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The purpose of this paper is to explore professional perspectives on restorative approaches with families in elder abuse cases.

Data were gathered from 37 social workers in statutory and voluntary organisations through nine focus group sessions in one region of Northern Ireland. A thematic analysis was undertaken and themes were derived from the data using NVivo software.

This paper reports main findings under the themes of engaging families and service users; managing risk in working with families in adult safeguarding; and challenges for professionals in practice. A key finding was that professionals felt challenged personally and professionally in managing the risks and working with families in these highly complex cases.

Investigative approaches have their limitations in relation to adult abuse situations. This study adds to the existing knowledge base, identifies potential practice developments and discusses the challenges in adopting restorative approaches with families in elder abuse cases. The study highlights the need for further specialist training. Managers should consider the creation of specialist teams with a focus on alternative or restorative approaches with families.

This study explored the feasibility of developing scaled inspection tools for use during external inspection of health and social care facilities to give improved accuracy in identifying facilities “at risk”, a tool for risk-adjusted frequency of inspection, and greater consistency of judgements.

This paper summarises the development through working groups and workshops involving 20 experienced inspectors (nurses and social workers) of the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority who inspect the 206 nursing and 182 residential care homes in Northern Ireland. A brief evaluation survey, including response to a case vignette, gathered inspectors' views after using the tools for six months.

Eight two-dimensional Scaled Inspection Tools were created, each embodying a scale of performance (seriousness of risk issue) and a scale of the ability of the facility to manage that issue, each axis comprising four points. The Scaled Inspection Tools were used for on-site inspections during 2017–18. Evaluative comments were generally positive. The case vignette seemed to highlight greater risk aversion amongst newer inspectors.

The creation of scaled inspection tools adds credibility to the potential for developing risk-based governance in service regulation. Further testing of domains and their scope is required.

Prompts for each domain were found essential to guide inspectors. Despite the challenge of change, inspectors became enthusiastic about use for evaluating risks, and managers about improvements in consistency of inspection.

Knowledge derived from statistical approaches needs to be incorporated into inspection and regulation, just as in other aspects of professional practice.

Scaled inspection tools, with two orthogonal axes corresponding to seriousness of risk and ability to manage the risk (inverse of likelihood of harm), proved acceptable and intuitive in use. The study gives credibility to the possibility of developing screening and surveillance approaches to risk-based governance in service regulation.

Social policy and professional practice across the island of Ireland is dominated by the WHO definition of elder abuse and national and professional interpretations of what constitutes elder abuse. Top-down, generalist knowledge of the abuse of older people have facilitated paternalistic and protectionist policies and services designed to protect older vulnerable adults across the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. However, a qualitative study involving 58 older people in six focus groups held across Ireland highlights an alternative understanding of elder abuse grounded in the subjective experiences of older people across urban and rural communities on the island. Indigenous ways of knowing offer a broader and more inclusive understanding of the experience of elder abuse (Lafferty et al., 2012; Dow and Joosten, 2012) together with opportunities for the prevention of ageism and the empowering of older people across the jurisdictions.

A description of how elder abuse is defined at the global and national level is then compared with the findings of an all-Ireland study of older people's older conceptualisation of elder abuse (Begley et al., 2012) at the local level.

Understanding indigenous perceptions of elder abuse has significant implications for the delivery of cultural relevant social policy and professional practice across Ireland.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, there are significant methodological limitations to its replication, the representativeness of the participants involved and the generalisability of the findings.

However, this study provides unique insights about how some older people conceptualised elder abuse across different cultural and political contexts across Ireland as compared with national and global definitions.

The study on older people's conceptualisation of elder abuse was the first all-Ireland attempt to contribute to the body of knowledge on indigenous perspectives on elder abuse.

Sociologists of crime and deviance have devoted considerable time and effort, in recent years, to the study of deviants' accounts of their activities. There are good reasons why students of deviance in particular should be interested in what can be learned from their subjects' explanations of their social practices. Actors are normally called to account for or to explain their activities precisely when these actions are seen by significant others to be in some sense “unreasonable”. Moreover, accounts are central to the processes of law. The purpose of legal judgements is to attribute or withold responsibility. In order to assess an individual's guilt, where criminal activities are concerned, lawyers, judges, and juries pose such questions as: “Did the defendant perform an illegal act?”; “if so, can he or she explain his or her actions in reasonable terms?”; “Was the act in question pre‐meditated?” (that is, “motivated”); and, perhaps most important of all “What is the relationship between the accused's account of his or her involvement in an act, and their real involvement?”

It is February 2011 and Brian France, CEO of NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing), is facing a crisis. In the last five years, attendance at weekend NASCAR races has fallen 22 percent and television viewership has declined 30 percent. Key marketing sponsors have recently left the sport. At the same time, the U.S. economy was only beginning to recover from an economic recession that had an adverse impact on the sport of auto racing as a whole. Some leaders within NASCAR counseled Brian that these trends in attendance, viewership, and sponsorship stemmed from the recession and that NASCAR should continue with business as usual. But Brian sensed that the industry needed fundamental change and that he, as CEO of NASCAR, was the one that must lead this change.

With Brian at the helm, NASCAR embarked on an unprecedented amount of qualitative and quantitative research to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the entire industry. At the center of this research was the NASCAR consumer. Highly engaged, enthusiastic consumers were at the heart of an industry business model that had been successful for decades. But in 2011, marketing within all of NASCAR needed to transform, as it was clear that consumers were disengaging with the sport.

