Effect-based proteomic detection of growth promoter abuse

Unregulated growth promoter use in food-producing animals is an issue of concern both from food safety and animal welfare perspectives. However, the monitoring of such practices is analytically challenging due to the concerted actions of users to evade detection. Techniques based on the monitoring of biological responses to exogenous administrations have been proposed as more sensitive methods to identify treated animals. This study has, for the first time, profiled plasma proteome responses in bovine animals to treatment with nortestosterone decanoate and 17 beta-oestradiol benzoate, followed by dexamethasone administration. Two-dimensional fluorescence differential in-gel electrophoresis analysis revealed a series of hepatic and acute-phase proteins within plasma whose levels were up- or down-regulated within phases of the treatment regime. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) immuno-assays were developed to quantify responses of identified protein markers during the experimental treatment study with a view to developing methods which can be used as screening tools for growth promoter abuse detection. SPR analysis demonstrated the potential for plasma proteins to be used as indicative measures of growth promoter administrations and concludes that the sensitivity and robustness of any detection approach based on plasma proteome analysis would benefit from examination of a range of proteins representative of diverse biological processes rather being reliant on specific individual markers.

In Demand: Therapeutic Services for Children and Young People Who Have Experienced Sexual Abuse

This paper describes the key findings of an NSPCC study estimating need, in the UK, for therapeutic services for children who have experienced sexual abuse. This is based upon current estimates of the prevalence and impact of sexual abuse towards children and young people against the availability of therapeutic services in the UK. Data were collected on service location, availability, scope and coverage across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Researchers: (1) mapped 508 services; (2) collected data from 195 services via a structured questionnaire; (3) followed up 21 service managers and 11 service commissioners with a semi-structured interview; and (4) carried out two focus groups with young people. Data were collected on service location, availability, scope and coverage The overall level of specialist provision is low, with less than one service available per 10 000 children and young people in the UK. Calculations of need indicate that 57 156 children across the UK in the last year may have been unable to access a service. Findings from services support the view that need outstrips availability; that referral routes are limited, leaving few options for young people who have been raped or seriously sexually assaulted to directly access support; that significant waiting lists mean services must focus on reactive, rather than preventive, work; and that services are less accessible for certain groups, especially sexually abused teenagers, children with disabilities and those from Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee backgrounds. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Messages Relevant professionals must be adequately trained to talk to children about sexual abuse and to identify those vulnerable in order to identify need. Expert specialist services are well placed to share learning on early help and identification with broader children's service providers. Active steps need to be taken by commissioners in consultation with young people, voluntary sector and adult sexual violence service providers to meet the shortfall at the level of local authorities.

Dealing with a problem that doesn't exist?:Professional responses to female perpetrated child sexual abuse

Female involvement in sexual offences against children is more common than is generally thought and has serious implications for the long-term emotional and psychological well-being of victims. Drawing on findings from: a comprehensive review of the literature; an overview of relevant literature and legislation; and an electronic survey of Multi-Agency Public Protection Panels; this paper explores the criminal justice response to female sex offending in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The literature highlights that the way in which professionals identify and respond to child sexual abuse has been shown to be influenced by the gender of the perpetrator. Equally, whilst similar to male sex offending in terms of the intrusiveness and seriousness of the abuse, some aspects of female sex offending can cause particular problems for professionals. The fact that some sexual abuse can be disguised as childcare can make it difficult for professionals to identify this type of abuse whilst high rates of co-offending bring additional difficulties in determining the degree of female involvement and assigning responsibility. The survey findings indicate that risk assessment tools for female sex offenders is a key area requiring development and point towards small inconsistencies in the current practice of risk assessing females in the community. The survey also identifies the lack of treatment programmes for this group of offenders as well as drawing attention to the need for national policies and procedures, staff training and the identification of areas of good practice. Increased discussion and debate about how best to work with this group of sex offenders is also required. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

'Grooming' and the Sexual Abuse of Children: Implications for Sex Offender Assessment, Treatment and Management

'Grooming' has been termed 'a ubiquitous feature of the sexual abuse of children' (Thornton, 2003: 144). Despite the prominence of the term in contemporary discourses on sexual offending against children, it is a term that is insufficiently understood in the psychological, sociological, criminological or legal literature. Most recently, the term has been used in two primary offending contexts - on-line grooming and abuse by strangers, and institutional grooming and abuse by those in positions of trust. This article argues, however, that grooming and its role in child sexual abuse is a multi-faceted phenomenon and much more complex than has been highlighted previously. While there are a number of typologies of grooming, this article concentrates on those which may be most relevant for treatment and management contexts - 'peer-to-peer grooming' and 'institutional grooming.' Drawing on extensive fieldwork with professionals who work in the fields of child protection or victim support, and sex offender assessment, treatment or management across the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, the aim of this article is two-fold: (i) to deconstruct the term grooming and examine its actual role in the onset of sexual offending against children; and (ii) to draw out the implications of these complexities for policy and practice, chiefly in terms of treatment and prevention.

Conceptualising elder abuse across local and global contexts: Implications for Policy and Professional Practice on the island of Ireland.

Social policy and professional practice across the island of Ireland is dominated by the WHO (2002) definition of elder abuse and national and professional interpretations of what constitutes elder abuse. Top down, generalist knowledge of the abuse of older people have facilitated paternalistic and protectionist policies and services designed to protect older vulnerable adults across the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI). However a qualitative study involving 58 older people in six focus groups held across Ireland highlights an alternative understanding of elder abuse grounded in the subjective experiences of older people across urban and rural communities on the island. Indigenous ways of knowing offer a broader and more inclusive understanding of the experience of elder abuse (Lafferty 2012; Dow and Joosten 2012) together with opportunities for the prevention of ageism and the empowering of older people across the jurisdictions.

