*Note: These contents are assembled from several web sites, some of whom are now defunct. Although I have the documents in my records, I've provided the current links to available items. Copies of material from defunct sites, as well as my works, are provided below. Copyright belongs to the authors and/or publishers of the material according to the information contained in the documents. An internet search of the titles or of content from the material should be made for referencing purposes. The owner of this web site only claims authorship where indicated within the material.
A Way with Words and Images: Suggestions for the portrayal of people with disabilities 2006 — People with disabilities are asking Canadians, and the media in particular, to use respectful terms when writing and speaking about them or about issues that affect their lives. They are also asking that images chosen to portray them be respectful and not reinforce outdated stereotypes.
Capability and Resilience: Beating the Odds 2006 — asset models tend to accentuate positive capability to identify problems and activate solutions, which promotes the self-esteem of individuals and communities, leading to less reliance on professional services.
ENTITLEMENTS: UNINTENDED PARADOXES OF THE GENEROUS STATE 2012 — At first sight, entitlements appear both as rights and as gifts from a generous state honorably seeking to provide for everyone. On the other hand, someone must pay for this generosity. What appears to be free usually is not. And secondly, entitlements, particularly those administered by the government, seem to undermine personal initiative and responsibility so that they become but another example of the growth and extent of the control of modem state in the lives of its citizens. Clearly, entitlements deserve serious examination.
Evaluating the Expectations Disconfirmation and Expectations Anchoring Approaches to Citizen Satisfaction with Local Public Services 2007 — The findings suggest that expectations need to be taken into account alongside more conventionally understood factors in using satisfaction surveys as a performance measure, especially if performance is not potentially to be overestimated in areas with low expectations or underestimated in areas with high expectations. Managing expectations, as well as perceived performance, may be an effective strategy for local authorities to raise satisfaction, although this may not be seen as desirable.
Exploring Political Disappointment 2014 — This paper offers one of the first empirical analyses of political disappointment. Drawing on a survey conducted in Britain, it quantifies political disappointment and explores which social groups are more prone to disappointment than others. The analysis considers whether certain groups are more disappointed with politics by virtue of expecting a lot of government or by virtue of perceiving government performance in a particularly poor light.
GOVERNING IN THE MILLENNIUM: HOW MUCH LESS GOVERNMENT? 1995 — In his paper, Arthur Kroeger surveys the course of Canadian economic and socialpolicy since the publication of the White Paper on Employment and Income of 1945. Heobserves that the era of confidence about the possibilities of economic and social engineeringthat followed Prime Minister King's retirement is drawing to a close, and the country seems tobe returning to a more modest and circumspect outlook in public policy matters, similar to thatheld by King himself. However, as we move backward to the future, he cautions thatgovernments cannot forget the need to develop a contemporary moral framework for society,and to provide the leadership for this purpose that only they can provide.
Introduction to the Social and Medical Models of Disability 2014 — The social model is generally the preferred model when thinking about disability. The social model has been adopted by most disabled people’s organisations. In August 2014 the social model was endorsed by the Government Equalities Office who recommended the model for use by all government departments in the way they interact with disabled people.
Life-Chance Guarantees: A new agenda for social policy 2005 — The global economy where capital and production are free to move all over the world has subjugated the living standards of working people to the imperatives of capital growth. While labour markets have always been structured by the demands of capital, over the past century workers were able to exact a measure of job protection and better wages and benefits for themselves and their families.
Local Services Under Siege; attitudes to public services in a time of austerity 2012 — Recent austerity measures in the UK have resulted in major reductions in spending on local public services, which will have a significant impact on both the level and quality of local service provision. This paper presents a new analysis of people‘s attitudes to local services and discusses to what extent the degree and allocation of public service cuts reflects the priorities of the general population. In addition, we examine differences in attitudes between specific socioeconomic and demographic groups and between different locations within the United Kingdom.
Making Data Meaningful Part 4: A guide to improving statistical literacy 2012 UN — Katherine K. Wallman (1993): "Statistical Literacy' is the ability to understand and critically evaluate statistical results that permeate our daily lives-coupled with the ability to appreciate the contribution that statistical thinking can make in public and private, professional and personal decisions."
Making the Connections: Engaging the Public in Decisions - The Citizen’s Voice 2006 — The main findings from a comprehensive literature review and primary research with approximately 350 people with different needs, preferences and backgrounds in relation to public engagement 1 can be structured around three themes: the public services people would be interested in shaping; the depth of involvement they want; and the methods and techniques they would like public services to use to involve them.
Modern Policy-Making: Ensuring Policies Deliver Value for Money 2001 — The report identifies good practice in policy design and implementation by drawing on selected case studies and examples of good practice from departments, local authorities, the private and voluntary sectors.
NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND CITIZENS’ PERCEPTIONS OF LOCAL SERVICE EFFICIENCY, RESPONSIVENESS, EQUITY AND EFFECTIVENESS 2012 — We examine the relationship between a range of New Public Management (NPM) practices and citizens’ perceptions of service efficiency, responsiveness, equity and effectiveness in English local governments. We find that public-private relationships have a negative relationship with citizens’ perceptions of all four dimensions of local service performance, but that an entrepreneurial strategic orientation exhibits a positive association with all four.
Nirje’s Eight Planks 2004 — Wolfensberger sat me down at a large round table in the Nebraska Psychiatric Institute. Then he dumped an armload of books and papers on the table. He pointed to a book with a blue cover fresh off the presses: Changing Patterns in Residential Services for the Mentally Retarded. It had been edited by Robert Kugel and Wolf Wolfensberger and published by the President’s Committee on Mental Retardation. He told me to read this book first and to start with a chapter by someone named Bengt Nirje. I did what he said. Right off, Nirje hit me with eight planks found in a piece called ‘‘The Principle of Normalization.’’ He hit me hard with those planks:
Presentation: Overview of Quality Assurance and Enhancement 2003 Human Services Research Institute ppt file — Characteristics of Performance Indicators
Public Sector Service Satisfaction Index A report for Consumer Focus 2010 — The main objective of this research was to support Consumer Focus in its role of driving public service improvement on behalf of those who use public services. In order to facilitate this, this study was commissioned to improve understanding of what consumers feel works well and not so well across a large number of public services.
