Trauma, coping resources, and family functioning in emergency services personnel: A comparative study

In this study a sample of male, shift-working, operational ambulance officers were compared with a group of male shift-workers from a range of occupations in which exposure to traumatic events was not inherent in the role ( N = 71). Three dimensions of family functioning were examined: intimacy, conflict, and parenting styles, with respect to occupational type (i.e. work-related exposure to trauma) and accounting for personal resources (coping). Personal resources were found to have a significant impact on the dimensions of family functioning. Furthermore, differences emerged in the pattern of coping between the two groups. Ambulance officers demonstrated a more varied repertoire of personal resources than the control group. Social support was found to be the sole predictor of intimacy and conflict levels in the control sample. However, in the ambulance group social support was predictive of intimacy levels, rational-cognitive strategies were predictive of conflict levels, and self-care, social support, and rational-cognitive strategies were all significantly correlated with the three dimensions of family functioning.     

Religion and Giving in Australia

This article draws on a household survey of giving and volunteering undertaken as part of the Giving Australia project to explore the relationship between religion and the giving behaviour of adult Australians. We find that people who identify themselves as having a religion are more likely to give and to give more on average than people who do not but that this relationship is produced by a subset of this group; namely, people who regularly attend religious services. Indeed, the likelihood of giving and average amounts given by givers over a year increase with levels of attendance at religious services. The relationship holds even after allowing for other factors that affect the likelihood of a person giving and the amount given. It also holds for giving to nonreligious causes (ie when giving to religion is omitted). However, when we also omit giving to charities and look at giving to civic causes alone we find that the frequency of attendance at religious services has an ambiguous relationship with giving. A suggestion in overseas literature that it is participation in religious groups, rather than attendance at religious services that is associated with giving is not supported.     

What Works in Strategic Partnerships for Children: a Research Review

Strategic partnerships have a key role to play in delivering the government's ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda. There is a developing body of research and other evidence and practice‐informed literature about what works in relation to partnership working. Drawing on a research review commissioned by Barnardos on strategic partnership working for children, this study summarises research findings from a number of sectors relating to the development, delivery and review of effective partnerships. Although there is widespread consensus within the research on the factors contributing to effective partnership processes, there is, currently, relatively little evidence that partnerships lead to positive outcomes for children and young people. © 2006 The Author(s). Journal compilation © National Children's Bureau.     

Taking a risk and playing it safe: the use of actors in interagency child protection training

Interagency training in child protection is an important part of engaging professionals in a common approach to their collective responsibility for safeguarding children. Training is a key method for empowering professionals to carry out their complex role in child protection with appropriate knowledge, skills and confidence. In Buckinghamshire, experiential learning involving actors has met with some success as part of the interagency child protection training programme. The following paper proposes the argument for using actors, describes how this is done and evaluates its effectiveness for participants, trainers and actors. It is suggested that this method has ample rewards if properly planned, particularly for practitioners in lessons for practice. A close working relationship must be developed between actors and trainers. Scenarios that seem real can be portrayed and skills can then be practised in the knowledge that no one is really being harmed but valuable lessons for real‐life situations can be learned. A central aspect is learning together in a supportive environment away from a blame culture. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiple Public Service Performance Indicators: Toward an Integrated Statistical Approach

Public service organizations usually produce multiple outputs,measured on different scales, giving rise to a suite of performanceindicators. The traditional approach to statistical analysisof organizational performance has been to develop a separateregression model for each performance indicator. This piecemealapproach, the article argues, may discard valuable information,as it ignores potentially important relationships between individualperformance measures. We therefore propose modeling an organization'sperformance measures simultaneously, using the methods of seeminglyunrelated regressions. The approach implicitly introduces alatent organizational variable into the regressions and maytherefore economize on the need to assemble explicit measuresof organizational characteristics. The method is illustratedusing an example from English public hospitals.     

A scientist's viewpoint on promoting effective use of experimental design: Ten things a scientist wants to know about experimental design

This paper tackles the practical application of statistical tools. Chemical development is a rich area for collaboration between statisticians and chemists, but most statisticians encounter difficulties in promoting the tools to this client group. This paper, presented from a chemist's perspective, is intended to help bridge the gap between the two professions. The paper explores differences in uptake and attitudes towards adopting these techniques and suggests what has hindered or helped the process of effective application of experimental design. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cost containment in health care: a model for management research.

Cost containment is a dominant problem in the health care field, but it has not been addressed from a comprehensive management perspective. To fill this gap, we have developed an inclusive model of the cost containment process. The model has implications for management research in several areas: cost containment baselines, incentive systems, organization structures, cost/quality trade-offs, and cost containment constraints.