Wilkerson Case Solutions Essay Example

Wilkerson Case Solutions Paper I _ Describe in words how costs are assigned in the Willpowers current costing system. Discuss the pros and cons of this system. Wilkinson uses a simple traditional cost accounting system in which each unit of product is charged for direct material, direct labor and overhead COStS_ Material cost is based on the prices paid for component under annual purchasing agreements. Labor cost is charged to products based on the standard run times for each product. Labor rates, including fringe benefits, were $25 per hour. The overhead costs are allocated to products as a percentage f production-run direct labor cost. Currently, the overhead rate is 300% of production-run direct labor cost. The current cost accounting system is consistent with traditional costing system required for external financial reporting. Traditional costing is attractive to financial reporting because it better matches costs with revenues, All manufacturing costs are assigned to products in order to property match the costs of producing units of product with their revenues when they are sold. Financial reporting standards explicitly require companies to use traditional costing for external reporting purposes. However, traditional cost accounting methods suffer from several defects that can result in distorted costs for decision-making purposes. All manufacturing costs, even those that are not caused by any specific product, are allocated to products. Manufacturing costs that are caused by products are not assigned to products. Additionally, traditional methods tend to place too much reliance on unit-level allocation bases such as direct labor and machine-hours. This results in overcastting high-volume products and undercoating low-volume products and an lead to mistakes when making decisions. We will write a custom essay sample on Wilkerson Case Solutions specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Wilkerson Case Solutions specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Wilkerson Case Solutions specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Compute Activity-Based Costing product costs using 1) actual cost driver rates, and 2) capacity-based cost driver rates. Which of these approaches is appropriate for Wilkinson and why? From the results of Activity Based Costing and Capacity based costing methods, we see that Wilkinson shows a lower cost based from the BBC method. It is more appropriate for Wilkinson to use the BBC method since it shows a more realistic per unit cost based on different level of activities. This may allow them to find says to be more competitive on product pricing in the market. . What managerial actions are indicated by the activity based costing system? Prom the activity based costing system the management will be able to see the products cost structure and be able identify activities that would benefit from process improvements. When used in this way, activity-based costing is referred to as activity-based management. Management can focus on which activities to eliminate waste, decrease processing time, and/or reduce defects. The first Step in any improvement program is for the management to decide hat to improve. The products cost computed in activity-based costing can provide valuable clues concerning where there is waste and opportunity for improvement. For example, looking at the Pumps and Flow Controller, managers at Wilkinson may conclude that the company spends far more on receiving and production control, and packaging and shipping activities that adds no value to the products. As a consequence, they may target their process improvement efforts toward these areas. Improvements on these areas could enable the company to gain competitive edge on pricing these products. Describe the additional accounting effort that Wilkinson would need to do to on a regular monthly basis in order to obtain the information shown in Exhibit 4 Estimate the cost to this additional accounting. To continue to obtain the information shown in Exhibit 4 on a regular monthly basis would require much more effort from the Wilkinson accounting team. Similar to what was already done, Wilkinson will need to run a small task force on a monthly basis so that data concerning numerous activity measures are collected, checked, and entered into the system. This Avail be necessary to appropriately allocate various overhead costs to individual products instead of traditionally treating overhead as a period cost. Although the activity based costing method can provide more accurate information about individual product or services, the organization should expect to hue increased costs due to additional research efforts to collect and appropriately allocate overhead costs. We estimate that the additional effort associated With activity based costing system can increase accounting cost by approximately 25%.

