Reflective Supervision for Child Protection Practice – Reaching Beneath the Surface

This paper describes a model of reflective supervision for child protection practice that is informed by psychoanalytic theory. Eileen Munro promotes the idea of depth in practice, referring to the skills and knowledge required to undertake the work. Her reports highlight the importance of supervision to provide a thinking space for practitioners where reflection can take place. This paper will explore the importance of supervision in more depth and describe how psychoanalytic ideas can help us understand the complexities of our work with families, anchoring us to a solid theoretical base and helping to make sense of the maelstrom of feelings that are stirred in us as well as in our colleagues and clients.     

Access to justice for Aboriginal People in the Northern Territory

This article discusses research in the Northern Territory on Aboriginal civil and family law needs. It is based on focus group discussions and interviews with legal services providers and other associated organisations. The article argues that key areas of legal need involve discrimination, housing, child protection, social security, credit/debt and consumer law problems. It further argues that welfare conditionality, particularly as embodied in the NT Intervention and subsequent Stronger Futures policies, has exacerbated the need for legal assistance and advocacy for Aboriginal people.     

你所不知道的普京

尽管他常常高调现身,但其形象依然模糊并难以捉摸。他在克格勃内的身份,他在前东德德累斯顿的工作经历从来都是一个谜,甚至他担任圣彼得堡市长助理时的活动,人们也都知之甚少。直到1996年8月,他到莫斯科赴任,仍有人将他贬损为一个平庸的角色。一名叶利钦时代的高官曾评价他是"一个庸才",是"叶利钦家族"的傀儡,追逐金钱的"克格勃恶棍"。也许所有这一切表象都是不准确的。事情的发展最终证明,他比十几年前几乎所有人所能认识到的那个人更加重要,也更     

Improving Weight of Evidence Approaches to Chemical Evaluations

Federal and other regulatory agencies often use or claim to use a weight of evidence (WoE) approach in chemical evaluation. Their approaches to the use of WoE, however, differ significantly, rely heavily on subjective professional judgment, and merit improvement. We review uses of WoE approaches in key articles in the peer‐reviewed scientific literature, and find significant variations. We find that a hypothesis‐based WoE approach, developed by Lorenz Rhomberg et al., can provide a stronger scientific basis for chemical assessment while improving transparency and preserving the appropriate scope of professional judgment. Their approach, while still evolving, relies on the explicit specification of the hypothesized basis for using the information at hand to infer the ability of an agent to cause human health impacts or, more broadly, affect other endpoints of concern. We describe and endorse such a hypothesis‐based WoE approach to chemical evaluation.     

Evaluating the Quality of Social Work Supervision in UK Children’s Services: Comparing Self-Report and Independent Observations

Understanding how different forms of supervision support good social work practice and improve outcomes for people who use services is nearly impossible without reliable and valid evaluative measures. Yet the question of how best to evaluate the quality of supervision in different contexts is a complicated and as-yet-unsolved challenge. In this study, we observed 12 social work supervisors in a simulated supervision session offering support and guidance to an actor playing the part of an inexperienced social worker facing a casework-related crisis. A team of researchers analyzed these sessions using a customized skills-based coding framework. In addition, 19 social workers completed a questionnaire about their supervision experiences as provided by the same 12 supervisors. According to the coding framework, the supervisors demonstrated relatively modest skill levels, and we found low correlations among different skills. In contrast, according to the questionnaire data, supervisors had relatively high skill levels, and we found high correlations among different skills. The findings imply that although self-report remains the simplest way to evaluate supervision quality, other approaches are possible and may provide a different perspective. However, developing a reliable independent measure of supervision quality remains a noteworthy challenge.     

Need Fulfillment in Polyamorous Relationships

Polyamory is characterized by simultaneous consensual romantic relationships with multiple partners. Polyamory allows individuals to fulfill their relationship needs with multiple romantic partners, yet researchers have not identified how having needs met in one romantic relationship may be related to relationship outcomes in a concurrent relationship. Polyamorous individuals (N=1,093) completed online measures of need fulfillment, relationship satisfaction, and commitment for two concurrent romantic relationships. Participants reported high levels of need fulfillment and satisfaction in both relationships. Need fulfillment with one partner negatively predicted approximately 1% of the variance in relationship satisfaction with the other partner; however, there was no association between need fulfillment with one partner and commitment to the other. Generally, the findings suggest that polyamorous relationships are relatively independent of one another. This study provides initial evidence that polyamory may be a viable and fulfilling alternative way of conducting intimate relationships.     

Leveraging the common and outsourcing the distinct: institutional difference and multinational company identity in emerging economies

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the challenges of outsidership faced by multinational companies (MNCs) accessing emerging economies. The paper departs from popular conceptualisations of culture drawing instead on social identity theory as part of an institutions-based view, to explain how employing a singularities approach can allow the identification of commonalities of Indianness and Australianness that can be leveraged to ameliorate negative socially embedded business norms that pose a challenge to MNC success in emerging economies. This study shows that despite recognised formal (regulatory) and informal (cultural) differences, managers of Australian MNCs operating in India were able to innovatively identify and exploit cultural commonalties/singularities to ease cultural adjustment and mitigate intergroup conflict, allowing them to achieve an innovative institutional fit. The paper discusses how, using this approach, sole-venture MNCs can access many of the benefits provided by collaborative entry modes while preserving MNC identity. We further propose that the singularities approach can provide a valuable starting point to develop culturally appropriate competence training initiatives.     

When difference creates dissonance: understanding the ‘engine’ of intercultural learning in study abroad

Why do some study abroad students improve their intercultural skills, while others revert to less sophisticated ways of making sense of cultural difference? Both intercultural competence theory and transformative learning theory attempt to explain why student intercultural learning occurs, but they only provide partial answers. Building on our previous study assessing intercultural competence in a 2015 field school in India, this article applies the concept of cognitive dissonance to explain the process behind intercultural learning. In the context of study abroad, students experience cognitive dissonance when they encounter cultural differences or similarities that confound previously held expectations about culture. Adapting Maertz, Hassan, and Magnusson’s cognitive dissonance resolution framework, we employ qualitative analysis of students’ written reflections to show how the resolution of cognitive dissonance could act as the ‘engine’ of intercultural learning.     

Poly-victimization and resilience portfolios: Trends in violence research that can enhance the understanding and prevention of elder abuse

ABSTRACT

This literature review assesses the current state of knowledge about elder abuse and mistreatment, focusing on the lack of incorporation of all forms of elder victimization and the benefits of a poly-victimization framework. This review also includes existing knowledge on risk factors and calls for a greater focus on protective factors and a greater inclusion on family and community factors. Future research, prevention, and intervention would benefit from considering the true burden of elder victimization and a greater implementation of strengths-based approaches to programs.