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The purpose of this paper is to describe the Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) programme undertaken in 2013/2014 and summarises the learning and messages from this phase of work. This informed both the subsequent mainstreaming of the programme to all councils, and national policy on safeguarding adults in England.

Following the “test bed” phase in 2012/2013, MSP pilots were developed in 53 councils. They adopted a new outcomes focused and person led approach to adult safeguarding practice. Supported by the Local Government Association and partners, these councils changed their safeguarding practice and how adults were involved in safeguarding processes. Adults’ wishes were identified at the early stages of investigation, and reviewed during and at the end of the safeguarding process. In total, 43 councils provided impact statements on work undertaken, mainly between December 2013 and February 2014.

Key findings from the impact statements evidenced that adopting a personalised approach made safeguarding more effective and provided opportunities for developing social work practice. A range of challenges were encountered and overcome. The experiences of the MSP pilot sites informed the Care Act guidance issued in October 2014.

The MSP programme has stimulated an innovative culture change in safeguarding adults’ practice. It provides a means for Safeguarding Adults Boards to ascertain the effectiveness of local services in achieving the desired outcomes of vulnerable adults at risk of abuse or harm. Practitioners, managers and others will have an interest in this major change.

Perhaps it should be said that optimal nutrition is an ultimate goal which science is not yet prepared to define descriptively in detail. Speaking operationally, we may say that recent research has established, fully and objectively, the principle of the nutritional improvability of the normal. The experimental evidence can, of course, be but sketchily presented in a review of this sort which attempts to summarise in so little space a scientific advance of undoubtedly far‐reaching significance. Under the necessity of extreme brevity, the writer trusts he will be pardoned for drawing illustrations chiefly from the work with which he is best acquainted. In experiments to determine what proportion of protective food suffices to balance a minimum proportion of wheat in the diet, it was found that a mixture of five‐sixths ground whole wheat and one‐sixth dried whole milk with table salt and distilled water (Diet A) was adequate in that it supported normal growth and health with successful reproduction and rearing of young, generation after generation. Yet when the proportion of milk was increased (Diet B) the average results were better. In the experiments just mentioned, an already‐adequate dietary and an already‐normal condition of nutritional wellbeing and health were improved by a more scientific adjustment of the relative quantities in which the staple articles of food were consumed. And in the comparison of the effects of these two diets the principle of the nutritional improvability of the normal was manifested measurably at every stage of the life cycle. Growth and development, adult vitality, and length of life all were normal on Diet A and all were better on Diet B. This research having been planned in terms of natural articles of food, the sole experimental variable was the quantitative proportion or ratio between the foods constituting the dietary. If, on the other hand, we turn to the consideration of individual chemical factors, we find that the single change in proportions of staple foods had the effect of enriching the dietary at four points: protein, calcium, riboflavin, and vitamin A. Subsequent experimentation was planned both in terms of these four chemical factors separately and in terms of diversification of the dietary by addition of natural foods of other types. Here it was found that enrichment of the original diet with protein alone or its diversification with other natural foods tended to a moderate increase in growth and adult size, but no distinct improvement in the life history. Clearly this indicates that the increased intake of protein played but little if any part in the nutritional improvement induced by Diet B over Diet A; and also strengthens the probability that the observed improvement is essentially explainable in terms of the factors we recognise, for if anything unknown had played an important rôle in this improvement, the diversification of the diet would probably have revealed some indication of it. Calcium, riboflavin, and vitamin A each is found to play a signicant part in the nutritional improvement of the already adequate diet and already normal health. With each of these three factors the level of intake giving best results in long‐term experiments is two or more times higher than the level of minimal adequacy. Some aspects of the respective rôles of these three factors are still subjects of further experimental investigation. It is not to be assumed that the wide margins of beneficial intake over actual need, found as just mentioned with calcium, riboflavin, and vitamin A, will apply to the other nutritionally essential mineral elements and vitamins. Each should be investigated independently in this respect; and with no presuppositions derived from the findings with calcium, riboflavin, and vitamin A, for these were not random samples, but were taken for rigorous experimental study because of the definite suggestions of earlier work. Meanwhile the above‐mentioned findings with the factors already comprehensively investigated afford a basis both for clarification of a fundamental chemical principle in nutrition, and for its practical application. One useful first‐approximation of nineteenth‐century science was that an organism may be expected to grow only as fast or as far as is consistent with the specific chemical composition of its kind; and another was that it is the fixité of the organism's internal environment which enables it to cope with new or changing external environments. It is surprising that these views continued to be held so rigidly for so long when