scholarly journals A ‘futures’ approach towards the wellbeing of future generations in Wales and beyond

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
S Azam

Abstract 'Futures' is a way of thinking about future uncertainty. It is not about predicting the future but is about developing alternative futures or scenarios and using them to inform how best to move towards the preferred future. This approach has been explored and applied to Wales, the UK, which has the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. This Act has been globally recognised as a unique sustainable development legislation, putting Wales at the forefront of creating a different future for generations to come. Whilst most public bodies have always had responsibilities in delivering a range of services to support health and wellbeing, one of the key innovative requirements of the Act is the focus on the 'future', which by definition requires new and different approaches. This in turn means new tools, new skills and a new and different mind-set in which planners, commissioners, policy makers and service providers need to take a long-term view to addressing health and well-being. The presentation will explore the various approaches, methods and tools for 'futures' thinking and how this innovative agenda is progressing in Wales.

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Sowey

Forced marriage was criminalised in Australia in March 2013, putting the issue on the agenda of policy-makers and social service providers. Increasingly, however, it is being recognised that criminal laws alone cannot address the practice; protective and preventative strategies are also needed. This paper argues that strategies to address forced marriage will be most effective if they are informed by contextualised and emic understandings of the phenomenon, that is, by the perspectives of individuals, families and communities who are directly affected by forced marriage. Primary research is required to obtain such perspectives. Research into forced marriage in Australia is still in its infancy, and primary research is almost non-existent. This paper, then, looks to primary research from the UK and other comparable Western multicultural nations, offering a critique of this body of literature before drawing out what is revealed about why marriages are forced, how marriages are forced, and what people in forced marriage situations want. The implications of criminal prosecution are then considered in light of this emic understanding. The legal definition of forced marriage hinges on the concept of consent: it is consent that distinguishes an arranged marriage from a forced one. In the UK, the notion of consent has been robustly problematised. However this is not the case in Australia at present, and this paper critiques the value of the concept of consent given the social contexts of forced marriage described above. The implications of this critique for the application of Australia’s forced marriage law are then considered. Finally, from a place of contextualised and emic understanding of forced marriage, this paper considers how protective and preventative strategies might be enhanced.


2021 ◽  
pp. 112-150
Author(s):  
Jan Rybak

At the heart of Zionists’ nation-building project was the care and education of Jewish children in East-Central Europe. Young people were particularly affected by the war, often having lost family and home. Zionists saw them as the future of the nation, and the struggle for their well-being and education came to be a key element of their efforts during the war. This chapter shows how Zionists built orphanages and kindergartens, schools, and summer camps, and how these institutions functioned on a day-to day basis. These efforts in particular demonstrate that the war was also a time of great opportunity and experimentation for education activists. They tried to apply new pedagogical theories within their institutions based on their ideas of Jewish childhood and its role in producing upright, nationally conscious Jews who were the future of the nation. Gender relations are particularly key in this context: young women played an ever-increasing role in the movement through their involvement with childcare and education. The war opened up a range of new possibilities for young people, and particularly for young women to attain hitherto unheard-of roles within the Zionist movement. These changing gender and age relations within the Zionist movement mirrored changed relations within the wider society, due to the pressure of the war, and shaped the movement for decades to come.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 806-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan G.C. van Amsterdam ◽  
Johannes G. Ramaekers ◽  
Robbert-Jan Verkes ◽  
Kim P.C. Kuypers ◽  
Anna E. Goudriaan ◽  
...  

This study summarizes the literature about alcohol- and drug-related public violence in Europe. The proportion of all public violent incidents linked to alcohol was about 50 percent in the UK and ranged from 26 percent to 43 percent in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. Public violence related to drugs is much lower (1.5–18.0 percent). Relatively many public violent incidents occur in relation to nightlife (80 percent of alcohol-related incidents). Though a considerable proportion of public violence was alcohol or drug related, the actual use of such substances was rarely ascertained in perpetrators’ specimens. Such analysis is a prerequisite to heavier penalize alcohol- or drug-intoxicated perpetrators of public violence. More capacity should be deployed to measure alcohol and drugs in the specimens of violent perpetrators by analytical-chemical tests. As a result, more accurate estimates of substance-related public violence are obtained, which will serve policy makers and police enforcement officials to take measures for securing a safer public environment and sustainable nightlife industry in the future.


Daedalus ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 144 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Hummer ◽  
Mark D. Hayward

The Hispanic population aged sixty-five and over – the most socioeconomically disadvantaged subset of America's elderly – is projected to quintuple between 2012 and 2050. While current longevity patterns for Hispanics relative to whites are favorable, old-age functioning and disability patterns for Hispanics are unfavorable and have serious implications for caregivers; families; and local, state, and federal governments. Troubling signs for the future Hispanic population (which are shared to varying degrees with other vulnerable groups) include the unresolved legal status of unauthorized immigrants, continued low levels of insurance coverage even after health care reform, some unfavorable trends in health behaviors, and continued disadvantages in educational attainment and income relative to whites. We urge policy-makers to deal with these potentially problematic health and well-being issues. Not doing so could have detrimental consequences for the future of the Hispanic population as well as other at-risk groups and, by extension, the U.S. elderly population as a whole.


