Dog-park soils: Concentration and distribution of urine-borne constituents

Off-leash dog parks are very popular locations that allow pets to freely exercise and eliminate wastes in a controlled environment. Although dog park rules require that solid waste be removed by the pet’s owner, urine-borne constituents in dog-park soils have received little attention. This study focused on the soils within two small-dog, off-leash dog parks in Fargo, North Dakota (USA) with the objective to better understand the concentration and distribution of extractable NH₄-N, NO₃-N, PO₄, soluble salts, and pH values in surface soils (0–10 cm) within these two dog parks. Concentrations of soil variables varied widely within each park and were distributed as both gradient and ‘hot-spots.’ The geospatial model types for each soil parameter were more dependent on park than on the constituents themselves. Flow accumulation was correlated with both nitrate-N and P but due to the lack of topography at these parks the flow accumulation was not helpful in describing most of the soil constituents. The results from this project indicate that location of parks, daily/annual use of parks, flow accumulation, and location of park entries may all influence the concentration and distribution of urine-borne constituents.     

Beyond “Whose reality counts?” New methods we now need? 1

Activities called PRA, and its equivalents in other languages, have evolved from a confluence, sharing and adaptation of methodologies, ^{2 2} In this paper methodology refers to a system of principles and methods. Method refers to a way of doing something. PAR, agro-ecosystem analysis, and PRA are examples of methodologies. Semi-structured interviews, transects and matrix scoring are examples of methods. methods and participatory traditions. Synergies have generated new things to do and new ways to do them, including visual forms of analysis. A conjunction of conditions has produced an explosion of activities and applications, and spread to many countries and organisations - NGOs, Government departments, and even universities, and raised questions of ethics and of sharing methodologies.

Coming from our different traditions, should we seek places of convergence and spring-boards for action? If so, could the concept of responsible wellbeing, and the question “Whose reality counts?” provide us with common ground? They fit with eclectic pluralism, a celebration of diversity, and democratic reversals of dominance. They raise shared issues of how we teach, learn, and construct realities, of dominant institutions and their cultures, and of personal power. They point towards responsible wellbeing for “uppers” being sought in empowering and privileging the realities of “lowers”.

Do we now have a phenomenal opportunity? We have participatory methodologies which are powerful, popular and self-spreading. We have new space opened up by government and donor agency policies for participation and poverty reduction. Rapid spread has brought much bad practice. At the same time, PRA and other participatory methodologies have also shown a potential to contribute to changes at levels which are policy-related, institutional and personal.

To make the most of these opportunities invites sharing methods and experience between different traditions, and inventing new methods. Five methodological challenges now (May 1997) stand out as points of leverage. These are how better to:

1. enable the realities and priorities of poor and marginalised people to be expressed and communicated to policy-makers

2. enable trainers to facilitate attitude and behaviour change

3. make normal bureaucracies more participatory

4. build self-improvement into the spread of participatory methodologies

5. enable people with power to find fulfilment in disempowering themselves

Could it be that effective repertoires for these could lead to much good change? Could convergences and sharings of experiences and approaches among us contribute to such repertoires? Could we between us seize these opportunities in the new spaces which are opening up?     

Regrounding Youth Cultural Theory (in Post‐Socialist Youth Cultural Practice)

This article considers how the study of youth cultural practice in Eastern Europe informs theoretical and empirical debate about youth culture. It charts the trajectory of academic writing on East European youth cultures and suggests the region’s state socialist past (which made social inequalities relatively insignificant at a time when, elsewhere, youth cultural studies were dominated by class‐based readings) combined with the explosion of inequality in the post‐socialist period (by which time class‐resistant post‐subcultural theories led anglophone academic discussion), makes it an interesting vantage point from which to reconsider academic paradigms. Drawing on empirical examples of youth cultural practice in (post)‐socialist Eastern Europe, it argues for a perspective that integrates structural and cultural factors shaping young people’s lives. It suggests moving forward western theoretical debates – often stymied in arguments over nomenclature (‘subculture’, ‘postsubculture’, ‘neo‐tribe’) – by shifting the focus of study from ‘form’ (‘subculture’ etc.) to ‘substance’ (concrete cultural practices) and attending to everyday communicative, musical, sporting, educational, informal economy, and territorial practices. Since such practices are embedded in the ‘whole’ rather than ‘subcultural’ lives of young people, this renders visible how cultural practices are enabled and constrained by the same social divisions and inequalities that structure society at large.     

