the experiences and aspirations lying behind public perceptions that some groups do not pay their fair share? and (c) Do perceptions of fairness shape the direction in which Australians want to see tax reform progress?     

Quality of life in South Africa: Towards an instrument for the assessment of quality of life and basic needs

Conducting comparative quality of life research in a socio-economically and socio-politically divided society such as South Africa is methodologically challenging and worthwhile in that it provides a means for evaluating subtle social changes taking place. This is demonstrated on the basis of a study of perceptions of well-being involving white, Indian and black residents of Durban, South Africa. Survey findings generally reflected the differential social circumstances of the three groups represented in the sample, in particular it highlighted the materially underprivileged situation of Blacks in comparison to the other groups. Drawing upon the experience gained in the study, the rationale is given for developing a research instrument for measuring comparative qualities of life at the national level.     

Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Shame: Three Key Variables in Reducing School Bullying

This study examined the relationships between forgiveness, reconciliation, shame and school bullying. The sample consisted of 1,875 Bangladeshi adolescents (60% girls) in grades 7 to 10 ( M = 8.28). In a structural equation model, both forgiveness and reconciliation directly predicted less bullying. In addition to the direct effect, an indirect pathway showed reconciliation reduced bullying via adaptive shame management. Shame acknowledgment predicted less bullying whereas shame displacement predicted more in accord with the shame management theory. An alternative model was also tested, which demonstrated that parental forgiveness eroded when children displaced their shame. The nature of the intersection between these two theoretically viable psychological models has implications for both restorative justice theory and practice.     

Ultimate Extinction of the Promiscuous Bisexual Galton—Watson Metapopulation

A variant of a sexual Gallon–Watson process is considered. At each generation the population is partitioned among n‘hosts’ (population patches) and individual members mate at random only with others within the same host. This is appropriate for many macroparasite systems, and at low parasite loads it gives rise to a depressed rate of reproduction relative to an asexual system, due to the possibility that females are unmated. It is shown that stochasticity mitigates against this effect, so that for small initial populations the probability of ultimate extinction (the complement of an ‘epidemic’) displays a tradeoff as a function of n between the strength of fluctuations which overcome this ‘mating’ probability, and the probability of the subpopulation in one host being ‘rescued’ by that in another. Complementary approximations are developed for the extinction probability: an asymptotically exact approximation at large n, and for small n a short‐time probability that is exact in the limit where the mean number of offspring per parent is large.     

Bringing Back Community: Family Support From the Bottom Up

This paper presents findings of an evaluation of a one‐off, small scale, pilot project. Picking up where Sure Start, the government programme for families of newborns to threes, leaves off, ‘Families in Focus’ works with children aged four to 16 on a disadvantaged council estate in London. Through this route, the programme also reaches out to the families, providing a high level of on the spot local support. Feeding into the government's social exclusion agenda, the impact of the project has been significant, not least in restoring a strong sense of community to a previously alienated problem estate.     

Regional Tertiary Students and Living Away from Home: A priceless experience that costs too much?

For financial reasons, an increasing number of tertiary students in Australia are forced to work long hours each week, and they are becoming more likely to be living in relative poverty. This study aimed to explore and describe the economic situation of students at a provincial Australian university campus, and the role that type of residence plays in their financial well‐being. A large‐scale self report survey dealing with students' financial experiences during the 2003 academic year, was distributed to a convenience sample of students from across the courses offered on the campus. Quantitative data analysis was completed using SPSS and qualitative data was analysed thematically. Results indicate a strong relationship between type of residence and financial well‐being. Rural students may be especially vulnerable to the effects of financial distress, because of issues such as low cash‐flow on many family farms, and the long distances many travel to attend regional universities. This study indicates a number of possible avenues to protect students from living in poverty.     

Putting Programme into Practice: The Introduction of Concurrent Planning into Mainstream Adoption and Fostering Services

Originating in Seattle, USA, in the early 1980s, concurrentplanning aimed to speed the placement of children into permanentfamilies, either birth or substitute, and to reduce overallthe time spent in impermanent care. When the first pilot concurrentplanning project was introduced in the UK in 1998, independentevaluation was a requirement of government funding. The evaluationwas expanded to include two additional projects when the numberof initial referrals failed to meet the projected target. Thispaper looks beyond the successful outcomes of the pilot projects,focusing instead on the local authority context in order toexplore some of the difficulties in setting up such an innovativeprogramme, and to shed light on why concurrent planning appearedslow to take off. Based primarily on interviews conducted withsocial workers at different levels of responsibility, the researchersencountered a steep learning curve for all the professionals.The research findings indicated positive outcomes for the childrenplaced through concurrent planning, but limited understandingof the concept of concurrent planning, uncertainty in the divisionof responsibilities, and failure to take up preparation andtraining opportunities contributed to the initial slow progressin the incorporation of the programme.     

Regulating The Abject

In this paper, through an examination of mostly British make-over television programs we examine how the feminine has become a new site of limitless possibility and endless consumption, the fulcrum of intensifying processes of neo-liberal reinvention of continuously making over the self into successful, post-feminist bourgeois subjects. We argue that the central premise of contemporary make-over programs is the question: “Is the transformation of abject subjects possible?” We also suggest the focal object of transformation in many shows is the working class woman who fails both as subject/object of self-reflexivity, desire, and consumption. We argue it is her mind and body that represents a core site of abjection—a subjectivity designated as uninhabitable and therefore also a central site of regulation. It is upon the working class woman's mind and body that the drama of possibility and limitation of neo-liberal reinvention is played out. We also argue that it is perhaps in reference to that which is made abject and uninhabitable that it becomes possible to talk about class as a dynamic of identifying against what we must not be, and which fuels incessant attempts to refashion selves into generalized and normalized bourgeois feminine subjects.