2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria Agyemang

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the development of a needs‐based funding formula for resource allocation incorporates the needs of funders or the needs of the service providers.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyses interview data and documentary evidence gathered from a UK local education authority about the creation of a “needs‐based” formula for sharing resources to schools. It employs and extends a framework developed by Levačić and Ross to evaluate needs‐based formula funding.FindingsAlthough formula funding is purported to be a more objective method of resource allocation, the paper finds that as with other resource allocation methods the power relations between the funder and the service provider impacts on the extent to which service provider needs are incorporated into the funding formula.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper considers only the funding of schools. Further work is needed to investigate formula funding for other public services.Practical implicationsDebates between funders and service providers should be encouraged by policy makers to ensure that allocations based on the funding formula are acceptable to service providers.Originality/valueThe paper provides a useful analysis of a needs‐based funding formula for resource allocation in schools and whether this incorporates the needs of funders or the needs of the service providers.


2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 89-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Cant

Social networks are increasingly recognised as being beneficial to health and wellbeing. This paper, drawing from a qualitative study into health services targeted at gay men in London, explores the facilitation by service providers of social networks among gay men. Networks are dependent upon reciprocity among their participants and the study examines how shared narratives can generate a sense of the reciprocity that contributes to the development of networks. The networks discussed here promote instrumental support or communication or emotional well-being or a combination of those. The paper explores the diversity of narratives among the thirty eight gay male service users who were informants to this study. While narratives around experiencing same sex desire, encountering social isolation and making decisions about coming out were articulated by all these informants, there were other organising principles in their lives which also shaped their narratives and their decisions about whom they shared these narratives with. The paper focuses on the development of social networks among three groups of gay men: young South Asian men accessing HIV prevention services, men seeking to give up smoking in relation to their experiences in the commercial venues which constitute the gay scene and carers of gay men and lesbians suffering from a chronic disease. The paper seeks to generate opportunities for reflection about the means to promote health and well-being among members of this marginalised population group.


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Velleman ◽  
Lorna J. Templeton

SummaryWe review how research over the past decade both supports existing knowledge about the risk factors that children in the UK affected by parental substance misuse face, and adds to our knowledge about the protective factors, protective processes and evidence of resilience which can reduce the likelihood that children will experience poor outcomes. Further research is needed to understand what areas of resilience are most important to target and how other variables, such as gender or age, may influence how protective factors affect the development of resilience. Longitudinal research is also needed to better understand how an individual's resilience may change over time. Finally, there remain many considerable challenges which practitioners, service providers, commissioners and policy makers face in better meeting the needs of this population of children.


Target ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-326
Author(s):  
Joanna Drugan

Abstract Interpreting and translation are increasingly provided in the public sector via large-scale outsourced framework contracts (Moorkens 2017). In the UK, one of the largest recent framework agreements for interpreting and translation was introduced between 2016 and 2017 in critical contexts for justice, including the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the police. These agreements involve new types of collaboration between new partners and agents in the delivery of interpreting and translation, who each have different aims, expectations, standards and working methods. This contribution examines these emerging complex collaborations, and is the result of a rare type of complex collaboration between academic researchers, framework contract-holders and managers, interpreters and translators, language service providers, professional associations, and users of translation and interpreting services, within the Transnational Organised Crime and Translation (TOCAT) project. The article reports on original research conducted during the TOCAT project, and outlines and evaluates some novel, complex and ethically challenging ‘translaborations’ in police settings. The collaborations discussed are complex because of the range of parties and actors involved and because of the challenging content and settings in which the police rely on interpreting and translation. ‘Translaboration’ is used here to encompass multiple evolving collaborations between different providers and users of interpreting and translation, policy makers, trainers and researchers. Important questions of translation quality and ethics in the management of large-scale framework contexts for public service delivery are raised.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Samantha Gellatly

The purpose of this research was to explore the mental health and wellbeing needs of employees in the automotive sector, to understand the types of initiatives these employees would appreciate and how to promote them effectively. The research was approached with an exploratory, qualitative design. The collection of employee knowledge and opinion was undertaken utilising in-depth and semi structured interviews with a small cross-sectional group of employees. The main findings from the research showed that mental health presenteeism and leaveism are commonly occurring. It was found that individual understanding of well-being differed due to conflicting terminology and that where the company excelled in the areas of health and safety employees experienced unhappiness with working hours, work life balance and pay and reward. Research of this scope was original to the company and the automotive sector thus providing great insight. These employees showed there was less need for complex well-being programmes and that there was a keenness for mental health to be recognised and discussed more to help diminish the attached stigma. This research also questions: who is really best suited to support employee wellbeing? Whilst research highlights the importance of managers in this process, it also confirms, as with this study, that they are the employees with the worst wellbeing and therefore unlikely to be those best suited to provide this support. If managers wellbeing is not boosted it is unlikely that they can bring about desired improvements and bridging this gap requires future consideration.


2021 ◽  
pp. 445-477
Author(s):  
Carmelo Danisi ◽  
Moira Dustin ◽  
Nuno Ferreira ◽  
Nina Held

AbstractThe previous chapters have offered an in-depth, empirically and theoretically informed analysis of a broad range of issues affecting SOGI asylum claimants and refugees in Europe, with a focus on Germany, Italy and the UK. This analysis has applied new insights to findings unearthed by previous research and shone light on issues that have so far been relatively neglected. But the question often posed to us as academics is ‘so what?’ To address this question, this chapter offers a range of recommendations addressed to decision-makers, policy-makers, governments, NGOs and service providers, aimed at improving the socio-legal framework that applies to SOGI asylum. These apply mainly at a domestic level, but also refer to the European level, where relevant, to offer proposals that recognise the intersections of national, European and international frameworks. As in the previous analysis, we are strongly guided by our participants’ voices, complemented by broader scholarly debates and our analysis and views of these. Our data and analysis thereof also shed light on broader issues in the asylum system, and many of the recommendations set out here would benefit non-SOGI asylum claimants and refugees as well. We hope they will be of wider value in this way.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document