Search results

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether two regional intellectual disability (ID) assessment and treatment (A&T) units in England were meeting the recommended length of stay stipulated by the Learning Disability Professional Senate, in line with the Transforming Care (TC) agenda. A secondary purpose of the study was to evaluate the reasons for admissions and delayed discharges in order to inform how to reduce these.

A retrospective evaluation of 85 admissions across two A&T units was conducted over a three-year period (2013–2016) following publication of the TC agenda.

There were 85 admissions compared to 71 discharges. Of the 85 admissions, 11 were readmissions. The most common factors thought necessary to prevent admission were early support for care providers or alternative service provision. There were barriers to discharge in over half of admissions; the main reason was a lack of suitable service provision.

The study suggests that providing specific support or training to care providers could prevent (re)admission and ensure shorter admissions. Further research to establish reasons for the reported lack of suitable providers would be beneficial.

This study provides current admission and discharge rates for regional A&T units, as recommended by the TC national guidance. It also provides potential reasons underlying preventable admissions and delayed discharges and therefore indicates what might be necessary to prevent admissions and reduce the length of inpatient stays for people with ID and/or autism.

Neighbourhood policing is central to supporting public confidence in England and Wales. However, the delivery of neighbourhood policing models is increasingly fragmented and under pressure from austerity measures and from changes to demand and priorities. This research aims to understand the current state of neighbourhood policing in the county of “Rackhamshire” and its ability to support public confidence.

The authors conducted six focus groups, three with officers who were part of Community Policing Teams (CPTs) and three with members of the community who were actively engaged with community policing and local concerns. These were supplemented by two interviews with senior officers (35 participants in total).

Austerity-driven changes to policing in Rackhamshire have damaged the capacities of CPTs and residents have begun to lose confidence in the ability of the police to respond to their fears. The authors argue that reforms intended to make policing more efficient and effective appear to have the opposite effect on community policing, by preventing it from working in a way that can support public confidence and that this could have longer-term consequences.

The effects of austerity on the mechanisms by which neighbourhood policing supports confidence have been relatively neglected. By exploring the state of these mechanisms in one English constabulary, this research has exposed serious weaknesses in the way that community policing is able to support public confidence and suggests practical operational responses. In light of these findings, this study argues for the urgent reinstatement of earlier models of neighbourhood policing.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the perspectives of actors who contribute to trust in the food system in four high income countries which have diverse food incident histories: Australia, New Zealand (NZ), the United Kingdom (UK) and the Island of Ireland (IOI), focussing on their communication with the public, and their approach to food system interrelationships.

Data were collected in two separate studies: the first in Australia, NZ and the UK (Study 1); and the second on the IOI (Study 2). In-depth interviews were conducted with media, food industry and food regulatory actors across the four regions (n=105, Study 1; n=50, Study 2). Analysis focussed on identifying similarities and differences in the perspectives of actors from the four regions regarding the key themes of communication with the public, and relationships between media, industry and regulators.

While there were many similarities in the way food system actors from the four regions discussed (re)building trust in the context of a food incident, their perceptions differed in a number of critical ways regarding food system actor use of social media, and the attitudes and approaches towards relationships between food system actors.

This paper outlines opportunities for the regions studied to learn from each other when looking for practical strategies to maximise consumer trust in the food system, particularly relating to the use of social media and attitudes towards role definition in industry–regulator relationships.

Traditional visions of masculinity are inextricably linked to some tropes believed as ‘essential’ in men such as valour or strength. If a man fails in comply with these ‘essences’, then he fits into a form of deviant masculinity that transforms him into an Other.

Now, what happens with the issues of ageing in masculinity? The ageing man slowly but naturally loses all the aspects that made him ‘manly’ enough, becoming instead a double of himself. Men are doomed to fail as their bodies start to malfunction.

Two horror films highlight ageing and failed masculinity as a way to engage with these new concerns. Bubba Ho-Tep (Don Coscarelli, 2012) and Late Phases (Adrián García Bogliano, 2014) revolves around two aged heroes (Elvis Presley in the former, an ageing war veteran in the latter) who live within retirement communities. There, in the last years of their life, both men must face supernatural menaces: a walking mummy and a werewolf respectively. Facing supernatural horror, the ageing heroes must compensate their failing masculinity – a body that does not work as well as it used to do – with new forms of empathy and manliness.

Uniting film studies with investigations on masculinity and ageing, we propose to read these two films to point the ways in which both stories engage with the cultural politics of ageing masculinity.

This chapter theorizes academic libraries and library workers as partners in social justice work in higher education, linking the core concerns of critical librarianship (or Critlib) to library leadership practices that can enable and facilitate widening participation as a political project.¹ Widening participation, as a policy imperative and higher education practice, attempts to improve access to higher education among underrepresented groups. However, rooted in the logic of marketized, neoliberal higher education, liberal approaches to widening participation are instrumentalist and contribute to a cultural discourse which reproduces inequity and unequal educational outcomes.

Drawing on Nancy Fraser's model of social justice and critical sociology of education, particularly the work of Penny Jane Burke and Diane Reay, this chapter develops a critical theory of library leadership which radically reframes widening participation practice as a project of recognition and inclusion. In connecting the rich scholarship of Critlib movement, particularly critical information literacy and library pedagogies, to shared commitments to social justice between library and other education workers, this chapter deepens our theoretical understanding of libraries' contributions to widening participation.

Analysing the intersectional race and gender politics of the England women's national team, this chapter, based on oral history interviews, shows the historical forces shaping the diversity of the squad over time, from 1972 to the present. Class is important here, as many of the first black and mixed heritage England women players were the daughters of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants who settled in working-class areas of urban, and to a lesser extent, rural England. In the case of London-based players, this gave a proximity to important development centres, available by public transport. In the case of Kerry Davis, from Stoke on Trent, access to private transport was important. As head coach, Hope Powell oversaw the first Black-British captain of an England women's side, but when succeeded by Mark Sampson much of this development receded, notably as Eni Aluko, a centurion capped star of Nigerian descent was de-selected for ‘Unlioness behaviour’. In the ensuing legal analysis, the FA showed itself to lack awareness of diversity and inclusion issues in its own sport. The chapter analyses the effect of this, on an England team that includes several high profile LGBTQ+ stars, which is diverse in different ways than the England men's team.

Purpose: This paper examines beef consumption practices in two villages of Tamil Nadu, India. It inquires into how the upper castes create spatial boundaries to separate the inside from the outside in their consumption of beef.

Methodology: The research was carried out in two villages of Kariacheri and Pudupattinam located in the Kanchipuram district of Tamil Nadu, India. We conducted 70 in-depth interviews, and observed beef buying and consumption practices.

Findings: The research shows how the upper castes separate the inside from the outside and surreptitiously consume beef. Dalits or untouchables are unable to create such separations, and as a result are stigmatized and ostracized. Moreover, the distinction between the inside and the outside is not fixed but is in a state of transition.

Originality and value: This study offers insights into how stigma is defined by spatial boundaries. These insights help to understand purity, pollution, and stigma in consumption practices as ongoing processes that are often created to justify social divisions and discriminatory practices.