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Previous analyses of homelessness have been accused of lacking theoretical and conceptual clarity. This study aimed to rectify this through an analysis of data collected using a qualitative longitudinal research methodology on the transitions through homelessness made by twenty-eight people in a Scottish city. Three key factors were found to influence the transitions the participants made – the access to different forms of capital (the resources) they had; their social networks and relationships; and experiences of ‘edgework’ (experiences of traumatic risk situations, such as domestic violence; or of voluntary risk taking such as drug use; that encapsulate the need to negotiate risk on both emotional and physical levels). These factors may affect anyone’s lives, but only when their resources are depleted to the point they have to rely on the state in this way do they become ‘homeless’ and enter the material and emotional ‘reality ‘ of homelessness. This is the new theory on homelessness, causation and individual actions, developed here – the ‘stressed’ theory. By the end of the research the majority of the participants (nineteen) were living in their own tenancies. It may have appeared that those who had their own tenancy had made integrative transitional passages out of homelessness, however the majority of the participants were actually found to be ‘flip-flopping’ on the edge of society, whether still homeless or not. When the fundamental structural reality they operated in had not changed, their risk of homelessness and the motivation for actions that appeared to have led to their homelessness, remained. Actions they engaged in to assert their agency were also actions that were motivated by, and then recreated, the structural reality they operated within – a reality of marginality and a poverty of resources. This was also what provided the rationale for actions that may appear irrational, such as drug use, in the face of making a transition out of homelessness. A key aspect of these transitions however was that desp

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An investigation was carried out into all drug-related deaths that occurred within the Strathclyde Police region of Scotland over the 17-year period, 1985-2001. Deaths involving heroin, methadone, dihydrocodeine or cocaine were the focus of this thesis. In total, more than 1,000 cases were reviewed. By extracting data from the toxicology report and police sudden death report, changes in patterns and trends of drug misuse were highlighted which coincided with concurrent changes to legislation and medical care. This is a novel approach to the investigation of drug-related deaths within this jurisdication. Over the study period 869 heroin positive drug-related deaths were identified, in 95% of which what drug was the sole or the major contributory causal factor. The majority of these deaths involved males. The average age of all individuals increased slightly from 26 years to 29 years over the study period. The individual had a history of drug misuse in 95% of cases and of those, 92% were known to abuse drugs intravenously. Approximately one quarter of individuals resided alone and over one-half resided with other people, primarily their parents or (common law) partners/spouses. The individual was homeless in 14% of cases. Of this group, 70% resided in a hostel. The remainder had no fixed abode. Of cases where the postal code was known, 74% resided within the Greater Glasgow Health Board area. In the last year of the study deaths of individuals residing in the Ayrshire and Arran Health Board area increased sharply compared to a decrease in deaths reported in all other areas. Approximately two-thirds of individuals resided in areas of high deprivation (categories 6 and 7). The locus where the body was found was primarily in a dwelling (73%), usually the individual’s own home. From the circumstances surrounding the deaths it was ascertained that the individual was alone at the time of death in just under half the cases, highlighting the risk of taking drugs in isolation.

These two mixed method studies are among the first to focus on resilience among Canadian Aboriginal (i.e., First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) youth living in out-of-home care. The first study was quantitative and consisted of cross-sectional and longitudinal components. For the cross-sectional investigation, the participants consisted of 510 First Nations (237 females, 273 males aged 10-16 years), 39 Métis (15 females, 24 males aged 10-16 years), and 10 Inuit young people (2 females, 8 males aged 10-16 years) who were drawn from an ongoing study of young people in out-of-home care in Ontario collected during 2007-2008. The second Canadian adaptation of the Assessment and Action Record (AAR-C2-2006; Flynn, Ghazal, & Legault, 2006) from the ongoing Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project was used to collect data. The criterion variables were the young person’s self-esteem, score on a suicidality index, educational performance, pro-social behaviour, and positive emotional and behavioural development. The predictor variables included the young person’s gender, ethnicity, age, behavioural difficulties, cognitive impairments, attainment of LAC goals, and number of developmental assets. The longitudinal investigation used the same design as study one, but examined the OnLAC data for year eight (2008-2009) in following 260 young people from the sample in study one. The second study was qualitative and involved interviewing 21 First Nations children and adolescents residing in out-of-home care in northern Ontario to obtain their views about resilience and the factors related to the presence or absence of resilient outcomes. The results provided some support for the hypothesis, in that a greater number of developmental assets were related to more positive outcomes on four of the five criterion variables. The results of the focus groups and in-depth interviews suggested that family members, members of the community (coaches), teachers, and child welfare workers, all play important roles in fostering the youths’ success.

