Municipalities’ view of respite care service for families in Sweden: a comparison between two studies

ABSTRACT

In 1994 a new law, the Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS), was passed in Sweden. Accessibility to respite care service is a legal right for families with children with disabilities primarily aimed at giving parents and caregivers relief from care in daily life. The aim of this short report is to illustrate how the municipalities meet the families’ need of support, to study the differences between the results from two data collections (1988 and 1994) and to reveal if and how the priorities have changed over time. The results show that there is a great need of respite care in families of children with disabilities and that there is a lack of case managing from the local authorities. Many municipalities had made an inventory of the need for support. A critical question is: to what extent can parents influence decisions concerning respite staff? To conclude, a need for developing well‐functioning models for respite care service is stressed     

Evaluating media-enhancement and source authority on the internet: the Knowledge Integration Environment

Access to the internet increases variability in media and source authority for students who generally rely on teachers and textbooks. Some internet sources are more credible than others (e.g., a New York Times article on the web vs. a private citizen's homepage). Some sources are impressively produced with graphics and media-enhancements, while others are unadorned text. We explore the question of how source authority and media-enhancement impact students' interpretation of evidence as they conduct a Knowledge Integration Environment project as part of integrated science instruction in a culturally diverse high school.     

How can history of science matter to scientists?

History of science has developed into a methodologically diverse discipline, adding greatly to our understanding of the interplay between science, society, and culture. Along the way, one original impetus for the then newly emerging discipline--what George Sarton called the perspective "from the point of view of the scientist"--dropped out of fashion. This essay shows, by means of several examples, that reclaiming this interaction between science and history of science yields interesting perspectives and new insights for both science and history of science. The authors consequently suggest that historians of science also adopt this perspective as part of their methodological repertoire.     

EVALUATING AN INTERDISCIPLINARY GERIATRIC EDUCATION AND TRAINING INSTITUTE: WHAT CAN BE LEARNED BY STUDYING PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES?

As recognition of the need for interdisciplinary geriatric teams grows, new and varied training methods will be necessary to reach health and human service professionals in different contexts and settings. This article reports on the development and evaluation of one such model: an interprofessional educational institute sponsored by the Queen's University Gerontology Project in 1993. Data analyzed include information on participants’ backgrounds and teamwork experience and their assessment of session content and group work processes that made up the knowledge acquisition and skills attainment objectives of the program. Major implications of the institute that became evident include the need to develop a strong institutional foundation, the importance of targeted recruitment, the connection between theory and practice, and the need to present practical techniques, strategies, and modeling opportunities.