Designing Organisational Management Frameworks to Empower Episodic Volunteering

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Volunteers are a critical operational resource for not-for-profit organisations in the health and welfare sector. However,...     

Cholera—a step too Farr

In the mid-19th century epidemics of cholera presented a new threat to the population. In the face of conflicting theories as to how the disease was spread, William Farr came up with an interesting theory. Hilary Short and Amanda Chetwynd have investigated.     

Cancer and Health Policy: The Postcode Lottery of Care

Cancer is a major cause of death and ill health, accounting for roughly one in four deaths in the UK. Concern with cancer services was expressed in the 1990s when it was reported that the quality of cancer care was patchy and variable, and clinical outcomes varied in different parts of the country. The Calman‐Hine Report (1995) produced specific recommendations for the reorganizing and reconfiguring of cancer services, but although the Conservative government, which commissioned the report, endorsed its suggestions no additional funding was provided to implement the proposed changes, and consequently there remained variations in provision across geographical areas and between patients with different cancer types. However, since 1997 the Labour government has targeted cancer, appointing a Cancer Tsar, announcing a package of measures to “fight the war against cancer”, including the publication of a National Cancer Plan (2000 ) and with Tony Blair pledging to end the postcode lottery for cancer treatment. This paper explores the concept of the “postcode lottery of cancer care”, why it exists and whether measures taken since the Calman‐Hine Report and the Cancer Plan will address it.     

Domestic violence and child abuse: developing sensitive policies and guidance

Domestic violence is everywhere and nowhere. No statutory organization or health service has work with either perpetrators or survivors of domestic violence (usually women and children) as the primary focus of their service, yet all agencies will have very significant numbers among their clients/service users. It is therefore crucial that the policy framework is developed both within and between agencies to address the need, and scope, of intervention in this area and particularly the impact on children. Currently, significant steps have been taken by some agencies in the UK to address this previously neglected issue, though the developments are patchy. This paper draws on a UK‐wide research study which mapped the extent and range of service provision for families where there is domestic violence and also developed a framework of good practice indicators for provision in this area. This article examines one of the indicators of good practice arising from the research—that of policy development—within social service departments and within the multi‐agency arena. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recognizing Social Work

There has been little interest until recently in the questionof whether social work has the characteristics of an academicdiscipline. This article offers a synopsis of issues arisingfrom a review of social work and social care research fundedthrough the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). Followinga brief scene setting, the first main section of the articlegives a synopsis of the social work and social care community’sexperience and judgements regarding their engagement with theresearch council. In the second part of the article, we reviewrelevant policies, structures and trends from an ESRC and socialscience perspective. We focus on the development of researchprogrammes, followed by an outline of the delivery and implementationof programmes. In the final section, we review the issues, themesand directions that emerged from the project. These includejudgements of research relevance, research users, research utilization,the social work contribution to the development of researchmethods, inter-disciplinary research, the question of whetherthere are distinctive attributes of social work research, researchcapacity, career building, priority setting, and the outcomesof social work funding bids. We also reflect on the developmentand delivery of research programmes, and the implications ofthe invisibility of social work research within the ESRC. Disciplineswithin universities are not fixed and abiding realities. ‘Recognizing’social work is a dynamic, socially negotiated process, shapedby the construction and ordering of knowledge claims withinsocial work and social science communities, and reflecting powerdifferentials that are mediated through structural mechanismsthat tend to exclude new ‘claimants’ such as socialwork. We include a number of recommendations, and suggest waysin which the issues may have relevance beyond the UK.     

Reversing "the inadvertent nationalization of fatherhood": The British Child Support Act 1991 and its consequences for men, women and children

During the 1980s, with the growth in divorce, remarriage and births outside marriage, men's responsibilities for children and their mothers have been reviewed. In Great Britain, the Child Support Act 1991, following a decade in which the number of lone parents increased by 50 per cent and the proportion claiming state benefit increased from one-half to two-thirds, is attempting to shift lone mothers from dependence on the State to dependence on the biological father of their children. This has raised controversial issues concerning women's and children's claims on the State as citizens in their own rights; the balance between a man's private duty to maintain and provide care for children (by maintaining their mother) and his public duty to reimburse the State for doing so; and the legitimacy of trade-offs between claims on family "property" and claims to maintenance previously exercised in the courts. The individualistic system of English family law, in contrast to the law in Scotland and continental Europe, is part of the context within which these changes are taking place. So, too, is the fall in economic activity rates of lone mothers, which are among the lowest in the European Union.