Writing reports for court : a practical guide for psychologists working in forensic contexts

Examines relevant mental health state legislation relating to criminal, civil and family courts and then sets out a logical structure for writing reports for such matters.

Patient safety ethics and human error management in ED contexts part I : development of the global patient safety movement

In recent years there has been increasing recognition internationally that health care is not as safe as it ought to be and that patient safety outcomes need to be improved. To this end patient safety has become the focus of a world-wide endeavour aimed at reducing the incidence and impact of preventable human errors and related adverse events in health care domains. The emergency department has been identified as a significant site of preventable human errors and adverse events in the health care system, raising important questions about the nature of human error management and patient safety ethics in rapidly changing environments. In this article (the first of a two-part discussion on the subject) an overview of the incidence and impact of preventable adverse events in ED contexts is explored. The development of a ‘culture of safety’ in other hazardous industries and the ‘lessons learned’ and applied to the health care industry are also briefly examined. In a second article (to be presented as Part II), some of the ethical tensions that have arisen in the context of implementing patient safety processes and their possible implications for ED contexts are explored.

Patient safety ethics and human error management in ED contexts Part II : Accountability and the challenge to change

In recent years there has been increasing recognition internationally that health care is not as safe as it ought to be and that patient safety outcomes need to be improved. To this end, patient safety has become the focus of a world-wide endeavour – endorsed by the World Health Organisation – to reduce the incidence and impact of preventable human errors and related adverse events in health care domains. The emergency department has been identified as a significant site of preventable human errors and adverse events in the health care system, raising important questions about the nature of human error management and patient safety ethics in rapidly changing environments, of which the Emergency Department is a prime example. In Part I of this article series, an overview of the incidence and impact of preventable adverse events in Emergency Department contexts and the development of the global patient safety movement was presented. In this second article brief attention is given to examining some of the ethical tensions that have arisen in response to the patient safety movement and their possible implications for Emergency Department contexts and staff.

Inclusive schooling : contexts, texts and politics

The title ‘Inclusive schooling: contexts, texts and politics’, names a thesis which critically analyses the development of inclusive schooling in the small Australian Island state of Tasmania between 1996 and 1998. The ‘Inclusion of Students with Disabilities’ policy, introduced in 1995 by the Tasmanian Department of Education, Community and Cultural Development, provides an opportunity to understand the cultural context and politics of change in schooling over this period. The qualitative methodology deployed here is informed by poststructuralism and captures the everyday experiences of university teaching as a research site. The teacher/researcher as the visible maker of the research use metaphors of fibre and textile practice, techniques of textual juxtaposition and her positioned subjectivity as a female academic to tell a 'big story'. The researcher develops a 'double method' as a possible model for Inclusive research practice and educational policy analysis. Using a critical ethnographic method, derived from the work of Carspecken (1996), 'data stories' (Lather & Smithies 1997, p.34) are produced from the narratives of five key informants – a parent, two teachers, a policy-maker and the researcher. Assembled as the data of the thesis the multi-voiced texts provide an account of the sociocultural, professional and systemic context of Inclusive schooling over a three-year period. In the analysis these data are interpreted from a feminist poststructural standpoint. A deconstructuive reading of the data stories interprets the discourse of inclusive schooling emphasising the dominant foundation of the special education knowledge tradition. The idea of author function (after Foucault 1975, 1984b and Grundy and Hatton 1995) is used to interpret the 'texts' of the key Informants as discursive constructions. The researcher theorises inclusive schooling as an entangled, multiple and contradictory discourse, embedded in the social, cultural and material contexts, rather than a singular unitary Idea of the progress within the special education knowledge tradition. The study contributes a fine-grained analysis of the constructed knowledge of inclusive schooling in one locality. The thesis advocates continuing engagement with questions of epistemology and social transformation in inclusive schooling, rather than persisting with technical rationality and the status quo. The researcher takes the position that the opportunities to theorise inclusive schooling lie within the multiple and disparate constructed texts of the micro world of everyday practice and the macro understanding of understandings of contemporary social justice. The poststructuralist writing/reading questions traditionalist theorising in the special education field. Central to the negotiations of power and truth inclusive schooling research and practice is a communicative theory that transforms populist conceptions of inclusion.

