In this update:

·         social cohesion ·         anti-discrimination laws ·         women in leadership ·         behaviour change ·         care home closures ·         provider performance scores ·         ATSI health ·         quality governance ·         high risk patients ·         integrated care ·         medical workforce ·         GPs & medication ·         food supplements

·         diet ·         asbestos regulations ·         medical marijuana ·         prisoner health ·         older people ·         disability health services ·         service user rights ·         direct care workers ·         child protection statistics ·         serious case reviews ·         child sex offenders ·         childhood bereavement ·         sexual violence

·         disability advocacy ·         disability & education ·         autism diagnosis ·         autism & education ·         youth transitions ·         young offender reintegration ·         rural housing ·         community information sources ·         town regeneration ·         health impact & urban design ·         teenage supported housing ·         sustainability

Canary in the Cage? Lead Indicators and their potential use by Local Safeguarding Children Boards and partner agencies carefully selected lead indicators could serve a useful purpose in alerting managers to emerging conditions in the operations of a local safeguarding system that, if left unattended, might compromise its future capacity to safeguard children and young people...lead indicators could focus on capacity and capability of workforce (e.g. staff vacancies, turnover, sickness etc), the quality of professional decision making (re-referral rates, conversion rates etc), and levels and quality of partnership engagement (monitoring of attendance at meetings). UK Education (Sep 2011)