My Mom Goes Back to School for Nonprofit Management Essays

My Mom Goes Back to School for Nonprofit Management Essays My Mom Goes Back to School for Nonprofit Management Essay My Mom Goes Back to School for Nonprofit Management Essay As far back as I can remember my mother has always worked at some level of nonprofit. This was not a career that she set out to do necessarily. In fact when I was very small she was a dental hygienist. But I guess this field didn’t really appeal to her in the long term and as her kids grew she was freer to explore other industries where the hours may not have been conducive to her life of getting kids on and off the bus. She started working as a secretary in one nonprofit and has worked for many organizations since then – working her way up the ladder into fundraising and even nonprofit management. Now that she’s reached a certain level, however, regardless of her work experience, she has hit a salary ceiling because she does not have her degree. Not one to let something like this stop her from getting what she wants, my mother – at the age of 61 – simply decided that she would go back to school. I was worried and couldn’t imagine her running around between classes and work and trying to juggle studying and homework on top of it all. She would run herself ragged and I wasn’t even sure she would be able to make it work with the schedule as it was. But as usual my mother was right and I was wrong. She had no intention of returning to the classroom and no intention of commuting to and from campus. Not at all. Instead she had explored the possibility of getting an online nonprofit management degree through a reputable online school. This seemed the perfect solution to me. My mom could pursue her degree in nonprofit management from the comfort and convenience of her home and not have to sacrifice her career. When will I learn that mother always knows best?

A nutritional disease of childhood associated with a maize diet Essay

A nutritional disease of childhood associated with a maize diet - Essay Example actor related to a dietary deficiency, perhaps a form of protein malnutrition, on account of a lack of some amino acids in the diet of the affected children which was entirely based on inadequate breast milk supplemented by a maize preparation. Despite certain similarities in the symptoms of the described syndrome and pellagra, Williams was quite certain that the disease was not pellagra or beri-beri. In this paper a new disease has been meticulously described with detailed information provided about the familial circumstances and dietary habits of the suffering children. However, as the author herself states, it was â€Å"impossible to conduct a scientific investigation into the cause, or to make any controlled experiments into the nature of the cure† (p.432). As a Woman Medical Officer in charge of maternal and child health in the British colony of Gold Coast, Williams’ job was â€Å"to hand out advice in clinics and treat acutely ill infants in the hospital, but she rapidly established the need for comprehensive medical services to sick infants, and in addition conducted clinical research† (Stanton, 2001, p 149). The disease, subsequently named by Williams as kwashiorkor, meaning ‘disease of the deposed child’ in the native Ga language, is now well-defined although the â€Å"descriptions and interpretations of kwashiorkor have changed over ti me† (Stanton, 2001, p 151). Kwashiorkor has come to be recognised as a form of malnutrition caused by inadequate protein intake in the presence of fair to good energy (total calories) intake (Van Voorhees, 2006). Fuchs (2005) describes protein caloric malnutrition as the most deadly form of malnutrition. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), it is the primary or associated cause of nearly 30000 deaths of children under five each day (2000). The aetiology of kwashiorkor as understood today is clearly multifactorial and includes poverty or food insecurity, inadequate weaning and other feeding practices, and

The Air Pollution Problems in Beijing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

The Air Pollution Problems in Beijing - Essay Example Most of the sulfur dioxide emitted into the air resulted from coal combustion, which formed a fundamental part of the energy suppliers in China. In the 1990s, the problem worsened because of the increase in the number of vehicles on Chinese roads. Beijing recorded a massive rise from 0.5 million in 1990 to over 5 million cars in 2012. Chinese cars emit more pollutants than most cars in other developed countries because the low standards of automobile emissions in the country. It is worthwhile mentioning that the current state of air pollution in Beijing and many other Chinese cities is a result of rapid industrialization and increase in the numbers of automobiles on the road. In the previous ten years, Beijing has been trying to put in efforts to improve the quality of its air. The efforts have been able to bring out some positive impacts though at a minimal rate. The rapid developments in the economy, advancements in motorization and increasing industrialization have contributed immensely to the air pollution. In the previous decades, Beijing has suffered from various sources of air pollution. Among these sources are; coal combustion, exhaust from vehicles, and fugitive dust. The pollution is distinctively characterized by the enormous levels of pollutants from coal burning. These pollutants are the sulfur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter (PM), and the photochemical products like ozone (Leitte, Schlink and Franck 125). Beijing, Chinas capital city is an international metropolis with a current population estimate of million. Air pollution is an important and mutual concern for all urban residents in many big cities worldwide. Particulate matter (PM) remains to be the air pollutant with the greatest adverse health effects on people. PM10 and PM2.5 are the primary particulate matter pollutants. Particulate matter consists of particles with aerodynamic diameters

