Implementing the Power to Kids programme in home-based (foster) care: Identifying the SAFETY approach

Sexual abuse and dating violence are chronic problems for children and young people in out-of-home care. This study explored the impact of a prevention and response programme Power to Kids, which targets harmful sexual behaviour (HSB), child sexual exploitation (CSE) and dating violence (DV) for children and young people in home-based (foster) care. Twenty-eight case managers, 25 foster carers and 13 children and young people participated in a mixed methods study in Victoria, Australia informed by the research question: How does the Power to Kids programme impact the sexual health and safety of children and young people in home-based (foster) care? The data analysis revealed a SAFETY approach whereby the sexual health and safety knowledge of carers and case managers was enhanced, and carers were given permission to have Brave Conversations with children and young people, who could then apply the new knowledge to their lives. Case managers were upskilled in identifying indicators of sexual abuse and empowered to escalate stalled therapeutic and disruption practice when children and young people were identified as experiencing HSB, CSE or DV.     

Calibration of FISK, an Invasiveness Screening Tool for Nonnative Freshwater Fishes

Adapted from the weed risk assessment (WRA) of Pheloung, Williams, and Halloy, the fish invasiveness scoring kit (FISK) was proposed as a screening tool for freshwater fishes. This article describes improvements to FISK, in particular the incorporation of confidence (certainty/uncertainty) ranking of the assessors' responses, and reports on the calibration of the score system, specifically: determination of most appropriate score thresholds for classifying nonnative species into low-, medium-, and high-risk categories, assessment of the patterns of assessors' confidences in their responses in the FISK assessments. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, FISK was demonstrated to distinguish accurately (and with statistical confidence) between potentially invasive and noninvasive species of nonnative fishes, with the statistically appropriate threshold score for high-risk species scores being ≥19. Within the group of species classed as high risk using this new threshold, a "higher risk" category could be visually identified, at present consisting of two species (topmouth gudgeon Pseudorasbora parva and gibel carp Carassius gibelio ). FISK represents a useful and viable tool to aid decision- and policymakers in assessing and classifying freshwater fishes according to their potential invasiveness.     

The photo‐survey research method: capturing life in the city

Recent promotion of city centre living within UK policy has led to a commensurate interest in city centre conditions and the opinions and experiences of the people who live there. An apposite, straightforward method to capture city centre residents' experiences and views is described in this article. We successfully combined a novel, under‐utilized visual technique (self‐directed photography) with qualitative methods (log‐sheets and interviews) in the form of a ‘photo‐survey’. A background to visual methodologies is presented in this article, alongside a critique of using the photo‐survey with 84 city centre residents to investigate environmental conditions and perceptions within three of the UK's major cities. The method provided a rich, detailed set of data, but also brought a number of noticeable benefits to the data collection process. The photo‐survey not only effectively captured and documented life in the city but also acted as an ‘agent for change’, evoking thoughts and feelings which ultimately encouraged participants to reflect on their existing perceptions and urban experiences. The study also raises some important considerations for future work undertaken with this method and with using photographs as a set of data, and proposes techniques for minimising potential problems.     

Social work through collaborative autoethnography

This paper discusses a research project involving five MA Social Work Students and one member of Social Work Academic Staff. Using narrative and taking a collaborative autoethnographical approach, this project highlights some of the feelings that students articulated following a 70-day placement experience. Findings include anxiety, powerlessness and frustration, together with growing confidence, recognition of their skills and a deeper understanding of the role of ‘self’ in social work. Raising issues of preparedness for practice placement, this paper has implications for both social work practice and social work education. Autoethnography (AE) is both a method of carrying out research and a methodology, specifically a qualitative methodology linked to ethnography and narrative inquiry. AE results in highly personalized narrative accounts of the researcher’s engagement with specific sociocultural contexts in the pursuit of knowing more about a phenomenon. Applying such a methodology to explore collaboratively issues of student lived experience of placement is a new and innovative use of this method.     

The personalisation agenda: the case of the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme

As part of the international trend towards personalisation, in 2013 Australia launched a major disability scheme aiming to give participants greater choice and control over services. The scheme aims to cover a wide diversity of disabilities, services and significant geographical area – resulting in a highly complex system of local overlapping markets. At four years into implementation a range of challenges have emerged. In this paper we firstly describe the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme, then explore a range of implementation challenges it currently faces as a large-scale personalisation scheme. Based on these experiences we pose a range of questions for similar schemes internationally.     

Conditional Gaussian mixture modelling for dietary pattern analysis

Summary.  Free-living individuals have multifaceted diets and consume foods in numerous combinations. In epidemiological studies it is desirable to characterize individual diets not only in terms of the quantity of individual dietary components but also in terms of dietary patterns. We describe the conditional Gaussian mixture model for dietary pattern analysis and show how it can be adapted to take account of important characteristics of self-reported dietary data. We illustrate this approach with an analysis of the 2000–2001 National Diet and Nutrition Survey of adults. The results strongly favoured a mixture model solution allowing clusters to vary in shape and size, over the standard approach that has been used previously to find dietary patterns.