Multi-agency Group Research Articles

The Links Group

‘The Links Group is a committed multi-agency interest group that promotes the welfare and safety of vulnerable children, animals and adults so that they are free from violence and abuse.’The Links ...

PA25 Openness about death, dying and bereavement in fife - building on the skills and knowledge of our people.

A multiagency group was set up in 2011 to encourage a more open approach to death, dying and bereavement in Fife, linked to the Scottish Alliance, Good Life Good Death Good Grief. To encourage and facilitate a more open approach to death, dying and bereavement in Fife through raising awareness and encouraging people across society to consider how they can further this agenda themselves. The group has organised two well attended Fife wide conferences, with a wide range of participants from different organisations and the public, an all day drop-in event at a shopping centre, and a cafe event. Group members also produced some brief and practical information about Wills, Powers of Attorney, Advance Directives, Funeral Planning and the death registration process. Both conferences drew on the knowledge and skills of the participants as members of society and encouraged them to have confidence to take forward the agenda in their own way. The most recent conference in November 2014 was very well received. A high proportion of attendees reported that they would take forward some actions themselves either at home, in their workplace or in their communities. The group's work complements Good Life Good Death Good Grief nationally and provides a local focus to enable wider conversations about openness about death, dying and bereavement in Fife and greater knowledge of practical information.

Boosting Safety At Chemical Facilities

The chemical industry and a coalition of environmental, labor, and other activist organizations are clashing over whether stricter regulations are needed to enhance safety at the nation’s industrial facilities. At issue is an effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to update its Risk Management Plan (RMP) regulations. The two-decade-old RMP is an accident prevention program under the Clean Air Act for high-risk chemical facilities. The agency’s action comes in response to an executive order President Barack Obama issued in August 2013 after a string of chemical disasters, notably the tragic explosion earlier that year at a fertilizer storage and distribution facility in West, Texas. That incident killed 15 people and injured more than 200. Since Obama issued the order, a multiagency group has explored ways to improve chemical facility safety standards. To that end, EPA is contemplating the broadest regulatory changes within the federal government. These include proposals to expand ...

Assessing the quality of care in a new nation: South Sudan's first national health facility assessment.

We adapted a rapid quality of care monitoring method to a fragile state with two aims: to assess the delivery of child health services in South Sudan at the time of independence and to strengthen local capacity to perform regular rapid health facility assessments. Using a two-stage lot quality assurance sampling (LQAS) design, we conducted a national cross-sectional survey among 156 randomly selected health facilities in 10 states. In each of these facilities, we obtained information on a range of access, input, process and performance indicators during structured interviews and observations. Quality of care was poor with all states failing to achieve the 80% target for 14 of 19 indicators. For example, only 12% of facilities were classified as acceptable for their adequate utilisation by the population for sick-child consultations, 16% for staffing, 3% for having infection control supplies available and 0% for having all child care guidelines. Health worker performance was categorised as acceptable in only 6% of cases related to sick-child assessments, 38% related to medical treatment for the given diagnosis and 33% related to patient counselling on how to administer the prescribed drugs. Best performance was recorded for availability of in-service training and supervision, for seven and ten states, respectively. Despite ongoing instability, the Ministry of Health developed capacity to use LQAS for measuring quality of care nationally and state-by-state, which will support efficient and equitable resource allocation. Overall, our data revealed a desperate need for improving the quality of care in all states.

Challenges, progress, and opportunities: proceedings of the filovirus medical countermeasures workshop.

On August 22–23, 2013, agencies within the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sponsored the Filovirus Medical Countermeasures (MCMs) Workshop as an extension of the activities of the Filovirus Animal Non-clinical Group (FANG). The FANG is a federally-recognized multi-Agency group established in 2011 to coordinate and facilitate U.S. government (USG) efforts to develop filovirus MCMs. The workshop brought together government, academic and industry experts to consider the needs for filovirus MCMs and evaluate the status of the product development pipeline. This report summarizes speaker presentations and highlights progress and challenges remaining in the field.

