Bridging the quality divide in state legislature websites: New Jersey leads by example

This article offers a critical policy analysis of the curriculum within English Catholic maintained schools. It highlights one of the policy challenges faced by the Catholic Church in England, that is to say, the reconstruction of a ‘Catholic’ curriculum. Drawing on the author's research it outlines the historical context of policy development in regard to the curriculum in Catholic schools, both in State legislation and Church policy, noting the contradictions and pragmatic difficulties in arriving at such policies. It proceeds to articulate a view of the assumptions and principles underlining what might represent the goals of a ‘Catholic curriculum’ based on Church teaching. This is contrasted with the secular context and liberal ideology that dominates modern schooling in England. The article reviews the realities of current practice in curriculum policy development in Catholic schools and contrasts these with some international examples of good practice. It argues that the curriculum in English Catholic schools has effectively been de-Catholicised through a process of internal secularisation. It concludes that today's typical English Catholic school curriculum is almost indistinguishable from its secular counterpart and that increasingly those who teach in and attend Catholic schools have no particular commitment to the official vision of Catholic education.

Richmond Award acceptance speech.

PurposeIn accordance with state or federal legislation in each country, local governments have public health related responsibilities, to protect and promote health in the populations. Due to changes in the natural & built environments, work characteristics, sedentarism became an important public health issue. Therefore, in the last 15-20 years, physical activity (PA) became more and more prominent in the preoccupations of national and local governments, with strategies, policies and programs to promote PA being issued, adopted and some implemented and evaluated.The aim of this study is to explore the potential gap between local governments’ PA promotion related goals (as stated in their official PA related strategies or policies) and the actual PA projects or programs implemented at local level targeting diverse populations subgroups.MethodsWe used the CAPLA-Santé local policy assessment tool to describe the PA related strategies or policies in 5 selected municipalities from Finland, France, Germany, Japan and Romania. This presentation focuses on the respective target audiences of PA policy (CAPLA-Santé question 11) and examples of concrete actions in the form of programmes, interventions, or structuring initiatives (question 14).ResultsIn each of the 5 selected municipalities, the local PA related strategies or policies include diverse populations subgroups such as: pre-school, children/adolescents, students, women, people in care facilities/patients suffering from chronic diseases, migrants, disabled individuals, seniors etc. However, from the examples of good practice reported, for all municipalities, only some of these subgroups (i.e. seniors, patients suffering from chronic diseases, women) are targeted in the PA related programs, interventions, or initiatives.ConclusionsEven though inclusion in public health / PA promotion is at declarative / goals level on the agenda for all analyzed municipalities, in practice, only a few population subgroups benefit from local dedicated PA promotion initiatives. Reasons for this and potential ways to improve the current status quo are discussed.Funding sourceEuropean Commission, Erasmus Plus programme, 613568-EPP-1-2019-1-RO-SPO-SSCP

Building on the best--choice, responsiveness and equity in the NHS.

Plain English summaryBiobanks are collections of donations of biological material (DNA, cells, tissue etc.) and related data which are very valuable for research into human diseases. A variety of biobanks exist for example within hospitals, research institutes, pharmaceutical companies and patient organisations. The role of patients in biobanking is changing from being seen simply as donors, to actual collaborators in the design, development and the running of biobanks. In this article, we provide a number of examples of patients acting as partners at the heart of biobanking, where their voice and perspective is being seen and used as a valuable resource for the biobank. Our aim is that these examples can be used by those who work with patients in biobank-based research, to design future strategies for patient and public involvement in all biobanks.Biobanks and biobanking research plays an increasingly important role in healthcare research and delivery as health systems become more patient-centred and medicine becomes more personalised. There is also growing acceptance and appreciation of the value that patients, patient advocacy organisations and the public can bring as stakeholders in biobanking and more generally in research. Therefore, the importance of active, early and sustained engagement and involvement of patient and public representatives in biobanks will become increasingly relevant.Organising and facilitating patient and public involvement in biobanking takes considerable time and effort for all stakeholders involved. Therefore, for any biobank operator considering involving patients and the public in their biobanking activities, consideration of best practices, current guidance, ethical issues and evaluation of involvement will be important.In this article, we demonstrate that patients are much more than donors to biobanks—they are collaborators at the heart of biobanking with an important voice to identify perspective, which can be an extremely valuable resource for all biobanks to utilise. The case studies herein provide examples of good practice of patient involvement in biobanking as well as outcomes from these practices, and lessons learned. Our aim is to provide useful insights from these efforts and potential future strategies for the multiple stakeholders that work with patients and the public involved in biobank-based research.

