Turning away from the public sector in children's out-of-home care: An English experiment

This paper reports on the evaluation of an English experiment which, for the first time, moved statutory social work support for children and young people in out-of-home care from the public to the private or independent sector. Five social work practices (SWPs), independent or semi-independent of local government, were established and evaluated using a matched control design with integrated process evaluation. Social work teams in the public sector, selected to correspond to key characteristics of the SWP sites, provided control sites.     

Assessing influence in time series

This paper studies influential observations on the spectrum of a stationary stochastic process. We introduce a leave-one-out procedure in spectral density estimation to identify influential points. A simulated envelope is proposed to assess the magnitude of influence when the data follow an autoregressive integrated moving average model. Practical illustrations are discussed in two examples.     

Understanding neighbourhoods, communities and environments: new approaches for social work research

This article discusses some new ways in which social work research can explore the interaction between neighbourhoods and child and adult wellbeing. The authors note that social work practices are often criticised for taking an individualistic approach and paying too little attention to the service user's environment. The article uses examples of research projects from Chile, the United States of America and Wales, to discuss the use of spatially oriented research methods for understanding neighbourhood factors. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches that are particularly appropriate for investigating social work relevant topics are discussed in turn, including quantitative and qualitative uses for geographical information systems (GIS), hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) for analysing spatially clustered data and qualitative mobile interviews. The article continues with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of using spatially orientated research designs in social work research settings and concludes optimistically with suggestions for future directions in this area.     

Changes in coming out milestones across five age cohorts

This quantitative study examined differences in the coming-out process between self-identified lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) participants in five age cohorts. An Internet survey and convenience sampling strategy was used to recruit 1,131 participants (ages 18 to 85). Participants provided demographic information and information about their home environment growing up, completed the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identity Scale (LGBIS) (Mohr &; Fassinger, 2000 Mohr, J. J., &; Fassinger, R. E. (2000). Measuring dimensions of lesbian and gay male experience. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 33(2), 66–90. [Google Scholar]), and shared ages that they achieved important milestones in the coming-out process. ANCOVA of differences between men and women in the five cohorts on the age that significant milestones were achieved resulted in significant findings for all comparisons (p < .001). In post hoc analysis, 52% of the 450 pairwise comparisons were significant at at least the .05 level. Generally speaking, two significant trends were found in this sample: (a) that the average age of achieving milestones has decreased over time; and (b) that a gender gap in the age of achieving milestones between men and women has disappeared. The current study supports and extends research that suggests a strong connection between social acceptance of LGB people and coming out at younger ages.     

Team‐specific Human Capital and Performance

In this paper we explore the effects of team‐specific human capital (TSHC) on performance. We do so by delineating between two dimensions of TSHC, relating to team members and the team manager, and then exploring how the two dimensions may interact in shaping performance. Employing a 10‐year panel of football teams from the English Premier League we find that team members’ TSHC has a positive and significant effect on team performance, which is positively moderated by managers’ TSHC. Our results attest to the importance of considering both the team member and team manager dimensions of TSHC, and how the performance effects of team members’ TSHC are shaped by managers’ TSHC. Our results stand in stark contrast to the dramatic reduction in managerial tenure that has characterized the English Premier League in recent years.     

Self-Employment and Social Security: A Literature Survey

Over 100 references to recent international literature, legislation, reforms and social security schemes have been compiled. The sources are described, indicating current themes for each. Conclusions are sketched on developing literature coverage.