Ian F. Walker, Jude Stansfield, Lily Makurah, Helen Garnham, Claire Robson, Cam Lugton, Nancy Hey and Gregor Henderson
Mental health is an emerging health policy priority globally. The emphasis on closing the treatment gap in psychiatric services is now being complemented by an increasing focus on…
Abstract
Purpose
Mental health is an emerging health policy priority globally. The emphasis on closing the treatment gap in psychiatric services is now being complemented by an increasing focus on prevention and health promotion. The purpose of this paper is to describe the programmes and delivery of public mental health in England led by Public Health England (PHE), an arms-length body of the Department of Health and Social Care.
Design/methodology/approach
This technical paper outlines the general approach PHE has taken in delivering national work in public mental health and describes several key areas of work: children and young people, suicide prevention, workplace and workforce, strategic engagement with stakeholders, data and information and evidence synthesis.
Findings
A description of the various programmes and guidance documents that PHE have produced are described and referenced, which form a substantial body of work in public mental health.
Practical implications
The outputs from PHE may assist in informing the approach to public mental health that other government agencies could consider adopting. The resources described and signposted within this technical paper are publicly available for readers.
Originality/value
England is one of a small group of countries that have a track record in delivering public mental health at a national level. This paper gives a unique and detailed insight into this work.
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Lawrence Angus, Wendy Sutherland-Smith and Ilana Snyder
Because access to new technologies is unequally distributed, there has been considerable discussion in Australia and elsewhere about the growing gap, the “digital divide,” between…
Abstract
Because access to new technologies is unequally distributed, there has been considerable discussion in Australia and elsewhere about the growing gap, the “digital divide,” between the information-rich and information-poor (Bolt & Crawford, 2000; Castells, 2001; Companie, 2001; Gordon, 2001; Haywood, 1998; Negroponte, 1996; Nixon, 2001). Most schools have incorporated computers and Internet access into classrooms, partly in response to concerns about the gap between technology “haves” and “have nots” (Facer et al., 2001). Such concerns have led to high-profile information technology policy initiatives in the USA (Lentz, 2000; US Department of Commerce, 1999), U.K. (Selwyn, 2000), Australia (Foster, 2000) and other nations. Many families have invested in computer systems at home in order to provide their children with access to the growing body of information available through technology. Similarly, in an attempt to “redress the balance between the information rich and poor” by providing “equal access to the World Wide Web” (Virtual Communities, 2002), the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Virtual Communities (a computer/software distributor) and Primus (an Internet provider) in late 1999 formed an alliance to offer relatively inexpensive computer and Internet access to union members in order to make “technology affordable for all Australians” (Virtual Communities, 2002).
Molly Scott Cato, Len Arthur, Russell Smith and Tom Keenoy
To study the relationship between organization structure and socio‐economic impact in the Welsh music industry and the potential role of social enterprises.
Abstract
Purpose
To study the relationship between organization structure and socio‐economic impact in the Welsh music industry and the potential role of social enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach
The economic value of social enterprise and the role of creative industries in urban regeneration are discussed from the viewpoint of the inclusion of marginalized workers, especially the young, into the labour‐market. Discusses the increasing political interest in social enterprise and explores evidence for this policy interest, including whether the nature of the governance and management structure of social enterprises influences their social and economic impacts. Reports preliminary stages of the research project and presents evidence gathered through case studies of three unnamed music businesses based in South Wales comprising: a development agency based on co‐operative principles; a loosely organized collective of practitioners and trainers; and a limited liability company. Explains that all three companies began by focusing on hip‐hop music but have developed in different directions and have also developed distinct forms of governance, and this enable the relationship between governance, the music industry, and socio‐economic outcomes to be studied.
Findings
The critical analysis of the potential of social enterprises to achieve social and economic regeneration supports the authors’ own conception of mutual economic activity in terms of what they call “associative entrepreneurship”. Concludes that this concept is needed because the existing definition of social enterprise has become too wide to have analytical value. Notes that the authors hope to present the research findings to a conference of creative industries’ academics in the coming year.
Originality/value
Presents the authors’ preliminary attempts to apply their knowledge of the social economy to the music industry as the first stage of a research project funded by the Welsh Assembly.