Partnership research in green space community development: a reflection on multi-professional working

Green space offers a significant environmental resource that can improve the individual experience of health and quality of life. However, barriers exist that prevent the use of green space, and partnership (multi-agency) working has the potential to overcome these. In response to this, a community development partnership project (Stepping Stones to Nature) was established to improve green spaces in neighbourhood communities through engagement and consultation. Integral to this project was an initiative to evaluate the process and experience of partnership working. The aim of this paper is to report the experience of the multi-agency group guiding the research process. A researcher who was not involved in the Stepping Stones to Nature project conducted the focus group of seven participants, and one interview, which were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim then thematically analysed. Four main themes were evident from the data: expectation/perceptions; stakeholder involvement and team building; tensions (at organisational and individual levels); reflection and learning (through the partnership and research process). This paper reflects the different expectations of the research process that need to be identified early in partnership research in order that they can be appropriately managed.

Activity theory as a reflective and analytic tool for action research on multi-professional collaborative practice

This paper outlines the use of activity theory and the third spaces created in developmental workshop research as appropriate methodologies for reflection and change. A single case is presented of the use of physical mapping, narratives and activity theory to promote collaborative reflection and learning on collaborative practice in a group of managers in a multi-agency group in the children’s workforce in the UK. The paper concludes that active reflection is stimulated by activity theory allowing the development of collaborative practice in the group.

Facilitating Democracy in a Testing Culture

In 2010, Principal Kirk introduced Small Group Meeting (SGM) at Hillcrest Elementary. SGMs are multiage student groupings who meet with school faculty once a month to work on community building, service-learning projects, and advising. Many teachers liked the SGMs, some felt they needed more time to prepare, and others felt it was a waste of time. The case raises the questions: How can school leaders facilitate teacher autonomy and help push the learning community toward a common vision? If a leader has a strong vision, will teachers’ voices always be stifled? When introducing new initiatives like SGMs, what is the best pace to proceed? The case targets graduate classes in educational leadership and administration as well as professional development of leaders of different educational settings.

JAK2 rs10758669 Polymorphisms and Susceptibility to Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease: A Meta-analysis

In this meta-analysis, we aimed to clarify the impact of Janus kinase 2 (JAK2) rs10758669 polymorphisms on ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) risk. Data were extracted, and pooled odd ratios (ORs) as well as 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were calculated. Eleven studies with 7009 CD patients, 7929 UC patients, and 19235 controls were included. The results showed that JAK2 rs10758669 polymorphism was associated with CD (AC vs. AA, OR = 1.16, 95%CI, 1.08-1.24; CC vs. AA, OR = 1.29, 95%CI, 1.17-1.43; AC + CC vs. AA, OR = 1.19, 95%CI, 1.11-1.27; CC vs. AA + AC, OR = 1.19, 95%CI, 1.09-1.31; C vs. A, OR = 1.14, 95%CI, 1.09-1.20) and UC susceptibility (AC vs. AA, OR = 1.14, 95%CI, 1.06-1.22; CC vs. AA, OR = 1.33, 95%CI, 1.20-1.47; AC + CC vs. AA, OR = 1.18, 95%CI, 1.10-1.27; CC vs. AA + AC, OR = 1.24, 95%CI, 1.12-1.36; C vs. A, OR = 1.15, 95%CI, 1.10-1.21). But no significant association was found between JAK2 rs10758669 polymorphism with CD in Asian. Either in adult-onset group or multi-age group, hospital-based group or population-based group, JAK2 rs10758669 polymorphism was associated with CD and UC susceptibility. This meta-analysis indicated that JAK2 rs10758669 polymorphism was a risk factor both for CD and UC, especially in Caucasian. The differences in age of onset and study design did not influence the associations obviously. Gene-gene and gene-environment interactions should be investigated in the future.

Safety assessment of dangerous goods transport enterprise based on the relative entropy aggregation in group decision making model.

Safety of dangerous goods transport is directly related to the operation safety of dangerous goods transport enterprise. Aiming at the problem of the high accident rate and large harm in dangerous goods logistics transportation, this paper took the group decision making problem based on integration and coordination thought into a multiagent multiobjective group decision making problem; a secondary decision model was established and applied to the safety assessment of dangerous goods transport enterprise. First of all, we used dynamic multivalue background and entropy theory building the first level multiobjective decision model. Secondly, experts were to empower according to the principle of clustering analysis, and combining with the relative entropy theory to establish a secondary rally optimization model based on relative entropy in group decision making, and discuss the solution of the model. Then, after investigation and analysis, we establish the dangerous goods transport enterprise safety evaluation index system. Finally, case analysis to five dangerous goods transport enterprises in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region validates the feasibility and effectiveness of this model for dangerous goods transport enterprise recognition, which provides vital decision making basis for recognizing the dangerous goods transport enterprises.

