The policy context of leaving care services: A case study of Northern Ireland

The transition of foster youth from state care to independent living has received increased research, practice, and policy attention in the United States and in many other countries. Most contributions to this literature have focused on documenting poor outcomes across various dimensions of need in the young people's lives whereas little attention has been given to the policy context in which the responses to those needs are being developed. In this article, we argue that there is a pressing need for better understanding of how the policy context can both promote and impede the development of appropriate services. To illustrate our argument, we use Northern Ireland as a policy case study both because of recent initiatives underway there in regard to youth transitions from state care and because of the heightened political sensibilities associated with it as a society. We draw attention to the socio-political historical context, a number of intersecting social policies, and the place of social work as a key occupation involved in delivering service improvements. We conclude by suggesting that this case study not only highlights the need to address similar aspects of the policy on youth transition frorn state care in the United States but also demonstrates the benefits of reflecting on policy development and implementation elsewhere in the world.

Wrapping Legacy Applications into Grid Services: A Case Study of a Three Services Approach

In this paper, the support for legacy application, which is one of the important advantages of Grid computing, is presented. The ability to reuse existing codes/applications in combination with other Web/Internet technologies, such as Java, makes Grid computing a good choice for developers to wrap existing applications behind Intranet or the Internet. The approach developed can be used for migrating legacy applications into Grid Services, which speeds up the popularization of Grid technology. The approach is illustrated using a case study with detailed description of its implementation step by step. Globus Toolkit is utilized to develop the system.