Internationalisation of Singapore television : Singaporean regional and global perspectives and contexts

In this study l investigate the Singaporean characteristics of broadcast media internationalisation. I ask the question "e; Does Internationalisation lead to homogenisation and commercialisation of the television culture in Singapore or does it give way to more diversity, thus stimulating cultural differentiation?"e; . I articulate the constraints and/or tensions of supranational regulation, foreign policy, regional and intraregional alliances upon communication and the cultural and social effects as they impact on and respond to production, programming, scheduling and output in Singapore. I explain how Singaporean Television media culture takes part in the processes of globalisation, and how it challenges existing cultures and creates new and alternative symbolic and cultural communities, within the context of regional communication. In this thesis 1 conclude that whilst Singapore definitely does not have equity in information, wealth or resource flows it is attempting to liberalise. To do so, the government recognises that serious inadequacies and imbalances must be addressed and that the path to greater political and economic growth is through an actively informed public. Despite regulatory restrictions on data flow and technical and service ownership, Singapore is encouraging regional alliances, depoliticising cultural differences and concentrating on economic imperatives to build mutual knowledge and understanding, multilateral agreements, collective ownership, mutual exchange and cooperative dissemination.

Maximising the benefits of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) integration in clinical contexts : a linear conduit

Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFIO) has been explored for various process enhancements in clinical contexts, particularly hospitals, for asset tracking. The technology has been accepted in such environments, as it is inexpensive and, in principle, uncomplicated to integrate with other clinical support systems. It is perceived to offer many benefits to currently resource critical/strained clinical environments. This research investigation focuses on the exploitation of the potential of the technology, to enhance processes in clinical environments. In this paper, the researchers aimed to uncover if the technology, as presently deployed, has been able to achieve its potential and, in particular, if it has been fully integrated into processes in a way that maximises the benefits that were perceived. This research is part of a larger investigation that aims to develop a meta-model for integration of RFIO into processes in a form that will maximise benefits that may be achievable in clinical environments. As the first phase of the investigation, the key learning from a clinical context (hospital), which has deployed RFIO and attempted to integrate it into the processes, to enable better efficiencies, is presented in this paper. The case method has been used as a methodological framework. Two clinical contexts (hospitals) are involved in the larger project, which constitutes two phases. In Phase 1, semi structured interviews were conducted with a selected number of participants involved with the RFIO deployment project, before and after, in clinical context 1 (hereinafter named as CCl). The results were then synthesised drawing a set of key learning, from different viewpoints (implementers and users), as reported in this paper. These results outline a linear conduit for a new proposed implementation (CC2). On completion of the phase II, the researchers aim to construct a meta-model for maximising the potential of RFIO in clinical contexts. This paper is limited to the first phase that aims to draw key learning to inform the linear conduit.

Scales of policy intervention : problematising high poverty contexts in South Australia.

Education policy intervention for schools in high poverty neighbourhoods has focused on the capacity of local schools to make a difference and on the kinds of co-ordinated human services provision that might support individual families with “high needs”. In this paper I suggest that a more detailed analysis of “the problem” represented in such schools might yield a richer and more integrated policy approach. I use the notion of “scale”, arbitrary and imperfect approximations of spheres of activity, and apply it to a specific context in Adelaide, South Australia, to demonstrate the connections between the local school and factors which impinge on its capacities to make a positive difference. I suggest that the implication of the analysis is a more holistic approach to policy.

Beyond the road : Beat writing and its socio-cultural contexts

This study looks at the contribution of Beat Generation writers to the post-World-War II reinvigoration of the American literary tradition. It challenges the reductive judgements of many critics and demonstrates that the Beat phenomenon was as much an expression of its historical moment as a rebellion against it.

Interviewing techniques, genres and contexts

A study of the ways in which the media interview has been described and theorised in academic literature, and in particular the genres of interviewing that this literature has produced. Identifies interviewing techniques used on radio in regional Queensland. Evaluates the ways in which interviewing techniques and practices are mediated by questions of gender and work culture.