An action learning approach to partnership in community development: a reflection on the research process

Green space offers a significant environmental resource that can improve the individual experience of health and quality of life. However, barriers exist that prevent the use of green space, and partnership (multi-agency) working has the potential to overcome these. Current public health policy aims to broaden the range of environmental public health intervention through effective partnership working. In response to this, a community development partnership project (Stepping Stones to Nature) was established in the south west of England to improve green spaces in neighbourhood communities through engagement and consultation. Integral to this project was an initiative to research the process and experience of partnership working. The aim of this paper is to report the experience of the multi-agency group guiding the research process and how they used an action learning approach to explore their experiences and guide the research process. Halfway through the project a ‘formal’ focus group discussion was arranged in order to capture the reflective thinking and learning that had taken place. The focus of this paper is on the data from that group discussion. Four main themes were evident from the data: expectation/perceptions; stakeholder involvement; tensions (at organisational and individual levels); and reflection and learning (through the partnership and research process). This paper reflects the different expectations of the research process that need to be identified early in partnership research in order that they can be appropriately managed.

018 One Step Beyond: Working in partnership with CCGs to extend access to Bereavement Services

AimsThe service aims to - Provide access to bereavement support for all bereaved people irrespective of age, culture disability and gender - Assess bereavement need and signpost people pre and...

Integrating substance use services into improving access to psychological therapies through multi-agency group work – a discussion document

Purpose – The main aim of this paper is to highlight innovative partnership working between voluntary sector General Practitioner's and primary and secondary mental health services to improve access to services. Many clients are turned away from services when they disclose substance use, this paper discusses why clients are excluded and how psychological therapies can engage clients in treatment using an alternative approach to health centres. It identifies the need for agencies to have multiple skills in working with both mental health and substance use to provide access to services. Design/methodology/approach – The improving access to psychological therapies (IAPT) group was developed to work with clients using psychological interventions to create, a more flexible approach to services for substance users with psychological difficulties and so the IAPT group was developed. To ensure group's stability it was thought that consistent staff from both organisations should remain in the programme for its duration. To ensure adequate staffing, two staff from the drug agency and three staff from the IAPT team were identified and had shown a firm commitment to work on the programme, and it was agreed that two staff were present at each meeting. The voluntary sector agency premises were chosen as the venue, due to their proximity to bus routes and the anonymity of the service location. The group convened for a period of six weeks and would be a closed group (start with the same group members and have no changes during the groups duration). This would allow clients to engage, work together and to gain confidence in supporting each other. It also allowed clients to work with existing group dynamics and to set boundaries. Establishing the group it was important that it met in the afternoon to allow clients to arrive. The group started at 1 p.m., and worked through until 4 p.m., starting with coffee and having a break within the afternoon. Time was also allocated at the end to talk to staff or other group members about any concerns. The programme included workbooks and hand outs to help clients continue the process at home. Information packs were given including helpline numbers and service information. The group was based using cognitive behavioural therapy techniques, mindfulness and dialectical behavioural therapy. Some motivational interviewing techniques and harm reduction messages as well as relapse prevention were included. Findings – Half the group reported that they had reduced their drug use, two went on to join group programmes. In total, 100 per cent agreed to continue to meet and support each other in a less formal setting. The group felt strongly that it should remain only about cannabis and not to introduce other drugs into the group. All clients felt the group should be a 12-week programme the staff running the group concurred with this. All participants felt the group was helpful but could have been 12 weeks, that it reduced their symptoms and enabled them to interact with others who understood their needs. Peer support was highlighted as the most useful. Two participants entered other drug programmes after the group. All participants associated their substance use with their mood. Originality/value – There are no other projects that have worked outside the IAPT model that integrate substance users and voluntary sector agencies. Provides a unique view of multi agency approach using IAPT in a non–General Practitioner setting with clients normally excluded from IAPT services due to drug use. Is about inclusion of a normally excluded group.

