Evaluating social investment in disability policy

Disability policy in European countries is displaying a shift towards social investment: increasing human capital and access to the labour market. The reasoning that underlies this transition is that disabled persons would benefit from mainstream employment, but are impeded in traditional policy by deficiencies in labour supply and demand. However, the shift towards more activating policies in many countries is accompanied by a decline in social protection. It is unclear whether social investment may effectively promote the employment chances of disabled persons within this context. The present research examines this question through a quantitative, cross-sectional, multilevel analysis on microdata from 22 EU countries. Our findings suggest greater activation to predict lower employment chances, while reducing passive support shows mixed effects. Conversely, measures for facilitation in daily life predict greater employment chances, as do measures for sheltered work. These findings raise questions over the value of social investment for disabled persons—and underline the need to overcome broader barriers in the labour market and in society.     

Maternal mortality: What can we learn from stories of postpartum haemorrhage?

Death from pregnancy is rare in developed countries such as Australia but is still common in third world and developing countries. The investigation of each maternal death yields valuable information and lessons that all health care providers involved with the care of women can learn from. The aim of these investigations is to prevent future maternal morbidity and mortality.Obstetric haemorrhage remains a leading cause of maternal death internationally. It is the most common cause of death in developing countries. In Australia and the United Kingdom, obstetric haemorrhage is ranked as the 4th and 3rd most common cause of direct maternal death respectively. In a number of cases there are readily identifiable factors associated with the care that the women received that may have contributed to their death. It is from these identifiable factors that both midwives and doctors can learn to help prevent similar episodes from occurring.This article will identify some of the lessons that can be learnt from the recent Australian and UK maternal death reports. This paper presents an overview of the process and systems for the reporting of maternal death in Australia. It will then specifically focus on obstetric haemorrhage, with a focus on postpartum haemorrhage, for the 12-year period, 1994–2005. Vignettes from the maternal mortality reports in Australia and the United Kingdom are used to highlight the important lessons for providers of maternity care.     

Issuing and Responding to Unusual Questions: A Conversation Analytic Account of Tom Andersen's Therapeutic Practice

Tom Andersen is considered one of the key contributors to the development of postmodern practice. Little is known, however, about the ways in which his ideas and practices are routinely carried out in situ. We used Conversation Analysis (CA) to investigate a session of couple therapy facilitated by Andersen. We show how Andersen and client participants oriented to and addressed problems of understanding that occurred between them. The source of this trouble was Andersen's use of unusual question formulations. We offer preliminary evidence that such unusual formulations served particular interactional and institutional (i.e., therapeutic) functions in their local contexts of use. We conclude by considering some implications of this analysis—and of conversation analytic inquiry more generally—for the practice of family therapy.     

Implementing School Based Youth Courts in a Rural Context: The Impact on Students’ Perceptions of School Climate,Individual Functioning,and Interpersonal Relationships

The Youth Court in Schools Project was implemented in two low-income, violent, racially/ethnically diverse rural counties. This study examined if the presence of Youth Court impacted students’ perceptions of school danger, individual functioning, and interpersonal relationships. Data were gathered from 3454 youth; following multiple imputation, data were analyzed using paired samples t tests. Results indicated that perceptions of school danger increased significantly and self-esteem decreased significantly in the control schools pretest to posttest. Violent behavior, anxiety, friend rejection, and bullying victimization decreased significantly in the Youth Court intervention schools pretest to posttest, but did not change significantly in the control schools. Findings provide preliminary evidence that Youth Court is an effective way of improving school climate, individual functioning, and interpersonal relationships.     

Piloting different approaches to personalised offender management in the English criminal justice system

Various approaches to personalisation are well-established in the UK social care sector and are now starting to ‘travel’ to other sectors. In this paper we report findings from an evaluation of a pilot to test elements of personalisation in the management of offenders in probation services within the English criminal justice system. Following a review of evidence from social care, three different approaches to personalised-practice were developed and tested on a small-scale in three separate sites. The evaluation finds that all three approaches were implemented reasonably successfully, but challenges were identified including that personalised approaches are more time-consuming, that staff need support to exercise professional discretion and that balancing greater choice with managing criminogenic risk requires new ways of conceptualising the relationship between case manager and service user. Overall, ‘deeper’ approaches to personalisation, such as co-production, will take time to emerge. This paper makes two important contributions to the debate on personalisation in public services. First, it addresses the question of how transferable the concept of personalisation is from the social care sector to other sectors in the UK, in this case the criminal justice system. Secondly, it outlines a methodology for developing and evaluating personalisation pilots, prior to a wider roll-out.     

The Influence of Career Planning on Career Thoughts in STEM‐Interested Undergraduates

Undergraduate career planning courses have shown efficacy in decreasing students’ negative career thoughts; however, universities have minimally applied these courses to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) populations. This study compared the influence of a STEM‐focused career planning course for undecided STEM students with a seminar course for decided STEM majors. An analysis of covariance with covariate adjustment revealed that undecided career planning students had lower adjusted mean scores on a measure of negative career thinking than the decided STEM majors after the first semester of college. The results provide support for the efficacy of STEM‐focused career planning courses and measuring negative career thoughts with STEM undergraduates.