Category / Social Work and Social Policy

Bigger on the Inside

 

 

 

 

 

The Doctor, his TARDIS-driven adventures, along with companions and iconic monsters, are all over the TV and newspapers. The Inner World of Doctor Who is a new book, just out. Written by Prof Mike Rustin (UEL, Tavsitock Clinic) and Prof. Iain MacRury in the Media School here at BU. This publication offers an accessible account of Doctor Who. It focusses just on the most recent television output – 2005 to 2013 – and examines why the show continues to fascinate us.
The Doctor’s relationships with his companions are to the fore. Various chapters also consider the dramatic meanings of monsters and time travel – linking the show back to ideas about audience experience – and what we might ‘learn’ from Doctor Who. It looks at the complexity of the new Doctor Who in its depictions of the suffering of the Doctor, as well that of his at times vulnerable and dependent companions. A connection is made between TV content and some (but not all) elements in the experience of psychotherapy.
We propose that one way of thinking about the Doctor is to see him as a kind of inadvertent ‘therapist’ – with the TV dramas on screen rendering troubled states of mind and society within a rich cultural frame. Doctor Who extends a fairy-tale and children’s fictional tradition across its contemporary media platforms. As we argue: In Doctor Who everyday life is often revealed to be “Bigger on the inside.”

The 50th anniversary won’t come again and it provided a chastening deadline we’re glad to have met it! The book was inspired by the startling success of the show in recent years. Why does it attract such attention and affection? While thinking about it I  got further daily encouragement from the TARDIS that sits on the ground floor of Weymouth House, courtesy of our former Media School colleague, Dr Andrew Ireland.

The Inner World of Doctor Who is published with Karnac books. It should be of interest to diehard fans. But it is written, too, for people who probably wouldn’t claim the title ‘fan’ but for whom all the fuss about Time Lords and Tardises just now (The Doctor is even on postage stamps!) is provoking the thought: “What’s this all about!?” The Inner World of Doctor Who offers some answers.
 – Written with a colleague, Prof. Mike Rustin, from UEL and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust the book emerges from an enriching collaboration that began in some teaching sessions at the Tavistock clinic on their MA in Psychoanalytic Studies. It has now developed into this book. The book came together quite quickly and has been usefully supported by an AHRC funded network called “Media and the Inner World”. The book is published as part of their new series with Karnac called Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture.
If you are interested the book can be found at http://www.karnacbooks.com/Product.asp?PID=34857 or as an e-book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-World-Doctor-Psychoanalytic-Psychoanalysis/dp/1782200835

‘all professions are conspiracies against the laity’ George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma, 1906

British social services, without doubt, represent one of the best systems of social work throughout the world for protecting children, supporting families where circumstances and experience make them vulnerable and ensuring people with mental health problems are appropriately sustained. That notwithstanding, social work services in Britain, and in England in particular, have journeyed towards a more individualistic model of care and treatment promoted primarily in the US, and the roots of community action and practice that are truly ‘social’ have become less visible. This places our social work services, excellent as they are in key areas, on the margins of international understandings of social work.

Perhaps the changes articulated above are understandable given our affaire de Coeur with neoliberal philosophies and our celebration of the cult of the individual derived from Margaret Thatcher’s governments, perpetuated by Tony Blair and continued aggressively by the Coalition government of the day.

These changes have significant impact on people and their communities, reassigning blame from social structure to the individuals themselves. Also, there remains a potentially negative impact on social work globally. Many countries have followed the US and British social work models to develop services, sometimes as a direct result of colonialism, sometimes because of implicit global power relations. There is a legitimate concern that adoption of an individualistic approach reflects a neo-imperialist agenda, with problems resulting for those communities and groups made invisible within this process.

Our new book Professional Social Work (edited by Jonathan Parker BU & Mark Doel Sheffield Hallam) seeks to address some of these challenges. We suggest there is such a thing as ‘professional’ social work, that it must be distinct from ‘unprofessional’ social work. Our thesis is that it is imperative that we reclaim social work and its former radicalism and iconoclastically confront governmental established priorities, emphasising humanity’s social condition rather than its atomisation. In the book, we grapple with the fraught and complex definitions, practices and understandings of ‘professionalism’, exploring how the concept can be used to justify differing perspectives.

Including the work of some of the foremost thinkers in contemporary British social work (Stephen Cowden & Gurnam Singh, Pat Higham, Graham Ixer, Ray Jones, Malcolm Payne, Gillian Ruch, Steven Shardlow, Roger Smith, Neil Thompson, Sue Whist, and Marion Bogo from Canada) we promote professional social work practices that are relational, critical and reflexive, that challenge and help people and their communities to reconstruct themselves in their chosen ways.

Can We Sell Security Like Soap? A New Approach to Behaviour Change

Our next Interdisciplinary Cyber Security Seminar will take place on Tuesday, 19th November at 5pm. Our seminars are approachable, and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind.

