Institutional Shifts In Inter-Municipal Service Delivery

Comparative research on inter-municipal cooperation in eight European countries shows that there is a great variety of institutional arrangements for cooperation across the different countries. Also, these arrangements tend to change over time in terms of the scope of cooperation among partners, their composition and the degree of organizational integration. This article describes and analyzes the variety of and shifts in institutional arrangements for a specific class of inter-municipal cooperation arrangements: those that are set up to provide for the joint delivery of public services. It is argued that specific arrangements are typically the outcomes of interaction between national institutional contexts, environmental factors and local preferences.     

Problem Gambling and the Circumstances Facing Older People

Local gambling venues are an important contemporary context for older people's gambling in many parts of the world typically being more accessible to this segment of the population than traditional, centralised gambling venues, such as casinos. This study, undertaken in South East Queensland, analyses older people's electronic gaming machine (EGM) behaviour and motivations, specifically in the context of licensed social and recreational clubs-a popular local gambling venue in many parts of Australia. The study gathered data via a postal survey of 80 managers of licensed clubs, interviews with Gambling Help services and a survey of 414 people aged 60+ who regularly play EGMs, self-administered on site at local clubs. The analysis undertaken suggests that certain age-related circumstances of older people-such as being without a partner, having a disability that impacts on everyday activities, having a low annual income, and no longer participating in the workforce-are associated with higher overall levels of motivation for playing EGMs and greater reliance on EGMs to meet social, recreational and mental health needs. Over a quarter of the older people surveyed (27%) reported drawing on their savings to fund their EGM gambling. Certain categories of older people, including those who were without a partner and those with a disability, were more likely to report drawing on their savings to fund EGM play and betting more than they could afford to lose, pointing to age-related vulnerabilities older people may experience to the negative impacts of gambling given the greater likelihood of their dependency on smaller, fixed incomes. The explanatory contribution of a range of demographic and motivational variables on problem/moderate risk gambling status was computed via a logistic regression model. Younger age (60-69), male gender, single marital status and being motivated to play EGMs to experience excitement and to win money all emerged as significant predictors in the model.     

Promoting youth purpose: a review of the literature

This article reviews the research literature on teaching and supporting purpose in adolescence and young adulthood. An extensive search revealed that most studies on youth purpose examine psychological correlates and neglect instructional and social supports. School is an effective context for fostering purpose, yet reported approaches for explicitly instructing for purpose are rare after the early 1990s, reflecting a trend away from a language of purpose as a discrete endeavor in education since at least the 1960s. Furthermore, research on the outcomes of early purpose instruction curricula is not present in empirical journal articles. Nevertheless, a concern for fostering youth purpose has not disappeared from education; rather, it is subsumed under approaches that foster more comprehensive positive student outcomes, such as character, civic engagement, and positive youth development. Key curricular approaches to these outcomes are therefore also reviewed and examined for insights into how purpose can be fostered.     

Governance in Regional Development—Between Regulation and Self-regulation

This article examines the relationship between regulation and self-regulation in network governance. The comparative analysis is based on quantitative data collected in regional development networks in the Nordic countries. The theoretical debate, in which this analysis is embedded, focuses on the paradox in the way the relationship between regulation and self-regulation is described in network governance approach; the networks are seen to be self-organising, and yet the steering role of governmental bodies is emphasised. The results indicate that regulation and self-regulation are more than counterforces: they can coexist and affect the operations of the networks simultaneously.     

Grappling with Realities: Policy and Practice in HIV Social Work

In 2012 the NSW HIV Strategy 2012–2015: A New Era was released, with a goal of eradicating Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) by 2020. This new policy, prioritising biomedical treatment, has raised challenges for social work practitioners working in the HIV field. We undertook a research project exploring the implications of the Strategy on social work clients and practice. A questionnaire was sent to 57 HIV social workers and 32 (56.1%) responses were received. Thematic analysis identified five main themes affecting social workers and their clients. These were a new stigma, treatment benefits, the complexity of people's lives, the psychosocial voice, and ethical and professional tensions. We propose that a more holistic HIV strategy including the psychosocial realities that inform HIV transmission, testing and treatment options, and adherence be adopted.     

Doing visual research with school learners in South Africa

This paper, based on a visual study of six urban schools in South Africa, primarily concerns relations between the researcher and those being researched. It opens with an argument for learner participation in research, then describes the study and justifies the methods used. Some methodological aspects are considered, for having primary and secondary school learners in a culturally and linguistically complex context take photographs of their school environment. These are accompanied by a discussion of how they were addressed in the study, sometimes with only partial success.     

Factors influencing mentees' and mentors' learning throughout formal mentoring relationships

A qualitative case study approach was taken to identify what factors were perceived to influence learning for mentees and mentors during a pilot formal mentoring programme, within a West Midlands Healthcare Trust. Both sides of five dyads were interviewed at regular intervals over a 17-month period (October 2009 to February 2011). The results from this longitudinal study show how learning was expected and achieved by both parties, over time. Factors influencing learning were categorized and later compared to pre-existing theory in relation to sharing experiences, sharing information, discussing politics, reflection, observation and support. Additional categories emerged in relation to questioning and listening skills, and similarity and difference between both parties. A change of emphasis was clear in relation to some factors which influenced learning, as the relationships matured. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for human resource development (HRD) professionals in relation to how formal mentoring programmes are designed and supported over time.     

A Deliberative Method for Ranking Risks (I): Overview and Test Bed Development

Risk ranking offers a potentially powerful means for gathering public input to help set risk-management priorities. In most rankings conducted to date, the categories and attributes used to describe the risks have varied widely, the materials and procedures have not been designed to facilitate comparisons among risks on all important attributes, and the validity and reproducibility of the resulting rankings have not been assessed. To address these needs, a risk-ranking method was developed in which risk experts define and categorize the risks to be ranked, identify the relevant risk attributes, and characterize the risks in a set of standardized risk summary sheets, which are then used by lay or other groups in structured ranking exercises. To evaluate this method, a test bed involving 22 health and safety risks in a fictitious middle school was created. This article provides an overview of the risk-ranking method and describes the challenges faced in designing the middle school test bed. A companion article in this issue reports on the validity of the ranking procedures and the level of agreement among risk managers regarding ranking of risks and attributes.