Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 33).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 33). Also available in print.

The Protection of Children Act in British Columbia makes provision for the removal and the restoration of guardianship to natural parents. This process, which is designed to safeguard the rights of both parents and children, involves the two disciplines of social work and the law. The social worker is directly concerned with the decision to apprehend a child and, subject to the decision of the court, separate him from neglectful parents. He is also concerned with enabling the parents to ameliorate the circumstances of neglect, and to assist them to apply to the court for the restoration of parental rights. The social work process thus goes on before the apprehension, during the court hearing, and after the committal of the child. The final disposition in both the removal and the restoration of guardianship is made by the judge of the juvenile court. This study is undertaken to illuminate the elements involved in social work responsibility in this area of child welfare practice. A sample group of families was selected, and their experience assessed for analytical and illustrative purposes. The study concentrates on two sets of factors: (1) those present at the time of removal of guardianship, and (2) the circumstances which enabled the restoration of parental rights. The data are evaluated on the basis of (a) parental strengths, (b) the nature of community concern and action, (c) the role of the social agency, (d) the nature of the client-social worker relationship, and (e) the part played by the juvenile court. Parental strengths are rated on the basis of objective and subjective criteria, developed from concepts pertinent to social diagnosis. The study brings out the need for definitive criteria on which to rate parental adequacy, in order that the grave decision to separate the child from his parents may he made with the greatest possible accuracy in diagnosis. There is responsibility for social workers to define the type of neglect which embraces psychological as well as physical factors, and to interpret this definition to the larger community for incorporation into legislation. Changing trends in child protection theories should be made known to the judges of the juvenile court in order that the socio-legal process is conducted to the best advantage of both parents and children. The social agency must maintain contact with natural parents after the removal of their children, as it has been shown that change can take place in parental capacity, or parental circumstances such as remarriage. This is an area clearly worthy of further research. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

Critical treatment of Mrs. Radcliffe's canon, in addition to being superficial, has laid altogether too much stress on the sensational aspects of her work. In my thesis, I assess the nature of the world which she creates, examine the consequent psychology of her good and evil characters, and point out the manner in which her treatment of some other themes correspond to that nature and that psychology. By this means, I intend to show that there exists in her works a strong moral vision and a unified artistic statement that shows them to be far less frivolous and incompetent than is generally thought. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

A city cannot exist without its geographic context. This is an irrefutable statement; a city is a singular place, founded upon its location relative to organic and constructed resources. New Orleans is no exception to this rule, yet the chasm between the modern city and its geographic framework has consistently proved to be detrimental to its progress. The ecological conditions that exist are unique to the region yet are often in direct opposition with the trajectory of urban development. This dichotomy can be catastrophic when faced with a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, which devastated neighborhoods across the greater New Orleans area, the Lower Ninth Ward in particular. Due to its low elevation and close proximity to the vulnerable Industrial Canal, the storm surge completely inundated the neighborhood and left its recovery up to outside sources. Ironically, a natural historic buffer exists adjacent to this neighborhood: the Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Triangle. Years of sediment diversion and salt water filtration have left the formerly fresh water swamp a brackish marsh, weakening its role in the surrounding ecosystem and diminishing its capacity to protect the Lower Ninth Ward. Focusing on the parallel relationship between the degradation of Bayou Bienvenue and the slow road to recovery of the Lower Ninth Ward, this thesis aims to explore the historical implications of this connection, while proposing that the future of both these integral pieces of New Orleans can only be achieved through a relationship of reciprocity. By linking the process of wetland reforestation with a dynamic, intrinsic approach to community involvement, a platform emerges that allows for both to not only stabilize but thrive. / 0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

Published Article / The aim of this research was to identify the design aspects necessary to create an aesthetically appealing playroom environment to aid the well-being of hospitalised oncology children at a public hospital in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The methodology design is overall qualitative within the interpretivist paradigm with a triangulation methodology design with explanatory components. These components consisted of a literature review which was further explored by means of a qualitative questionnaire. The playroom was created as part of a community project according to the literature review and questionnaire after which semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with the children themselves.

När det är dags för ett barn att överflyttas från en barnintensivvårdsavdelning (BIVA) till en vanlig vårdavdelning lämnas en känd miljö med känd personal och noggrann monitorering för att påbörja en ny fas på ett okänt ställe. Denna nya fas kan för föräldrarna representera förbättring av barnets hälsa och ett steg närmare hem, men är också initialt en period av oro, stress och rädsla. Studiens syfte var att beskriva föräldrars upplevelser av överflyttning av sitt barn från BIVA till vårdavdelning. En kvalitativ metod användes med intervjuer som datainsamlingsmetod där fem föräldrar intervjuades. Kvalitativ innehållsanalys valdes som analysmetod. Resultatet visar att information om vårdavdelningen, möjligheter för smärtlindring till barnet och innehåll i det som överrapporteras var viktigast för att känna kontroll och trygghet. Det sågs stora skillnader mellan BIVA och avdelningen men överflyttningen upplevdes även som ett positivt steg för förbättring och hemgång. Föräldrarna hade överlag en positiv upplevelse av överflyttningen. Kontroll och trygghet är viktigt vårdtiden igenom och så också under överflyttningen. Den minskade vårdnivån innebar att föräldrar fick ta ett större egenansvar.