As the consumer research results unfold, Brian and leaders within NASCAR must make tough choices and set priorities. The case focuses on four key areas in which decisions need to be made by NASCAR leadership: digital marketing and social media, targeting the next-generation NASCAR consumer, enhancing the star power of NASCAR drivers, and enhancing the consumer experience at NASCAR events. Focus group videos offer students a customer-centric deep-dive into these challenges.

At its heart, this is a case about great leadership and transforming marketing throughout an entire industry. A wrap-up video from CEO Brian France summarizes how NASCAR executives tackled the difficult questions posed in the case.

• Understand how deep consumer engagement is at the heart of a successful marketing ecosystem

• Analyze focus group videos to understand the needs of today's consumer

• Prioritize the market segments that should be cultivated as the next-generation consumer

• Understand how differing incentives within an industry are at the heart of many marketing problems

• Analyze a complex set of problems and set and manage priorities

• Understand the importance of leadership in a time of crisis

Understand how deep consumer engagement is at the heart of a successful marketing ecosystem

Analyze focus group videos to understand the needs of today's consumer

Prioritize the market segments that should be cultivated as the next-generation consumer

Understand how differing incentives within an industry are at the heart of many marketing problems

Analyze a complex set of problems and set and manage priorities

Understand the importance of leadership in a time of crisis

Sheltered housing schemes for older people took a new turn in the UK with the community care policy of the early 1990s giving care provision for people living in such schemes. There is relatively little research on what sheltered housing schemes provide and what makes them work well. Data was gathered in relation to sheltered housing provision for older people in the north Antrim area of Northern Ireland through 10 focus groups with tenants and 16 questionnaires administered with managers of schemes. Tenants valued the independence and choice of sheltered housing in comparison with institutional care. They also highly valued the social interaction with other tenants, fostered by activities such as coffee mornings, regular lunches and social events. Tenants often helped each other with transport and when sick. Tenants of schemes in small towns were generally satisfied, because of access to shops, churches and other services. Transport was an issue for many, particularly in more rural areas and in relation to attending hospital appointments. Scheme managers were often available to tenants for long and anti‐social hours. The home care arrangements were generally regarded as satisfactory although there were criticisms of the limited hours for tasks and the skills of some care workers. Some scheme managers thought that the publicly‐funded homecare service would be more efficient if the staff were managed from the housing scheme. Appropriate social activities and effective care arrangements are an important aspect of supported housing, as well as the independence it offers. Consideration needs to be given to access to services in locating new schemes.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the similarities and differences of legal responses to older adults who may be at risk of harm or abuse in the UK, Ireland, Australia and the USA.

The authors draw upon a review of elder abuse and adult protection undertaken on behalf of the commissioner for older people in Northern Ireland. This paper focusses on the desk top mapping of the different legal approaches and draws upon wider literature to frame the discussion of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different legal responses.

Arguments exist both for and against each legal approach. Differences in defining the scope and powers of adult protection legislation in the UK and internationally are highlighted.

This review was undertaken in late 2013; while the authors have updated the mapping to take account of subsequent changes, some statutory guidance is not yet available. While the expertise of a group of experienced professionals in the field of adult safeguarding was utilized, it was not feasible to employ a formal survey or consensus model.

Some countries have already introduced APL and others are considering doing so. The potential advantages and challenges of introducing APL are highlighted.

The introduction of legislation may give professionals increased powers to prevent and reduce abuse of adults, but this would also change the dynamic of relationships within families and between families and professionals.

This paper provides an accessible discussion of APL across the UK and internationally which to date has been lacking from the literature.

Governance is an emerging aspect of social care organisations embodying professionally‐led risk management, quality assurance and service improvement. The purpose of this paper is to put forward a broad conceptualisation of the main dimensions of quality and risk in social care.

A survey was undertaken to seek the perspectives on social care governance (SCG) of social workers in the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland where clinical and SCG is formalised in the integrated health and social care service.

The 123 respondents were from a wide range of grades, aspects of work (practice, management and training) and both children's and adult services. Approximately, 60 per cent of social workers thought themselves knowledgeable on SCG, but this self‐reported knowledge was considerably higher amongst managers and trainers than practitioners. The risk register was familiar to 61 per cent of respondents. Social workers thought that useful ways to learn about SCG were team meetings, local workshops and engagement in developmental projects rather than training events.

The 41 per cent response rate is typical of surveys of busy professionals.

Social workers were generally not very aware of the systems being developed to implement accountability and support through SCG, presenting challenges to the tasks of managing risk and improving the safety and quality of services.

The paper shows that Northern Ireland is pioneering the development of SCG in parallel with clinical governance in health care. Valuable lessons are being learned about the application of concepts of risk and quality in the complexity of social work.

Outlines eight specific inadequacies resulting in ineffective job hiring. Discusses ways to find the right person, suggests where employers should direct their searches, and covers the requirements for a successful interview. Provides brief case studies from law enforcement, Microsoft and legal profession.

The “traditional” family, one in which the mother and father both reside in the same home and the mother does not work outside of the home, now accounts for less than seven percent of all families in the United States (13, p.56). More than sixty percent of women of childbearing age in the United States are in the work force and forty percent of these women have children under three years of age (1, p.4). Approximately eighty percent of mothers will be in the work force in the year 2000 (8, p.3). Two‐thirds of new workers entering the work force between now and the year 2000 will be women (13, p.57).