Minority ethnic groups and higher education in Britain: Questions of access and equity

The role of higher education in Britain is in transition as the system expands to educate an ever‐growing proportion of the nation's eighteen‐year‐olds. In the past it could have been argued that one of its main functions was to reproduce the class which would direct the country in the political, judicial, industrial, commercial and educational spheres. Now, succesful completion of a first degree will be unlikely in itself to guarantee access to the ruling élites. This paper considers questions of access and equity within British higher education, and focuses, in particular, on how young people from the minority groups constituted by recent immigration to Britain fare within the system.     

Fundamentals of Theory and Practice Revisited; The Reality of Voices: ‘Auditory Hallucinations’

This paper describes some recent developments in approaches to voice‐hearing and relates them to contemporary ideas about psychosis and therapy. The author looks at the growing body of work on cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis. She examines the similarities and differences between these approaches and those of innovators like Marius Romme and Sandra Escher, Philip Thomas, Michael White and the Hearing Voices Network. The author describes some influences upon her own systemic practice with clients diagnosed with schizophrenia, in a Community Mental Health Team in Wales.     

Safety training: An overview of current needs

This article considers the changing nature of the demands and pressures faced by today's training practitioner. It emphasizes that safety is no longer a matter of 'tin hats, safety guards and first aid boxes', and explores the problems created by new legislation and rapidly changing technology. It also points up the skills required by the safety practitioner in effectively dealing with his/her organization, and the constraints placed on them by social and economic factors. The article reviews the training implications of this developing scenario.     

MULTI-LEVEL VULNERABILITY OF ADOLESCENT MARRIAGES: AN ECO-SYSTEM MODEL FOR CLINICAL ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION

This paper utilizes the Transitionally Unintegrated-Externally Open family system type derived from Wertheim (1973,1975) to address the multiple factors that may enhance or reduce the vulnerability of the adolescent marriage. Facilitating and constraining factors on the development of marital system autonomy and competence are identified at the individual, marital, familial and extra-familial levels. Guidelines for clinical assessment and intervention are presented.     

Social Advocacy for Equal Marriage: The Politics of "Rights" and the Psychology of "Mental Health"

Using the contemporary issue of equal access to marriage for same-sex couples as a case study, we examine two distinctive frameworks within which social advocacy may be pursued. We argue that when we speak as psychologists, we use a discourse of mental health; when we speak as social activists, we use a discourse of human rights and justice. Although these two frameworks may converge in supporting equal access to marriage, they represent radically different ways of understanding inequality and advocating for social change. A discourse of mental health focuses on psychological damage or deficit (caused, for example, by the social exclusion of particular groups or individuals. A discourse of rights asserts universally-applicable principles of equality, justice, freedom, and dignity. Further, the paradigmatic framework of psychology as an approach to understanding human beings in the world seems fundamentally antithetical to the conceptual framework of human rights, as a basis for social justice.     

Reconstruction in Aceh: Building whose capacity?

One of the dominant themes in development programmes over thelast fifteen years has been a commitment to capacity building.This paper investigates the forms of capacity building in Aceh,Indonesia, since the devastating earthquake and tsunami thathit the province on 26 December 2004. Despite the preferenceof the Acehnese people for reconstruction processes based onthe principles of community development, local people have beenlargely marginalized by both the Indonesian government and theinternational aid and development agencies. The paper suggestssome of the reasons for this marginalization.     

Maternity services and the discharge process: A review of practice in Queensland

BackgroundEfforts to increase postnatal support available to women and families are hampered by inadequate referral mechanisms. However, the discharge process in maternity services has received little research attention.AimTo review current discharge practices in Queensland, in order to identify mechanisms to minimise fragmentation in the care of women and families as they transition from hospital-based postnatal care to community-based health and other services.MethodsA survey of discharge practices in Queensland hospitals that offer birthing services (N = 55) and content analysis of discharge summary forms used by those hospitals.FindingsFifty-two Queensland birthing hospitals participated in the study. Discharge summaries were most commonly sent to General Practitioners (83%), less commonly to Child and Family Health Nurses (CFHNs; 52%) and rarely to other care providers. Discharge summaries were usually disseminated within one week of discharge (87%), but did not capture any information about care provided by domiciliary services. Almost one-fifth (19%) of hospitals did not seek women's consent for the disclosure of their discharge summary and only 10% of hospitals had processes for women to check accuracy. Significant gaps in the content of discharge summaries were identified, particularly in psychosocial and cultural information, and post-discharge advice. The format of discharge summaries diminished their readability.ConclusionDischarge summaries (format and content) should be consistent, comprehensive and specific to maternity services. Discharge summaries should be generated and disseminated electronically at the time of discharge from the maternity service. Women should review their discharge summaries and direct and consent to its dissemination.     

Managing sexually abused and/or abusing children in substitute care

This paper reports on research on the characteristics, management and therapeutic treatment of sexually abused and/or abusing children in substitute care. Of the 40 sexually abused and/or abusing young people aged 10 or over in the interview sample, two‐thirds showed sexual behaviours in the placement studied but one‐third did not. The range of sexual behaviours shown by the young people is described. Analysis of the findings shows that four key components of effective management are supervision, adequate sex education, modification of inappropriate sexual behaviour and therapeutic attention to the needs that underlie such behaviour. Supervision includes planning for safe care before placement, preparing other children in the setting, teaching young people how to keep themselves safe when out on their own, and careful monitoring of contact with birth family members. The need for a proactive approach to sex education is stressed. Effective management approaches to masturbation, sexualized behaviour and sexually abusing behaviour are discussed but the processes of denial and minimization of sexual abuse and the development of high thresholds for action when looked after children are abused or at risk are shown to present obstacles to effective care. Finally, the importance of addressing children's deeper needs is emphasized, including the importance of regular review of their need for counselling. At the end of the article two case examples from the study are given.