Child care practice innovations: using a model of change to develop training strategies

Modernizing health and social services is a major part of the current government agenda in England. As a consequence of this agenda, social workers and their managers are faced with new initiatives designed to increase the effectiveness of social services. Managers and trainers frequently find themselves in a difficult position; they are expected to introduce innovations to a workforce who can feel overwhelmed by the degree and pace of change, and as a consequence some workers can be hostile or resistant to learning about, and working with, new initiatives. This paper describes ways in which a theoretical model of change can be used to analyse likely workforce responses to policy and practice innovations. Based on this analysis, consideration is given to the implications of these responses for training and staff development. The application of the model to the design and delivery of a training strategy is explored: the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families (Department of Health, Department for Education and Employment and The Home Office, 2000) is used as a case example. (This framework is new assessment guidance issued by the Department of Health for use in England.) The paper describes ways in which the model can assist educators promote effective learning and support practitioners and their managers through major change. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A semi-parametric method for transforming data to normality

A non-parametric transformation function is introduced to transform data to any continuous distribution. When transformation of data to normality is desired, the use of a suitable parametric pre-transformation function improves the performance of the proposed non-parametric transformation function. The resulting semi-parametric transformation function is shown empirically, via a Monte Carlo study, to perform at least as well as any parametric transformation currently available in the literature.     

Service user experience of participation in child welfare case management

Child welfare case management systems were designed, in part, to standardize participatory practices for both young people and their parents. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of Australian service users' experiences of participation when using the case management systems, Looking After Children and Supporting Children and Responding to Families. Findings indicate that the majority of service users reported positive experiences of participating in the use of these systems. However, participatory relations were often slow to develop and frequently involved conflict. Some service users used their power to control the flow and accuracy of information, or resisted workers in other ways. Some children and young people were excluded from the opportunity to participate because the systems did not have a ‘text‐based’ format to ‘ensure’ that this process occurred. These findings indicate that case management systems did not result in relationships which consistently informed the intervention in a way that the systems' authors had envisaged. Service users did not necessarily take up the openings offered to them and workers did not necessarily comply with the systems' obligations. The findings cause us to question the assumptions that power can be bestowed or withdrawn, in the way suggested by these case management systems.     

Does Communicating (Flood) Risk Affect (Flood) Risk Perceptions? Results of a Quasi‐Experimental Study

People's risk perceptions are generally regarded as an important determinant of their decisions to adjust to natural hazards. However, few studies have evaluated how risk communication programs affect these risk perceptions. This study evaluates the effects of a small-scale flood risk communication program in the Netherlands, consisting of workshops and focus group discussions. The effects on the workshop participants' ( n  = 24) and focus group participants' ( n  = 16) flood risk perceptions were evaluated in a pretest-posttest control group ( n  = 40) design that focused on two mechanisms of attitude change—direct personal experience and attitude polarization. We expected that (H1) workshop participants would show greater shifts in their flood risk perceptions compared with control group participants and that (H2) focus groups would rather produce the conditions for attitude polarization (shifts toward more extreme attitudinal positions after group discussion). However, the results provide only modest support for these hypotheses, perhaps because of a mismatch between the sessions' contents and the risk perception measures. An important contribution of this study is that it examined risk perception data by both conventional tests of the mean differences and tests for attitude polarization. Moreover, the possibility that attitude polarization could cause people to confirm their preexisting (hazard) beliefs could have important implications for risk communication.     

The intercultural sensitivity of secondary teachers in Hong Kong: a comparative study with implications for professional development

Teacher education programs and teachers’ own lives in the relatively homogeneous communities of the past have hardly equipped them to assist their students to become interculturally sensitive, global citizens. This study compares the levels of intercultural sensitivity of secondary school teachers in four Hong Kong schools using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Findings indicate unique IDI profiles at each of the four schools in the study and a wide range of IDI scores at each school. Implications of the findings provide the basis for recommendations for the professional development of teachers in these schools.     

On the uth geometric conditional quantile

Motivated by Chaudhuri's work [1996. On a geometric notion of quantiles for multivariate data. J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 91, 862–872] on unconditional geometric quantiles, we explore the asymptotic properties of sample geometric conditional quantiles, defined through kernel functions, in high-dimensional spaces. We establish a Bahadur-type linear representation for the geometric conditional quantile estimator and obtain the convergence rate for the corresponding remainder term. From this, asymptotic normality including bias on the estimated geometric conditional quantile is derived. Based on these results, we propose confidence ellipsoids for multivariate conditional quantiles. The methodology is illustrated via data analysis and a Monte Carlo study.     

Economic Pressure, Maternal Depression, and Child Adjustment in Latino Families: An Exploratory Study

The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of poverty and economic pressure upon the adjustment of mothers and children in immigrant Latino families. Participants included 56 first generation Latina mothers who completed questionnaires addressing economic difficulties, depression, social support, and behavior problems exhibited by their children (30 boys, 26 girls) who ranged in ages from 4 to 13. Results indicate that maternal depression mediates the relationship between maternal economic pressure and child adjustment. Social support was found to further moderate the relationship between maternal depression and child internalizing problems. Gender differences indicated that relations were stronger among mothers of boys than mothers of girls.     

Communes of elderly people: Between independence and colonization

While it is generally assumed that elderly people want to live alone, at least as long as they are physically able, this is not always the case. Not only has the rapid growth of communes of elderly people in the Netherlands attracted international attention, it has also become a social policy issue. The government and institutional care providers tend to see them as informal homes for the aged, whereas the elderly who are involved in this see the communes as positive alternatives to traditional ideas on aging. In a theoretical interpretation it is shown that both the communes and the different reactions to them represent in a nutshell important developments concerning aging and the position of the aged in Western society, as well as major trends in the modernization process.     

Towards a philosophy of interdisciplinarity

This paper aims to contribute to the expanding discourse on inter- and transdisciplinarity. Referring to well-established distinctions in philosophy of science, the paper argues in favor of a plurality of four different dimensions: Interdisciplinarity with regard to (a) objects (“ontology”), (b) knowledge/theories (epistemology), (c) methods/practices (methodology), and further, (d) problem perception/problem solving. Different philosophical thought traditions can be related to these distinguishable meanings. The philosophical framework of the four different dimensions will be illustrated by some of the most popular examples of research programs that are labeled “interdisciplinary”: nanoresearch/nanoscience/nanotechnology, complex systems theory/chaos theory, biomimicry/bionics, and technology assessment/sustainability research. Thus, a minimal philosophy of science is required to understand and foster inter- and transdisciplinarity.