European Perspectives on Social Work: Models of Education and Professional Roles. A Briefing Paper
Comparative research undertaken by the Thomas Coram Research Unit found that social workers in England have more responsibility and a wider remit than many of their continental European counterparts. 
 
Social workers in England have responsibility for all aspects of case management and direct contact with families, but in much of continental Europe these responsibilities are split between several different highly-trained professionals. 
 
In England, most direct work with children and families is undertaken by support staff, many of whom have no specialist qualifications. In Denmark, Germany and France, most of this work is undertaken by professionals highly qualified in therapeutic and direct work, working alongside social workers. 
 
The report’s authors, Dr Janet Boddy and Professor June Statham, called for a fundamental reassessment of what social workers can and should be expected to do.
‘Child in Need’ Plans: Tools for Family Empowerment
Social work practice invariably means attention to both human and non-human aspects of the work. It is now widely argued that spending time on computers and bureaucratic requirements comes at the expense of direct work with families and children. But this is a simplistic dualism. This paper advocates a move beyond this dualism through three broad aims. First, this paper argues that social work has been rather slow at rendering non-human ‘things’ of interest to practice debates, and the literature is reported on to show how this has happened. Second, a theoretical model is presented in order to overcome this. Actor Network Theory is offered as a theoretical and practical method where ‘things’ in practice can be conceptualised as partners in the work. The third aim of the paper illustrates this method in action in one local authority setting through a brief anonymised practice illustration. ‘Child In Need’ plans are drawn on to show that for empowerment to be successful social work must draw on its non-human partners. A related aim is to add to the ‘child in need’ practice literature.
High‐precision U‐Pb zircon age calibration of the global Carboniferous time scale and Milankovitch band cyclicity in the Donets Basin, eastern Ukraine
High‐precision ID‐TIMS U‐Pb zircon ages for 12 interstratified tuffs and tonsteins are used to radiometrically calibrate the detailed lithostratigraphic, cyclostratigraphic, and biostratigraphic framework of the Carboniferous Donets Basin of eastern Europe. Chemical abrasion of zircons, use of the internationally calibrated EARTHTIME mixed U‐Pb isotope dilution tracer, and improved mass spectrometry guided by detailed error analysis have resulted in an age resolution of <0.05%, or ∼100 ka, for these Carboniferous volcanics. This precision allows the resolution of time in the Milankovitch band and confirms the long‐standing hypothesis that individual high‐frequency Pennsylvanian cyclothems and bundles of cyclothems into fourth‐order sequences are the eustatic response to orbital eccentricity (∼100 and 400 ka) forcing. Tuning of the fourth‐order sequences in the Donets Basin to the long‐period eccentricity cycle results in a continuous age model for the Middle to Late Pennsylvanian (Moscovian‐Kasimovian‐Ghzelian) strata of the basin and their record of biological and climatic changes through the latter portion of the late Paleozoic Ice Age. Detailed fusulinid and conodont zonations allow the export of this age model to sections throughout Euramerica. Additional ages for Mississippian strata provide among the first robust radiometric calibration points within this subperiod and result in variable lowering of the base ages of its constituent stages compared to recent global time scale compilations.