Multi-agency child protection

Public concern over, and recent developments in, the field of child protection are well known (Munro 2012). Within these developments, there has been a strengthening of the role of social work with an increased focus on, and recognition of, professional knowledge, skills and ‘expert’ decision making (Munro 2011; Gilbert et al. 2011). Focus on inter-professional and multi-agency practice has developed alongside (Frost and Lloyd 2006; Frost and Robinson 2007; Ruch 2009), and continues to have a clear focus in the recently issued Working Together to Safeguard Children (H.M. Government 2013).This paper enquires into a relatively under-explored area of multi-agency child protection practice, specifically, that of the police (that is,. non-specialists in child protection) making an urgent, first response to a child protection call, often out of hours and without immediate recourse to the expertise and knowledge of child protection practitioners. In these situations, the police are called upon to make key decisions: for example, whether to immediately protect and remove children using police protection powers (Section 46(1) Children Act 1989), to refer on to local authority social services for a s47 investigation or s17 services, or to take no further action. There is exploration of the issues raised by a request from the police to develop an assessment framework as an aid to practice in these situations. The police had in mind an equivalent instrument to a domestic abuse framework already adopted by them. The paper reviews debates, particularly about predictive efficacy, in the construction of assessment and decision-making tools. The nature and distinction between consensus based and actuarial risk assessment instruments are examined, as are challenges for general multi-agency working, alongside the specific challenges for front line police officers. It is proposed that a consensus based assessment framework to support decision making, drawing on empirically tested, actuarially informed risk assessment evidence, which is collaboratively tested with a multi-agency group, is indicated.

The Challenges and Opportunities Experienced by Parent Supervisors in Primary School Distance Education

For a number of very remote students in Australia, distance education is regarded as the most effective means of providing access to primary school education. For these students isolation is experienced not only in relation to distance from a physical school, but also from a professionally trained educator and the instructional benefits this provides. In bridging the gap between the teacher and student the parent supervisor is vital. However little is known about their role and the challenges and opportunities it affords them in educating their children by this means. This paper reports on a research project that examined the role of parent supervisors in primary school distance education with the aim of understanding how they experience their role. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with volunteer parent supervisors of New South Wales primary school distance education students to gain insight into their practices and the opportunities and challenges they face in their role. Interview transcripts were analysed using a three step data coding framework to explore the themes that emerged in their experiences. This revealed that while most parent supervisors do not have formal qualifications in education, they undertake many tasks akin to those of a teacher and experience similar challenges to new teachers. In particular, supervisors have a crucial role in implementing lessons, motivating and engaging their children in learning, preparing for the lessons, assisting with problems their children encounter and monitoring their children’s progress. One of the main challenges parent supervisors experience is uncertainty, with many doubting their effectiveness in relation to technicalities in key learning areas and managing multi-age groupings. Parent supervisors report that the challenges are outweighed by the opportunities their role provides, particularly their close involvement with their children’s learning and the sense of reward they gain from this. Through this research a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities parent supervisors encounter will enable planning for their role to be improved. It contributes to the broader understanding of rural education by bringing the experiences of an often overlooked cohort of educators into the research literature who are essential to education in rural Australia.

Multi-agency child protection

Public concern over, and recent developments in, the field of child protection are well known (Munro 2012). Within these developments, there has been a strengthening of the role of social work with an increased focus on, and recognition of, professional knowledge, skills and ‘expert' decision making (Munro 2011; Gilbert et al. 2011). Focus on inter-professional and multi-agency practice has developed alongside (Frost and Lloyd 2006; Frost and Robinson 2007; Ruch 2009), and continues to have a clear focus in the recently issued Working Together to Safeguard Children (H.M. Government 2013). This paper enquires into a relatively under-explored area of multi-agency child protection practice, specifically, that of the police (that is,. non-specialists in child protection) making an urgent, first response to a child protection call, often out of hours and without immediate recourse to the expertise and knowledge of child protection practitioners. In these situations, the police are called upon to make key decisions: for example, whether to immediately protect and remove children using police protection powers (Section 46(1) Children Act 1989), to refer on to local authority social services for a s47 investigation or s17 services, or to take no further action. There is exploration of the issues raised by a request from the police to develop an assessment framework as an aid to practice in these situations. The police had in mind an equivalent instrument to a domestic abuse framework already adopted by them. The paper reviews debates, particularly about predictive efficacy, in the construction of assessment and decision-making tools. The nature and distinction between consensus based and actuarial risk assessment instruments are examined, as are challenges for general multiagency working, alongside the specific challenges for front line police officers. It is proposed that a consensus based assessment framework to support decision making, drawing on empirically tested, actuarially informed risk assessment evidence, which is collaboratively tested with a multi-agency group, is indicated.

