Using a community-created multisite evaluation to promote evaluation use across a sector

Multisite evaluation has been cited as a strategy for building knowledge about a program's success and enhancing evaluation capacity and evaluation use. Even so, the extent to which data from these efforts are made available to individual project participants varies. This article describes a community-created multisite evaluation that was designed to overcome this limitation. Based on the negotiated centralized evaluation model and implemented within the context of a community of practice, the EvalFest community-created multisite evaluation has used shared measures to collect data from 30,000 participants from partner sites across the community over three years. This article describes the design characteristics of the community-created multisite approach, and presents results related to partners’ evaluation use that demonstrate the early success of this method. We conclude by considering how this strategy might be applied to other sectors.     

Troubling Discourses of Poverty in Early Childhood in the UK

Poverty in early childhood is pervasive, affecting every aspect of children’s lives. Under current government policies child poverty in the UK is predicted to rise to 40 per cent by 2022. Dominant discourses of poverty have historically focussed on an over‐arching discourse of moral responsibility, essentially relating to notions of deserving and underserving poor. This paper examines how government policy continues to significantly impact on young children and families on low incomes in early childhood and how stigmatised discourses about welfare, work are pervasive. It is argued that discourses of redistribution and children’s rights deserve greater recognition if poverty is to be addressed.     

Will the ASA's Efforts to Improve Statistical Practice be Successful? Some Evidence to the Contrary

ABSTRACT

Recent efforts by the American Statistical Association to improve statistical practice, especially in countering the misuse and abuse of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and p-values, are to be welcomed. But will they be successful? The present study offers compelling evidence that this will be an extraordinarily difficult task. Dramatic citation-count data on 25 articles and books severely critical of NHST's negative impact on good science, underlining that this issue was/is well known, did nothing to stem its usage over the period 1960–2007. On the contrary, employment of NHST increased during this time. To be successful in this endeavor, as well as restoring the relevance of the statistics profession to the scientific community in the 21st century, the ASA must be prepared to dispense detailed advice. This includes specifying those situations, if they can be identified, in which the p-value plays a clearly valuable role in data analysis and interpretation. The ASA might also consider a statement that recommends abandoning the use of p-values.     

Open Dialogue: Frequently Asked Questions

Open Dialogue is an approach to working with people and their families experiencing psychosocial distress. Interest in Open Dialogue in Australia has been growing recently, raising questions about its adaption and implementation to local contexts. This article is an attempt to answer some of the frequently asked questions we have encountered in training and discussions about Open Dialogue. We attempt to provide responses to questions of how Open Dialogue is different to what is done already, how it fits with current approaches, how you know if you are doing it, whether it is passive or just about doing reflections, issues about including the social network, and concerns about the evidence base. This article aims to present a variety of viewpoints in relation to these questions and to hopefully further discussions on how Open Dialogue can be implemented and adapted to Australian health care and social care contexts.     

A framework to study strategizing activities at the field level: The example of CSR rating agencies

This paper responds to recent calls to bridge strategy and organization research by combining Strategy-as-Practice and Neo-Institutional Theory through re-theorizing the notion of strategic actor. We problematize the notion of strategic actor at the field level, and rely on insights from management and organization studies and sociology to advance a theoretical framework that conceptualizes organizations as social actors at the field level. We demonstrate our theoretical framework by drawing on corporate social responsibility rating agencies. We see corporate social responsibility rating agencies as supra-individual, social actors that are predisposed to assume an active role in defining and revisiting structural parameters within the society through their purposeful, meaningful actions and interactions. Our main contribution is to the development of the Strategy-as-Practice literature, achieved by re-theorizing the notion of strategic actor at the field level. This contribution responds to the micro-isolationism critique, and proposes a new focus for Strategy-as Practice research.     

Linking family engagement with a rights perspective: macro factors influencing practice

While child welfare practitioners in many countries are struggling to develop methods of effective family engagement, they operate within different national and cultural contexts that influence, both positively and negatively, the ability to engage with families. Increasingly, international comparisons are necessary to further understanding of the development of social work practice. This is particularly necessary because most countries utilize international frameworks (such as the United National Convention on the Rights of the Child) to provide guidance in the development of policies, programs, and interventions. Each country (and locality) struggles to advance practice to be more effective and humane. Our paper offers a comparative analysis focused on family-oriented and rights-based frameworks of different countries. Based on a review of current national policies and a review of the literature regarding family-based practices, we examine similarities and differences among four countries: the United Kingdom, Sweden, the United States, and South Korea. These countries were selected because they have some similarities (advanced industrialized democracies, professional social work, and formal child protection systems) but have some differences in their social welfare systems (policies, specific practices, and socio-cultural context). These differences can be utilized to advance understanding regarding the promise and potential for family engagement strategies. We then discuss the utility of this comparison for theory-building in the arena of child-care practice and conclude by identifying the challenges and limitations of this work.     

Social work and hospitality: An oral history of Edith Stolzenberg

ABSTRACT

Edith Richman Stolzenberg (1913–2004) was the first woman to be hired as a social worker in Hartford Public High School in Hartford, Connecticut. In a career that spanned 60 years and much of 20th-century social welfare history, she was motivated by the social justice tradition of her Jewish upbringing and the religious value of hospitality to advocate for children and families. As we enter a harsh new era for social services, this oral history explores the radical possibilities for integrating social work goals and religious values.     

司法实践中个人信息的保护模式及其反思——以隐私权的转型为视角

在我国司法实践中,司法机关对公民个人信息的保护持能动的态度,采取将个人信息附属于隐私权的保护方式。然而伴随着隐私权的现代性转向,司法实践中个人信息的附属保护模式却遭遇了困境。无论从权利配置还是从个人信息保护机构的运作来看,个案裁决的救济方式都无法建构完整的个人信息保护框架。通过创设以私权为核心的个人信息保护法,实现对私人信息在收录、使用、保存和管理等阶段的有效规制,并形成良性的运作机制,无疑是我国个人信息保护的应然路径。     

哲学､哲学研究及其与政治的关联——兼论《第179号“科伦日报”社论》的当代意义

《第179号“科伦日报”社论》中,马克思关于哲学的本质是理论与实践的高度统一、哲学研究是求真、哲学必然要介入社会政治等问题的看法,既是马克思在整个《莱茵报》时期的思想基础,是破解马克思当时碰到的“三件难事”的发生及其往后的思想转变的钥匙;也是马克思哲学的本质特点,有助于理解和把握马克思主义的真精神及作为“实证科学”的历史唯物主义的本性.它对于我们当前的马克思主义研究在研究立场和方式上亦有重要启示意义.因此,该社论不能被简单当成马克思思想过渡时期的作品,而应引起学界的应有重视.