Our speaker will be Debi Ashenden, who is a Reader in Cyber Security and Head of the Centre for Cyber Security and Information Assurance at Cranfield University, based at the Defence Academy of the UK, Shrivenham. Prior to taking up her post at Cranfield University she was Managing Consultant within QinetiQ’s Trusted Information Management Dept (formerly DERA). She has been working in cyber security since 1998 and specialises in the social and behavioural aspects of cyber security. Her research is built on a socio-technical vision of cyber security that sees people as solutions rather than as the problem. Debi is the co-author of, ‘Risk Management for Computer Security: Protecting Your Network and Information Assets’, Butterworth Heinneman (2004).

Talk Abstract: Many organisations run security awareness programmes with the aim of improving end user behaviours around information security. Yet behavioural research tells us that raising awareness will not necessarily lead to behaviour change. This talk examines the challenge of changing end user behaviour and puts forward social marketing as a new paradigm. Social marketing is a proven framework for achieving behavioural change and has traditionally been used in health care interventions, although there is an increasing recognition that it could be successfully applied to a broader range of behaviour change issues. It has yet to be applied however, to information security in an organisational context. This talk will explore the social marketing framework in relation to information security behavioural change and highlight the key challenges that this approach poses for information security managers. We conclude with suggestions for future research.

The seminar will take place in EB202 in the Executive Business Centre, and will be free and open to all. If you would like to attend, we encourage you to register at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/interdisciplinary-seminar-in-cyber-security-tickets-9336229915

Social Work in Palestine

Conference logo

Social Work in Palestine, 2nd conference Palestine-UK Social Work Network
The 2nd National Conference of the Palestine-UK Social Work Network, supported by members of the British Association of Social Work, was held on the 12th November at the Amnesty International Centre off dingy Shoreditch High Street, and was an absolute bargain. For a registration fee of only £15.00 it offered a programme of rare value and threw in a two-course vegetarian lunch as well. It was also one of the most compelling and powerful conferences that I’ve ever had the privilege of attending. One heard with almost disbelief and certainly intense disquiet several level-headed presentations reporting the daily and systematic oppression of the Palestinian people, and the fragmentation of any semblance to normality through the enforced occupation of the territories that has continued for over sixty years.

To try to convey what this means, Prof. Manuel Hassassian, Palestinian Ambassador claims that every single Palestinian living under occupation suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. We also learned what ‘peace’ has meant for these people over the last twenty years since the Oslo Agreement 1993: 7,000 Palestinians killed, twelve thousand+ Palestinian homes destroyed, a further 250,000+ Israeli settlers in Palestinian territories, and finally, 441 miles of apartheid walls built to corral people into armed, patrolled ghettoes.

Jerusalem, historical home of so many Palestinians, is subject to what Issa Rabadi, Officer of the Palestinian Union of Social Workers & Psychologists, described as an ‘undeclared war of ethnic cleansing’, where apparently the goal of the occupational authorities is that the Palestinian population should not exceed 15-20% by the Year 2020. To this end, one third of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem are at risk of being demolished on the official grounds that these are illegal lodgings, with a predicted peak of destruction of homes due in 2014. Yet, apparently gaining legal rights to live in Jerusalem for resident Palestinians is so complex and protracted a process (lasting decades in many cases) that ‘Kafkaesque’ hardly begins to describe it.

The most distressing stories, unsurprisingly, referred to the detainment and torture of Palestinians; particularly those accounts concerning Palestinian children. Many of these child prisoners are as young as 12- or 13-years-old, and are arrested normally on the charge of throwing stones at the occupying forces. This was exemplified by the experiences of speaker, Mohammed Abu al Reesh, who was arrested on two separate occasions in his recent boyhood and subjected on both occasions to brutal physical maltreatment and psychological intimidation throughout this time. Mohammed’s story was by no means exceptional, rather than the reverse. In addition to physical abuse children may also be placed in solitary confinement for up to a month where the only contact is their interrogator. Arrested and imprisoned children are not normally permitted to see their families and even accessing legal support is achieved only with great difficulty. In the case of Mohammed, within a fortnight of being released from his last sentence, he enrolled at university, eventually gaining a BA in media studies with the ambition, now achieved, of becoming a journalist in order to better inform the world of human rights violations taking place in the territories.

So where does social work feature in this catalogue of utter wretchedness? The Global Agenda for Social Work, which seeks to unite social work educators and practitioners universally in the promotion of this year’s theme ‘Promoting social and economic inequalities’, directly resonates with the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Palestinian social workers live and work under the same high levels of daily oppression and insecurities as the communities they courageously serve. They are unsupported by State legal systems or by Israeli fellow social workers, who to-date appear ominously aloof to the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. As lecturer, Barry Levine of Glasgow Caledonian University, also pointed out, any international criticism of state tactics is very likely to result in accusations of anti-Semitism, which effectively serves to stifle debate and to muddy attempts towards a clearer understanding of what constitutes discrimination and oppression in the territories.

Despite this, the Palestine-UK social work network is actively seeking collegial links with anyone interested in the Palestinian plight to further the goals of the Global Agenda and to constructively work towards peace. To this end, plans are being made to hold the next conference in Jerusalem, where hopefully UK social worker academics and practitioners will be able to witness the situation for ourselves; and equally importantly, show solidarity with social work colleagues internationally.