IT Professional Responsibilities toward the Society Essay

IT Professional Responsibilities toward the Society - Essay Example Nevertheless, metadata can be dangerous if the document gets passed on to others electronically. This can happen, for instance, during the submission of an electronic document into a court, distribution of the documents among the adverse groups, or during the document’s circulation to the opposing counsel during negotiations. â€Å"The document’s metadata may contain hidden information that the sender would not want to share with the recipients, such as comments on revisions or the time and by whom the comments were made† (Day et al., 2008, p. 12). Computing professionals assume this responsibility to be very careful in their handling of the metadata for their own safety, safety of their coworkers, and of the whole society. The responsibilities of the computing professionals extend beyond compliance with the policies and goals of their company to include the interests of the society at large. â€Å"Lack of security awareness and training, operating system design and security, open source issues, design complexity and multiple layer approach are some of the current issues with ICT† (Beqiri, n.d.). Computing professionals need to have a firm hold over all these areas to secure the information whose leakage may put the future of the society in the hands of the enemies. The responsibility of computing professionals toward members of their profession and the society translates into the broader area of business ethics. Over the passage of time, organizations have become quite experienced and informed about the delicate nature of information technology issues. This has brought a change in the employers’ attitude toward what skills they want in the information technology professionals. â€Å"When employers of newly qualified information systems professionals are asked what it is they would most like them to know, the answer is very rarely

