Can a Munro-Inspired Approach Transform the Lives of Looked after Children in England?

This discussion paper will examine the lessons from the Munro Review relevant for looked after children. Although the Munro Review focuses on child protection, we will argue that some of its key principles have relevance for understanding looked after childhoods. The Munro Review provides an analysis of the current state of the child protection system, challenging bureaucratised practice and arguing for a reclaiming of professional social work identity, knowledge and understanding. There are three key principles of the Munro Review that this paper will focus upon. The first two are the recognition that risk cannot be eradicated and the bureaucratisation of practice is an inadequate response to the demand for public accountability. The third principle is that ethical integrity lies at the heart of services for children in public care. The key message of this paper is that a Munro approach can transform looked after childhoods. However, the current ‘child protection’ model of social work in England may prevent this shift in social work practice.     

Home visits,holy visits: Diasporic pilgrimage to the ‘Holy Land’ amongst Palestinian–Jordanian Christians from Amman

This paper contributes to ‘visiting friends and relatives’ (VFR) discussions within migration and diaspora literatures by proposing a closer theorization of religious mobilities through the conceptual framework of ‘diasporic pilgrimage’. It advances VFR thinking by considering religion as a productive analytical category to interrogate relationships between people and place which sustain and constitute diasporic connection and attachment. This will be explored through the experiences and encounters of Palestinian–Jordanian Christians undertaking visits to places of religious and relational significance across Israel and/or Palestine from Jordan. Through an exploration of ethnographic data collected amongst diasporic Palestinian Christians living in Jordan, diasporic pilgrimage will be theorized as a localized process critically engaging with everyday facets of familiarity and regularity. This will revolve around three main elements of diasporic pilgrimage: translocal connections, temporalities and power geometries which constitute visits from Jordan and the so-called ‘Holy Land’ a diasporic form of religious mobility.     

Insider research,validity issues,and the OHS professional: one person’s journey

Validity in the context of qualitative research may take on many different definitions depending on the philosophical perspective. When a researcher conducts research within their place of employment, this will also influence the approach and interpretation. Insider research has been under scrutiny for the very fact that the insider is an actor within the setting. This paper explores my journey, conducting insider research and working as an occupational health and safety practitioner, by presenting an example of the methods used, including reflectivity and reflexivity, to address validity issues which may arise prior, during and post data collection.     

Understanding looked‐after childhoods

The absence of a sociological discourse about children in the past meant that child and family social work has largely relied on psychological interpretations of children and their behaviour. However, since the 1990s, the sociology of childhood has been developed in the UK. The aim of this paper is to explore the relevance of the sociology of childhood in understanding looked‐after childhoods and in informing contemporary social work practice with looked‐after children and young people. The central argument of this paper is that, in order to fulfil professional responsibilities and to implement current and forthcoming UK social policies for looked‐after children, social work needs to employ broad understandings of children, young people and looked‐after childhoods. The paper goes on to discuss the ways in which a social work approach drawing on the sociology of childhood can offer such a conceptualization.     

The reporting of sensitive behavior by adolescents: A methodological experiment in Kenya

Does audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) produce more valid reporting of sexual activity and related behaviors than face-to-face interviews or self-administered interviews? This analysis, based on data collected from over 6,000 unmarried adolescents in two districts of Kenya—Nyeri and Kisumu—indicates substantial and significant differences in reported rates of premarital sex across interview modes, although not always in the expected direction. Our assumption that girls underreport sexual activity in face-to-face interviews by comparison with ACASI is not confirmed by the Nyeri data, but our results from Kisumu are considerably more promising. As for boys, who we believe exaggerate their level of sexual activity in face-to-face interviews, a more nuanced set of expectations regarding the reporting of sensitive behaviors was offered; our results from Kisumu, although not always significant, by and large conform to expectations.

     

Posterior likelihood ratios for evaluation of forensic trace evidence given a two-level model on the data

In forensic science, in order to determine whether sets of traces are from the same source or not, it is widely advocated to evaluate evidential value of similarity of the traces by likelihood ratios (LRs). If traces are expressed by measurements following a two-level model with random effects and known variances, closed LR formulas are available given normality, or kernel density distributions, on the effects. For the known variances estimators are used though, which leads to uncertainty on the resulting LRs which is hard to quantify. The above is analyzed in an approach in which both effects and variances are random, following standard prior distributions on univariate data, leading to posterior LRs. For non-informative and conjugate priors, closed LR formulas are obtained that are interesting in structure and generalize a known result given fixed variance. A semi-conjugate prior on the model seems usable in many applications. It is described how to obtain credible intervals using Monte Carlo Markov Chain and regular simulation, and an example is described for comparison of XTC tablets based on MDMA content. In this way, uncertainty on LR estimation is expressed more clearly which makes the evidential value more transparent in a judicial context.     

Roads to Poverty Reduction? Exploring Rural Roads' Impact on Mobility in Africa and Asia

Within current poverty reduction programmes, focus on the social‐welfare millennium development goals is widening to embrace a concern with infrastructural investment, particularly for remote areas. The previously popular assumption that rural disadvantage can be remedied by road‐building is resurfacing. Using survey data from Ethiopia, Zambia and Vietnam, this article explores how effective such investment is in addressing mobility and social‐service accessibility in rural areas. The findings indicate that, in extremely remote areas, road improvements may catalyse the expansion of social‐service provision, as evidenced in Ethiopia. However, given the poor's relative lack of motor vehicles and ability to pay for public transport, they are, by no means, a sufficient condition for enhancing the mobility of the rural poor.     

Understanding poverty and unemployment on the Olympic Peninsula after the Spotted Owl

Conserving the natural ecology of an area through environmental restrictions has become increasingly common. The harvest limitations on national forests in the habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl in the 1990s are a well-known example. The controversy that ensued with this listing quickly became framed as one of jobs versus the environment, a contention that often characterizes conservation efforts. This contention is closely tied to export-based economic theory which assumes that a rural area's natural resource commodity base is the most important factor in economic development and community well-being. However, other factors could impact well-being including a prior period of industrial restructuring, the presence of minorities, and mitigating factors such as increasing educational attainment, retirement migration and commuting patterns. Focusing on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, I use panel regression to examine the power of indicators of these different factors to explain poverty and unemployment rates on the peninsula in 2000. Industrial restructuring and the presence of minorities are the only significant explanatory variables for poverty. The presence of minorities is the only significant variable for unemployment rates.