at the same time there were developing physico‐chemical principles which call for a more flexible concept. In this light it seems clear that the so‐called steady states of the body are only relatively so: that one cannot introduce into the system different amounts and proportions of such active factors as we know some food constituents to be, without some resulting changes of concentration levels or of dynamic‐equilibrium points, or both. And now we have the objective evidence of well‐controlled, long‐term experimentation showing nutritional improvement of an already normal bodily condition in such manner as seems best expressed by saying that the chemical aspect of the body's internal environment has been modified for the better. Thus in accordance with physico‐chemical principles we now conceive the “normal level” of each nutritional factor to be not a single fixed level but a zone. Undoubtedly this zone is wider for some factors than for others, and probably also the most advantageous level is with some substances near the upper margins, and with other substances near the middle or the lower margins, of the respective normal zones. Thus while our bodies enjoy by virtue of their biological inheritance certain self‐regulatory processes of striking effectiveness, our minds are now finding, through chemical research, how these can be made still more effective by the scientific guidance of our nutritional intakes; by helpfully influencing our internal environments through good habits in our daily choice of food. Contemporary research in the chemistry of nutrition is here developing a fundamental and far‐reaching scientific concept which hitherto has hardly been apprehended because species have been regarded as more rigidly specific in their chemical composition, and the “steady states” of their internal environment have been regarded as more rigidly fixed, than they really are. The accepted generalisation that each life history is determined (1) by heredity and (2) by environment assigns all except hereditary factors to environment by definition. But as the result of nearly a century of scientific as well as popular habit of thought, the word “environment” actually connotes surroundings. Science exaggerated the extent and rigidity with which our internal chemistry is automatically regulated by our biological inheritance, to such an extent that there seemed nothing for us to do about it except to admire its wonders and stand ready to repair its occasional breakdowns. But now that we are finding ways to add conscious chemical control and improvement to the marvellous mechanism with which nature endows us, we can be not merely repair‐men to a biologically inherited bodily machine, but also architects of a higher health. It may help to make this newly‐opened opportunity clearer if, instead of the above‐mentioned two, we think and speak of three major determinants of our life‐histories: (1) heredity; (2) environment, in the familiar external sense of surroundings; and (3) the body's internal environment, which immediately environs and conditions the life process, and which in the course of the life cycle is much more significantly influenced than hitherto supposed by even the normal differences in what we take into our bodies as food. This responsiveness of our internal chemistry, and resulting degree or level of positive health, to our nutritional intake, usually becomes manifestly measurable only in cases of visible injury from nutritional deficiency, which, once apprehended, we seek to avoid; or in experimentation with laboratory animals whose natural life‐cycles are such as to permit of accurately controlled conditions and observations extending throughout entire lifetimes and successive generations. In the long‐controlled, laboratory‐bred colony of experimental animals used in large numbers for full‐life and successive‐generation feeding tests conducted with all the quantitatively meticulous care and precautions to which research workers in the exact sciences are trained, we now have an instrument and technique of investigation such as has not existed before. Much remains to be done in the new field of research thus opened; but work already completed shows clearly the possibility of nutritional improvements of already‐normal health, vitality and efficiency throughout our lives. Whatever we are individually born with, we can each do more for ourselves to influence our life histories in the direction of our aspirations than science has hitherto thought.

The paper reports on the findings of a survey of 115 (76 per cent) of English local authorities in 2016 which compared progress on the implementation of the Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) approach in local authorities through their Adult Social Care departments and in relation to their area Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs) and partner organisations. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the survey in relation to personalised social care and its impact on organisations, their staff and service users, and conclude with wider implications and recommendations for further work.

A series of guided interviews were conducted with safeguarding leads from a sample comprising of 115 (76 per cent) of English local authorities during May and June 2016. The sample was randomly picked and balanced to give a fair representation of the different types of councils. The interviews were conducted by a team of five people. All interviewers had in-depth experience of adult safeguarding and were currently practicing independent chairs of SABs. The interviewers followed a prepared schedule consisting of a mixture of open and closed questions. All interviews were held over the phone and averaged one-hour duration.

The results pointed to the impression that the majority of local authorities had completed the first step of introducing MSP, i.e. they had trained their workers and modified their systems. Most local authorities were moving into the next phase of embedding user-focussed work into their practice and culture, and were at various points along that journey. However, most had still to engage partner organisations beyond a mere acceptance of MSP as “a good thing”.

