A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Childhood Trauma on Symptoms and Functioning of People with Severe Mental Health Problems

This study examines the relationship between childhood trauma and the psychiatric symptoms and psychosocial functioning of adults with severe mental health problems. Participants (n = 31) were recruited from the caseloads of community mental health services in Northern Ireland and assessed at baseline, 9 months, and 18 months. More than half had a history of childhood trauma (n = 17). There were no differences between the no childhood trauma (n = 14) and childhood trauma groups on psychiatric symptoms, but a significant relationship was found between trauma history and all aspects of social functioning. Those with no history of trauma showed improved psychosocial functioning over time, whereas those with a history of trauma deteriorated. These findings have implications for current service provision.

Identifying families with multiple problems: Possible responses from child and family social work to current policy developments

In the development of family policy under New Labour there has been a growing tendency to identify groups who are likely to be high in lifetime costs to the state. Investment in such groups is seen as crucial. Whilst the economic case for current investment is compelling, idenitiying one of these groups, ‘families with multiple problems’ raises complex research problems and ethical issues. Reseach indicates that families with multiple problems may be identified on the caseloads of child and family social worker and there are claims that key events such as the registration of a child on the child protection register may indicate such multiple problems. This offers new opportunities for child and family social work to embrace less incident based ways of working in favour of longer term provision of services to address longer term risks.

Relationships matter: The problems and prospects for social workers' relationships with young children in care

One of the key lessons learnt in the UK from the Laming Inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié was the importance of social workers developing consistent and long-term relationships with young children in whose lives they are involved. This issue is now informing policy developments, including the proposed Social Work Practices which, based on a similar model to General Practitioner practices, aim to provide a lead professional to act as a parental figure and an advocate for every child in care. This paper begins by confirming the importance of developing relationships between social workers and young children, but questions the ability of the new policy developments to facilitate these. Drawing upon data from research involving interviews with social workers, the paper outlines the factors which hinder social workers' relationships with young children and argues that while the new proposals address some of the more surface structural and organizational factors, they do not address the deeper factors regarding attitudes, values and emotional competence which are crucial if social workers are to successfully build relationships with young children in care.

Stylistics, criticism and mythrepresentation again: squaring the circle with Ray Mackay's subjective solution for all problems

This article is a response to an article by Ray Mackay (1996) which constitutes an attack on stylistic analysis in general, and the writings of the above authors and Ron Carter in particular. Mackay's article (in Language and Communication) accuses stylistics of 'scientificness' and claims that its attempt to provide objective analyses of literary texts is futile.1 We suggest that Mackay has misrepresented what stylisticians have said about objectivity, and that his understanding of objectivity, science and the nature of text-interpretative argument is seriously flawed.

Missing the targets and being misunderstood: Child phonology and interactive problems

Effects of vowel variation on interaction are considered, with particular relevance to their role in conversational breakdown. The effect of speaker knowledge and experience is noted as a variable in developmental progress which must inform profiling decisions, and the need for appropriate taxonomies of speech varieties is emphasized as a precursor to clinical and educational assessments. It is noted, too, that a shared sociolinguistic background between speaker and listener does not always resolve difficulties arising from non-target realizations, casting some doubt on ideas that assessors always possess a guaranteed sense of phonological variability and its effects. Hence, an informed understanding of phonological variation, rather than merely awareness that such variation exists, is advocated.