Why do public policy systems sustain chronic conditions despite general consensus that these conditions are detrimental to overall performance? The answer is because they are, in one way or another, sustainable. Systems find ways of sustaining manageable and acceptable equilibrium between demand for their services and their supply. Yet in doing so, they develop ways of coping with and normalizing situations of chronicness. This research is about chronic capacity stress (CCS) in a large and complex public policy system. CCS may be caused by excessive demand for services. It may also be caused by inadequate supply. Either way, it is a property of sustainable equilibrium between the two, and therefore must be understood in these dynamic terms rather than as just the product of one or the other. I examine overcrowding in the England and Wales prison system as an archetypal case of CCS. It starts with the assumption that the prison system should in theory be set up to deal with the demands made upon it. In doing so, it examines the way in which the system itself has coped with, normalized, and sustained crowding over the years. I have conducted in-depth interviewing with former ministers, top officials, governors, and other key actors, as well as extensive quantitative analysis covering three decades. I develop four inter-related themes as a part of a ‘problematique’ which explains why CCS is sustained: ambivalence towards rehabilitation, coping and crisis culture, benign resistance, and obsolescence and redundancy. Constrained autonomy of actors and their adaptive behaviours are key to understanding how the system sustains CCS, and how it is able to function despite CCS. Ultimately, I show how three groups of public policy theory – public choice, cultural theory, and governance - are vital aspects of an overall explanation, but that independently they are insufficient to explain why chronicness sustains, and therefore must be integrated into a more holistic, governance-style explanation. CCS can be seen as a function of governance dysfunction.

Goodwill has been in the focus of interest of academics and practitioners for many years now. Research interest has been fuelled by its discretionary nature, the large amounts of its write- downs combined with adverse impact potential on financial statements and loopholes in accounting regulations. This thesis includes three empirical essays on the causes and impact of goodwill impairment write-downs. Its overall objective is to provide a more insightful and comprehensive understanding of the goodwill impairment process. The first empirical essay explores the role of goodwill write-downs in .the rating assessment process. It aims to uncover rating agencies' perception of goodwill using an accounting predictive model on ex post basis and comparing accounting treatments of goodwill as currently or recently applicable under UK GAAP. Results suggest that raters ignore goodwill and its write-downs in their annual rating analyses. While this evidence is consistent with pre- FRS 10 business reality in the UK, it raises questions about the efficiency of impairment regulations on national and international level. The second empirical essay investigates managerial choices related to goodwill impairment in the UK. Findings suggest that while managers are likely to base the decision whether to impair goodwill on financial performance indicators, they might adjust the amount of the impairment charge at their discretion for reporting purposes. The third empirical essay investigates two of the drivers of financial performance (industrial regulation and competition) and their relation to goodwill using a case study approach. The evidence suggests that these two phenomena could provide an early warning indicator to regulators, auditors and financial statement users about goodwill impairment potential of the individual firm or an industry sector. Furthermore, the room for managerial discretion provided by the discount rates in the impairment calculation is explored. Results show that discount rates can be adjusted using commonly accepted parameters in practice to justify a wide range of discount rates and, consequently, a variety of impairment opportunities at the discretion of management.