The research has wide ranging implications for organisations and their workers in the field of adult safeguarding based on its findings. Its limitations are that only organisational leaders and managers were interviewed, although reference is extensively made to initiatives that engage service users. The authors acknowledged the possible bias of interviewees when judging the performance of their own service and attempted to moderate their views in the final report.

The report references many practical implications to improve the practice of adult safeguarding in an attempt to make it more person-centred. Examples of good practice are given and recommendations are made to organisations.

It is recognised that there are many people who may be at risk of harm through their environmental, personal, age or disability-related situations. In improving the way that services respond to their needs, they will be made to feel safer and their lives enhanced.

This original research follows up previous research in the preceding year. It is the widest ranging in its coverage of 76 per cent of English local authorities. Its value is that it measures progress towards full implementation of MSP; reports information and views from safeguarding leaders; and makes 20 recommendations to improve the implementation of MSP within local authorities, SABs and their partners.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of mental capacity legislation when applied to parents with learning difficulties who lack capacity within childcare and family law proceedings in England and Wales.

The paper relies on a range of material including reports published by independent mental health foundations, official inquiries and other public bodies. It also refers to academic and practitioner material in journals and government guidance.

The paper critically reviews the application of the guidance when assessing mental capacity legislation as applied in England and Wales and offers by way of illustration several case examples where psychological assessments, and the enhancement of capacity, have assisted parents who were involved in childcare and family law proceedings.

There has been little published research or governmental reports on the number of cases when parents involved in childcare and family law proceedings have been found to lack capacity. No published prevalence data are available on the times when enhancing capacity has resulted in a change of outcome in childcare and family law proceedings.

The duty is on the mental health practitioners assessing mental capacity that they do so in a structured and supportive role adhering to good practice guidance and follow the guiding principles of mental capacity legislation assuming that the individual has capacity unless it is established that they lack capacity. Guidance and training is needed to ensure that the interpretation of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and its application is applied consistently.

For those who are considered to lack mental capacity to make specific decisions, particularly within childcare and family law proceedings, safeguards are in place to better support such individuals and enhance their capacity in order that they can participate more fully in proceedings.

While the MCA legislation has now been enacted for over ten years, there is very little analysis of the implications of capacity assessments on parents involved in childcare and family law proceedings. This paper presents an overview and, in places, a critical analysis of the new safeguarding duties of mental health practitioners when assessing for, and enhancing capacity in parents.

This paper, and the corresponding project, is motivated by the lack of qualitative research elucidating the voices of young Black women in Canada when it comes to their sexual health.

This paper draws from data produced in the Let’s Talk About Sex (LTAS) project – a Photovoice process held once a week for nine consecutive weeks in the Jane-Finch community, a low-income community in Toronto, Canada. This workshop was completed by 15 young African Caribbean and Black (ACB) women in the age group 14–18. These young women used photography and creative writing to express their opinions on the barriers and facilitators to making healthy sexual decisions.

A central finding was the existence of a subculture among youth in Toronto, where the exchange of sex for material resources was commonplace. Herein, we unpack the various forms of economically motivated relationships reported, which ranged from romantic relationships to sugar daddies and brothel-like sex dens. We also reflect on the discussions at community forums where the research findings were presented. From shock and outrage to a sly smile of knowing, the responses were often gendered, generational and reflective of a trend occurring across Toronto, not just in the Jane-Finch community, and not merely among the Black youth.

Effective interventions and youth programs should focus on the sexually transmitted infection (STI) and HIV risks that may result from transactional relationships, economic empowerment, and youth employment.

This is a novel arts-based study on youth engaged inthe exchange of sex for money, which has nuanced differences from survival sex.

This chapter suggests that the unsettling reconfiguration of ‘home’ in works of post-colonial literary adaptation has an affective impact on non-Indigenous readers, contributing, potentially, to processes of decolonisation. Ken Gelder and Jane M. Jacobs, in their book Uncanny Australia: Sacredness and Identity in a Postcolonial Nation, argue that Australian texts which seek to disturb readers by pursuing modes of post-colonial ‘unsettlement’ can activate new discourses and, thereby, inspire social change (1998). Focussing upon undergraduate student responses to two works of Aboriginal Australian literary adaptation, Melissa Lukashenko's short story ‘Country: Being and Belonging on Aboriginal Land’ (2013) and Leah Purcell's stage play, The Drover's Wife (2016), this chapter draws upon ideas pertaining to ‘affect’ to reveal how, through the subversive reimagining of tropes and structures commonly associated with Western dwelling, works of Indigenous literary adaptation elicit emotional responses in non-Indigenous readers and, in so doing, open up new spaces for listening within existing frameworks of white possession.

