Engaging with the Disability Rights Movement: the experience of community-based rehabilitation in southern Africa

This paper argues that unless community-based rehabilitation CBR programmes enter into genuine consultation with the disability rights movement they are in danger of repeating the mistakes of institution-based rehabilitation. Partnership between CBR programmes, and disabled people's and parents' organisations in southern Africa has led to the development of a more consumer focused approach to CBR Where disabled adults and parents have been fully involved in the design and implementation of programmes, CBR workers have a clearer understanding of disability as a development issue. Education, employment and poverty alleviation have been given a higher priority than medical rehabilitation in these programmes. The evolving concept of CBR and its relationship with the disability rights movement has been observed and documented by The Save the Children Fund, and forms the basis of this paper.     

Who is a Distracted Driver? Associations between Mobile Phone Use while Driving,Domain‐Specific Risk Taking,and Personality

Mobile phone use while driving (MPUWD) is an increasingly common form of distracted driving. Given its widespread prevalence, it is important for researchers to identify factors that may predict who is more likely to engage in this risky behavior. The current study investigates associations between MPUWD risk behaviors, domain‐specific risk perceptions, and broad personality dimensions. An Italian community sample (n = 804) completed a survey regarding MPUWD risk perceptions and engagement in MPUWD, in addition to the HEXACO‐PI‐R, a broad six‐factor personality inventory (honesty‐humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience), and the DOSPERT, a six‐factor domain‐specific self‐report risk‐taking measure (health/safety, recreational, social, ethical, gambling, and investment). With respect to domain‐specific risk taking, greater frequency of SMS use while driving most strongly was associated with greater risk taking for the health/safety, gambling, and ethical risk domains. Further, greater honesty‐humility and conscientiousness, two traits related to cognitive control and risk behaviors, and to a lesser extent openness to experience, were associated with less frequent MPUWD, and positively associated with MPUWD risk perceptions. With growing public safety concern surrounding MPUWD, understanding associated personality factors is not only important for identifying psychological mechanisms underlying risk behavior, but also for more effective prevention and intervention programs.     

PURE: a proposal for more retirement income security

Despite large public policy efforts over the past 30 years, a large minority of households remains consistently inadequately prepared for retirement. If policymakers want to address this shortcoming, public policy has to change from its current path. This paper suggests a system of mandatory private pensions funded by a minimum mandatory contribution of 3% of payroll. In addition, a number of institutional changes are suggested to reduce the costs and risks of individual accounts.     

Stories of Non‐Becoming: Non‐Issues,Non‐Events and Non‐Identities in Asexual Lives

In contrast to conventional models of positively “becoming” an identity through social interaction, this article explores the inverse, negational process of “non‐becoming,” whereby actors start but do not continue along an identity career trajectory. Through cumulative attrition, interactions and encounters at key moments create an overall pattern of non‐progression. Using asexuality as an example, we identify three main trajectory stages of non‐awareness, communicative negation and non‐consolidation, each involving interactional contingencies. With a wider applicability to other repudiated identities, this model shows how even negational symbolic social objects (non‐issues, non‐events, and non‐identities) are constituted through social interaction.     

Resolutions: Working with Families Where Responsibility for Abuse is Denied

Current thinking suggests that little productive work can be undertaken with families where serious physical or sexual abuse of children has occurred in the absence of a clear acceptance of responsibility for that abuse. This means that children are often removed from their families because of the perceived risks, with the disadvantages that being looked after in local authority care often brings. Alternatively, children may be left in the same environment where serious abuse has taken place with little or no work being undertaken with the family. Either approach fails children, especially those who have made clear and believable allegations in the hope of bringing about a process of change and protection. This article describes the work of a pilot project at the Avon NSPCC in Bristol working with families where the alleged abuser disputes responsibility for maltreating the child. Key to this approach is the support of the non-abusing carer and the child/ren while the concerns of the professional agencies are addressed. The work has two main phases. The first looks for structural change in the organization of family life. The second part asks carers to role-play a ‘similar’ hypothetical family where child abuse has been established. This enables difficult issues raised by the abuse to be addressed and provides an opportunity for carers to express thoughts and feelings to their partner regarding abuse without the seriousness of the concerns being lost.     

The Unlived Life Is Worth Examining: Nothings and Nobodies behind the Scenes

This paper explores how people talk about the things that have not happened in their lives. I argue that we can perform reverse biographical identity work upon our unmade selves by exploring the meanings of unlived, non-experience. Challenging one's own rehearsed life story is an act of narrative self-transgression, involving negative responsibility assumption. Drawing on my symbolic interactionist theory of “nothing,” I consider how negative social phenomena (no-things, no-bodies, and non-events) are interactively accomplished and retrospectively made sense of in personal accounts. Themes of lost opportunities, silence, invisibility, and emptiness emerge from an analysis of twenty-seven stories. These tales reveal a mixture of emotions: not only sadness, stigma, shame, and regret, but also relief, pride, acceptance, and gratitude. Narratives of nothing are often ambivalent in tone, reflecting the complexity of storied life behind the scenes.     

Invitations to Collusion: A Case for Greater Scrutiny of Men's Behaviour Change Programs

Men's behaviour change groups have been operating in Victoria since the early 1980s. Unlike their criminal justice‐based counterparts in the USA, Canada and the UK, groups in Victoria arose as stand alone voluntary programs within the community health and family support sectors. Their focus on therapeutic engagement, education and invitations to responsibility has at times failed to include consequences for men who continue to use violence and abuse while attending the group. This article argues that unless facilitators build in consequences for men whose violence continues, they can inadvertently collude with the violent behaviour. Including women partners in ongoing evaluation is one means of reducing this collusion. This view is drawn from research into behaviour change groups in Melbourne over the last decade.