The Child Protection Process

The Child Protection Process The following are the skills needed in order to work with parents and with the family as a whole: ability to work in partnership with parents; ability to be honest and open even when the information you have to share is unpleasant or painful; ability to communicate with adults; ability to negotiate; ability to provide counselling, warmth, empathy, understanding; ability to tolerate peoples pain and anger; ability to work effectively with groups. Two skills will be explained further. Starting with the ability to provide empathic understanding, this relies on the ability of the worker to imagine what the service user may be experiencing, relating it to his/hers experience. Empathy also draws on the ability of the worker to be an active listener. As for the ability to be honest, it is known that some parents are not always honest with social workers, particularly when there are issues of abuse (Department of Health, 1991a; Reder et al; 1993), but it is important for social workers to honest in all dealings with parents. Sometimes this is difficult particularly when sharing difficult decisions with the parents, such as the decision to hold a child protection conference. The process of child protection work is set out in the Working Together guidance (HM Government, 2006a), which is to be followed in conjunction with the Assessment Framework and any local procedures and protocols. Under s47 of the Children Act 1989, local authorities have a duty to make enquiries when there is reason to believe that a child is suffering or is likely to suffer, significant harm In the case of Bethany where a section 47 enquiry is being considered, a strategy meeting should be held immediately, involving social workers, police, and any other relevant personnel such as referring professionals or when necessary those with medical or legal expertise. Apart from sharing information, the principle focus of the strategy meeting is on planning. This might include coordinating with the enquiry with any criminal investigation, dealing with any immediate issues of safety, deciding what information may be shared with parents and whether any medical examination are required. When a childs name is placed on the child protection register, the conference will appoint a lead professional (usually a local authority social worker) and a core group, comprising family members and relevant professionals who have the responsibility for developing and implementing the child protection plan. This plan will be reviewed at further conferences, initially within three months and six months thereafter. Depending on the degree of risk reduction, these subsequent meetings may decide to remove the childs name from the register. Research on core groups has identified challenges very similar to those facing conferences, especially in ensuring meaningful participation (Harlow and Shardlow, 2006.) From their study of a hundred and twenty conferences, Farmer and Owen (1995) argued that the dominant focus was on assessing risk, with minimal time devoted to planning and little subsequent reappraisal. They expressed concern that plans often failed to offer therapeutic help to children or to address the needs of parents (including women subjected to domestic violence). More recent research has suggested that, although practical and therapeutic services are generally appreciated by parents, they are often not forthcoming (CSCI, 2006). In this respect, Scourfield and Welsh (2003) argue that child protection work is dominated by a neo-liberal emphasis on monitoring and exhorting parents to change or face losing their children. Despite these difficulties, and re-abuse rates of 25-30%, studies in 1990s found that in roughly two thirds of cases, childrens wellbeing improved while on the child protection register (DH, 1995). Failures of communication and co-ordination between professionals have been a recurring theme in child maltreatment scandals, but eliminating them has proved a daunting challenge. One major concern has been to strike a balance between spreading responsibility for child protection as widely as possible while ensuring there are clear lines of accountability. For example, there have been moves to make child protection everyones business (Scottish Executive,2002; HM Government,2006b). In England and Wales, s11 of theChildren Act 2004 and s175 of the Education Act 2002 created a general duty for a range of public bodies to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Working Together (HM Government, 2006a: 39-73) sets out various requirements for organisations to nominate key professionals to co-ordinate child protection work at their particular level (Murphy,2004), while the Children Act 2004, s12, creates a duty on professionals to notify any cause for concern to the information-sharing index. Training, especially on an inter-professional basis, has also been recognised as crucial to facilitating communication and co-ordination (Glennie,2007). Yet, despite the many positive developments in relation to co-ordination, the challenges remain significant (Murphy,2004). Different professional roles and training generate particular ways of seeing in respect of assessment and these are likely to be reinforced by agency cultures (Birchall and Hallett,1995). In practice, this often means different thresholds for assessing significant harm and consequent tensions when these views are not shared by others (Stanley et al;2003). Duties to co-operate have co-existed with increasing pressures on individual professionals and agencies and unsurprisingly, it has often proved difficult to engage those for whom child protection is not regarded as part of their core business (Francis et al; 2006). Responsibilities have thus tended to remain with social workers, with some evidence that other professionals may seek to avoid involvement in child protection work (Harlow and Shardlow, 2006). Inter-professional relationships are also affected by issu es of power and status and may be based on generalised or even stereotypical views of others. In relation to communication, there are two related challenges to be faced. The first is that confidentiality, which has both interpersonal and professional dimensions. Thus, individual practitioners must address issues of confidentiality in light of their relationship with service users, but professional cultures and agency rules will also shape what information must (not) be kept confidential. A second, broader challenge is to decide from the massive volume of information gleaned which items are to be exchanged, with whom, and in what form, something that ultimately