	Mapping Social Cohesion 2011 Report – Summary of Key Findings ... findings point to an erosion of individual connectedness and weakening of those involved in communal organizations, important indicators of threats to social cohesion. Scanlon Foundation (Sep 2011) Consolidation of Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws: discussion paper Attorney General (Sep 2011) Women in Politics and Public Leadership The public sector in NSW is the largest employer of women in NSW and it has more female than male employees. However, this does not translate to senior positions within the public service where the majority of positions are held by men. NSW Parliamentary Library (Sep 2011) Auditing Behaviour Change The Government has traditionally used a combination of incentives and levers, such as  information campaigns or regulation, to encourage individuals to change their behaviour in a way that will help Government achieve its policy goals...Government must monitor programme outcomes, the relationship of costs incurred to outcomes achieved, and share best practice across departments to ensure that cost-effectiveness is optimised UK Audit (Sep 2011) Care home closures - Practical tools and guidance to manage short notice closures how to cope with the closure process and how to reduce any negative impact on residents... people who live in care homes need continuity in their care and support, regardless of who provides it and where it’s provided UK SCIE (Sep 2011) Methodological Considerations in Generating Provider Performance Scores for Use in Public Reporting  A Guide for Community Quality Collaboratives US AHRQ (Sep 2011) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Performance Framework 2010: detailed analyses provides over 2,000 pages of comprehensive analysis against 71 health indicators covering health status and outcomes, determinants of health and health systems performance. AIHW (Sep 2011) Canadian Health Accreditation Report Quality Starts at the Top - The Pivotal Role of the Governing Body focuses on governance and its relationship to quality and patient safety. Can Accreditation (Sep 2011) The Higher Risk General Surgical Patient: Towards Improved Care for a Forgotten Group Poorly designed hospital services, particularly access to emergency operating theatres and radiology treatment all result in patients missing out on early diagnosis and rapid life-saving care...makes nine detailed recommendations to reduce complications and deaths, as well as reduce the cost of treating a group of patients who account for almost 90 per cent of post-operative general surgical deaths. UK CS (Sep 2011) Integrated care summary: What is it? Does it work? What does it mean for the NHS? Evidence indicates that organisational integration will not deliver benefits if clinicians do not change the way they work. ...An alternative to organisational integration is to find ways of enabling organisations to coordinate their work more effectively UK Kings Fund (Sep 2011) Australia’s New Health Crisis - Too Many Doctors there is an urgent need for a new review of the GP workforce situation. This should be tasked, among other things, to assess what is an appropriate benchmark of population to GP ratio in today’s circumstances, and to establish the extent to which Australia’s medical workforce districts meet this standard. Monash Uni (Sep 2011) N=1: Why people matter in medicine GPs should be able to refer patients with medication problems to a pharmacist adviser who can also be used as a source of advice for both patients and GPs on medication related issues. UK  Royal College of Physicians (Sep 2011) Food supplements: guidance and FAQs The responsibility for legislation on food supplements in England has transferred from the Food Standards Agency to the Department Health UK Health (Sep 2011)
	How Americans Rate Their Diet Quality: An Increasingly Realistic Perspective Americans have become much less likely to rate their diets as “Excellent” or “Very Good” in terms of healthfulness, even though the healthfulness of the American diet has undergone little change over this period. US Agriculture (Sep 2011) Proposals on Revised Control of Asbestos Regulations consultation UK HSE (Sep 2011) Regulating Medical Marijuana Dispensaries An Overview with Preliminary Evidence of Their Impact on Crime  Sixteen US states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that allow certain individuals to use marijuana for medical purposes.... US Rand (Sep 2011) The health of Australia's prisoners 2010 almost 1 in 3 prison entrants had ever been told they have a mental health disorder and 1 in 5 prisoners in custody was taking medication for a mental health condition AIHW (Sep 2011) New ways of restoring and supporting the independence of older people  key feature of the re-ablement approach is to develop a customised individual plan with clients Benevolent Society  (Sep 2011) The use of health services among Australians with disability People with severe or profound disability rely up to 10 times as heavily on health services, such as general practitioners, as Australians without a disability AIHW (Sep 2011) Rights, responsibilities, risk and regulation Investigating risk in the lives of adults who use care and support...considers how current care provision impacts on the human rights of service users; and analyses the extent to which the present regulatory and commissioning frameworks stifle or encourage risk-taking in adult social care. UK Rowntree (Sep 2011) Improving Job Quality: Direct Care Workers in the U.S. looks at strategies for improving job quality in the care work sector...domiciliary care, nursing homes, assisted living facilities US CEPR (Sep 2011) Safeguarding children statistics: the availability and comparability of data in the UK Exploration of similarities and differences in the characteristics of children coming to the attention of, or receiving services from children’s social care across the UK is problematic... Adopting a consistent approach would facilitate comparative analysis of similarities and differences in need and service responses UK Education (Sep 2011) A study of recommendations arising from serious case reviews 2009-2010 a critical, thematic analysis of recommendations from 33 of the serious case reviews (cases of child death or serious injury through abuse or neglect) completed in 2009-2010....includes a brief literature review is provided of analyses of recommendations stemming from reviews of child death or serious injury. UK Education (Sep 2011) Misperceptions about child sex offenders Specifically, the issues addressed include whether all child sex offenders are ‘paedophiles’, who sexually abuse children, whether most child sex offenders were victims of sexual abuse themselves, rates of recidivism among child sex offenders and the number of children sex offenders typically abuse before they are detected by police. AIC (Sep 2011) Childhood Bereavement: a rapid literature review whilst most children do experience some negative impact on psychological wellbeing in the short term, for the majority these difficulties do not persist or require specialist intervention. UK Education (Sep 2011) Conventional and innovative justice responses to sexual violence Despite 30 years of significant change to the way the criminal justice system responds to sexual violence, conviction rates have gone down in Australia, Canada, and England and Wales...This paper reflects on the limits of legal reform in improving outcomes for victim/survivors. ACSSA (Sep 2011)
	Someone on our side: Advocacy for disabled children and young people Advocacy for disabled children and young people can lead to considerable improvements for them and their families UK Children's Society (Sep 2011) To gain, retain and retrain: the role of post-school education for people with a disability measures aimed at improving the engagement in education of those without qualifications may help to alleviate some of the longer-term problems associated with the growing rates of disability in an aging workforce. NCVER (Sep 2011) Autism spectrum disorders in children and young people: recognition, referral and diagnosis NICE (Sep 2011) Educational provision and outcomes for people on the autism spectrum looked at current educational targets and assessments used for children on the autism spectrum within schools in England and how they relate to children’s outcomes both in the short term but also in the longer term, in adult life. UK AET (Sep 2011) Successful youth transitions (free registration required)Helping young people to avoid poor school and negative early labour market experiences can eliminate the adverse long-term consequences of unemployment and assist them to make the transition to adulthood. A number of interventions which can help young people make a successful youth transition are also discussed. LSAY (Sep 2011) Reintegration and Transitions guidance aims to provide an over view of best practice within reintegration and transitions for young people under 18 who offend. also Assisting Young People aged 16 and 17 in Court Scotland (Sep 2011) Migration, labour demand, housing markets and the drought in regional Australia Perhaps the most important effect of drought is on the increased stress it places on families who are adjusting to financial pressures generated by regional decline. AIFS (Sep 2011) How People Learn About Their Local Community more Americans report watching local TV news than any other source... Younger adults,  rely on local television less, a fact that suggests more vulnerability for the medium in the future. US Pew (Sep 2011) Town Centre Regeneration: How Does it Work & What can be Achieved?   to develop a clearer understanding of the activities taking place as part of town centre regeneration and the outputs and outcomes that follow on from this, to understand how town centre regeneration works and what it can achieve. Scotland (Sep 2011) Integrating Health Impact Assessment in Urban Design and Planning: the Manukau Experience explores how a health impact assessment (HIA) process was used to forge closer links between health and urban design agendas in Manukau City. The case study reveals many common interests among public health and urban designers/planners NZ health (Sep 2011) Supporting independence? Evaluation of the teenage parent supported housing pilot involved seven local authorities providing ‘enhanced support packages’ for teenage parents, with a particular emphasis on those aged 16 and 17 and those not living with parents/carers UK Education (Sep 2011) Measuring sustainability highlights ways sustainability is being defined, measured, and practiced throughout the U.S... improving energy efficiency of multifamily housing.. how sustainability has been defined and measured during its brief history..techniques employed by regional planning organizations US HUD (Sep 2011)