The KTP Advantage

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my KTP I…

Provided consultation into the design of an innovative model of dementia care: ‘Shared Care’ The aim of Shared Care is to offer an alternative lifestyle choice to people living with dementia. At present, options for people needing support living with dementia are limited to in home care packages, outsourced respite and long term care home placement.

Brendoncare sought the expertise at Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) to ensure the built and psycho-social environments, methods of care delivery and technologies implemented within Shared Care were ‘dementia friendly’ and to ensure the voice of people living with dementia has an input to the design of services. This was achieved through consultation with people with dementia, family carers and formal care staff.

Highlights of the project were…

Being given the opportunity to take responsibility for all aspects of my project from ensuring the consultation work was ethically proficient to recruitment to dissemination and succeeding in meeting the expectations of the client. Moreover, being funded to go and discuss my work with peers at Alzheimer’s Europe 2013 in Malta was a great experience.

Representing Brendoncare at BUDI's internal conference in May

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Best Thing about being a KTP Associate is…

Applying the theoretical knowledge and skills learnt during education into practice, with the support of an expert knowledge base and a practice base receptive to service innovation. The opportunities to present findings at board room level and hear action points being raised as a direct result of your work is also extremely satisfying.

From KTP I have learnt…

Before KTP I was just another graduate. Now I have professional academic experience, I have completed a challenging and intensive project within dementia studies; met peers and discussed my work at an international conference and have become a valued member of BUDI; a team committed to improving the lives of people with dementia. KTP has confirmed, reinforced and enabled me to start an academic career in dementia research.

Life after KTP is…

I am about to start my PhD study: An investigation into the strategic implementation of a model of dementia care into a care home environment. I am also planning to get findings of this project published in a peer reviewed academic journal.

I recommend KTP because…

It provides one of the best opportunities I’ve seen in the graduate market. It gives associate experience in both academic and practice-based working environments, space to develop skills, control and ownership over project work and much support along the way. I would recommend any graduate to grasp this opportunity and get the KTP advantage!

 

Kicking off! Sociology + International Placements

 

In May 2013 four students from HSC’s BA Sociology & Social Policy programme undertook a 25-day placement in Malaysia, hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Universiti Sains Malaysia located on the beautiful, historical island of Penang under the conscientious supervision of HSC’s Visiting Professor, Dr Azlinda Azman, Chair of Social Work, USM. The aim of the placement was to enable students to apply a sociological analysis to the constructions of welfare and care-giving in a very different socio-cultural context.

The four students, Heidi Crew, Samineh Hall, Dannielle Connolly and Roxanne Boydell successfully applied for BU Global Horizon funding. This valuable financial assistance enabled the students to help to spearhead the first set of planned steps towards the internationalisation of the Sociology+ programmes in delivering a FUSION focus.

Placements were divided into those for elderly citizens or children and young people with disabilities. The students were able to choose from a placement that related to their Level I study options, and go on to experience a number of different settings. The following extracts from their detailed narratives offer a glimpse into how the students negotiated unfamiliar constructions of need and care in an unfamiliar, post-colonial cultural setting.

Elderly care residential Homes (Sami, Roxanne and Danni):

The donations that the Home receives are very impressive. Even though families are unable to look after their elders due to the change in family structures and work, the elderly still hold a very important place within the community. People of Penang speak very fondly of the Home.

All in all, we learnt a lot from our weeks at placement and were very grateful to have been able to witness first-hand how the elderly were looked after in a different culture.  From this experience we have drawn that there are many similarities in the way the Homes are run in Malaysia.  

Unlike in the UK, the most popular Homes are charities and run on public donations.  They receive many of these as Asia still regards their elderly population very highly.  However, with the growing elderly population, we were able to witness the impact of the gap between young and old and the change in the family structures.  All the Homes were struggling to find enough volunteers to help look after their residents as most of the young generation now (in particular young women who usually had the role of carer) have careers and may opt to put their relatives in a Home rather than adopt the old traditions of caring for the elderly at home. 

Working with children with disabilities (Heidi):

World Play Day was another of my most memorable days. This was based at my second placement in Balik Pulau, where I would be based for the last 3 weeks I was in Malaysia. It is literally in the middle of nowhere: no shops near by and a 2-hour bus journey from Penang.

World Play Day was run by the older residents (18 and above) with varying disabilities, physical and mental. All the children from First Steps and any other children with disabilities within the area or outside, such as the mainland  were invited to join in. ‘We are special’ was their motto, and every helper was given a T-Shirt saying this.

I was personally in charge of the ‘starch pool’. This was where the children could get used to texture, and some of them loved it. It was a swimming pool of rice flour and water, so that it made a thick gloopy mixture and was dyed pink with food colouring to appeal to the younger children.

Maddie, one of the other helpers, was in charge of the water slide. This was a tarpaulin sheet covered in water and washing up liquid, whilst there were other activities going on too. Everyone had a different station that they manned. I was just as covered in the starch at the end as the children were. The key to success on days like this was to get involved. 