The textbook "Introducing Public Participation Methods into the Pedagogical Process" highlights the importance of the involvement of different communities in processes for planning tourism development. In the introductory part, the concept of public participation in tourism planning processes is presented. The reasons for and levels of public involvement in development processes are explained. The textbook also presents examples of good practices in cooperation with the local community from Slovenia and abroad. The textbook then focuses on the public involvement process itself, where the individual stages of participation are described. Next, concrete advice is given regarding the organisation of events where the public are involved. In particular, public participation techniques, which can be used in cooperation with various stakeholders, are highlighted. At the end, the textbook presents examples of the inclusion of local participation in the study process at the Faculty of Tourism of the University of Maribor. It provides a draft work plan for future examples of including cooperation with communities in the study process.

PurposeThe involvement of patients or members of the public within public health, health and social care and addictions services is growing in the UK and internationally but is less common in gambling support services. The purpose of this study was to explore Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) infrastructures and engagement channels used in health and care services and debate their transferability to the gambling support sector (including research, education and treatment).Design/methodology/approachA narrative review examined data from six English language electronic databases, NHS evidence and grey literature covering the period 2007–2019. We identified 130 relevant items from UK literature. A workshop was held in London, England, with people with lived experience of gambling harm to seek their views on and applicability of the review findings to gambling services.FindingsSynthesis of literature and workshop data was undertaken. Main themes addressed “What works” in relation to: building infrastructures and organising involvement of people with lived experience; what people want to be involved in; widening participation and sustaining involvement and respecting people with lived experience.Practical implicationsExamination of the literature about involvement and engagement of patients, service users and the public in public health, health and social care and addiction services provides potentially useful examples of good practice which may be adopted by gambling services.Originality/valueThe involvement of people with lived experience of gambling harms in gambling support services is under-explored, with little published evidence of what constitutes good practice amongst self-organising groups/networks/grassroots organisations or rights-based/empowerment-based approaches.

Public involvement is widely discussed and acknowledged to be ‘a good thing’. However, when we unravel what exactly we mean by public involvement and what is being done in its name, examples of good practice seem few and far between. This article looks at possible approaches.

Patient and public involvement (PPI) is increasingly used for improving quality of the research. There are many barriers in translating PPI into practice, including lacking examples of good practices. Frameworks that have been developed in one setting do not readily transfer to other settings. In this paper, we examine the implementation of PPI in the context of a digital health research project that explores the design, development and use of mHealth for persons with Multiple Sclerosis taking an iterative user-centered design approach. Methods: Instrumental case study to describe the PPI process on a digital health research project. Results: Overall experience was positive. We found 3 roles for PPI involvement: strategic members; design and development partners; and expert members. Challenges lay on unclear PPI terminology; managing roles and expectations; and ensuring accessibility.

This article explores competing explanations of the data on declining rates of trials in the federal courts of the United States. One possibility is that while trials have declined in courts, trials have migrated elsewhere, resulting in a proliferation of adjudicatory processes. The proliferation thesis has plausibility because of the positive political significance now attached to trials and the adjudicatory processes for which they stand. Conversely, a second analysis of the data focuses instead on the rarity of trials in courts and the negative rhetoric and rules stemming from courts about trials. The data could mark the privatization of disputing processes, whether located in or out of courts. The available data also reveal the political and economic incentives and capabilities of the legal profession. The gaps in data on adjudication in state courts and within agencies reflect the lower priority paid to those kinds of claims. The disparity between the federal system and the others (which provide adjudicatory mechanisms for most complainants in the United States) illustrates the impoverishment of public provisions for dispute resolution. History, law, and tradition also support public access to courts, making them more transparent than more recently invented decision‐making centers. But one should not assume the stability of either the equation of courts with public access or the equation of administrative agencies and private providers with secrecy. Courts’ processes are increasingly private, prompting the question of whether to insist (as some judges and state legislators now do) on public access to information about outcomes (settlements included) that are generated through courts, or to permit invisible and sometimes secret resolutions. Whether trials are migrating, morphing, or vanishing, the normative questions now pending are whether a role ought to be preserved for public participation in dispute resolution in either courts or their alternatives and how public resources will be distributed to support either sector.

