Delivering Social Work Education on Case Reviews and Inquiry Reports: An Exploratory Study of Students' Perspectives in Northern Ireland

It is self-evident that we live in the age of inquiry where the negative impact of risk has been examined through numerous formal processes. In the wake of such scrutiny, there have been repeated recommendations for better training of the professionals charged with safeguarding the welfare of vulnerable individuals. Yet there has been very little examination of how student social workers, in particular, evaluate this training. This exploratory study responded to this gap through a mixed-methods design centring on the views of qualifying and post-qualifying social work students attending courses within two regional universities in Northern Ireland. The study found that, in the main, the cohorts responded favourably to certain aspects of the curriculum and how they were delivered. That said, the emotive nature of the case review and inquiry reports was inadequately addressed in the classroom and was not processed afterwards through a psycho-social framework. In effect, students were often left with residual anxieties that potentially hampered learning. On the basis of the findings, the study calls for further research into this highly significant area of professional competence.

M level Inquiry Across Disciplinary Boundaries: Using Reflective Sketchbooks

Debates unfolding around the recent development of M Level programmes for teacher education are not unfamiliar to those being addressed in other professional disciplines such as business. A strong theme in our analysis is that reflective practitioners could be provided with a wider range of tools and methods to support them in their reflection. Considerable energies have been expended on e portfolios, but our experience of use of paper based reflective
sketchbooks suggests that they may have some distinct advantages over text-dominated electronic media. In fact such sketchbooks challenge typed text as the dominant route to learning and communication (Gilbert 1998), (New, 2005), (Hickman, 2007). Professionals in teacher education are currently exploring ways in which M level can be conceived in terms of professional learning. This is also important terrain in other professions. For example, best practice in business management involves constant innovation so that students do not experience a split between the research context of the business faculty and the experience of operating in the business situation. This is paralleled in education by the concern that trainees do not experience a split between the research or scholarly informed approach of university tutors, and the experience of practical teaching in school. Our research question is concerned with how a consciously developed reflective sketchbook method can generate levels of critical thought that are both postgraduate and professionally valued in the workplace. We are also interested in the contribution this form of enquiry at M Level can make in terms of life long learning.

Aesthetic Perceptions - Is There a Difference?

Introduction: In recent times, the demand for aesthetic dentistry has increased, with patients presenting for treatment expecting an improvement in their aesthetics. Therefore, it is increasingly important for the dental profession to appreciate perceptions of dental aesthetics in order to provide a patient-centred service.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to quantify perceptions of aesthetics using a cross-sectional survey design. The hypotheses being tested were that differences exist in aesthetic perceptions of 1) dentists and dental students, 2) different age ranges and 3) gender.

Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to dental staff and students in the Cork University Dental School and Hospital. The questionnaire sought information relating to aesthetic perceptions by asking participants to compare photographs of smiles.

Results: 100 questionnaires were returned. It was found that differences existed in perceptions of dentists and dental students when certain aspects of a smile were evaluated, in particular when a minor flaw was present in a smile in addition to the major flaw being tested. Assuming that flaws were detected, more dental students (34%) than dentists (26%) were found to prioritise colour above more subtle flaws, such as a centreline shift. However, most results between the two groups are comparable in terms of their prioritising of importance of particular aspects of a smile, with no large significant differences.

Conclusion: Differences exist in aesthetic perceptions of dentists and dental students, especially with regard to tooth colour.

Poetic Inquiry, Consumer Vulnerability: Realities of Quadriplegia

Alternative forms of research interpretation have been utilised within the social sciences. Poetic inquiry, an area of growing interest influences readership affectively as well as intelligently. Incorporating interview data as a poetic submission, this paper intends to reflexively capture, emotional intensity, hopelessness, liminality, voicelessness and self-transformative realities attendant to those experiencing vulnerability. The unintelligible language that can appropriate the poetic form, supports the elucidation of hidden narratives of more vulnerable inscapes. Consumer vulnerability lends itself to the power of poetry for legitimacy of the moment, where sensory imagery and nonce words attend hiatuses common in scientific discourse. The poetic inquiry, Vulnerability in Parts, is elicited from wider research with homebound consumers conducted over a two-year period, which draws on one homebound consumer’s experience of quadriplegia.

An analysis of Child Care Policy and Practice in Barnardo’s Macedon and Sharonmore residential homes in Northern Ireland during the period 1952 – 1990, the period under investigation by the Inquiry.

Report to examine the nature and extent of any abuse in Barnardo’s Macedon and Sharonmore residential homes in Northern Ireland and to determine whether that abuse was caused or facilitated by failings on the part of Barnardo’s, and whether they were systemic in nature. Abuse and systemic failings as defined in the document published by the Inquiry in June 2013 “Definition of Abuse and Systemic Failings”.

Hearing the voices of kinship foster carers in Northern Ireland: An inquiry into characteristics, needs and experiences

This study describes an investigation into the characteristics, needs and experiences of kinship foster carers in Northern Ireland. By adopting a mixed-methods approach with 54 carers, a number of salient themes was captured. The respondents were predominantly grandparents who experienced a significant incidence of health-related issues. The cohort also endured high levels of stress, particularly at the beginning stage of the foster placement. Consequently, their need for practical, emotional and respite support was most evident. In terms of the children for whom they cared, many required help at school, and some presented with challenging emotions and behaviours. Overall, these findings emphasised the importance of relationship-based social work and demonstration of accurate empathy to the carer.

The transformation of landscape as as aesthetic idear

The present study seeks to thoroughly investigate and delineate the concept alongside the transformation of landscape as an aesthetic idea. On the one side it runs that nature perceived as landscape remains nothing else but granted, evident or 'natural'. On yet another side, and to some fairly significant extend, this thesis identifies landscape as a sheer idea and concept that is shaped and (re-)mediated in an ongoing process. The thesis examines the role of the observer and brings into agreement that every landscape is a produce of creative mental processes. In brief outline, this approach provides a framework for identifying landscape as being inextricably linked with media from the very beginning of their social and cultural inception. As glowing examples for the paradigmatic shift of the classical subjective vision model culminating in the emergence of a new prototype, the camera obscura, together with the panorama, fortify the prevailing argument that the mode of human sense perception is organised and determined by earlier acquainted recognitions. In this matter, as each and every medium strive after accomplishment, then this accomplishment is substantially determined by overwhelming historic, as well as thriving cultural circumstances. In conclusive terms, this study seeks to show how landscape counts as content of a representation, while simultaneously being a very own medium that specifically carries social, geological as well as historic knowledge. In fact, modern vision shall therefore never be bound to any single format or process, rather it will have to always undergo procedures aiming at reshaping the perceivable. Landscape is playing out its major characteristic, specifically that of being, in essence, a purely intellectual, virtual and synthetic product