First steps: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of the Group Family Nurse Partnership (gFNP) program compared to routine care in improving outcomes for high-risk mothers and their children and preventing abuse

Background: Evidence from the USA suggests that the home-based Family Nurse Partnership program (FNP), extending from early pregnancy until infants are 24 months, can reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect throughout childhood. FNP is now widely available in the UK. A new variant, Group Family Nurse Partnership (gFNP) offers similar content but in a group context and for a shorter time, until infants are 12 months old. Each group comprises 8 to 12 women with similar expected delivery dates and their partners. Its implementation has been established but there is no evidence of its effectiveness.

Methods/Design: The study comprises a multi-site randomized controlled trial designed to identify the benefits of gFNP compared to standard care. Participants (not eligible for FNP) must be either aged <20 years at their last menstrual period (LMP) with one or more previous live births, or aged 20 to 24 at LMP with low educational qualifications and no previous live births. 'Low educational qualifications' is defined as not having both Maths and English Language GCSE at grade C or higher or, if they have both, no more than four in total at grade C or higher. Exclusions are: under 20 years and previously received home-based FNP and, in either age group, severe psychotic mental illness or not able to communicate in English. Consenting women are randomly allocated (minimized by site and maternal age group) when between 10 and 16 weeks pregnant to either to the 44 session gFNP program or to standard care after the collection of baseline information. Researchers are blind to group assignment. The primary outcomes at 12 months are child abuse potential based on the revised Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory and parent/infant interaction coded using the CARE Index based on a video-taped interaction. Secondary outcomes are maternal depression, parenting stress, health related quality of life, social support, and use of services.

Discussion: This is the first study of the effectiveness of gFNP in the UK. Results should inform decision-making about its delivery alongside universal services, potentially enabling a wider range of families to benefit from the FNP curriculum and approach to supporting parenting.

Deconstructing Victim and offender Identities in Discourses on Child Sexual Abuse: Hierarchies, Blame and the Good/Evil Dialectic

Contemporary social and political constructions of victimhood and offending behaviour lie at the heart of regulatory policies on child sexual abuse. Legislation is named after specific child victims of high profile cases, and a burgeoning range of pre-emptive measures are enacted to protect an amorphous class of ‘all potential victims’ from the risk sex offenders are seen as posing. Such policies are also heavily premised on the omnipresent predatory stranger. These constructed identities, however, are at odds with the actual identities of victims and offenders of such crimes. Drawing on a range of literatures, the core task of this article is to confront some of the complexities and tensions surrounding constructions of the victim/offender dyad within the specific context of sexual offending against children. In particular, the article argues that discourses on ‘blame’ – and the polarised notions of ‘innocence’ and ‘guilt’ – inform respective hierarchies of victimhood and offending concerning ‘legitimate’ victim and offender status. Based on these insights, the article argues for the need to move beyond such monochromatic understandings of victims and offenders of sexual crime and to reframe the politics of risk accordingly.

They’re not racist…’ Prejudice denial, mitigation and suppression in dialogue

Social scientific work on the suppression, mitigation or denial of prejudiced attitudes has tended to focus on the strategic self-presentation and self-monitoring undertaken by individual social actors on their own behalf. In this paper, we argue that existing perspectives might usefully be extended to incorporate three additional considerations. First, that social actors may, on some occasions, act to defend not only themselves, but also others from charges of prejudice. Second, that over the course of any social encounter, interactants may take joint responsibility for policing conversation and for correcting and suppressing the articulation of prejudiced talk. Third, that a focus on the dialogic character of conversation affords an appreciation of the ways in which the status of any particular utterance, action or event as 'racist' or 'prejudiced' may constitute a social accomplishment. Finally, we note the logical corollary of these observations - that in everyday life, the occurrence of 'racist discourse' is likely to represent a collaborative accomplishment, the responsibility for which is shared jointly between the person of the speaker and those other co-present individuals who occasion, reinforce or simply fail to suppress it.

Access and utilisation of maternity care for disabled women who experience domestic abuse: a systematic review

Background: Although disabled women are significantly more likely to experience domestic abuse during pregnancy than non-disabled women, very little is known about how maternity care access and utilisation is affected by the co-existence of disability and domestic abuse. This systematic review of the literature explored how domestic abuse impacts upon disabled women’s access to maternity services.

Methods: Eleven articles were identified through a search of six electronic databases and data were analysed to identify: the factors that facilitate or compromise access to care; the consequences of inadequate care for pregnant women’s health and wellbeing; and the effectiveness of existing strategies for improvement.

Results: Findings indicate that a mental health diagnosis, poor relationships with health professionals and environmental barriers can compromise women’s utilisation of maternity services. Domestic abuse can both compromise, and catalyse, access to services and social support is a positive factor when accessing care. Delayed and inadequate care has adverse effects on women’s physical and psychological health, however further research is required to fully explore the nature and extent of these consequences. Only one study identified strategies currently being used to improve access to services for disabled women experiencing abuse.

Conclusions: Based upon the barriers and facilitators identified within the review, we suggest that future strategies for improvement should focus on: understanding women’s reasons for accessing care; fostering positive relationships; being women-centred; promoting environmental accessibility; and improving the strength of the evidence base.