Suchergebnisse

'Supervision' can be a sterile and unrewarding exercise, confusing different aims of support, consultation and quality control. The author suggests that different objectives require a variety of approaches which can be more stimulating and honest.

This article describes an attachment-based narrative approach to life story work that aims to help children whose psychological well-being is undermined by past experiences of maltreatment and separation. It is a collaborative method working directly with the child, carer and social worker/therapist to construct a coherent and developmentally sensitive narrative that illuminates the child's troubled and troubling past. The focus is on children's experiences of placement disruptions and their perception of repeated rejection, pervasive anxiety and mistrust, and how these affect their mental health and capacity to form and sustain relationships. The approach complements life story work by using story and metaphor in a curious and playful way and is particularly effective when the child's defensiveness and unresolved trauma make conventional interventions of this kind inadequate or even counter-productive. Two case studies are provided to illustrate different applications of the approach.

Recent years have seen a welcome series of government measures aimed at meeting the mental health needs of looked after children. However, as Eddy Street and Mike Davies argue in this paper, there remains a clear lack of integration of models of 'good practice' among childcare and mental health professionals. Taking into consideration the 'tiered model' recommended by the NHS Health Advisory Service report (1995), the authors advocate a developmental approach through the implementation of a multi-disciplinary service that combines the best of psychiatric, psychological, social work and childcare perspectives.

Eddy Street and Mike Davies explore ideas behind the current typical professional response to the placement of children in foster care and its breakdown. They discuss theories of family functioning in terms of their relevance to the assessment of the fostering relationship and outline a model of assessment based on the theory of Behavioural Exchange, which uses checklists for children and questionnaires for adults. Using clinical examples, they go on to explore particular behaviours found in looked after children in terms of this model and assessment process. The need for further research is emphasised.

Most companies have to produce year-end accounts. UK GAAP is an essential tool for all those involved in preparing, auditing and using company accounts. It explains all accounting regulations in force and illustrates them fully with extracts from the accounts of major companies. As a result it is now the best-selling guide to UK financial reporting on the market.

The UK has introduced legislation that requires net-zero greenhouse gas emissions to be achieved by 2050. Improving the energy efficiency of homes is a key objective to help reach this target, and the UK government's Clean Growth Strategy aims to get many homes up to an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band of C by 2035. The relationship between home energy-efficiency and occupant health and wellbeing remains an area of ongoing research. This paper explores the nexus between home energy efficiency, energy consumption and self-reported health—an indicator of the general health and wellbeing of the population. We focus on Greater London through secondary data analysis. Energy-efficiency ratings and air infiltration rates of dwellings, derived from EPCs, were aggregated and matched to local area self-reported health and energy consumption data obtained from the Greater London Authority's (GLA) Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) Atlas database. Our regression model indicates that improving the energy efficiency (SAP) rating by 10 points for a typical home may reduce household gas consumption by around 7% (95% CIs: 2%, 14%). Beta regression finds a positive, but not statistically significant association between median SAP rating and the proportion of the population reporting 'good or very good' health when considering all Greater London LSOAs (z score = 0.60, p value = 0.55). A statistically significant positive association is observed however when repeating the analysis for the lowest income quartile LSOAs (z score = 2.03, p value = 0.04). This indicates that the least well-off may benefit most from home energy efficiency programs. A statistically significant positive association is also observed for the relationship between self-reported health and air infiltration rates (z score = 2.62, p value = 0.01). The findings support existing evidence for the predominantly naturally ventilated UK housing stock, suggesting that home energy efficiency measures provide a co-benefit for occupant health provided that adequate air exchange is maintained. ; publishedVersion ; Peer reviewed

Radium (226Ra) contamination derived from military, industrial, and pharmaceutical products can be found at a number of historical sites across the world posing a risk to human health. The analysis of spectral data derived using gamma-ray spectrometry can offer a powerful tool to rapidly estimate and map the activity, depth, and lateral distribution of 226Ra contamination covering an extensive area. Subsequently, reliable risk assessments can be developed for individual sites in a fraction of the timeframe compared to traditional labour-intensive sampling techniques: for example soil coring. However, local heterogeneity of the natural background, statistical counting uncertainty, and non-linear source response are confounding problems associated with gamma-ray spectral analysis. This is particularly challenging, when attempting to deal with enhanced concentrations of a naturally occurring radionuclide such as226Ra. As a result, conventional surveys tend to attribute the highest activities to the largest total signal received by a detector (Gross counts): an assumption that tends to neglect higher activities at depth. To overcome these limitations, a methodology was developed making use of Monte Carlo simulations, Principal Component Analysis and Machine Learning based algorithms to derive depth and activity estimates for 226Ra contamination. The approach was applied on spectra taken using two gamma-ray detectors (Lanthanum Bromide and Sodium Iodide), with the aim of identifying an optimised combination of detector and spectral processing routine. It was confirmed that, through a combination of Neural Networks and Lanthanum Bromide, the most accurate depth and activity estimates could be found. The advantage of the method was demonstrated by mapping depth and activity estimates at a case study site in Scotland. There the method identified significantly higher activity (0.4m), that conventional gross counting algorithms failed to identify. It was concluded that the method could ...

Surging amounts of waste are reported globally and especially in lower-income countries, with negative consequences for health and the environment. Increasing concern has been raised for the limited progress achieved in practice by diverse sets of policies and programmes. Waste management is a wicked problem characterised by multilayered interdependencies, complex social dynamics and webs of stakeholders. Interactions among these generate unpredictable outcomes that can be missed by decision makers through their understanding and framing of their context. This article aims to identify possible sources of persistent problems by focussing on what captures, shapes and limits the attention of stakeholders and decision-makers, drawing on the attention-based view from organisation theory. The theory describes the process through which issues and opportunities are noticed and how these are translated into actions, by focussing on the influencers at the individual, organisational and context scale. Views on issues and opportunities for waste management were collected in a series of fieldwork activities from 60 participants representing seven main types of stakeholders in the typical lower-middle income Kenyan city of Kisumu. Through a thematic analysis guided by the attention-based view, we identified patterns and misalignment of views, especially between government, community-based organisations and residents, which may contribute to persistent waste problems in Kisumu. Some point to detrimental waste handling practices, from separation to collection and treatment, as the main cause of issues. For others, these practices are due to a poor control of such practices and enforcement of the law. This study's major theoretical contribution is extending the application of attention theory to multi-stakeholder problems and to non-formalized organisations, namely residents and to the new field of waste management. This novel lens contributes a greater understanding of waste issues and their management in Africa that is ...