Since a teacher's identity is the result of ongoing discussion, explanation, negotiation and justification, famous education quotes were integrated into a language teacher practicum in a teacher education program in the northwest university in Taiwan. This study aims to explore the influence of discussing education quotes on 10 English as a foreign language student teachers' professional identities. This study also aims to discuss the following research questions.

This case study focused on 10 student teachers' identity construction in a practicum class under one advisor. According to Merriam (1998), a case is a “thing, a single entity, a unit around which there are boundaries” (p. 27). The case was a practicum and the unit of analysis was participants' identity construction.

First, reading and discussing famous quotes was a useful “discourse” and “language” for student teachers to construct and negotiate their identities. Second, through the integration of reading and discussing quotes, participants revealed more professional identity in knowledge and expertise, particularly in English instruction in the post-test.

This study examined the influence of discussing educational quotes of 10 students’ professional identity. However, given the nature of the study, there were some limitations. First, although the small sample size offered rich data through observation, artifacts and pre-and post-tests, it restricts our ability to generalize the results.

This study is highly practical (i.e. learning by discussion) and strongly interactive among the participant in a professional and social context. The conceptual framework in Figure 1 presents a theoretical framework supporting reading and discussing quotes as the discourse for the student teachers for their professional identity construction. Social context and relationship shape their professional identity (Izadinia, 2013). Student teachers spent much of their time with their cooperating teachers and administrators in their cooperating schools. In order to foster student teachers’ professional identity construction, it is recommended that student teachers should be encouraged to read and discuss educational quotes with teachers and administrators in their cooperating schools as a mean of professional dialogue and learning.

In this study, it was argued that educational or English teaching quotes could be used as viable, effective and appropriate materials in documenting student teachers' professional identity construction out of their classroom practice in their practicum. The findings of this study derived from the nature of 10 student teachers' professional learning via discussing famous education sayings, and professional learning took place during the practicum.

Most of the studies reviewed above were small-scale and qualitative case studies. Some involved only one or two single cases (e.g. Antonek et al., 1997; Calandra et al., 2006; Camp, 2013). Only a few studies were analyzed and explored based on theoretical frameworks (e.g. Chasteen, 2015). No explicit references were made to any theoretical frameworks in most of the studies. This study included both qualitative (observation and artifacts) and quantitative data (pretest and posttest) to explore the influence of discussing education quotes on 10 student teachers' professional identities and reflective practices.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Modell’s arguments regarding the relative usefulness of critical realist philosophy in relation to actor-network theory.

The authors outline the challenges in applying critical realism to critical accounting. The authors then consider Modell’s criticisms of actor-network theory, providing a counterargument highlighting the methodological choices distinguishing actor-network theory from critical realism.

The authors argue that critical realism, whilst providing an interesting addition to the critical accounting research project, confronts challenges disentangling intransitive and transitive forms of knowledge. Actor-network theory is presented as a way of examining accounting practices as local associations, providing practical opportunities to study (the assembly of) “the social”.

Methodological diversity is to be explored, acknowledging the ontological politics of our choices.

This paper is an original commentary contributing to critical accounting research.

As a site of contestation among job seekers, workers, and managers, the bureaucratic workplace both reproduces and erodes occupational race segregation and racial status hierarchies. Much sociological research has examined the reproduction of racial inequality at work; however, little research has examined how desegregationist forces, including civil rights movement values, enter and permeate bureaucratic workplaces into the broader polity. Our purpose in this chapter is to introduce and typologize what we refer to as “occupational activism,” defined as socially transformative individual and collective action that is conducted and realized through an occupational role or occupational community. We empirically induce and present a typology from our study of the half-century-long, post-mobilization occupational careers of over 60 veterans of the nonviolent Nashville civil rights movement of the early 1960s. The fourfold typology of occupational activism is framed in the “new” sociology of work, which emphasizes the role of worker agency and activism in determining worker life chances, and in the “varieties of activism” perspective, which treats the typology as a coherent regime of activist roles in the dialogical diffusion of civil rights movement values into, within, and out of workplaces. We conclude with a research agenda on how bureaucratic workplaces nurture and stymie occupational activism as a racially desegregationist force at work and in the broader polity.