relies on professional judgement but is also influenced by inter personal processes (Reder and Duncan, 2003). Finally, it should be recognised that all the above challenges can be exacerbated by staff turnover and by agency reorganisations. Reflecting the growing concern not only that resources were directed more to child protection services than to preventive and support services but also that there were weaknesses at strategic and operational levels about how professionals jointly supported children and their families, the government established requirements for inter-agency collaboration in the 2004 Children Act. Under sections 10 and 11 of this Act, the Director of Childrens Services is accountable for collaborative partnerships across agencies involved with the wellbeing of children to assist professionals to coordinate services focused on prevention and early intervention and, where appropriate, to plan and develop joint services. In March 2007, the government published a review of family policy resulting from an extensive consultation with providers of services, young people and parents to lay the foundation for government spending over a three-year cycle from 2008 (HM Treasury and DFES, 2007). As part of the Every Child Matters agenda, the government is aiming to address the imbalance in the allocation of resources between prevention services and protection services and also to develop a more effective multidisciplinary framework of professional skills to enhance the effectiveness of prevention services. Two broad aims are to develop the resilience of children to adverse factors in their family and social circumstances and also to address the needs of families caught in a cycle of low attainment. The goal is to increase the provision of preventive services but where necessary to require resistant families to use the services by setting consequences for parents through forms of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and Parenting Orders. The intention is to enable local authorities to use additional funding flexibly to develop services provided either directly by the local authority or through multidisciplinary settings such as extended school services or childrens centres for younger children. The policy review commissioned four areas of sub-review: developing preventive approaches, children and families at risk through low attainment; needs of disabled children; needs of young people. These policy aims will inform not only funding streams to local authorities, child health and education but also expectations about workforce skills developments (www.hm-treasury.gov.uk) Families say that they value the social worker who helps them find their solutions to family problems. This approach takes into account service users anxieties about sharing family information with professionals and harnesses the familys strengths to build self-confidence and more sustained solutions. The whole family approach, family focused and child centred is central to working with children and their families in a multi-agency setting. Social workers bring a broad knowledge and skills base and are able to move beyond functions into solutions. They need to influence those other agencies surrounding the child to adopt a more collaborative strength-based approach. An approach that respects the family but does not condone the behaviour towards the child or the childs behaviour is likely to enable the family to respond to early intervention and to take up services offered rather than being driven to use the services by compulsion. However, social workers cannot at times avoid compulsion, through either a child protection plan or court proceedings. Families need to know what sanctions may follow if there are serious concerns about a child that they do not address. Communication about options and consequences from the outset of intervention is central to good practice. Such clear communication is also needed for other agencies that may be involved. Families and children should not need to repeatedly share with professionals from different settings the difficulties they are experiencing. A key skill social workers bring to their practice is the capacity to understand the issues from the familys standpoint. Social workers need to take into account the impact of poverty, social marginalisation, discrimination and poor health on parenting capacity and childrens development. Social workers are the bridge to enabling other professionals to acknowledge the need for services and their responsibility to provide suitable services. Clear communication is a prerequisite to establishing good partnerships with children, the family and the professionals involved. Work needs to be planned around time to listen, time to reflect and time to establish relationships with the child and the parents at a pace that works for them. Communication means not only using language that families understand, so that terms familiar to professionals are properly explained and examples given, it also means establishing in what way they wish to share information. This principle needs to be embedded in the practice of all the professionals delivering services to the families. Some families may wish to use an appropriately skilled interpreter. Some may want to share with the social worker the task of making written records or completing assessment forms. Other families may feel unable to say that written records disenfranchise them because of limited literacy skills. Services plans should be transparent and should clearly set out which agencies are involved, what is being provided, for how long and what are the consequences of not using the services. Plans need to be reviewed regularly and families need to know who has responsibility in multi-agency plans to deal with disagreement, to account for lapses in service provision and to ensure that reviews are held. For families the governments proposals under the Every Child Matters agenda create the possibility of improvements in accessing services across agencies. However, joint planning and commissioning will only be effective if parents, families and children are consulted about what services are useful to them. Services delivered through extended schools and childrens centres need to be innovative and harness the skills of the third sector to deliver not only universal services but also services for children with additional and specialist needs. Social workers and their managers are well placed to drive forward more effective ways of working directly with families: the risk is that processes designed to ensure accountability will create unnecessary barriers for skilled professionals who want to