No description available.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / The empowering of local governments in South Africa as engines of national development has been plagued with problems and imbalance related to the ethic and the functioning of the local government machinery itself. The said imbalances are being reinforced by a lack of understanding and consensus as to what democracy is and how it should work. The consequences are widespread corruption and distortions of government priorities; both of which undermine the ability of governments to improve broad-based economic growth and social well-being. The central problem addressed in this study investigates the extent to what the City of Cape Town’s accountability mechanism support good governance and develop institutional development and service deliver. The researcher is of the opinion that municipalities in their daily endeavours should now be at the sustainable phase which would mean that all policies, systems and procedures are in place for good governance. The researcher further assumes that municipalities should be at this stage capacitated and therefore, are able to fulfil basic institutional mandate of providing basic services and facilitating economic development. This is a wide subject that different researchers will undertake and provide potential solutions. But for the purpose of this research the following are posited to prevent some developmental issues: Firstly, a wall-to-wall local government, i.e., a constitutional guarantee that there shall be local government through the jurisdiction of the country. This suggestion has waken up the importance to emphasize the distinction and independence of each local government. The only challenge within and between local government, is seen by a politico-administration dichotomy which historically has always been an issue in public administration. As a matter of facts, there is interpenetration between the role of political and the one of administrative leadership as one can’t separate them in practice since officials also play important role in policy development. The effectiveness of Ward Committees for institutional development in reflecting on the best practice at the operational level rests on the need to capacitate the said formed ward committees in terms of skills equipping to maintain a world class service standard. The author posits that, this will do away with incompetence at local level and will promote efficiency and effectiveness in the fulfillment of daily tasks. Furthermore the following should be considered: 1.There should be a provision of adequate resources; this will enable officials to perform their tasks. 2. There should be a display of less politics or noninterference from politicians in the administration; this will avoid encroachment and mismanagement while enhancing proper accountability principles. Secondly, local government should maintain democratic elections, i.e., an electoral system that mixes proportional representation with ward representation as the best basis for local government councils. A wide array of information collected on this level from respondents posited that local government should only have ward representation although full time councillors found it difficult to perform both functions because of high demand from the community and from their job. This should maybe be rated at 90% to 10% rather than 50%.Finally, emphasis should be on financial decision-making power i.e., municipalities should be creatures of the Constitution rather than creatures of statue. The formal local government only entrusted service delivery powers to local government. Municipalities were not developmental in nature. However, the current local government is expected to be developmental. This turns its focus on top of its daily routine, to economic development. It is only then that one can maintain that local government powers are relevant to the development mandate.

Abstract The study explores the narratives on the 1988 death of 28 year old British tourist, Julie Ann Ward in Kenya's Maasai Mara Game Reserve. Julie Ward's death in Kenya attracted widespread attention in Kenya and Britain culminating in at least three true crime books, significant media coverage and rumours in Kenya. The study reflects on the narratives on Julie Ward's death, with particular interest in the discourses that gained expression through, or were inscribed, on Julie Ward's death and the quest for her killers. The study is also interested in the ways in which the Julie Ward case and the discourses it inspired offer a critique of rationality, and the accompanying unity of the subject, expressed through a logocentric impulse as key tenets of a Western modernity that continues to mediate metropolitan readings of postcolonial Africa. The study reveals that Julie Ward's death traversed various discursive sites, which were laden with specific ideas on race, gender, the postcolonial African state, Western modernity, female sexuality and black male sexuality, among a host of other issues; all of which tinted British and Kenyan narratives on the circumstances surrounding the death. The study argues that the authors of the three books on the Ward tragedy rely on colonial archives on Africa, and actively mobilize notions such as the myth of the uncontrollable black male libido and its threat to the vulnerable white woman in understanding the Ward tragedy. While these writers cling to these notions of the black peril, the noble savages, Africa as the tourist's wildlife paradise, and the dysfunctional postcolonial state; Kenyan publics read the murder as another symptom of a criminal political elite's brutal deployment of violence to secure immunity for its criminal activities.However, the two sets of ideas are largely disarticulated, and as the study reveals, the British stakeholders in the case are blinded by a rigid polarization of Kenya and Britain, which presumes a superior British moral and technological integrity. These assumptions blind the Ward family to British complicity in the cover up of the truth in Julie Ward's murder; while at the same time, rendering them illiterate in the local textualities which remain inaccessible to the instruments of Western modernity that are privileged in the quest for truth and justice in the Julie Ward murder. Julie Ward’s presence in Kenya, her death and the subsequent quest for her killers is consistently haunted by neat dichotomies, derived from various masternarratives. The study traces these dichotomies, in a bid to outline their configurations and the outcomes of their deployment, while consistently keeping the grey areas of entanglements between these dichotomies in sight. It is in these grey areas that we see the contradictions, blindspots, critiques, complicities and forms of agency that were at play just under the radar of these neat polarities. From these grey terrains, we catch glimpses of the workings of these dichotomies as discursive masks which conceal the faultlines that rend the masternarratives. The study finds that in many ways, Julie Ward's death in Kenya may be positioned in a transitional space between colonial whiteness and an emergent postcolonial whiteness, which betrays heavy imprints of the grammars of colonial whiteness, including the messianic white male authority, wildlife tourism and conservation. To this end, the study suggests, one of the factors that hampers the quest for truth and justice in the Ward case is the failure to forge viable grammars of whiteness in the postcolonial context. Such viable grammars would be able to access local textualities and retain an awareness of the underlying complicities and faultlines that now rig colonial Manichean binaries, which are largely mediated by the interests of capital. The novel The Constant Gardener and the film Ivory Hunters (1989) - both of which make implicit allusions to the Julie Ward case – eloquently articulate these complicities and faultlines.