Victimization, Care and Justice: Reflections on the Experiences of Victims/Survivors Involved in Large-scale Historical Investigations of Child Sexual Abuse in Residential Institutions

Correspondence to Professor Matthew Colton, Centre for Applied Social Studies, School for Social Science and International Development, University of Wales Swansea, Science Tower, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK. Summary Large-scale investigations into historical child abuse in residentialinstitutions have been undertaken throughout the United Kingdom.This paper reflects on the experiences of those who give evidencein such investigations, drawing on interviews carried out withtwenty-four victims/survivors. Emerging themes include: thefactors which motivate victims/survivors to make disclosures;the impact on individuals of involvement in an investigation;the nature and effectiveness of help and support offered tovictims/survivors; the level of priority given to the needsof victims/survivors; and issues concerned with power and gender.The concluding discussion highlights vital issues for socialworkers and social services departments.     

Health Policy and the Politics of Evidence

National decisions on the drugs, treatments and medical devices that should be funded through public expenditure are a fundamental element of health policy. But despite a political emphasis upon evidence‐based policy, the results of rigorous clinical trials and statistical modelling techniques rarely speak for themselves. So, does the pre‐eminence traditionally accorded to quantitative data in the medical field underpin policy decisions on a consistent basis? Or are more subtle, less transparent characteristics of context and interaction evident in the shaping of attendant decisions? This article considers these questions by drawing on a study of decision‐making in the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)—an organization established by the British government in 1999 to decide whether selected health technologies should be made available throughout the National Health Service in England and Wales. In broad terms, the findings point to the primacy of arguments based on quantitatively oriented, experimentally derived data but also to a discursive hegemony of clinicians and health economists in mediating, including or debarring more qualitative, experientially based evidence. A more complex, dynamic understanding of policy governance in the field of health technology appraisal—founded on a discursive appropriation of the idea of the “common good”—goes some way to explaining the persistence of this hegemony despite an avowedly inclusive, plural approach to decision‐making.     

NISO Webinar: “The Case of the Disappearing Journal: Solving the Title Transfer and Online Display Mystery” (November 10, 2010)

Abstract

In December 2012, Eric Hanson interviewed Christopher Cronin, director of technical services at the University of Chicago, about their participation as an RDA test partner and issues surrounding RDA training and implementation.     

Gesundheitsförderliches Führungsverhalten bei un- und angelernten, kulturell diversen Belegschaften

One of the most important factors affecting inequitable health opportunities is the work activity. The respective supervisor exerts influence on the subordinates’ health and well-being. This study investigates health-promoting leadership behavior among low-skilled, culturally diverse workforces through interviews with employees and managers of the lowest hierarchical level (N?=?53). Information and approachability as well as appreciative feedback and showing interest of the supervisor are identified as relevant target group specific leadership behavior. Health-promoting effects of work design, learning opportunities as well as strain the supervisors themselves suffer from were also examined.     

Book review

New Zealand and the European Union edited by Matthew Gibbons. Auckland, Pearson Education. 2008. 172 p. NZ$52.99 (paperback). ISBN 0733993831.

Going bush. New Zealanders and nature in the twentieth century by Kirstie Ross. Auckland, Auckland University Press. 2008. 200 p. NZ$34.99 (paperback). ISBN 1869404246.

Globalisation and the wealth of nations by Brian Easton. Auckland, Auckland University Press. 2007. 248 p. NZ$50.00 (paperback). ISBN 9781869403775.     

Evaluation von Supervisionsprozessen an Südtiroler Schulen

Supervision and training have been offered to schools as constant components of the support and consulting measures for 12 years now. Over nearly the same period of time supervision processes have also been evaluated, namely for nine years. The results show how crucial supervision has become in the school system and how strongly the people involved can benefit from it. Positive developments are perceived especially with regard to the cooperation among teachers.     

Global standards for social work education and training

This paper explores the ways in which social workers can be helped to acquire the wider understanding of relevant legal frameworks which is currently necessary for child-centred practice, given the influence of an ecological perspective on such practice. It arises from the development of a module on child care social work and the community for the Post Qualifying Child Care Award by members of the Law and Social Work Departments at Brunel University. The authors believe that to reach beyond a tokenistic acknowledgement of the ecological perspective requires an understanding and experience of the complex layers which make up the widening and complex social worlds of the child. The paper explains how social workers were encouraged to appreciate both the ever-widening circles of potentially relevant law and the different roles through which law operates. It concludes that a deeper engagement with the legal implications of an ecological dimension to practice would make such practice more effective and would also help combat social exclusion and discrimination.     

The Technologisation of Childhood? Young Children and Technology in the Home

We describe an 18-month empirical investigation of three- and four-year-old children's uses of technology at home, based on a survey of 346 families and 24 case studies. The findings are reported in the context of social commentators' anxieties about the ways in which childhood is being transformed by technology. Although we report evidence of some parental disquiet about the role of technology in children's lives, we illustrate some of the complexities in families' attitudes to, and uses of, technology and conclude that it is not perceived by parents to be the threat to modern childhood that is claimed.     

WEB PAGES, AUTHORS AND AUDIENCES: The meaning of a mouse click

One popular framework for analysing web pages has been to think of them as identity performances on the part of the author. This framework opens up possibilities for analysis of the ways in which identity performances are composed. The personal web pages to which this perspective is most immediately applicable, are, however, now only a small proportion of the overall amount of information available on the World Wide Web. It would be possible, by extension, to analyse institutional web pages as performances of the institutional identity. It is the contention of this paper that to do so is to miss out on some important aspects of web page design: namely that the production of a web page involves understandings not only of the audience for the page but also of the capacities of the technology. In addition, web page production has to become a socially meaningful act for the individual web page developer and the institution concerned. It is, therefore, argued that the analysis of web pages can usefully learn from media studies and the sociology of technology in this respect. An interview-based study of the developers of web pages for the service departments of a UK university is described. The ideas of audience which the authors use are far from homogeneous: they include an institutional offline audience for the page, a pre-existing imagined audience, developers themselves as audience, and the technology of the browser as a stand-in audience. The audience and the capacities of the technology are developed in context through the practices of designers.