En los últimos años, desde diferentes ámbitos institucionales y, de forma especial, en el seno de la Unión Europea (UE) se han realizado pronunciamientos recurrentes en relación con la necesidad de reconocer a la Economía Social (ES) como una realidad diferencial a la empresa, que prioriza una serie de resultados al margen de los económicos y financieros. Paralelamente, el reciente compromiso contraído por las Naciones Unidas (NU) en relación con la Agenda 2030, materializado en los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) ha atraído el foco de atención sobre este ámbito, por la alineación de los principios y valores que rigen las entidades de ES y dichos objetivos, y el consiguiente papel que éstas pueden tener en la consecución de los retos fijados. En línea con estos planteamientos, la Comunidad Autónoma de Galicia ha sido la primera en contar con legislación propia en materia de ES, la Ley de Economía Social de Galicia (LESG) aprobada en 2016. Esta normativa hace hincapié en dos aspectos: la adscripción al territorio y el fomento del empleo. Precisamente lo anterior tiene una gran influencia sobre dos objetivos comunes a la ES y los ODS: el reparto equilibrado de la riqueza y el fomento del empleo de calidad. Igualmente, permite avanzar soluciones para alguno de los problemas más acuciantes del complejo contexto sociodemográfico gallego actual. En este trabajo se estudia el caso gallego como ejemplo de buenas prácticas para el fomento y consolidación del tejido de ES, que permite afrontar retos de diferente naturaleza a partir de la combinación de la actividad económica y la sostenibilidad.

Building leadership for health

Urban centers are key to achieving the global goals of sustainability. Urban sustainability entails having thriving cities that fulfill their needs without impacting the long-term sustainability of the ecosystem. Achieving urban sustainability is, therefore, an important goal as sustainable urban centers portend numerous benefits to the ecosystem. This paper critically appraises Singapore as a best practice in Urban Sustainability. It reviews the literature on urban sustainability and discusses the high and low-performing sectors in Singapore. It finds a gap in contemporary urban sustainability metrics whereby most of the globally acclaimed Urban Sustainability Indicators do not measure universal design for inclusivity as an aspect of urban sustainability. This study, therefore, includes it as a measure and appraises it. High-performing areas highlighted in this study comprise education; universal design for inclusivity; transportation; people-centered approach; water and energy management; healthcare, safety and security; and food security. Areas for improvement comprise self-sufficiency in food production, urban heat island effect, and public participation and social welfare. The aim is to serve as a lesson to cities worldwide as they work towards achieving urban sustainability and provide key information to policymakers as they seek to improve the sustainability of their urban environment.

The impact of landscape fragmentation is well recognised as one of the key contributors to the past and present decline in European wildlife. Ecological networks were seen as a solution to this problem and have been the subject of research, policy and practice for nearly 40 years; resulting in many examples of best practice and lessons learned. More recently the European Commission has introduced the concept of Green Infrastructure (GI) which retains the frame work of ecological networks at its core but which offers a more sophisticated integration of economic and social factors and the delivery of a range of ecosystem services. GI has already been included as a concept in EU strategy and offers much for future policy making and delivery of sectoral integration. The views of stakeholders indicate that there a number of key areas for improvement but confirm the potential of the concept. Further work should consider the practicalities of the full translation of the protected area networks into functional ecological networks and making them integral building blocks of the green infrastructure both at the level of policy and practice. In addition information about how to create actual ecological networks at the delivery level, particularly where this has involved stakeholder and public participation needs to be researched and made widely available. The issue of communication; specifically to politicians and decision makers within key sectors (such as spatial planning, transport, industry, etc.) but more widely to researchers, conservation practitioners, businesses and the interested public remain to be fully addressed.

El presente trabajo busca analizar algunos de los elementos que contribuyeron, de manera más significativa, al proceso de institucionalización de los Presupuestos Sensibles al Género en América Latina. El artículo describe brevemente el contexto en el que surgen las iniciativas en la región para posteriormente analizar los elementos mediante los cuales dichas iniciativas promovieron su transformación en prácticas regulares vinculadas al proceso presupuestario. Si bien no es posible hablar de "recetas únicas", estos elementos adaptados a cada realidad y contexto, pueden constituirse en referencias para apoyar el desarrollo de otras experiencias promoviendo la plena incorporación de la igualdad de género como un principio esencial de la gestión de los recursos públicos.