The day was and is sponsored annually by Starbuck Coffee. I never used to put money in their charity boxes that said ‘to help Asian communities’. Now that I’ve seen exactly what that money does and the amount of smiles that are produced from it I will never walk away from that charity box without putting something in.

KTP associate attends conferences to promote her research

Dr Celia Beckett, Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) research associate at BU and Five Rivers Child Care Ltd attended the KTP Associates’ Conference at Brighton University on 13th June. She presented a paper on the pilot stage of her project “Improving the care of children in residential units: assessment and interventions”. The conference, which is a Brighton University initiative supported by the Centre for Collaboration and Partnership, was well attended and there were 10 paper presentations and 8 posters. Topics ranged from roller blinds to leak repair additives for coolant systems! A recurring theme at the conference was the role of the KTP in working to effect change in organisations that result in improved commercial outcomes as well as the challenges and rewards of this role.

There are c. 800 KTP associates currently working on projects throughout the UK, ensuring that there is an exchange of knowledge between Universities and private / public companies, making a real difference to all those organisations involved in KTPs. It is one of the largest graduate schemes in the UK. More information about BU’s KTPs can be found at the newly relaunched Business Pages.

Celia will also be presenting a poster at the forthcoming  Recovery-focused conference: Engagement in Life: Promoting Wellbeing and Mental Health, hosted by BU on 6th September 2013.

British Society of Criminology Annual Conference 2013

Last week the University of Wolverhampton hosted the annual conference of the British Society of Criminology. The Parellel sessions covered a wide range of topics including policing, prisons, diversity, media and culture and gender. Highlights for me were papers on cyberstalking by Italian teenagers and the development of websites that sell illicit drugs with a specific focus on the techonology behind one site Silk Road.

For anyone with a specific interest in prisons and offender welfare some interesting prelimary findings from the largest UK survey of prisoners were presented and this research will be published over the next few months with the first pblication due out at the end of July.

There was also a fascinating paper on research into the experience of prisoners that was conducted by a group of prisoner officers who undertook training in ethnographic research  and were assigned to research prisons where their status as a prison officer was unknown. The paper focused on the impact that undertaking the research had upon the prison officer researchers.

My paper , Exploring female drug-taking during the First World War generated a lively discussion on the female role in drug dealing and law-breaking.

It was an excellent conference and I would like to thank Rosie Read for supporting my application to the Society and Social Welfare Community Budget which enabled me to attend.

Research Ethics: Insights from the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health and the Centre for Social Work, Sociology & Social Policy

Ethics contributions

Collage of research ethics contributions

Academics based in HSC have experience in a wide-range of research.  In the process of reflecting on all aspects of the research process several members of HSC have published about ethical issues that they have had to address in their own research.    This BU Blog highlights some of these key HCS papers which may help fellow academics and students across the globe address similar ethical questions.  HSC has a history of publishing on research ethics, Professor Emerita Immy Holloway wrote about the researcher who may have a dual role, or even conflicting role, as researcher and health care professional (1).  More recently, several midwifery researchers in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health wrote about the issues facing practitioners doing research in the field where they work, especially concerning the similarities and differences between professional ethics and research ethics (2-3).  Negotiating ethical paths cleaved by competing concerns between protecting research participants and over-managing the ethical process is tricky.

In her book Rainforest Asylum: The enduring legacy of colonial psychiatric care in Malaysia Dr. Ashencaen Crabtree in the Centre for Social Work, Sociology & Social Policy, addresses the problematic issue of gate-keepers in research together with the ethics of critical observation of abuse (potential or actual), as well as the ethics of advocating on behalf of research participants (4).

The fear that the ethical application process in the UK is becoming more and more cumbersome and bureaucratic has been widely recognised as highlighted by Prof. van Teijlingen and colleagues (5-6).

Research ethics review processes are also considered in terms of access to participants regarded as ‘vulnerable’ in a recently published paper by Dr. Ashencaen Crabtree (7) of ethnographers working in health settings who are seeking to understand the context of care and patient/service user experiences.  She concludes that paternalistic control of participation on the grounds of ethical protection of vulnerable people seriously disenfranchises potential participants in preventing them from being able to share their relevant, lived experiences as recipients of service provision.

Prof. van Teijlingen and BU Visiting Fellow Dr. Padam Simkhada highlighted that the social, cultural and economic contexts in which research is conducted often differ between developing and developed countries.  However they stress that researchers need to apply for research ethics approval to the relevant local authority, if national legislation requires one to do so (8).

A new and challenging area of research is the use of discussion boards as a source of research data.  In their paper Dr. Bond and BU colleagues discuss both practical and ethical dilemmas that arise in using such data (9). In earlier research, Prof. Parker of the Centre for Social Work, Sociology & Social Policy, highlighted some of the benefits and dangers of using email and the Internet for research as the potential for electronic media continues its rapid growth (10).

