Search results

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new psychometric tool for the assessment of quality of life in adult informal carers.

Two empirical studies are reported. Study 1 describes the psychometric development. An initial pool of 100 items was constructed and completed by 385 carers across the UK contacted through carers ' centres. Principal components analysis was then conducted. In study 2, a further 101 carers took part; all completed the scale prior to the intervention and again post-intervention, allowing the authors to test utility as a tool to assess change.

Using principal components analysis with study 1 data the number of items was reduced to 40 that assessed eight domains; support for caring, caring choice, caring stress, financial implications, personal growth, sense of value, ability to care and carer satisfaction. In study 2 it was found that respondents scored higher post-intervention compared to pre-intervention.

There are many carers who are not recognised by services.

The AC-QoL promises to be a useful addition to the armoury of psychometric tools available for use with adult carers by both practitioners and researchers in health and social care, as well as of use to carers themselves and to policy makers in determining what interventions might be funded and further developed.

The paper shows that the AC-QoL is original because of its development from both carers and professional perspectives, breadth of coverage, multi-component structure and focus on both negative and positive outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of development and the pilot implementation of a preventive life skills curriculum for Indigenous middle school students in a very remote community college in the West Arnhem region of North Australia. The curriculum integrates proven educational and psychological techniques with culturally informed notions of relatedness and was developed as a contribution to efforts to prevent alarming rates of suicide among remote Indigenous youth. In this paper, the term, Indigenous refers to Australians of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent.

Based on reviews of research literature on school-based suicide prevention and social and emotional learning in both general and Indigenous populations, and following detailed community consultations, a 12 week curriculum was drafted and implemented in two middle school classes (combined years 7-9). Lessons were videotaped and later analyzed and detailed commentary was sought from participating school staff.

The pilot program has yielded important insights into requirements of a curriculum for young people with low English literacy levels and with variable school attendance patterns. It confirmed the need to adjust both pedagogical approach and curriculum content for the program to have resonance with students from this linguistic and cultural background and with varying levels of exposure to multiple stressors in disadvantaged community settings.

The project has identified and resolved key questions for sustainable implementation of a preventive curriculum in challenging community circumstances.

There are to date no examples of the systematic adaptation and design of a universal preventive intervention specifically for remote Australian Indigenous youth. The project is the first step toward the formal evaluation of the efficacy of a classroom-based approach to suicide prevention in remote community schools.

THE recent Home Office Return showing the names of all places in the British Isles in which the Public Libraries Acts have been adopted, and supplying the statistical information regarding issues, income and expenditure, etc., is an interesting testimony to the extent to which the Public Library has entered into the life of the community. The summary of the statistics (which are for the year ending 31st March, 1911) gives the following results. The population of the places in which the Acts have been adopted is 26,370,582; the total number of volumes in the libraries is 10,995,115 (of which 3,366,549 are in reference libraries); the total issue is 54,690,222; and the total expenditure is £814,932. These figures vary considerably from other recent surveys, but this is caused by the method of compilation of the Return. Duly recorded reference issues are included, for example, and no allowance is made for the millions of unrecorded references. According to this Return there are six library systems in the British Islands issuing over one million volumes per annum. These systems are as follows:—

IN July we sugggested that one outcome of the formation of a European Work Study organisation could be a standard certificate of competence, recognised by all the participating countries. That opinion is confirmed after reading carefully through the various memoranda compiled for the conference by representatives. They showed a wide variance in training methods and in the subjects regarded as important.

This paper seeks to develop understanding of how competent practitioners develop into experts through learning expert thinking processes and how knowledge management initiatives can be used to structure this development.

A literature review‐derived research model underpinned the semi‐structured interviews with 21 acknowledged experts from a wide variety of disciplines and sectors. A qualitative exploratory research design was used to study how the experts go about developing other professionals in the field through showing them how they learn themselves and making visible their own thinking processes. The implications for KM programs were developed in conjunction with KM practitioners.

The experts used various methods to make their thinking visible through demonstration of practice and direction of structured learning activities. KM's contribution to this form of expertise development lies in structuring approaches to making work in progress more visible (through technology and process) and through introducing a coaching framework that enables and supports reflection on practice.

The specific context of expertise development that has been studied is those situations where generalized principles and explicit knowledge cannot be readily captured in artifacts. Further research is needed to show how this can be combined with other approaches to developing and retaining expertise. Confirmatory research is also needed to refine and further validate the proposed recommendations for KM practice.

The paper prepares the ground for integrating an important aspect of expertise development within KM programs.

The paper extends KM's contribution to expertise retention and development to include structured support for the development of expert thinking processes.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a practical means of incorporating ecological capital into the framework of business entities. Investors and shareholders need to be informed of the viability and sustainability of their investments. Ecological (natural) capital risks are becoming more significant. Exposure to material risk from primary industry is a significant factor for primary processing, pharmaceutical, textile and the financial industry. A means of assessing the changes to ecological capital assets and their effect on inflows and outflows of economic benefit is important information for stakeholder communication.

This paper synthesises a body of literature from accounting, ecological economics, ecosystem services, modelling, agriculture and ecology to propose a way to fill current gaps in the capability to account for ecological capital. It develops the idea of the ecological balance sheet (EBS) to enable application of familiar methods of managing built and financial capital to management of ecological assets (ecosystems that provide goods and services).

The EBS is possible, practical and useful. A form of double-entry bookkeeping can be developed to allow accrual accounting principles to be applied to these assets. By using an EBS, an entity can improve its capability to increase inflows and avoid future outflows of economic benefit.

Although major efforts are under-way around the world to improve business impact on natural resources, these efforts have been unable to satisfactorily help individual businesses elucidate the practical economic and competitive advantages conferred by investment in ecological capital. This work provides a way for businesses to learn about what the impact of changes to ecological assets has on inflows and outflows of economic benefit to their enterprise and how to invest in ecological capital to reduce their enterprise’s material risk and create competitive advantage.

No one has synthesised knowledge and practice across these disciplines into a practical approach. This approach is the first demonstration of how ecological assets can be managed in the same way as built capital by using proven practices of accounting.