Parental views of in-home services: what predicts satisfaction with child welfare workers?

Evidence on client satisfaction deserves consideration in the design of child welfare policies, programs, and practices. Data in this study come from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Clients receiving in-home services reported moderate levels of satisfaction with their child welfare workers. Caregiver reports of having less than two child welfare workers, having more recent contact, and receiving timely, responsive services were associated with higher perceived quality of relationships with child welfare workers. The child welfare workers' reports of cooperativeness by the caregiver were also associated with higher caregiver-reported relationship quality.     

Energy analysis: A review of methods and applications

The paper describes the aims and applications of energy analysis, emphasising its role as a complement to conventional financial analysis. It is shown to provide useful insights in applications such as forecasting price rises due to a fuel price rise, calculating the net costs of fuel obtained from unconventional sources, forecasting energy demand and evaluating energy conservation schemes. Although the field is still young, and most activity is in compiling reliable data bases, its systems approach and methods promise to make it a useful tool for evaluating patterns of resource uses.     

Examining the Relationship Between Level of Participation in Community Gardens and their Multiple Functions

Participation in community gardens improves health and well-being; however, few studies examine how often individuals need to participate to achieve these outcomes. This study examined the relationship between levels of participation in community gardens and health behaviors, psychological well-being, and perceptions of the community by surveying regular, occasional, and noncommunity garden participants in a disadvantage neighborhood (N = 115). Regular and occasional participates reported better mental health; occasional participants reported more vegetable intake, and regular participants reported more sense of community. Therefore, community practitioners may need to consider level of participation in gardening activities for some outcomes and not others.     

The propensity of third sector organisations to borrow money in the UK

In recent years there has been much policy interest in the development of social investment initiatives. Many such proposals depend upon third sector organisations (TSOs) loaning working capital in order to bridge gaps in cash flow. Existing studies on the willingness of TSOs to borrow have tended to used selective samples, which may have led to an exaggeration of market demand. This article explores, with reference to robust evidence on the attitudes and behaviours of representative samples of TSOs from the Third Sector Trends Study in Northern England, the extent of interest in borrowing for a range of purposes including to buy or upgrade property, buy equipment or facilities, or borrow working capital. The article makes observations on current and future market demand for loans in light of the way that TSO leaders’ balance their dependence on given, earned and borrowed money.     

Barriers and Enablers to Safeguarding Children and Adults within a Disability Services Context: Insights from an Australian Delphi Study

Research conducted in the 1990s revealed the tragic irony that exposure to the disability support system, and particularly to its institutional forms, was a major risk factor related to the neglect and abuse of children and adults with a disability. Subsequently, a range of policies have been introduced to minimize risk. However, recurring events of abuse and neglect in the disability services sector in high and middle income countries demonstrate that processes geared to safeguard children and adults with a disability from abuse and neglect remain insufficient. To establish the wider fabric of organizational factors that contribute to effective safeguarding practices within the Australian disability support sector, a modified online Delphi study was conducted, capturing the views of disability services staff and managers (n = 249) regarding barriers and enablers to effective safeguarding. This study identified issues concerning organizational culture, management practice, workforce development, client capacity building and contextual factors. During Round Two of the Delphi, participants were asked to rate the categorized enabler statements according to importance on a 10‐point Likert scale, to ascertain the degree of consensus. A total of 262 of the statements were regarded as important or very important. The Delphi result highlighted the considerable gap between the wider systemic and cultural processes that, in the eyes of disability services staff and management, contribute to good safeguarding practice and the safeguarding measures currently in place. The article calls for a holistic approach to safeguarding that addresses procedural issues and to the transformation of the wider systemic and cultural fabric of an organization.     

Combining Measures of Risk Perceptions and Risk Activities: The Development of the RAPRA and PRISC Indices

The influence of risk perceptions on risk activities of teenagers is well known, but the development of indices, which combine measures of perception as well as behavioral outcomes, has proved problematical. This article discusses the ways in which this methodological problem was tackled within a five-year, multiphase, multimethod study of factors affecting adolescent risk-taking in Tasmania, Australia, which included an intergenerational comparison of adolescents and parents. The development of the Risk Activity by Personal Risk Assessment (RAPRA) Index combines measures of perceived riskiness of 26 activities identified by young people as involving varying degrees of risk, with the degree of participation by each respondent, through a rectangular model of weights. The Personal Risk Score Category (PRISC) Index summarizes and categorizes an individual's risk-taking profile relative to the group's risk values and risk hierarchy established by the RAPRA Index. The article discusses ways in which technical problems involved in combining measures of risk perceptions and risk activities were addressed during index construction, compared with examples in the literature. Some key findings from analysis of two student and parent samples are presented as exemplars of the methods used and the results produced. Findings demonstrate the widespread nature of risk-taking among teenagers, and the similarity of levels of risk-taking between teenager and parental generations. The indices allow for detailed comparison of particular risk-taking activities and reveal differences among teenagers now compared with parents when they were teenagers, and illustrate the dynamic cultural context of risk-taking perceptions and values.     

A method for exploring the future

This paper describes a method for exploring future policy options. The procedures for choosing the range of options and constructing the future scenarios are described with special emphasis on policy implications. The advantages and limitations of this approach are discussed. The construction of scenarios is illustrated by describing three energy policy options for the U.K. The detailed analysis of these energy options, including their political and resource implications, will be described in a later paper.     

Three energy scenarios for the United Kingdom

The general principles of constructing scenarios and using them to explore policy options have been described in an earlier paper¹. This paper summarizes the results of a preliminary examination of the three scenarios described there and referred to as ‘business-as-usual’, ‘technical-fix’ and ‘low-growth’. The investigation departs from conventional discussions of fuel policy in that it emphasizes the management of fuel demand, and the interaction between fuel demand and life-style, rather than emphasizing fuel supply policies. The relationship between life style and fuel demand can be quantified using the methods of energy analysis.² This method is capable of fine disaggregation and relatively high accuracy. However the aim of the studies reported here was to establish the range of feasible options and the types of policies needed to accomplish them. For this purpose high accuracy is not important so considerable data aggregation has been retained. The detailed analyses presented in this paper are estimated to be accurate to ±15 per cent.The first part of the paper sets out the analysis of the base year (1968) on which the future projections are based. This involves explaining the principles of energy analysis and the method of projection used. The next sections examine the three scenarios in some detail, starting with the estimation of fuel demand and then looking at the fuel supply and management policies needed.