Obtaining informed consent is something that all researchers need to consider. However, in some research situations obtaining consent can be particularly challenging.  Prof. Hundley and colleagues discuss the ethical challenges involved in conducting a cluster randomised controlled trial, where consent needs to be considered at a number of levels (11).  In a second paper issues of consent during pregnancy, where there is the potential for harm to two participants, are considered (12).

In research into the implications of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for social research, Prof. Parker explored the contested meanings and difficulties associated with informed consent in social research, highlighting some of the challenges raised by an almost unquestioned acceptance of biomedical research ethics in social research and questioning whether potential ‘harm’ is different in this context (13, 14). This research has led to further explorations of the potential for ethical covert research by Prof. Parker and Dr. Ashencaen Crabtree.

 

The way forward

There a plenty of challenges to research ethics in both the health and social care sectors.  Ethical considerations relate to technological developments such conducting research over the Internet or the analysis of tweets.  HSC staff will continue to publish on a range of moral dilemma as well as practical issues related to research ethics.  Moreover, academic from the two centres are planning a Masterclass on research ethics to be held in early 2014.

 

 

References

  1. Holloway, I., Wheeler, S. (1995) Ethical Issues in Qualitative Nursing Research, Nursing Ethics 2: 223-232.   Web address:  http://nej.sagepub.com/content/2/3/223.full.pdf+html
  2. Ryan, K., Brown, B., Wilkins, C., Taylor, A., Arnold, R., Angell, C., van Teijlingen, E. (2011) Which hat am I wearing today? Practicing midwives doing research, Evidence-Based Midwifery 9(1): 4-8.
  3. van Teijlingen, E.R., Cheyne, H.L. (2004) Ethics in midwifery research, RCM Midwives Journal 7 (5): 208-10.
  4. Ashencaen Crabtree, S. (2012) Rainforest Asylum: The enduring legacy of colonial psychiatric care in Malaysia, London: Whiting & Birch.
  5. van Teijlingen, E., Douglas, F., Torrance, N. (2008) Clinical governance and research ethics as barriers to UK low-risk population-based health research? BMC Public Health 8(396)                            Web address: www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-8-396.pdf
  6. van Teijlingen, E. (2006) Reply to Robert Dingwall’s Plenary ‘Confronting the Anti-Democrats: The unethical Nature of Ethical Regulation in Social Science, MSo (Medical Sociology online) 1: 59-60  Web address:  www.medicalsociologyonline.org/archives/issue1/pdf/reply_rob.pdf
  7. Ashencaen Crabtree, S. (2013) Research ethics approval processes and the moral enterprise of ethnography. Ethics & Social Welfare. Advance Access: DOI:10.1080/17496535.2012.703683
  8. van Teijlingen E.R., Simkhada, P.P. (2012) Ethical approval in developing countries is not optional, Journal of Medical Ethics 38 :428-430.
  9. Bond, C.S,  Ahmed, O.H., Hind, M, Thomas, B., Hewitt-Taylor, J. (2013) The Conceptual and Practical Ethical Dilemmas of Using Health Discussion Board Posts as Research Data, Journal of Medical Internet Research 15(6):e112)  Web address: http://www.jmir.org/2013/6/e112/
  10. Parker, J.  (2008) Email, ethics and data collection in social work research: some reflections from a research project, Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate & Practice, 4 (1): 75-83.
  11. Hundley, V, Cheyne, HC, Bland, JM, Styles, M, Barnett, CA.. (2010) So you want to conduct a cluster randomised controlled trial? Lessons from a national cluster trial of early labour, Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 16: 632-638
  12. Helmreich, R.J., Hundley, V., Norman, A., Ighedosa, J., Chow, E. (2007) Research in pregnant women: the challenges of informed consent, Nursing for Women’s Health 11(6):  576-585.
  13. Parker, J., Penhale, B., Stanley, D., 2010. Problem or safeguard? Research ethics review in social care research and the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Social Care & Neurodisability, 1 (2): 22-32.
  14. Parker, J., Penhale, B., Stanley, D. (2011) Research ethics review: social care and social science research and the Mental Capacity Act 2005, Ethics & Social Welfare, 5(4): 380-400.

 

Vanora Hundley, Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Jonathan Parker & Edwin van Teijlingen

 

 

‘Off the Campus and Into the Community: Teaching for Social Justice

Speaker: Dr Susan Hyatt, Visiting Fellow, Department of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University, Associate Professor of Anthropology, IU School of Liberal Arts, Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis 

 Monday, 17th June 2013

12:00– 13:30

R303  Royal London House

 

Abstract:

Over the past 20 years, institutions of higher learning in the US, both public and private, have increasingly emphasized the value of civic engagement and community outreach as integral parts of their educational missions. In my teaching of applied anthropology, I have embraced this pedagogical turn as a way to involve students in community-based issues and to promote critical thinking. In this talk, I offer several brief examples where I have taken students out off the campus and into the community to engage in collaborative research projects. And, I have also offered students opportunities to participate in courses taught in somewhat unconventional community settings, including prisons and a residential treatment facility for women overcoming addiction. I argue that through such courses, we do not teach our students about social justice; rather, we allow students to experience for themselves the inequalities that structure much of our contemporary world and to reflect deeply on the ways that social action connects theory with practice.

