Liability considerations in child welfare: lessons from Canada

OBJECTIVE: Recent years have been fraught with investigations into the deaths of children receiving child welfare services throughout North America, Europe, and Australia. These inquiries have attracted considerable media attention and public outrage. Added to this have been increases in attempts to hold social workers in child welfare responsible for the abuse and deaths of children through the criminal and civil courts. As a result of fears regarding liability, many child welfare professionals are resorting to defensive practice strategies. METHOD: This article reviews recent court decisions and legislation in Canada regarding this issue in order to assess actual risks. RESULTS: Social workers who act according to accepted standards of practice and who in good faith make difficult judgments to the best of their abilities, will not be held to be criminally culpable or civilly negligent. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that child welfare professionals who exercise reasonable caution and engage in good clinical social work practice, good record keeping, effective communication and verification of information, can continue to strive to offer the high quality services to children and their families as they have always done without any serious fear of recrimination.     

Using a whole‐class token economy and coaching of teacher skills in a preschool classroom to manage disruptive behavior

The Level System is a whole‐classroom approach for managing disruptive behavior that utilizes behavioral management strategies such as a token economy, response cost, stimulating rewards, and strategic attention. Using an ABACC′ treatment comparison design with follow‐up, this study evaluated the effectiveness of the Level System in a preschool classroom compared to (a) strategies already employed by the teacher, and (b) coaching the teacher in the Child‐Directed Interaction (CDI) and Parent‐Directed Interaction (PDI) phases of Parent–Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Teacher‐ and parent‐report measures were administered, and behavioral observation data were collected for child and teacher behavior using videotapes. Results suggested that the amount of inappropriate behavior exhibited by children decreased when the Level System was implemented. Additionally, inappropriate behavior decreased further during the CDI and PDI conditions. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 351–361, 2004.     

A Meta-Level Analysis of the Conduit in Lives Lived and Stories Told

This work begins with reflections on the conduit, and then presents the conduit metaphor as a philosophical and linguistic concept and as an educational idea. Research studies with two teachers and two principals over a sustained period of time are presented, and re-cast in terms of what each reveals about the qualities of the conduit. In the process, each educator's knowledge is featured in its own terms and each school situation is worked through in its own terms. The attributes of the conduit are then distilled through meta-level narrative analysis, and possibilities for the future are imagined.     

Reflections on ‘creative’ action learning in business education: some issues in its theory and practice

The purpose of this paper is to consider some issues in the uses of what we have termed ‘creative’ action learning in a business education context, and to review some aspects of its practice. A review of the literature, including its use in higher education, is followed by a case illustration of its use in a UK business school with predominantly international students. Action learning is principally thought of as a human resource development practice and is widely used in a variety of public and private sector organisations. The focus here, however, is on the use of action learning in a business school setting and the application of specific creative thinking tools, in order to explore its potential for developing collaborative peer learning and support.     

Building capacity in social care: an evaluation of a national programme of action learning facilitator development

This account of practice shares the findings of an evaluation into the impact of a facilitator development programme on participants' knowledge, skills and subsequent practice. The Centre for Action Learning Facilitation was established to develop action learning set advisors and has been working with Skills for Care over the last two years to develop an internal capacity in social work departments to use action learning primarily to support newly qualified staff.     

Doing right in business: can action learning develop moral sensitivity and promote ethical behaviour?

The question addressed in this paper is whether action learning as a management development technique can be more effective in promoting ethical decision-making than more traditional approaches. Recent examples of moral failures which have emerged in both corporate and public sector organisations in the UK during recent years have prompted a review of some of the literature about the teaching of business ethics in and by business schools. While the use of theoretical approaches to ethical analysis (such as consequentialist and deontological approaches), coupled with the discussion of scenarios or cases is a common way of structuring the teaching of business and organisational ethics, it may be limited as an approach insofar as it does not necessarily address the affective aspects of the learning process which contribute to the development of moral sensitivity and moral character. It is suggested that an action learning approach may help fill this gap, particularly if coupled with an Aristotelian focus on the development of moral character. Action learning as a technique seeks to replace instruction with facilitation, and to enable individual personal growth rather than the acquisition of knowledge. It emphasises practical action in the workplace and working with peers as part of an action learning set. The action learning method may be more suitable to fostering both technical/scientific wisdom (poeisis) and practical or prudential wisdom (phronesis) and could be adapted for use with both business students and practising managers.     

Library Instruction in the Digital Age

ABSTRACT

Updating her 2003 article in Reference Services Review (“The Future of Reference: Get Real!” Reference Services Review 3(1), 2003, 39–42, DOI: 10.1108/00907320310460898), the author emphasizes the need to get a good sense of what one's users’ priorities are, concentrating efforts on successful tools researchers will actually use; responding to changes that have taken place in research and scholarship; devising instruction for use in actual environments, spaces, and timeframes; focusing on local user needs; and working to influence user-centered design of library online systems.

This article originally published in Journal of Library Administration, Vol. 51, Issue 3, pages 301–308, 2011. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2011.556948.     

Selecting and Implementing Whole School Improvement Models: A District and School Administrator Perspective

As a growing number of schools and districts are found to be underperforming under the requirements of NCLB, school and district administrators are increasingly searching for research-based whole school improvement programs, including comprehensive school reform (CSR) models and education service providers (ESPs), in order to create dramatic changes and improvements within schools. Limited available research on the effectiveness of these models constrains what education consumers know about how a model will meet the unique needs of a particular school. This article reviews the experience of practitioners who have been through the selection and implementation process of whole school improvement models in order to identify emerging themes that education consumers embarking on this process should consider. During the qualitative data collection process for three Comprehensive School Reform Quality (CSRQ) Center reports, CSRQ staff held phone conversations with school and district administrators. The researchers analyzed 86 of these conversations and grouped them into similar topic areas. Common themes emerged for both the selection process and the implementation of whole school improvement models.