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Avril Bell, Lesley Patterson, Morgan Dryburgh and David Johnston
Natural disaster stories narrate unsettling natural events and proffer scripts for social action in the face of unforeseen and overwhelming circumstances. The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Natural disaster stories narrate unsettling natural events and proffer scripts for social action in the face of unforeseen and overwhelming circumstances. The purpose of this study is to investigate stories of natural disasters recounted for New Zealand school children in the School Journal during its first 100 years of publication.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis is used to categorise the disaster event and to identify two distinct periods of disaster stories – imperial and national. Textual analysis of indicative stories from each period centres on the construction of social scripts for child readers.
Findings
In the imperial period tales of individual heroism and self‐sacrifice predominate, while the national period is characterised by stories of ordinary families, community solidarity and survival. Through this investigation of natural disaster stories for children, the paper identifies the shifting models of heroic identity offered to New Zealand children through educational texts.
Originality/value
This study adds to the existing literature on the School Journal and to the broader study of the history of imperialist and nationalist education in New Zealand. In these times of increased disaster awareness it also draws attention to the significance of disaster narratives in offering social scripts for children to draw on in the event of an actual disaster experience.
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Helen Blair, Susan Grey and Keith Randle
Currently the “creative industries”, especially the British film industry, are receiving much popular attention. The aim of this paper is to present a description and evaluation…
Abstract
Currently the “creative industries”, especially the British film industry, are receiving much popular attention. The aim of this paper is to present a description and evaluation of employment in the film industry, and through doing so to challenge dominant populist and academic analyses of employment in this sector, as exemplified by the Labour government and a number of British and American academic commentators. These analyses are both premised on the apparent occurrence of an epoch breaking change in society, the balance of economic activity in society and the organisation of work. However, trends in employment practice over recent years, it would appear from the survey evidence and from other sources presented here, have not improved in the manner they could be expected to if such fundamental epochal change had occurred. Rather the data presented here point to much continuity in the employment relationship between capital and labour.
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THE article which we publish from the pen of Mr. L. Stanley Jast is the first of many which we hope will come from his pen, now that he has release from regular library duties…
Abstract
THE article which we publish from the pen of Mr. L. Stanley Jast is the first of many which we hope will come from his pen, now that he has release from regular library duties. Anything that Mr. Jast has to say is said with originality even if the subject is not original; his quality has always been to give an independent and novel twist to almost everything he touches. We think our readers will find this to be so when he touches the important question of “The Library and Leisure.”
Maddy Power, Bob Doherty, Katie J. Pybus and Kate E. Pickett
This article draws upon our perspective as academic-practitioners working in the fields of food insecurity, food systems, and inequality to comment, in the early stages of the…
Abstract
This article draws upon our perspective as academic-practitioners working in the fields of food insecurity, food systems, and inequality to comment, in the early stages of the pandemic and associated lockdown, on the empirical and ethical implications of COVID-19 for socio-economic inequalities in access to food in the UK. The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened the profound insecurity of large segments of the UK population, an insecurity itself the product of a decade of “austerity” policies. Increased unemployment, reduced hours, and enforced self-isolation for multiple vulnerable groups is likely to lead to an increase in UK food insecurity, exacerbating diet-related health inequalities. The social and economic crisis associated with the pandemic has exposed the fragility of the system of food charity which, at present, is a key response to growing poverty. A vulnerable food system, with just-in-time supply chains, has been challenged by stockpiling. Resultant food supply issues at food banks, alongside rapidly increasing demand and reduced volunteer numbers, has undermined many food charities, especially independent food banks. In the light of this analysis, we make a series of recommendations. We call for an immediate end to the five week wait for Universal Credit and cash grants for low income households. We ask central and local government to recognise that many food aid providers are already at capacity and unable to adopt additional responsibilities. The government's – significant – response to the economic crisis associated with COVID-19 has underscored a key principle: it is the government's responsibility to protect population health, to guarantee household incomes, and to safeguard the economy. Millions of households were in poverty before the pandemic, and millions more will be so unless the government continues to protect household incomes through policy change.