 

 

BU Research Blog Exclusive: Design & Look of eBU leaked

The first screenshot of the eBU interface has been exclusively leaked to the BU Research Blog, and is expected to go viral across the BU community over the next week.

eBU will provide both an internal and external forum for the development of research papers by undergraduate to Professor around the eight BU research themes:

–          Creative & Digital Economies

–          Culture & Society

–          Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth

–          Environmental Change & Biodiversity

–          Green Economy & Sustainability  

–          Health, Wellbeing & Ageing 

–          Leisure & Recreation

–          Technology & Design

Submissions will be open to immediate publication (in a safe internal environment) and open peer review by 2 appropriate BU academics. Authors will be encouraged to act upon these reviews by either reworking papers for submission to an external journal or by opting for publication on the external eBU site.

For BU academics this is a great opportunity to get critical appraisal on your research papers or ideas from colleagues. For academics it also an opportunity to encourage the submission of high quality student output, and possibly to facilitate the co-creation and co-production of publishable material to an external journal or to publish externally with eBU. For students, this is a fantastic opportunity to turn high quality essays or dissertations into scholarly outputs, which will be attractive to employers across many sectors and industries.

If you have any questions or would like to become involved in this exciting venture, please get in touch with me via email aharding@bournemouth.ac.uk or by telephone 01202 963025.

Socnet Conference at HSC

Erasmus Social Work International Week at the Centre for Social Work, Sociology & Social Policy, HSC

 The Erasmus SOCNET International Social Work Week, which runs every April from the 15th to the 19th  of the month,  is a multi-site annual event held at host European universities drawn from across the 19 HEI members of the SOCNET network  on a 3-year rota.  This very popular event brings together a diverse range of European academics and students with an interest in social work and welfare to participate in a packed week of educational, cultural and social events.

 This year, and for the first time, it was BU’s turn to host this prestigious event held jointly by HSC staff and students from the BA and MA Social Work programmes and BA Sociology & Social Policy.  HSC welcomed academics and accompanying students from Germany, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands for a very busy educational week, which received highly enthusiastic evaluations from participants.

 The chosen theme of this year’s SOCNET conference at BU was  ‘Diversity and the processes of marginalization and otherness: giving voices to hidden themes’.  The event was opened by Vice Chancellor, Professor John Vinney, followed by a keynote lecture from Professor Jonathan Parker. Professor Gail Thomas, Dean of the School of Health & Social Care, was guest of honour at the lecturers’ Welcome Dinner held at the Print Room Restaurant, Bournemouth – the first of a number of lively social events held that week. Members of the organizing committee on the staff side included Jill Davey, Jonathan Parker, Sara Crabtree, Richard Williams and Chris Willetts, all of whom were also involved in delivery of presentations ranging from problematising anti-oppressive social work practice to a comparative South Africa/UK study of kinship care to Islamophobia in Europe.  HSC PhD student and Associate Lecturer, David Galley, gave an important lecture on the historical context of migration and its influence on welfare. Social Work students Michelle Lillywhite, David Oppong and Ralph Daniel, and Sociology & Social Policy students Abby Jeffery, Heidi Crew, Luana Silliton and Samineh Hall were instrumental in organizing student events, together with delivery of their own student-led thematic workshops. Finally, invaluable administrative management was provided by HSC’s efficient Administrator, Karen Long. 

 Above all, however, the importance of the SOCNET International Week lies in the ability to sustain the continuation and expansion of a dynamic community of international scholars and educators. Drawn from across the interconnecting disciplines of social work, law and social policy these academics are actively committed to promoting a participatory and internationalised student-focused curriculum on the diverse features of European social work and welfare. The peer collegiality of the event embraces an ever-changing body of students as peer-learners and equal participants in developing specific conference themes, and assisting to develop the sustainability of the network. This in turn generates further engagement through student/staff exchanges and research collaboration.

 To further promote these excellent goals, selected chapters generated from the best of the workshops at BU will be developed into an edited volume entitled Diversity and the Processes of Marginalisation: Reflections on Social Work in Europe, under the editorship of Sara (Ashencaen) Crabtree and Jill Davey (Whiting & Birch publishers). This collection follows from last year’s initiative to produce the first SOCNET volume entitled Active Ageing? Perspectives from Europe on a vaunted topic, under editors María Lusia Gómez Jiménez, University of Malaga, and Jonathan Parker, BU.

Value of conference attendance?

October is the month of the annual Alzheimer Europe (www.alzheimer-europe.org) meeting. This year three BUDI team members attended the rather nice setting in Vienna a draw for everyone, although we all had very different agendas and expectations. Alzheimer Europe is one of my personal favourite conferences as I’ve been going for years and it creates the opportunity to meet with new and catch up with a range of international colleagues, and is actually the main reason I go to these kind of events; yes it is good to present the work, and as a team we had two posters and three oral presentations this year, which is not bad for an Institute only in existence for 6 months, but it is the networking aspect that provides inspiration and creates new ideas and new collaborations that motivates me to go to these kind of events.

