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This article updates a review submitted to the Department of Health (DH) in the light of the House of Commons Health Select Committee report on Elder Abuse. The review drew on recent research about elder abuse in the UK, including research published after the Select Committee's hearings, that made specific recommendations for areas of development in research and policy. The aim of this paper is to address specific questions posed by the Select Committee in light of developments up to mid 2005.

Articulation of a vision is commonly held to be a critical component of theories of outstanding leadership – both transformational and charismatic leadership. Although there is reason to suspect that vision contributes to leader performance, less is known about the nature and origin of viable visions. In the present chapter, we argue that leaders’ visions can be viewed as a prescriptive mental model reflecting beliefs about the optimal functioning of an organization. To test this proposition, outstanding leaders possessing two contrasting types of prescriptive mental models were identified: ideologues whose models stress the maintenance of extant standards and charismatics whose models stress adaptive change. These two types of prescriptive mental models were associated with distinct patterns of leader behavior in a sample of notable historic leaders. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to current theories of outstanding leadership.

Much has been written about integrated marketing communications (IMC) but agreement on a precise definition is still lacking and, although interest levels seem to have reached fever pitch over the past few years, practical implementation, and evidence of the effectiveness of implementation, seem to be fairly rare. This paper sets out to investigate the sometimes confiding views of what the concept means and asks a number of related questions: what are the driving forces behind the growth of IMC, what is inhibiting its implementation, what is needed to make IMC a reality and what does the future hold for IMC?

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with orientation to library facilities and services, instruction in the use of information resources, and research and computer skills related to retrieving and using information. The thirteenth annual such review in Reference Services Review, the article covers items in English published in 1986. A few items are without annotations because the compiler was unable to secure copies of them for this review.

Our need to understand the impact of communication media on negotiation is growing as technological advances offer negotiators more communication options. As access to technologies such as computer chat and videoconferencing increases, negotiators are choosing to use or to avoid these media without knowing the impact of their choices on negotiations. This research assesses objective and subjective negotiation outcomes, such as profit and outcome satisfaction, across four communication media with varying levels of media richness (face‐to‐face, videoconference, telephone, and computer‐mediated communication). A conceptual framework is offered to illustrate how media richness impacts objective and subjective outcomes. Results suggest that media richness affects required bargaining time, outcome satisfaction and the desire for future negotiation interaction. Thus, the communication media for negotiations should be chosen with care.

It has been argued that the social and informational cues within the work environment need to be investigated to better understand and identify a nomological network underlying the psychological contract construct. This study is one of the first to investigate how employees may use social and informational messages and cues in the work environment to formulate and place meaning behind their employee employer exchange relationship. We present a model that examines specific dimensions of employees’ psychological climates that may serve as a basis for understanding their contract with their organization. Three hundred and seventy employees from a variety of organizational settings completed measures of their climate (role characteristics, job characteristics, workgroup and social environment, leader behaviors, and organizational and subsystem attributes) as well as their perceptions of their psychological contract. The model and proposed relationships were tested through a series of hierarchical regression analyses. Results revealed that role characteristics were associated with the workload and clarity components of the contract while job characteristics were related to the work variety, work importance, and autonomy contract factors. Workgroup and social environment dimensions were related to the contract components of social interaction and work conditions and leader behaviors were associated with the feedback contract factor. Finally, organizational and subsystem attributes were linked to the compensation, benefits, security, advancement, development opportunities, fairness, and interpersonal factors of an employee’s psychological contract. Study contributions and limitations as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to provide research-based information to foster positive discussions about the need for phonics and phonemic awareness instruction in the primary grades. In order to read, students must possess secure knowledge of the alphabetic principle (i.e., that speech sounds are represented by combinations of letters in the alphabet) as well as the ability to aurally separate the distinct sounds (phonemes) that make up words.

Design: In this chapter, the authors provide essential definitions of phonics and phonemic awareness terms, highlight peer-reviewed research and best instructional practices, and clarify findings in relation to the recently renewed controversy over how to effectively teach reading to young children. The authors draw from respected research journals and years of classroom experience to provide recommendations to literacy teachers.

Findings: Explicit, systematic phonics instruction is crucial for beginning readers because most children will not intuit phonics concepts. To set the stage for phonics instruction (connecting speech sounds with their written representations), students must understand how to separate sounds in words. Therefore, instruction in phonemic awareness must be given independently of alphabetic representations; that is, students need to be able to hear the distinct sounds before mapping them onto written words. Once a student has mastered this understanding, however, instructional time need not be devoted to its development.

Practical Implications: This chapter contributes to the literature on phonics and phonemic awareness by clearly explaining the differences between the two concepts and their necessary inclusion in any beginning reading program. It includes practical activities teachers can use to develop these understandings in the classroom and provides research evidence to support their use.

In this chapter, we use feminist and intersectional frameworks to explore how marginalized mothers discuss maternal support. In-depth interviews with an economically diverse group of 21 mothers of color suggest that most affluent, married Black mothers framed support as child-centric and engaged in concerted cultivation (Lareau, 2011) practices. Lower income, single Black mothers engaged in a strategy we call “nurtured growth” – they used low-cost school, church, and community-based resources to promote their children’s development. In contrast to these child-centric strategies of support, three mothers used mother-centric supports and practiced self-care. The families of these three mothers, however, often criticized their parenting efforts as “parenting like a White person.” The authors conclude by exploring the implications of our study for feminist outreach efforts on behalf of marginalized mothers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine three interpretations of post-diagnostic support (PDS) for dementia, to understand how best to support people recently diagnosed with dementia.

A sequential mixed-method approach was used which included analysis of the data collected by each sector, a focus group and interviews with PDS linkworkers and other staff.

All three sectors used a mix of supported self-management workshops and one-to-one PDS, however sectors varied by linkworker’s affiliation, caseload management and client group. Caseload varied greatly between sectors. Stage of disease and socioeconomic make-up of the local population were raised as factors determining the form of PDS offered. Some pillars appeared to be more easily achieved than others. There was a general agreement among all staff that “caseload” was misleading and that a measurement of workload would be preferable. Agile/mobile working was preferred by linkworkers. Even within teams there was variation in perceptions of PDS; some felt the linkworker role to be one of signposting, while others felt more involved with their client group, and for longer than 12 months.

Guidance at the outset of the PDS programme was sparse. The findings of this study should inform future development of the PDS model and a supporting guidance framework.

There is a growing interest in PDS for dementia. However, little is known about what a model of PDS should look like. This study attempts to capture the most important aspects of PDS delivery.