work alongside families to support them to find solutions. in 2000, the New Labour government published the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families (DH et al; 2000). The Framework was to be applied to all assessments under the Children Act 1989, whether for children in need (s17) or where significant harm was suspected (s47). The Assessment Framework (DH et al; 2000:10-16) sets out the following key principles: Assessments should be child centred, rooted in child development; ecological in their approach; ensure equality of opportunity; involve working with children and families; build on strengths as well as identify difficulties; are inter-agency in their approach to assessment and the provision of services; are a continuing process, not a single event; are carried out in parallel with other action and providing services; are grounded in evidence-based knowledge. Any assessment of a child and his family which aims to understand what is happening to a child has to take account of a childs developmental needs, the parenting capacity to respond to those needs, and the wider family and environmental factors. Together these form three systems whose interactions have direct impact on the current and long term wellbeing of a child. The Assessment Framework represents a way of trying to capture the complexity of a childs world and beginning to construct a coherent approach to collecting and analysing information about each child. The Framework should be rooted in understandings of child development. Contemporary thinking about childrens needs has evolved over several decades and reflects a mixture of theoretical influences and evidence derived from research studies.Taylor (2004) identifies the following needs: basic physical care, affection, security, stimulation, guidance, control and discipline, responsibility, independence. As assessment has become increasingly rationalised, it has become more common to adopt a balance sheet approach, often couched in terms of risk factors i.e. the increased probability of a particular (negative) outcome and protective factors that decrease its likelihood. An important factor behind the increasing interest in parenting has been a focus on the impact of mental health problems, substance misuse and domestic violence on parents and, in turn, children. Research in the 1990s suggested that these played an important role in many child welfare cases, especially when present in combination, but that they were neither well understood nor addressed in practice (Cleaver et al; 1999). They are relevant in two main ways. First, background knowledge of the impact is an important factor in decision making and second, there may be particular implications for the process of assessment and how it is managed. While each of these areas has distinctive characteristics, there are also common treads. One is that assessment demands a careful balancing act to avoid over or under reaction.Thus, despite heightened risk to childrens welfare, it is important to recognise that those suffering from mental health and other problems do not necessarily make poor parent s, and that the majority of their children grow up without major ill-effects (Cleaver, 2002). An adult who violently assaults another adult in the home is, in fact, also abusing children who may see, hear or be aware of that violence. Hughes, 1992, found that in 90 per cent of cases of domestic violence, children were in the same or the next room. This indirect abuse, is a form of emotional abuse, and actually one of the more severe forms. (Bearing in mind that emotional abuse and neglect are closely related, we might also see it as neglect of the childs needs.) Children are exposed to feelings of terror, grief, impotence, and to the realisation that adults on whom they may rely for safety, security and protection are either, incapable of protecting even themselves, or, capable of dangerous violence towards those they are supposed to protect (Kelly, 1994:44). Since the implementation of the Adoption and Children Act in December 2005, the Children Act 1989 definition of significant harm has expressly included impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of anot her. A crucial element of the Framework was to emphasise the interconnectedness of the three domains, drawing on the ecological theory of Bronfenbrenner (1979). In essence, Bronfenbrenner construes the factors influencing the childs development as a series of four concentric circles, which he refers to as systems ranging from the childs immediate environment to the broadest social context. The microsystem describes any setting where the child is an active participant, typically the family, school, peer group or immediate neighbourhood. The mesosystem comprises relationships between microsystems, for example between home and school. Finally, the macrosystem comprises the broader social environment in which children and families live, including cultural values, customs, economy and laws. Arguably the most influential theoretical framework within assessment and child social care more broadly is that based on attachment. Originally derived from the work of Bowlby (1953), attachment theory emphasises the importance of relationships between children and parental figures, especially mothers. Bowlby was particularly concerned with the negative consequences of lost or poor attachment which led to maternal deprivation. Subsequently, his work attracted criticism for its gendered assumptions and ethnocentricity, but having fallen out of fashion, attachment theory was rediscovered during the 1990s (Thoburn, 1999) and its importance was made explicit in the Assessment Framework. Fahlberg (1994) has defined attachment as an affectionate bond between two individuals that endures through space and time and serves to join them emotionally. She argues that the development of attachment occurs through a cycle of arousal and relaxation, wherein the child becomes aroused through needs such as food or comfort, but relaxes once these needs are met by the attachment figure. Repetition of the cycle develops trust and a sense of security for the child. Fahlberg also points to a positive interaction cycle, where play and humour make interaction enjoyable and mutually rewarding and attachment is strengthened. The longer-term importance of attachment is that it should provide children with a secure base from which to explore the social world and give them an internal working model for relationships based on trust. Although open to change through later experiences, these models exert a strong and often enduring influence over the lives of children and adults (Howe,2001). Needless