Patricia McParland is BUDI’s project manager, she has presented at a few dementia conferences in the last 3 years but for this conference her main concern was to ensure her cutting edge work doctoral work, that she is in the final throes of writing up, on public awareness of dementia is getting out there as this is an area of increasing policy concern both in the UK and internationally and many are starting to work in this particular area. As well as presenting a poster on her doctoral work that received positive attention, she presented a paper reporting on one of BUDI’s project about Dementia Friendly Tourism. The concept of Dementia Friendly Tourism has caught the imagination of many we speak to about our dementia work and this proved to be the case again in Vienna. Colleagues from France, Spain and Jersey were particularly interested in this project and keen to explore how these ideas could be applied to their regions; we will see what transpires over the coming months in the way of collaboration but this is a nice example of the added value of going to a conference.

Clare Cutler is a research assistant in BUDI and has just started her PhD exploring experiences of war and dementia, as an Early Career Researcher Clare was thrilled to be attending her first interational conference, and her excitement was contagious! but she was also rather anxious about giving her first presentation on one of BUDI’s projects, GRIID, Gateway to Rural International Innovations in Dementia, on behalf of an international team. She needn’t have worried as she went down a storm; mainly because she said at the beginning that she was nervous, this was her first presentation and then let out a big sigh as she finished. This created a huge amount of goodwill to her personally as well as her giving a presentation on an innovative interational partnership project. We had received the support of Alzheimer Disease International (www.alz.co.uk) to conduct part of this study and the opportunity for further discussion about working together to target rural areas and developing countries is another of the added value benefits that being in Vienna brought for me this year.

I presented a paper on a recently completed evaluation of a telehealth project to diagnose and follow up people with dementia living on the Shetland Isles and Grampian, rural areas of Scotland. The added value of this work relates to the INTERDEM (www.interdem.org) meeting that was held the day before the conference. (This is another example of added value by the way, going to other meetings around a conference.) Interdem is an application/invite only pan European network of highly active psychosocial researchers in the dementia field; as a member I was also able to take my BUDI colleagues in their student roles, a new doctoral and just about to complete doctoral student, to this full day meeting and they found this an amazing experience as many of the ‘names’ of long established dementia academics are part of this group which is always a buzz to meet people you’ve quoted for the first time, who offered real warmth, enthusiasm and support for their work. The Interdem meeting this time round was a mix of presentations (including one from the task force on technology and dementia that I co-lead)  and working groups developing bid ideas, collaborative papers and general brain storming about how to take forward new work in the field. The technology task force has been working on a bid around exergaming and dementia and we used the lunchtime slot to meet to work up our ideas further  (more added value) as well as updating Interdem members about our progress with this bid during the meeting itself. But we also discussed new bid ideas and telehealth, the focus of my Alzheimer Europe paper, was one of the favoured topics; one of our jobs now is to see the details of a long-awaited funding call  (JPND) due out December 2012 and get writing another EU bid.  We also agreed to write a collaborative paper on technology and dementia, but a successful meeting is one that generates new work from my point of view!

My other bit of dissemination work was a poster about ongoing research evaluating dementia care in Maltese hopsital wards. The added value about this relates to the conference venue being in Malta next year and I am sure this has partly influenced the invitation, of the Maltese Dementia Society member who is a long standing collaborator of mine as well as being the local organisor for the 2013 meeting, for me to give a plenary there next year!

So in all, the value of going to conferences for new researchers, is undoubtedly to present their work, to meet esteemed colleagues and the resultant ‘buzz’ this brings, to learn about other research in the field and to start their own networks (a good example of this is Patricia joining a writing team for a methods related paper, more added value!). For me it is a chance to catch up with people and to discuss potential new collaborations. In previous years it has also been about keeping a profile of the work of my team, this year it was about starting to create a profile for a new BU team to an international audience. I am pleased to report that all boxes were ticked this time round!

Dementia

Most of us know someone touched by dementia – a friend, relative or loved one.  As the average age of our population grows ever older, the chances are some of us will be affected.

As such dementia is emerging as a new strategic priority for BU, with investment from our HEIF funds to create the Bournemouth University Dementia Institute, or BUDI as the team like to call it.  The team is growing rapidly working on a range of funded dementia projects with more in the pipeline. Working with the Director of BUDI Anthea Innes, Lee-Ann Fenge, Sue Barker, Vanessa Healsip, Michele Board have recently completed a review of Higher Education Dementia Curriculums on behalf of the Higher Education Dementia Network.  Work that reflects Anthea’s previous experience leading masters and undergraduate programmes in Dementia Studies and the dementia focus of social work and nursing colleagues within the School of Health and Social Care.  A number of research and knowledge exchange projects are underway including:

