Investigating Unexpected Child Deaths: An Audit of the New Joint Agency Approach

• The joint agency approach should be used to investigate all unexpected child deaths
• Practitioners should ensure that final case discussions are not unduly delayed so that parents do not have to wait several months for information on the cause of their child's death.
• All bereaved parents should be given the opportunity to have a follow‐up appointment with the paediatrician responsible for managing sudden unexpected death in children.

     

The role of the tutor in social work education: Building an emancipatory tutorial relationship

The role of the social work tutor and tutorial relationship has received little attention over the last decade despite the implications this has had for developing competent practitioners. It is the authors' contention that unless the tutor/tutee relationship is developed within an empowering framework, then it potentially can lead to competence being defined around an administrative and therefore limiting approach to practice. While such an approach may predominate within modern social services this does not mean that it is inevitable or unable to be challenged and changed. This paper considers one approach to developing the tutorial relationship within an empowering framework that uses the processes of the course to empower students to take greater control of their learning and builds a model for their future supervisory relationships in practice.     

Developing an empowering approach to child care teaching

This paper describes the thinking and planning involved in the teaching of a module entitled 'Working with Children, their Families and Carers', on the DipSW programme in the West of Scotland. It outlines the reasons, both educational and professional, behind the approach that was adopted and explains how a combination of problem-based learning and reflective practice enabled students to develop a clearer understanding of their professional competence.     

Exploring Epistemologies: The Debate Continues

ABSTRACT

Stigma is a significant barrier to recovery and full community inclusion for people with mental illnesses. Social work educators can play critical roles in addressing this stigma, yet little is known about their attitudes. Social work educators were surveyed about their general attitudes about people with mental illnesses, attitudes about practice with people with mental illnesses, and attitudes about students with mental illnesses. On average, educators’ general and practice attitudes were not negative. However, respondents did view a student with a mental illness differently from a “typical social work student.” Findings suggest that we, as social work educators, must raise our awareness and address our own attitudes to support students and uphold our social work values.     

Mapping the boundaries of courtship disorder

The courtship disorder hypothesis maintains that voyeurism, exhibitionism, toucheurism‐frotteurism, and the preferential rape pattern are expressions of the same disorder (courtship disorder). Earlier studies had shown that with the exception of the preferential rape pattern these paraphilias co‐occur to a reasonably high degree. The present study (1) demonstrated that the preferential rape pattern co‐occurs with the above reasonably well established expressions of courtship disorder to a higher degree than other main paraphilic activity patterns do and (2) supported the conjecture that in addition to an erotic preference for unfamiliarity of target person‐or‐object (noted by earlier authors), three other paraphilic target‐person or object preferences may be connected with courtship disorder, though they are not at all virtually obligatory as is erotic unfamiliarity. These are choosing children and adults alike as target persons of the paraphilic activities, non‐gender dysphoric transvestism, and fetishism.