to say, such processes do not always follow this path and, while a complete absence of attachment is rare, insecure attachment may affect up to half of the population (Howe,2001). Building on Ainsworth et als (1978) work, insecure attachments are customarily divided into three categories: anxious avoidant (detached), anxious resistant (ambivalent) and disorganised/controlling. Each is associated with specific attachment behaviours, such as the reaction to separation, and wider patterns of behaviour. Howe (2003) argues that attachment behaviours reflect how children make sense of adults both emotionally and cognitively and are typically adaptive responses to their care environment. Within assessment, therefore, attachment behaviours can give important insights into childrens well-being and development, while the theory may help to explain the factors that lie behind them and to gauge the potential for change. Understanding attachment is particularly pertinent when temporary or permanent removal of a child is being considered, both in terms of recognising the effects of removal and the importance of maintaining contact between children and birth family members including siblings (Sanders,2004). Information on attachment can be gleaned from interviews, direct work with children, from other professionals and perhaps most importantly observation, but as Howe (2003) warns, assessing attachments is a complex task that requires experience and cautious handling. Explanatory accounts of child maltreatment have emanated from all the major schools of psychology. Their primary focus rests with individual perpetrators, but to a greater or lesser extent they also address ideas of intergenerational transmission, examining the ways in which the childhood victims of maltreatment may become perpetrators as adults. Although they enjoy little support, there are also pre-psychological theories rooted in biology and ideas of instinct (Corby, 2005:156-158). Psychodynamic perspectives (broadly derived from Freudian psychology) emphasise developmental stages and the formation of personality as these stages are negotiated (Mc Cluskey and Hooper, 2000). In relation to child maltreatment, attention has focused on how a parents own childhood may influence their capacity to recognise and meet childrens needs, whether they have acquired a rigid personality, become easily frustrated or have difficulty in controlling aggression. This is evident in the case of Bethany where behaviour appears at first sight to be neglectful or abusive but seems in fact to be the result of genuine ignorance about the needs of a child or the role of a parent. Some adults may have lacked appropriate role models while growing up; some are very isolated and have little access to sources of advice. When there seems to be a lack of knowledge or of parenting skills, an appropriate form of intervention is education: the provision of advice, information, instruction or role models. Social learning theory focuses on how behaviour is learned through processes of observation, conditioning and reinforcement. In line with the theory, intervention would focus on identifying these patterns and seeking to modify them through behavioural therapy, perhaps by working on avoiding triggers for maltreatment or reinforcing appropriate parental responses. Throughout her childhood, Bethany witnessed violence hence repeating the same behaviour as an adult. A basic feature of anti discriminatory practice is the ability to see that discrimination and oppression are so often central to the situations social workers encounter. The fact that social work service users are predominantly from disadvantaged groups is unlikely to be seen as a key issue. However, what anti discriminatory practice teaches us is that discrimination and oppression are vitally important matters and, if we are not attuned to recognising and challenging discrimination, we run the risk of, at best condoning it and, at worst exacerbating and amplifying it through our own action. Overarching both the 1989 and the 2004 Children Act is the 1998 Human Rights Act which requires agencies with responsibilities for child health, education and welfare services to comply with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights. Of particular relevance is Article 8, respect for private and family life. This Article does not give an absolute guarantee to family life and therefore to services to support a family to bring up their children. It is a qualified right, and the State and its agencies have to balance the childs entitlement to grow up cared for by their family, who may need support services to do so, against the duty to protect the child and, where necessary following a fair and transparent process, to remove the child from the family. The duty on the Director of the Childrens Services to plan with other agencies to commission and provide support services to promote childrens wellbeing must comply with both international obligation and domestic law to ensure that service provision is non-discriminatory

The Immune System Essay -- essays research papers

The Immune System   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The immune system is a group of cells, molecules, and tissues that help defend the body against diseases and other harmful invaders. The immune system provides protection against a variety of potentially damaging substances that can invade the body. These substances include disease-causing organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses. The body's ability to resist these invaders is called immunity. A key feature of the immune system is its ability to destroy foreign invaders while leaving the body's own healthy tissues alone. Sometimes, however, the immune system attacks and damages these healthy tissues. This reaction is called an autoimmune response or autoimmunity.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The immune system is composed of many parts that work together to fight infections when pathogens or poisons invade the human body. Pathogens are disease-causing organisms such as bacteria and viruses. The immune system reacts to foreign substances through a series of steps know as the immune response. Any agent perceived as foreign by a body's immune system is called an antigen. Several types of cells may be involved in the immune response to antigens.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When an antigen enters the body, it may be partly neutralized by components of the innate immune system. It may be attacked by phagocytes or by performed antibodies that act together with the complement system. The human immune system cont...