  • An ongoing programme of work funded by Bournemouth Borough Council involves the BUDI team delivering a range of activities via two different programmes; a ‘cupcake club’ and a technology group.  The evaluation report isn’t due until February 2013 so a lot is happening over the autumn months.
  • A BU Research Development Grant enabled an early collaboration between the Schools of Tourism and Health and Social Care.  This project led by Anthea Innes (HSC) and Stephen Page (Tourism) is currently being written up for publication and dissemination.  It is the first study to conceptualise ‘Dementia Friendly Tourism’ as an area worth investigation to try and improve the leisure opportunities for those with dementia and their families; but the project will also produce recommendations to  help advise tourism and leisure providers to enhance their provision to promote inclusion of those with dementia.
  • An international study GRIID (Gateway Rural International Initiatives in Dementia), involving partners from Australia, Canada, India, Sweden and the UK is also in the writing up stages following a policy synthesis and survey of Alzheimer Disease International (www.adi.co.uk) members.
  • European work is on-going too, focused on Malta where Anthea has long established links working on improving the quality of care offered in Maltese hospital wards
  • A multi-site NIHR project has just commenced exploring site loss and dementia for people who continue to live at home.  This is a collaboration between the Universities of York, BU, Cambridge, Worcester and consumer organisations; the Housing and Dementia Research Consortium (HDRC); Pocklington Trust supported by the Alzheimer Society and the Macular Disease Society

But this is just the start with money being committed by many of large funding agencies this is a societal theme of the moment.  BU is part of a large FP7 grant application currently first reserve for funding, and BU is coordinating a multimillion ESRC grant application with 12 other institution due for submission this autumn.  Working locally is also very much on the agenda.  Staff in BUDI are working for example in partnership with commissioners and clinicians across Dorset to secure funding via the NHS South of England Dementia Challenge fund with BU as the evaluator for a number of innovative local projects proposed by those delivering dementia care every day.

BUDI launched 16 May 2012 just three months ago and the progress is impressive, but there is also a long way to go to achieve its objectives of making a real contribution to improving the lives of those with dementia and those who provide support whether they be family or paid clinicians and carers.  This is not just an initiative launched from HSC but a cross BU one and I am delighted to announce the secondment of Samuel Nyman (Psychology, DEC) to BUDI to strengthen its work force and continue his existing collaboration with Anthea which includes a match funded BU PhD Studentship with Anthea Innes and Marilyn Cash which is looking at the role of gaming technology to support older men with dementia in rural areas.  BUDI is looking for staff who wish to engage from across BU and is truly multidisciplinary in its approach and reach.  There may be other who are interested in similar secondments and I would encourage them to get in touch with Anthea.  DEC and Tourism are already involved with BUDI contributing staff and time but there is huge scope for others to get involved for example in the Media School.  Why not drop Anthea a line and get in touch?

Also starting in September is Patricia McParland as BUDI Project Manager or Engagement Consultant, a post-doc appointment is pending, PhD student Ben Hicks will start soon and we will be advertising for an Associate Director for BUDI soon.  BUDI has the full support of UET and is receiving strategic investment to make things happen quickly; dementia is of the moment as illustrated by the Prime Minister Dementia Challenge launched earlier this year and it’s for BU to cease this moment.  BUDI offers the opportunity to have a real impact, to make a difference in our society, to develop practice and research and to do it quickly.  Please get involved and get in touch with Anthea or myself directly.

 

ESRC Call for Evaluating the Business Impact of Social Science

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is seeking to commission an evaluation study to assess the ways in which social science research and the knowledge and skills of social scientists can have impact in business. The study will begin by assessing the business impact of social science through the work of a small number of Business/Management Schools. It will then track the career paths of social science doctoral graduates from these Schools, and investigate in greater depth the contributions of those working in business.

The aims of the evaluation are as follows:

Part 1 – Impact of Business/Management Schools

  • identify the range and nature of business impacts resulting from the work of the Business/Management Schools
  • evaluate the processes through which business impacts may be or have been generated, through research and related activities (including academic/business collaborations, knowledge exchange and business engagement initiatives, networking and dissemination)
  • develop an understanding of the contributions of social science within local, regional and national contexts, and the factors that promote or inhibit impact within these contexts
  • identify and analyse the determinants of the impacts identified (ie why and how impact has been generated)
  • identify good practice and lessons learned, to support the development of impact generation within the business sector
  • inform the development of methodology for future impact evaluation studies in this area.

Part 2 – Impact of social scientist with PhDs working within business

  • identify the employment destinations of social science doctoral graduates from the three Schools
  • identify the range and nature of impacts that social scientists with PhDs working in business have contributed to
  • identify and analyse the determinants of the impacts (ie why and how impact has been generated)
  • explore impact processes and potential impacts, and identify any barriers to impact generation
  • develop an understanding of businesses’ appreciation and need for the higher level skills associated with PhD training
  • identify good practice and lessons for enhancing the contribution that social science doctoral graduates can make to business
  • inform the ESRC’s investment in PhD training with a view to maximising future impacts.

Further details, and a copy of the full specification are available from the Research Councils UK Shared Services Centre Ltd. Please contact Jonathan Smith by email: jonathan.smith@ssc.rcuk.ac.uk or by telephone: 01235 446394 (Ref PS120008).

The deadline for submission of bids is 11.00 on 11 June 2012.

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.