'Can Mummy Come Too?' Rhetoric and Realities of 'Family-Centred Care' in One New Zealand Hospital, 1960-1990.

<p>The development of ‘family-centred care’ began in the United Kingdom during the 1950s and 1960s in response to ‘expert’ concern for the child as an ‘emotional’ being. John Bowlby’s maternal deprivation thesis suggested that constant maternal attention in the early years of life would ensure emotionally healthy future members of society. Application of this theory to the hospital children’s ward indicated that young children should not be without their mothers for long periods of time. This theory and the subsequent release of the Platt Report in the United Kingdom in 1959 provided the necessary ‘scientific’ justification allowing mothers greater access to the historically restrictive hospital children’s wards. Influenced by trends in the United Kingdom the tenets of the separation thesis were reflected in New Zealand government policy towards child care and the care of the hospitalised child. However, the wider societal context in which these changes were to be accepted in New Zealand hospital children’s wards has not been examined. This study explores the development of ‘family-centred care’ in New Zealand as part of an international movement advanced by ‘experts’ in the 1950s concerned with the psychological effects of mother-child separation. It positions the development of ‘family-centred care’ within the broader context of ideas and beliefs about mothering and children that emerged in New Zealand society between 1960 and 1980 as a response to these new concerns for children’s emotional health. It examines New Zealand nursing, medical and related literature between 1960 and 1990 and considers both professional and public response to these concerns. The experiences of some mothers and nurses caring for children in one New Zealand hospital between 1960 and 1990 illustrate the significance of these responses in the context of one hospital children’s ward and the subsequent implications for the practice of ‘family-centred care’. This study demonstrates the difference between the professional rhetoric and the parental reality of ‘family-centred care’ in the context of one hospital children’s ward between 1960 and 1990. The practice of ‘family-centred care’ placed mothers and nurses in contradictory positions within the ward environment. These contradictory positions were historically enduring, although they varied in their enactment.</p>

'Can Mummy Come Too?' Rhetoric and Realities of 'Family-Centred Care' in One New Zealand Hospital, 1960-1990.

<p>The development of ‘family-centred care’ began in the United Kingdom during the 1950s and 1960s in response to ‘expert’ concern for the child as an ‘emotional’ being. John Bowlby’s maternal deprivation thesis suggested that constant maternal attention in the early years of life would ensure emotionally healthy future members of society. Application of this theory to the hospital children’s ward indicated that young children should not be without their mothers for long periods of time. This theory and the subsequent release of the Platt Report in the United Kingdom in 1959 provided the necessary ‘scientific’ justification allowing mothers greater access to the historically restrictive hospital children’s wards. Influenced by trends in the United Kingdom the tenets of the separation thesis were reflected in New Zealand government policy towards child care and the care of the hospitalised child. However, the wider societal context in which these changes were to be accepted in New Zealand hospital children’s wards has not been examined. This study explores the development of ‘family-centred care’ in New Zealand as part of an international movement advanced by ‘experts’ in the 1950s concerned with the psychological effects of mother-child separation. It positions the development of ‘family-centred care’ within the broader context of ideas and beliefs about mothering and children that emerged in New Zealand society between 1960 and 1980 as a response to these new concerns for children’s emotional health. It examines New Zealand nursing, medical and related literature between 1960 and 1990 and considers both professional and public response to these concerns. The experiences of some mothers and nurses caring for children in one New Zealand hospital between 1960 and 1990 illustrate the significance of these responses in the context of one hospital children’s ward and the subsequent implications for the practice of ‘family-centred care’. This study demonstrates the difference between the professional rhetoric and the parental reality of ‘family-centred care’ in the context of one hospital children’s ward between 1960 and 1990. The practice of ‘family-centred care’ placed mothers and nurses in contradictory positions within the ward environment. These contradictory positions were historically enduring, although they varied in their enactment.</p>

Transnational Law and Legal Positivism

This chapter assesses the theoretical adequacy of legal positivism in explanation of several forms and features of transnational law. We suggest that while legal positivism emerged as a philosophical account of state law in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, its connection to state law is best viewed as historical and contingent rather than conceptual and necessary. Among the two core commitments of legal positivism, while the separation thesis requires no modification from its original form, the social fact thesis must be revised and developed to explain the character of transnational law. We also show how the exercise of revising a philosophical theory of law such as legal positivism provides an opportunity to illustrate the continuity between conceptual, empirical, and evaluative studies of transnational law.

