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Evaluation Report Holiday Activities and Food Programme 2022 - Northamptonshire
Full text linkChildren and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be isolated and experience ‘unhealthy holidays’ during the school holiday period because of the increased financial strain on families through this period. Across the two unitary authorities of Northamptonshire (North and West) there is an estimated 87,000 and 101,000 children and young people aged 0-19 years, respectively. In North Northamptonshire, 13.4% (7,491 pupils) of all pupils are eligible and taking Free School Meals (FSM), while in West Northamptonshire, 11.1% (7,397 pupils) of all pupils are eligible and taking FSM, which is below the 16.2% average for 59 local authorities, nationally, but in absolute terms equates to an extra 1,503 and 1,409 more pupils than the national average, respectively1. There is a learning and development gap between children and young people that are eligible and are not eligible for FSM, with 57% of Key Stage 1 pupils eligible for FSM achieving a good level of development compared to 74% of pupils not eligible for FSM, in 2019. Despite FSM offering some financial relief to families during term-time, its absence during school holidays can leave children and young people at risk of experiencing further inequalities. The Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme was created to reduce this ‘holiday experience gap’ by providing free holiday clubs, which aim to reduce food insecurities and provide vital learning and development opportunities for FSM eligible children and young people. In 2021, Northamptonshire Sport co-ordinated the first year of local HAF programme provision. The University of Northampton evaluated the Summer 2021 local programme to identify the barriers and facilitators to programme delivery and the outcomes on children and their families. The current report evaluates Northamptonshire’s Summer 2022 HAF programme, whilst drawing comparisons with the 2021 programme’s delivery and the recommendations provided by the 2021 evaluation to understand how they were acted upon. The current evaluation utilised a mixed-methods approach to investigate the facilitators and barriers to delivery and the outcomes on children and families by aligning the evaluation’s objectives with the Government’s HAF programme theory of change. Data were collected from co-ordinators, providers, school staff, and parents/carers using a combination of online surveys and focus groups. Northamptonshire Sport’s contract extension to co-ordinate the HAF programme provided a longer lead-in time, which overcame many of the issues experienced in Summer 2021. There was a greater offer of healthy food and nutrition education to children by holiday club providers in comparison to Summer 2021, with providers utilising the online nutrition education resources that Northamptonshire Sport commissioned in response to recommendations from the Summer 2021 evaluation. Areas for further investigation include the enhancement of school engagement with the HAF programme, understanding non-attendance and methods to reduce non-attendance at holiday clubs, improving provider’s communication with parents so they are more aware of and play a more active role in the HAF programme, ensuring holiday club providers are suitably staffed to support children with special educational needs, and signposting families to wider support networks and groups that they can engage with outside of the HAF programme provision. Notably, communication is a central theme to these recommendations. In North Northamptonshire, 24% of eligible children and young people attended the HAF Programme. In West Northamptonshire, 30% of eligible children and young people attended the HAF Programme. Countywide this represents 27% of eligible children attending the HAF programme. A near doubling of uptake from the Summer 2021 HAF programme (15.2%). Within the Summer 2022 evaluation, it was evident that Northamptonshire Sport made a concerted effort with the longer lead-in time to act on recommendations to improve the quality and consistency of holiday club provision across Northamptonshire, which subsequently led to greater engagement with the programme. The HAF programme clearly supports vulnerable families and funding for the programme should continue in the future
On the Determination of Cr(VI) in Cr(III)-Rich Particulates: From the Failure of Official Methods to the Development of an Alternative Protocol
Full text linkThe goals of this work are the evaluation of the performances of official methods in the challenging determination of Cr(VI) in Cr(III)-rich particulate matter, and the development of a novel and robust analytical protocol for this issue. A liquid chromatography inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry apparatus (LC-ICP-MS), together with an isotope-enriched spike addition technique, was used to allow the study of Cr(III)/Cr(VI) interconversions during the extraction step. An original separation strategy based on Cr(OH)3 head-column stacking was developed to tolerate high concentrations of Cr(III) (up to 10 mg/kg, with a Cr(VI) limit of detection of 0.51 µg/kg) without the need of any sample pretreatment. After observing, the official extraction protocols always yield false positive values in the challenging situation of particulate matter of leather industries (where huge amounts of Cr(III) are present), a new extraction strategy was developed. The novel procedure involves a 48-h extraction at room temperature using a pH-8 phosphate buffer, which demonstrated that no Cr(III)/Cr(VI) interconversions occur during this phase. To get rid of any possible interference caused by co-extracted substances, the measurement of the redox potential, together with the addition of a Fe(II)/Fe(III) redox buffer was performed to fix chromium speciation during the overall analytical protocol
Community Sentence Treatment Requirement Multisite Report July 2020 – July 2022
Full text linkThis report presents analysis from the Community Sentence Treatment Requirement Multisite Evaluation, completed by the Institute for Public Safety, Crime and Justice. Data were provided from Bedfordshire, Birmingham, Black Country, Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Plymouth, Staffordshire, Swansea and Wiltshire. This report relates to the period of July 2020 to July 2022, with data being provided for 2,552 cases
Teaching Medieval Chivalry in an Age of White Supremacy
Full text linkThis essay examines the appropriation of medieval history by far-right British publications in the 1960s and 1970s, in the context of teaching medievalism to undergraduate students. It is informed by the author’s experience of designing and delivering an undergraduate course on chivalry in medieval and postmedieval context that utilises the resources of the Searchlight Archive, a significant repository for fascist and anti-fascist materials from British and international groups from 1965 to the near-present day
A Space to Play: the Geographies of Children’s Sport and Physical Activities
