Using Resilience to Reconceptualise Child Protection Workforce Capacity

Abstract

Current approaches to managing and supporting staff and addressing turnover in child protection predominantly rely on deficit-based models that focus on limitations, shortcomings, and psychopathology. This article explores an alternative approach, drawing on models of resilience, which is an emerging field linked to trauma and adversity. To date, the concept of resilience has seen limited application to staff and employment issues. In child protection, staff typically face a range of adverse and traumatic experiences that have flow-on implications, creating difficulties for staff recruitment and retention and reduced service quality. This article commences with discussion of the multifactorial influences of the troubled state of contemporary child protection systems on staffing problems. Links between these and difficulties with the predominant deficit models are then considered. The article concludes with a discussion of the relevance and utility of resilience models in developing alternative approaches to child protection staffing issues.     

Negative public attitudes towards gambling: findings from the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey using a new attitude scale

A new 14-item scale of general attitudes towards gambling (the Attitudes Towards Gambling Scale: ATGS) was developed for use in the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey. The development of the scale is described. Based on the responses of a representative sample of 8880 people of 16 years of age or more, evidence is presented of good internal reliability and statistically significant associations with a range of socio-demographic, own and family gambling and lifestyle variables. Overall, and in all sub-groups except the heaviest gamblers, attitudes were found to be negative: more people believed that gambling is foolish and dangerous, and of greater harm than benefit to families, communities and society as a whole, than the reverse. The majority, however, were against prohibition of gambling. Public opinion appears to be out of line with the view of gambling in Britain that lay behind the 2005 Gambling Act. It will be of interest to see whether attitudes change in the forthcoming years. The ATGS is a suitable measure for use in future surveys in the UK and in other English speaking countries.     

Young people leaving care: implementing the children (Leaving Care) Act 2000?

This article presents findings from a large empirical research study which examines the ways in which the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 is being implemented. The evidence presented points to a complex picture of ‘slower running’ and ‘faster running’ leaving care services, modest achievements, ongoing problems, and mixed outcomes. The author argues that compared with previous studies, the increased number of young people leaving care entering post‐16 education, employment and training is a significant development. It is suggested that the overall progress in implementing the Act is slower than might be expected three years after the Act was passed in 2000.     

The 1951–55 conservative government and the racialization of black immigration

‘The problem of colonial immigration has not yet aroused public anxiety, although there was some concern, mainly due to the housing difficulties in a few localities where most of the immigrants were concentrated. On the other hand, if immigration from the colonies, and, for that matter, from India and Pakistan, were allowed to continue unchecked, there was a real danger that over the years there would be a significant change in the racial character of the English people’.     

The Use of Individual and Societal Risk Criteria Within the Dutch Flood Safety Policy—Nationwide Estimates of Societal Risk and Policy Applications

The Dutch government is in the process of revising its flood safety policy. The current safety standards for flood defenses in the Netherlands are largely based on the outcomes of cost‐benefit analyses. Loss of life has not been considered separately in the choice for current standards. This article presents the results of a research project that evaluated the potential roles of two risk metrics, individual and societal risk, to support decision making about new flood safety standards. These risk metrics are already used in the Dutch major hazards policy for the evaluation of risks to the public. Individual risk concerns the annual probability of death of a person. Societal risk concerns the probability of an event with many fatalities. Technical aspects of the use of individual and societal risk metrics in flood risk assessments as well as policy implications are discussed. Preliminary estimates of nationwide levels of societal risk are presented. Societal risk levels appear relatively high in the southwestern part of the country where densely populated dike rings are threatened by a combination of river and coastal floods. It was found that cumulation, the simultaneous flooding of multiple dike rings during a single flood event, has significant impact on the national level of societal risk. Options for the application of the individual and societal risk in the new flood safety policy are presented and discussed.     

Confronting the politics of despair: Toward the reconstruction of progressive social work in a global economy and postmodern age

The emancipatory project of progressive social work as it was developed in the 1970s and early 1980s in Anglo-democracies has been brought into question on two fronts. First, the changing nature of capitalism from a post-war centralised form to a global decentralised form has rendered irrelevant much of the earlier analysis of capitalism which had been used by progressive social workers to develop emancipatory theories and practices at both the personal and political levels. Second, postmodern and poststructural thought have discredited many of the concepts (meta-narratives), ideals (universalisms) and discourses that underpinned the modernist development of progressive social work. This paper represents an attempt to contribute to the reformulation or reconstruction of a progressive form of social work that addresses both these challenges. The following elements of a reconstructed form of progressive social work are presented and discussed: bridging what is positive and liberating in the tradition of progressive social work with a postmodernist deconstruction of its problematic elements to the point where reconstruction is possible; identification of human needs that are universal and transcultural; new social movement theory; a revitalised public sector; anti-oppression as the framework for progressive social work; challenging and resisting the dominant order; and the constructive use of anger.     

EvacuAid: A Probabilistic Model to Determine the Expected Loss of Life for Different Mass Evacuation Strategies During Flood Threats

Evacuation of people in case of a threat is a possible risk management strategy. Evacuation has the potential to save lives, but it can be costly with respect to time, money, and credibility. The consequences of an evacuation strategy depend on a combination of the time available, citizen response, authority response, and capacity of the infrastructure. The literature that discusses evacuations in case of flood risk management focuses, in most cases, only on a best‐case strategy as a preventive evacuation and excludes other possible strategies. This article introduces a probabilistic method, EvacuAid, to determine the benefits of different types of evacuation with regards to loss of life. The method is applied for a case study in the Netherlands for preventive and vertical evacuation due to flood risk. The results illustrate the impact of uncertainties in available time and actual conditions (e.g., the responses of citizens and authorities and the use of infrastructure). It is concluded that preparation for evacuation requires adaptive planning that takes preventive and vertical evacuation into account, based on a risk management approach.