Public value, citizen expectations and user commitment A literature review 2006 — This paper reviews the existing evidence on user satisfaction with and citizen expectations of public services. It highlights the so-called ‘delivery paradox’, where satisfaction with services is not rising in line with delivery improvements. The paper explains why the delivery paradox exists across many services before concluding with an analysis of how a public value approach can help policymakers and public managers overcome it.
Quality Assurance and Improvement — Resources from the Human Services Research Institute
Reader-Friendly Document Tool Kit 2008 — This tool kit provides managers, coordinators, and writers with tools to help you create more reader-friendly ... documents.
Reinventing Quality Conference: Conference Materials — It is now apparent that a simple logical plan cannot ignite the kind of social action that is necessary to realize valued outcomes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Therefore, the question remains: how can legacy service providers bring forth a state of evolved practice that leads to citizenship for all persons with disabilities?
Satisfaction and Expectations: Attitudes to public services in deprived areas 2000 — it is widely thought that public services meet the needs of residents less well in deprived areas, and that this is due to both the demands placed on services being greater and the services themselves being of a lower quality. This paper looks at the use, importance and ratings of a range of services by residents in deprived and other areas
Social Policy That Works: An Agenda 2002 — This short statement proposes an agenda for reconstructing much of our social policy over the next decade. Some of these initiatives build on ongoing reforms − most notably those regarding children and parents. The proposals for adults are more radical and far-reaching, calling for deconstruction of the outmoded welfare system and its replacement by wage-based income security and an integrated employment and learning system for all Canadians, both working and unemployed.
Social protection: A development priority in the post-2015 UN development agenda 2012 — 80% of the global population has no access to comprehensive social protection. Social protection programmes tackle multiple dimensions of poverty and deprivation (decent work, education, health care, food security, income security) and can therefore be a powerful tool in the battle against poverty and inequality.
THE DEVELOPMENT AND CRITIQUE OF THE SOCIAL MODEL OF DISABILITY 2001 — The social model of disability should not be considered as a monolithic entity, butrather as a cluster of approaches to the understanding of the notion of disablement. As will be demonstrated below, different variants of the model ascribe differing and relative importance to a multiplicity of factors that result in the oppression and discrimination that disabled people experience. However, common to all variants of the social model is the belief that, at root, “disability” and “disablement” are socio-political constructions.
The learning journey : a guide to achieving excellence 2001 — This report has been released by the Action-Research Round table on the Learning Organization.Its objectives were to take stock of what is known about learning organizations, to translate that information into practical guidance, and to develop approaches that will help managers transform their workplace into a continuous learning organization.
The Role of Public-Private Partnerships in Funding Social Housing in Canada 2008 — The goals of this research are, first, to review and conduct original research on the role currently played by public-private partnerships (PPPs) in sustainable social housing development in Canada and, second, to explore policy options and assess their potential for funding social housing.
The Social Model of Disability: Valuable or Irrelevant? 2012 — This paper will address the debates surrounding the usefulness of the social model of disability as an academic and practical tool with which to explore the experience of disablements and therefore contribute to its demise.
The Social Model of Disability 2009 — Through the social model, disability is understood as an unequal relationship within a society in which the needs of people with impairments are often given little or no consideration.
Transforming Disability Welfare Policy. Completing A Paradigm Shift — 2003 Before we address the mainstreaming of disability from sort to self-determination as well as the salience, success and failure of modern disability welfare policies, some thoughts about what disability actually means are at place: How can this most complex phenomenon be defined and measured– and how can people, their needs, hardships and behaviour, their restricted employment opportunities, life chances and their compensation requirements be classified accordingly? What are the problems that these definitions,measurements and classifications involve, and how do these problems impact on disability entitlements?
Using National Core Indicators {NCI) Data for Quality Improvement Initiatives 2012 — National Core Indicators (NCI) is a collaborative effort between the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services (NASDDDS) and the Human Services Research Institute (HSRI). The purpose of the program, which began in 1997, is to support NASDDDS member agencies to gather a standard set of performance and outcome measures that can be used to track their own performance over time, to compare results across states, and to establish national benchmarks.
Using Principal Components Analysis in Program Evaluation: Some Practical Considerations 2006 — This paper examines alternative analytic strategies to guide interpretation of PCA results
Using Qualitative Data in Program Evaluation: Telling the Story of a Prevention Program 2009 — Good qualitative evaluation involves parent-consumers, staff, boards, and community partners—not only as sources of data, but as advisors while services are planned, implemented, evaluated and improved. Using qualitative methods to develop greater understandings of families, systems and services is critical to developing an atmosphere of continuous quality improvement.
What do people want, need and expect from public services? 2010 — This report is part of our ongoing work to articulate a citizen-centric vision for public services.
Writing User-Friendly Documents 2000 — Studies show that clearly written documents improve compliance and decrease litigation. Writing that considers our readers' need for clear communication will improve the relationship between the government and the public it serves.
“If you want to go fast, walk alone. If you want to go far, walk together” Citizens and the co-production of public services 2008 — The current debate on citizen participation in the public domain shows that European citizens are no longer just considered as passive service users. Indeed, increasingly we are seeing greater involvement of citizens in service delivery. Therefore, it is timely to ask citizens a new question. What role do they play and are they prepared to play in the delivery of those public services which matter most to them?