Institutional Shaping of Interagency Working: Managing Tensions between Collaborative Working and Client Confidentiality

Tensions between imperatives for sharing of information aboutclients, patients, and offenders and those for confidentialityand privacy have become a prominent but unresolved issue inBritish public policy in the context of greater pressures towardinteragency collaboration. This article analyses empirical datafrom a major Economic and Social Research Council–fundedresearch project designed to provide the first systematic evidenceabout the ways in which local partnerships working in sensitivepolicy fields in England and Scotland attempt to strike settlementsbetween sharing and confidentiality and discusses the impactof national government's attempts to increase formal regulationof their information-sharing practices. To do this, the projecthas developed a methodology to operationalize neo-Durkheimianinstitutional theory and demonstrates that theory in this traditionhas the power to identify and explain patterns of information-sharingstyles adopted in local collaborative working. The overall conclusionis that the stronger assertion of formal regulation by nationalgovernment may well be leading to the greater prominence ofhierarchical institutional forms but it may also be associatedwith the counterassertion of other institutional forms, too,and in ways that may reinforce problems that greater regulationis intended to address. In particular, we show that neitherdoes increased formal regulation always lead frontline staffto be more confident about local information-sharing practicesnor should it lead observers to be more confident that data-sharingpractices will be more transparent or consistent from localityto locality.     

REFOCUSING FROM CHILD TO MARITAL PROBLEMS USING THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT GAME

Couples experiencing marital distress often request treatment for child behavior problems. These families have been found to respond poorly to behavioral parent-training programs and to reject offers of marital therapy. The Marriage Contract Game (MCG) structures and teaches problem-solving and communication skills; the game can be used to improve the skills of distressed couples and to refocus their attention away from their children and toward their own marriages. A multiple-baseline design was applied to four distressed couples who requested treatment for a target child. Results showed that game play improved couple's problem-solving and positive feeling statements in home discussions of problems, parents' ratings of target children's problems, and, in three cases, couples' perceptions of the difficulty of resolving their problems. Therapists untrained in behavioral methods were able to use the game with success and comfort. While four sessions of the MCG were not sufficient treatment for this population, intervention improved couples' skills and shifted their focus away from child problems and toward their own.     

Best linear predictors for factor scores

From the literature three types of predictors for factor scores are available. These are characterized by the constraints: linear, linear conditionally unbiased, and linear correlation preserving. Each of these constraints generates a class of predictors. Best predictors are defined in terms of Lowner's partial matrix order applied to matrices of mean square error of prediction. It is shown that within the first two classes a best predictor exists and that it does not exist in the third.     

Building research capacity for social work practitioners: a regional perspective

This article explores the research experiences, interests and capacity of social work professionals working as frontline workers and managers in human service organizations in regional South Australia. It also draws attention to social work practice issues requiring further investigation as identified by these professionals. The research data for this paper were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data provided evidence to show the extent of research interests among social work practitioners in the region. Qualitative data added depth to the findings by identifying social work practice issues as described by research participants. The study revealed that few participants had any research experience; however, the majority felt the need to undertake research, expressed interest in research training and a desire to be involved in research projects. These findings have implications for higher education providers in the social work discipline. They draw attention to the importance of better preparing students for research in practice, and also for schools of social work to actively engage in building research capacity and output in regional Australia.

Abbreviations: Frontline social work professionals (FLSWP); The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)     

No Place Called Home: Life Quality and Purpose of Homeless Youths

Subjective quality of life (SQOL) has been reported to display remarkable resilience to objective circumstances. This is thought to derive from the capacity to interpret experience in positive ways, but is defeated by very adverse circumstances. This raises the question of whether such positive mental devices are able to adequately protect the SQOL of homeless youths, who typically face substantial objective trials. This study compares youths who are homeless or at risk of homelessness with youths living consistently with their families (control group). It was found that both the homeless and at risk youths reported significantly lower SQOL. These youths also reported lower levels of personal meaning than the control group, and higher existential vacuum. Of the variables measured, personal meaning provided the strongest prediction of SQOL, challenging theories that would predict choice/responsibleness to provide the predominant contribution. Lack of differences in response between homeless and at risk youths suggests that subjective difficulties may precede homelessness rather than stem from it. A model is proposed to describe the possible factors involved in the maintenance and erosion of SQOL.     

Monitoring and evaluation of Guinea Worm Eradication

Dracunculiasis, or guinea worm disease is well-known for a number of reasons: its spectacular clinical manifestations (the emergence of a near-meter long worm from a painful cutaneous blister), the severe disease outbreaks which paralyze entire villages, and the striking traditional treatment which consists of laboriously rolling out inch after inch of the worm round a wooden stick. In the early 1980s, following the success of smallpox eradication, dracunculiasis was identified as the next candidate for eradication, since it could be tackled through simple preventive measures. Today, a successful global programme of eradication is underway in several countries. To appreciate the challenges of monitoring and evaluating the interventions, an understanding of the disease, the epidemiological situation and programme interventions is necessary; these aspects are therefore discussed. Then, based on the West and Central African experience, this article goes on to examine programme planning approaches and the monitoring and evaluation systems that were developed to track progress towards the global goal of eradication, notably community surveillance systems, formative evaluations, geo-reference database and mapping tools. Such monitoring and evaluation systems have several innovative elements unique to guinea worm eradication programmes and adapted to the requirements imposed by disease transmission patterns. There is evidence that the final efforts to eradicate guinea worm will be more costly, will take much longer than expected, and will require adequate and timely support in order to deal with the setbacks.