The Study of Drilling Safe Monitoring System Based on Multi Agent Group

Lots of complexity and uncertainties are existed in drilling process. Further more, one of the possible ways to solve on-site drilling safety accidents is the early-warning through real-time monitoring. Based on the analysis of main hazards during drilling process, considering that most of the hazards are observable and controllable, by using multi agent group (MAG) technology of distributed artificial intelligence (DAI), this paper puts forward a functional schematic model with drilling hazards monitoring multi agent group, which includes real-time monitoring agent, feature extraction agent warning analysis agent, communication agent and user interaction agent. Considering the features of drilling engineering hazard monitoring, a distributed drilling safety monitoring system including the two levels, site-level and base-level, is built.

Understanding the origin of seasonal epidemics of mycoplasmal conjunctivitis

1. Many host-pathogen systems show regular seasonal oscillations. 2. Seasonal variation in mycoplasmal conjunctivitis prevalence in house finches is an example of such oscillations. 3. An annual pulse of Mycoplasma gallisepticum-naïve juveniles increasing the number of susceptibles, seasonal changes in flocking behaviour increasing transmission rate and a gradual loss of resistance to reinfection with time are sufficient to model the observed seasonal variation in disease prevalence. Nevertheless, experiments are needed to test the underlying mechanisms. 4. We carried out an 18-month experiment with small groups of birds in large aviaries to test two hypotheses. 5. To test the first hypothesis that an influx of naïve juveniles in a group of recovered adults is sufficient to cause an outbreak, we added eight juveniles to a group of 11 adults that had recovered from an earlier infection. In all, three replicates juveniles became infected, but only after some of the adults relapsed. 6. To test the second hypothesis that reintroduction of M. gallisepticum into a multiage group of previously exposed but fully recovered house finches causes a new outbreak, we inoculated two birds in each group in March of the 2nd year. Contrary to what happens in the wild at that time disease prevalence increased rapidly after reintroduction of M. gallisepticum. 7. We conclude that asymptomatic, recovered adults can initiate an epidemic and transmit M. gallisepticum to naïve house finches and that the reintroduction of M. gallisepticum is sufficient to cause a new outbreak, even at a time of the year when mycoplasmal conjunctivitis is low in free-living birds. Date, as such, seems to be less important to explain seasonal variation in conjunctivitis than the presence of naïve juveniles or the introduction on M. gallisepticum. 8. Seasonality in outbreaks is most likely tightly linked to seasonal variation in bird movements and behaviour.

Clinical Results of High-Dose Chemotherapy Followed by Autologous Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation in Children with Advanced Stage Rhabdomyosarcoma

Regardless of improvement in cure of Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), the results in treatment of advanced stage of RMS in children are still dismal. Recently, high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (HDC/APBSCT) has been tried to manage the advanced high-risk RMS patients. We investigated the effectiveness of HDC/APBSCT by reviewing the clinical records of high-risk pediatric RMS patients in single institute database. Over twenty years, 37 patients were diagnosed as RMS with high-risk at the time of first diagnosis. These patients were classified as two groups according to treatment method. The first group was HDC/APBSCT and the other was conventional multi-agent chemotherapy group. Differences of clinical results between the two groups were analyzed. The median age of patients was 5 yr, ranging from 6 months to 15 yr. The 5-yr event free survival rate (EFS) of all patients was 24.8% ± 4.8%. HDC/APBSCT group and conventional multi-agent chemotherapy group were 41.3% ± 17.8% and 16.7% ± 7.6% for 5-yr EFS, respectively (P = 0.023). There was a significant difference in the result of HDC/APBSCT between complete remission or very good partial response group and poor response group (50% ± 20.4% vs 37.5% ± 28.6%, P = 0.018). HDC/APBSCT can be a promising treatment modality in high-risk RMS patients.

Multi-objective Optimization of Multi-Agent Elevator Group Control System Based on Real-time Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

In order to get a globally optimized solution for the Elevator Group Control System (EGCS) scheduling problem, an algorithm with an overall optimization function is needed. In this study, Real-time Particle Swarm Optimization (RPSO) is proposed to find an optimal solution to the EGCS scheduling problem. Different traffic patterns and controller mechanisms for EGCS are analyzed. This study focuses on up-peak traffic because of its critical importance to modern office buildings. Simulation results show that EGCS based on Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) using RPSO gives good results for up-peak EGCS scheduling problem. Besides, the elevator real-time scheduling and reallocation functions are realized based on RPSO in case new information is available or the elevator becomes busy because it is unavailable or full. This study contributes a new scheduling algorithm for EGCS, and expands the application of PSO.