Search results

The purpose of this paper is to understand early career teachers’ perceptions of the impact of a pre-service health education programme on their health promotion practice in schools and the contextual factors that influence this.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 primary and secondary trainee and qualified teachers who had trained at a university in England. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

The teachers found the training to be a useful introduction, particularly when it was relevant to their practice. They valued gaining practical skills at university, on placement and in school once qualified. They reported that witnessing pupils’ lives in school had increased their awareness that health education is important. Their personal qualities, life experience, the school’s ethos and competing pressures influenced their practice. Teachers considered that building relationships with colleagues, pupils and parents facilitated health promotion, and that health education needs to be relevant to pupils. Some teachers expressed that teaching about health could be a “minefield”. They also discussed whether schools or parents are responsible for educating pupils about health issues and the place of health promotion within education’s wider purpose.

Few studies have followed-up trainee teachers once they are in teaching posts to explore the longer-term perceived impact of pre-service health education training. The findings suggest that teachers’ development takes place via an interaction between training and practice, suggesting that training could particularly aim to provide teachers with a contextualised understanding of health issues and practical experience.

Health and social care partnership working is often predicated on the notion that it improves outcomes for service users. Yet there is a lack of evidence linking partnerships to changes in outcomes. Against this background, the Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham designed the Partnership Outcomes Evaluation Toolkit (POET) specifically to evaluate health and social care partnerships in terms of service user outcomes. This paper reports on the field testing of POET with Sandwell Integrated Support Service. This research provided a number of interesting insights into this service, and indicated some dissonance between staff and service user and carer expectations.

Second of two articles focusing on public sector service quality. Looks at a number of local authority case studies, and benchmarks these against the service quality model of Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry.

Gives an overview of interest in, and development of, quality management in local government. Outlines the process of transferring quality management to public sector services, highlighting a number of obstacles. Lists a number of external pressures that are forcing significant changes on local authorities. Details the requirements for quality management in the public sector, and concludes that the crux of the matter is identifying who actually is the customer of public services.

Outsourcing is one of the fastest‐growing and arguably most important areas of business activity. This article examines the differing motivations behind and approaches to outsourcing of public and private sector organisations in the UK, and what they can learn from each other. It compares the experiences of a police force with that of a financial services company and concludes that neither appears to have a monopoly on good practice, but that the private sector could benefit from the public sector’s more structured approach, while the latter could benefit from the more strategic orientation of the private sector.

This is the second article on Business and Law (BSL) Databases in a continuing series of articles summarizing and commenting on new database products. Two companion articles, one covering science, technology and medicine (STM) (Online & CDROM Review vol. 17 issue 4) and the other covering social science, humanities, news and general (SSH) (Online & CDROM Review vol. 17 issue 5), complement this article. The articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD) together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

Looks at the growing importance of quality management in local government. Identifies the current thinking behind total quality and the need to apply established theory in the public domain, and explores the approaches and methodologies which are currently available to do this. Develops a framework for total quality from the work of a number of quality gurus. This framework can be used to examine the key requirements of total quality implementation, and hence expanded to take account of the special purpose of, and constraining conditions which apply to, local authorities.

Aims to investigates the difficult area of which dictionary to choose for a set purpose.Design/methodology/approach –This is a viewpoint paper drawn from the author's own experience.Findings – It is important to know one's dictionaries. Clarity of purpose in selection, clarity of arrangement on the shelves, and clarity of intent in the volumes are all factors that influence one's choice of dictionary.Originality/value – Given the above, correct choice of dictionary and clarity of thought on the part of the user could lead to a more clear‐sighted and creative society.Paper type – Viewpoint