Jackie Rafferty

Bio: Jackie Rafferty is an academic researcher from University of Southampton. The author has contributed to research in topics: Social work & Higher education. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 23 publications receiving 1001 citations.

An exemplary scheme? An evaluation of the integrated children's system

Abstract: We outline selected central results from a formative evaluation of four pilot sites in England and Wales of the Integrated Children’s System (ICS) – one part of the UK’s eGovernment strategy. We concentrate on the aspiration of the ICS towards ‘integration’ and ‘systematization’ of services within children’s services, at local and national levels. We look in turn at, the use of the ICS as a foundation for aggregate statistical profiles; the experience and views of the social workers; and the implications of ICS for social work practice as exemplified in social workers’ use of time. The evidence suggests substantial problems in accomplishing government policy aspirations in each of these areas. We review the likely reasons for these problems, and recommend a review of the ICS on the grounds that the difficulties are inherent rather than transitory, and have arisen at least in part from uncertainty as to whether the ICS is fit for purpose. The authors seek to promote the open and thoughtful debate that a major innovation of this nature requires.

Social Exclusion and Transport in the UK: A Role for Virtual Accessibility in the Alleviation of Mobility-Related Social Exclusion?

Abstract: This paper reports findings from research into the possibility that mobility-related social exclusion could be affected by an increase in access to virtual mobility – access to opportunities, services and social networks, via the Internet – amongst populations that experience exclusion. Transport is starting to be recognised as a key component of social policy, particularly in light of a number of recent studies, which have highlighted the link between transport and social exclusion, suggesting that low access to mobility can reduce the opportunity to participate in society – a finding with which this research concurs. Following the identification of this causal link, the majority of studies suggest that an increase in access to adequate physical mobility can provide a viable solution to mobility-related aspects of social exclusion. This paper questions the likelihood that increased physical mobility can, by itself, provide a fully viable or sustainable solution to mobility-related aspects of social exclusion. Findings from both a desk study and public consultation suggest that virtual mobility is already fulfilling an accessibility role, both substituting for and supplementing physical mobility, working to alleviate some aspects of mobility-related social exclusion in some sectors of society. The paper incorporates an analysis of the barriers to and problems with an increase in virtual mobility in society, and concludes that virtual mobility could be a valuable tool in both social and transport policy.

Technology‐Supported Learning and Teaching in Social Work in the UK—A Critical Overview of the Past, Present and Possible Futures

Abstract: This paper uses the authors' extensive involvement in e-learning development activities in social care and social work education since the 1990s to explore trends and developments in uptake of technologies for learning and teaching. The paper utilises predictions of papers and reports written between five and ten years ago to critically reflect on past, present and possible future developments for technology use in the sector. The paper tracks milestones in the authors' experiences and reports on evaluative activity associated with later projects that offers some insights into technological preferences of educators, as well as highlighting wider issues in higher education and society impacting use of technologies by both staff and students. The paper's final section touches on a small selection of areas of technology development that may impact the sector and closes with a cautionary view of the ethical minefield posed by personal and professional use of Internet tools and sites.

The idea of a university

Abstract: A solution to get the problem off, have you found it? Really? What kind of solution do you resolve the problem? From what sources? Well, there are so many questions that we utter every day. No matter how you will get the solution, it will mean better. You can take the reference from some books. And the the idea of a university is one book that we really recommend you to read, to get more solutions in solving this problem.

Social exclusion, mobility and access.

Abstract: Much of the literature on social exclusion ignores its 'spatial' or 'mobility' related aspects. This paper seeks to rectify this by examining the mobile processes and infrastructures of travel and transport that engender and reinforce social exclusion in contemporary societies. To the extent to which this issue is addressed, it is mainly organized around the notion of 'access' to activities, values and goods. This paper examines this discourse in some detail. It is argued that there are many dimensions of such access, that improving access is a complex matter because of the range of human activities that might need to be 'accessed', that in order to know what is to be accessed the changing nature of travel and communications requires examination, and that some dimensions of access are only revealed through changes in the infrastructure that 'uncover' previously hidden social exclusions. Claims about access and socio-spatial exclusion routinely make assumptions about what it is to participate effectively in society. We turn this question around, also asking how mobilities of different forms constitute societal values and sets of relations, participation in which may become important for social inclusion. This paper draws upon an extensive range of library, desk and field research to deal with crucial issues relating to the nature of a fair, just and mobile society.

Travel time use in the information age

Abstract: This paper, focused primarily on UK data and debates, considers the potential significance of travel time use within past, present and future patterns of mobility. In transport scheme appraisal, savings in travel time typically represent a substantial proportion of the benefits of a scheme—benefits used to justify its often enormous financial costs. Such benefits are founded on the assumption that travel time is unproductive, wasted time in-between ‘real’ activities and which should be minimised. Travel demand analysis treats travel time and activity time as separate, albeit acknowledging an interdependency. The paper challenges these approaches by exploring how travel time can be, and is, being used ‘productively’ as activity time, and what enhancements to time use might be emerging in the ‘information age’. Such undermining of the division between activities and travelling, and between activity time and travel time, may have major implications for future levels of mobility, for the modal distribution of travel, for the validity of current transport appraisal methodology and for the analysis of travelling within the information age. These issues are considered.