Full text linkChildren’s geographies is an active and well-established sub-discipline of the wider subject of geography. Yet, despite the burgeoning interest in the geographies of sport, to date very little work has been done that brings these two fields together. This chapter will review the existing research that can be classified as children’s sports geographies; research which falls broadly into four categories. First, geographers have investigated the spaces of children’s physical activity, both in terms of informal play spaces and organised sport. Second, studies have explored the relationship between socio-economic status and access to sport and coaching. Third, there is a body of research that has considered issues relating to physical education in school settings. Lastly, geographers have developed research from a feminist perspective to shine a light on issues relating to children’s bodies, gender and (dis)ability in a sports context. From this summary, the implications for sports coaching will be discussed, as well as providing suggestions for future directions and opportunities for contributions from research in the field of children’s sports geography
Characteristics and Trends in Big Data for Service Operations Management Research: A Blend of Descriptive Statistics and Bibliometric Analysis
Full text linkThe field of service operations management has a plethora of research opportunities to capitalise on, which are nowadays heightened by the presence of big data. In this research, we review and analyse the current state-of-the-art of the literature on big data for service operations management. To this aim, we use the Scopus database and the VOSviewer visualisation software for bibliometric analysis to highlight developments in research and application. Our analysis reveals patterns in scientific outputs and serves as a guide for global research trends in big data for service operations management. Some exciting directions for the future include research on building big data-driven analytical models which are deployable in the Cloud, as well as more interdisciplinary research that integrates traditional modes of enquiry with for example, behavioural approaches, with a blend of analytical and empirical methods
Stories too big for a case file: Unaccompanied young people confront the hostile environment in pandemic times
Full text linkWhat imagery best evokes the violence unaccompanied child migrants feel when asked, or made, to tell their story over and over, as well as the violence of not being asked nor being heard? How can we show both strength and struggle in difficult times and often uncaring places such as the UK’s hostile migration regime? Taking these questions as a jumping off point, this article offers three key responses, drawing on experiences of co-producing the research-based film, Stories too big for a case file, which accompanies this text. These reflections highlight the importance of participatory, change-oriented research that ‘cares’ for participants; the value of creative forms of knowledge production and aesthetic modes of expression for communicating the affective complexities of research material; and, the importance of turning the representational gaze outwards towards systems and institutions to avoid situating social inequities as individual failings and to, instead, invite viewers to ‘walk together’ in solidarity with research interlocutors
Exploring Effects of Process Delays on MHTR Outcomes (Part 2)
Full text linkThere is currently little information on the impact of delays between assessment and sentence for primary care MHTRs on outcomes. This policy brief provides an analysis of the impacts of the time between assessment and start date of intervention with completion rates and mental health outcomes. In so doing, a better understanding of the factors that maximise the intervention’s benefits is provided to guide practice and inform policy
Public knowledge and attitudes regarding children with disabilities, their experience and support in Bhutan: a national survey
Full text linkData were collected from heads of households across Bhutan, using a Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices method to gain insights regarding children with disabilities up to 18 years in Bhutan. Fieldwork was conducted by local enumerators, trained by researchers from the UK who undertook the analysis and interpretation of the data. Results indicate that whilst there are largely positive attitudes towards children with disabilities in Bhutan, the majority of respondents conceptualised disability narrowly and were pessimistic about such children’s ability to lead full lives. Households including children with disabilities were less positive than others concerning the ways in which children are regarded and supported in their communities. Fatalistic views related to beliefs in karma were seen to persist and influenced expectations regarding what children with disabilities might achieve. More positive attitudes are held by younger people and those who are more highly educated. Attitudes and expectations have had a negative effect in restricting access to educational and social inclusion for many children with disabilities
The trade-off between knowledge accumulation and independence: The case of the Shariah supervisory board within the Shariah governance and firm performance nexus
Full text linkResearch Question/Issue: This study seeks to better understand the concept of Shariah governance and the role of the Shariah supervisory board (SSB) within Islamic financial institutions (IFIs). In light of the direction of the extant academic literature, we utilize a resource dependence conceptualization of the SSB and examine its impact on IFI performance. Research Findings/Insights: Utilizing a hand-collected dataset from the published financial statements of 140 of the largest IFIs over the period of 2011-2015 and across 16 different nations, we discover that the tenure of SSBs is a positive, linear predictor of IFI performance. Additionally, this positive impact diminishes for Islamic banks against other IFIs but there is no consistent difference for Shariah-based or Shariah-compliant IFIs. Our results also confirm the existing academic knowledge that SSB interlocks have a negative relationship to IFI performance. To isolate the impact of SSBs on IFI performance we controlled for, a priori, firm-specific and sovereign characteristics and our results are robust to alternative regressands, reduced regressions and GMM estimators. Theoretical/Academic Implications: The results from this study provide empirical support for a resource dependence conceptualization of the SSB and its impact on IFI performance. It provides a more detailed decomposition of the characteristics of the SSB and the channels of transmission of these characterizations on IFI performance and in doing so highlights further avenues of study incorporating additional theoretical frameworks of corporate governance that may further improve explanatory power. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Our findings also highlight to leaders of IFIs that SSBs should be afforded time to build and develop firm-specific knowledge. Moreover, our results also illustrate that the economic and finance environment of Islamic banks is more changeable than that of other IFIs
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