Search results

Looked after children (LAC) are criminalised at five times the rate of children in the general population. Children in contact with both child welfare and child justice systems have higher rates of neurodisability and substance use problems, and LAC in general have high rates of school exclusion, homelessness and unemployment. This study aims to understand whether these factors persist in LAC who are in prison as adults.

Administrative data collected by the Do-IT profiler screening tool in a prison in Wales, UK, were analysed to compare sentenced prisoners who were LAC (n = 631) to sentenced prisoners who were not LAC (n = 2,201). The sample comprised all prisoners who were screened on entry to prison in a two-year period.

Prisoners who were LAC scored more poorly on a functional screener for neurodisability (effect size = 0.24), and on four self-report measures capturing traits of dyslexia (0.22), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (0.40), autism spectrum disorders (0.34) and developmental co-ordination disorder (0.33). Prisoners who were LAC were more likely to have been to a pupil referral unit (0.24), have substance use problems (0.16), be homeless or marginally housed (0.18) and be unemployed or unable to work due to disability (0.13).

This study uniquely contributes to our understanding of prisoners who were LAC as a target group for intervention and support with re-integration into the community upon release. LAC in prison as adults may require additional interventions to help with employment, housing and substance use. Education programmes in prison should screen for neurodisability, to develop strategies to support engagement.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between patterns of functioning in four domains (attention and concentration; social and communication; coordination and organisation; and literacy and numeracy) in women in prison. Also, to consider potential associations between functioning and previous Neurodevelopmental Disorder (NDD) diagnoses, previous mental health diagnoses and history of head injury, self-harm and attempted suicide.

Women in one Scottish prison were invited to participate; 87 consented. Women were screened for functional difficulties and asked about their relevant educational and medical history.

Half of participants reported difficulties in one or more domains. All possible combinations of functional difficulties were found. Only eight women reported previous NDD diagnoses. Functional difficulties were significantly associated with history of self-harm, history of attempted suicide and mental health diagnoses. In total, 32% of women reported at least one head injury, but this was not significantly associated with functional difficulties.

The sample was comparatively small and questions were self-report. Analyses were based on within-cohort comparisons due to a lack of appropriate general population data.

There is a clear need for timely, practical and comprehensive profiling of females in the Justice System. Current systems do not appear to adequately identify women with functional difficulties or other adversity. Greater use of interdisciplinary working and shared training is indicated, as is a move from categorical diagnostic systems towards dimensional approaches.

This study is the first to investigate associations between difficulties associated with NDDs, mental health difficulties and head injury in women in prison.

Post‐industrial predictions of a rapid growth in new technology homeworking have gained widespread currency to become part of the conventional wisdom. However the evidence, including primary research material, suggests that the claims for new technology homeworking, both regarding its extent and its alleged benefits, have been considerably overestimated. In particular, new technology homeworking by itself does not appear to open up opportunities for women to improve their position in the labour market; the demographic changes predicted for the 1990s may provide a better bet. Nevertheless, there is a danger in assuming that all firms apply the same strategy when employing homeworkers; at least three different variations can be identified and this has important implications for personnel managers. The overestimation of new technology homeworking stands in stark contrast to traditional homeworking where the extent has been considerably underestimated. This marginalisation of traditional homeworking stems in large part from the distortion caused by the conceptual split between private and public realms. The failure to find evidence to support the growth of new technology homeworking leads to a consideration of how the arguments may better be considered as rhetoric designed to advance a certain set of ideas – in particular that set associated with “privatisation” as a political ideology.

“Consumerism”, for want of a better description, is given to the mass of statutory control (which shows no sign of declining) of standards, trading justice to the consumer, means of redress to those who have been misled and defrauded, advice to those in doubt; and to the widespread movement, mostly in the Western world, to achieve these ends.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

It is evident that the problem of the Constitution of Food and Drugs Authorities presents one of the chief obstacles to agreement among local authorities on the subject of local government reorganisation. For over three years, representatives of three of the four chief associations of local authorities have been conferring with a view to reaching agreement on the future structure of local government and the function of local authorities. These three Associations are: the County Councils Association, the Urban District Councils Association and the Rural District Councils Association. A large measure of agreement has been secured with respect to a great variety of functions. The chief subject on which agreement was not reached was food and drugs administration. The County Councils Association's representatives took the view that this should be the primary responsibility of County Councils, which should have power to delegate to Municipal Corporations or District Councils. The Urban District Councils Association's representatives were of opinion that the Food and Drugs Act should come wholly within the sphere of Municipal Corporations and of Urban and Rural District Councils. The Association of Municipal Corporations did not take part in the conferences ; but clearly would have insisted that Food and Drugs Act responsibility should be taken away from County Councils.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether official inquiries are an effective method for holding the medical profession to account for failings in the quality and safety of care.

Through a review of the theoretical literature on professions and documentary analysis of key public inquiry documents and reports in the UK National Health Service (NHS) the authors examine how the misconduct of doctors can be understood using the metaphor of professional wrongdoing as a product of bad apples, bad barrels or bad cellars.

The wrongdoing literature tends to present an uncritical assumption of increasing sophistication in analysis, as the focus moves from bad apples (individuals) to bad barrels (organisations) and more latterly to bad cellars (the wider system). This evolution in thinking about wrongdoing is also visible in public inquiries, as analysis and recommendations increasingly tend to emphasise cultural and systematic issues. Yet, while organisational and systemic factors are undoubtedly important, there is a need to keep in sight the role of individuals, for two key reasons. First, there is growing evidence that a small number of doctors may be disproportionately responsible for large numbers of complaints and concerns. Second, there is a risk that the role of individual professionals in drawing attention to wrongdoing is being neglected.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first theoretical and empirical study specifically exploring the role of NHS inquiries in holding the medical profession to account for failings in professional practice.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the experiences of acquired brain injury (ABI) family caregivers who attended an acceptance based group intervention.

A qualitative design and interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology were used.

Five key themes were identified: increasing personal awareness; the dialectic of emotional acceptance vs emotional avoidance; integration of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) principles; peer support; and moving forward after the group. It seemed that some individuals found the ACT exercises distressing, whereas others reported benefits. All participants described experiences of acceptance vs avoidant means of coping, and attempts to integrate new approaches into existing belief systems.

This study is the first to explore the experiences of ABI caregivers undertaking an ACT group intervention.

The outstanding speech of the 53rd Annual Conference of the ATTI at Bournemouth during the Whitsun weekend was the Presidential Address of Mr Eric E. Robinson who is the youngest President ever of the Association.

A review of literature concerning the over‐representation of young, African‐Caribbean males within secure psychiatric services.