A Stakeholder Perspective: Origins and Core Concepts

Organizations (whether they are permanent or temporary) have stakeholders, that is, individuals and groups that can affect or be affected by the organization’s activities and achievements. Assuming that the fundamental driver of value creation is stakeholder relationships, managing those relationships well is a prerequisite for obtaining and sustaining success in all businesses, regardless of the success measures applied. Therefore, applying a stakeholder perspective is of significant importance for any manager or entrepreneur. However, the essentials as well as the implications of applying such a perspective are not clear. Researchers and practitioners have offered many contributions, however, the existing literature is inconclusive. To provide clarity, stakeholder concepts (e.g. stakeholder definition, systems perspective, separation thesis, stakeholder analysis, stakeholder engagement, perception of fairness, stakeholder utility function, stakeholder salience, stakeholder disaggregation, stakeholder multiplicity, managing for stakeholders, Value Creation Stakeholder Theory, value destruction, shadows of the context) are defined and 15 propositions for further inquiry are offered. The Scandinavian and American origins of stakeholder thinking are presented. The propositions are intended to invite discussion—and could form the basis for future research questions as well as provide guidance for managers. By drawing on (a) Professor Eric Rhenman, who in the 1960s first proposed an explicit theoretical framework on stakeholder thinking; (b) Professor R. Edward Freeman, who has been the most influential contributor to the field; and (c) additional, selected contributions, the aim is to providevalue for both new and seasoned researchers as well as for managers, consultants, and educators. In order to give the reader the opportunity to self-assess and interpret the “raw data,” the text is rich on citations.

The autonomy of the EU legal order

The European Union (EU) cannot make a plausible claim to sovereignty under international law. However, what the EU can do and what it also does is, is to act as if it were sovereign and claim certain rights that are considered core elements of state sovereignty. This article argues that the Court of Justice’s (ECJ) conception of the EU legal order as autonomous provides the EU with a core element of state sovereignty: jurisdictional sovereignty. Autonomy construed by the ECJ is best understood in conceptual legal and absolute terms. It is meant to shield the ECJ’s conceptual legal claims from interference. Legal autonomy as construed by the ECJ is not relative as many authors have claimed. It cannot come about in an incremental or relative manner. It cannot be based on arguments relating to the status of a self-contained regime of international law that gradually distances itself from the general rules of international law. It is a conceptual claim giving birth to the assumption of apriority that can only be made in categorical terms. In this way it is similar to sovereignty. The article first sets out how the autonomy of the EU legal order is best understood. It examines the ECJ’s case law in light of legal theoretical considerations and relates it to the separation thesis of Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law. It then explains that autonomy is of such relevance to the EU legal order because the aprioristic character of EU law remains essentially contested. This relevance indirectly explains why the Court so cautiously protects the autonomy of the EU legal order. Finally, the article examines the Court’s reasoning in Opinion 1/17 in light of the identified absolute conception of autonomy.

Legal positivism, inclusive versus exclusive

Modern legal positivism views law as a human creation; the existence and content of law are, fundamentally, matters of social fact. This is usually termed ‘the social thesis’. A second thesis integral to the positivist tradition is John Austin’s famous ‘separation thesis’: ‘the existence of law is one thing, its merit or demerit another…’ – there is nothing in the nature of law as a social institution that guarantees its moral worth. Despite a shared commitment to the social and separation theses, defenders of legal positivism differ significantly in their understanding of these fundamental tenets. In response to Ronald Dworkin’s claim that moral principles partly determine the content of legal systems, positivists have divided into two major camps. Inclusive positivists assert that it is conceptually possible, but not necessary, that the legal validity of a norm should depend on its consistency with moral principles or values. Exclusive positivists assert the opposite: the legal validity of a norm can never be a function of its consistency with moral principles or values. Recent debates among positivists have focused on whether inclusive positivism is consistent with the law’s claim to authority and with the role it purports to play in guiding our conduct. Where these debates will lead is, at this stage, an open question.

What Is Law and What Counts As Law?

The separation thesis associated with the legal positivist tradition in legal philosophy holds that the legal validity of norms depends only on their sources, not on considerations of merit or value. In this essay I show that the separation thesis comes under pressure from cases in which an answer to the question: Is o an F? partly depends on the values associated with the nature of F. This is certainly the case when we try to determine whether an object is a work of art, for example. In response, proponents of the separation thesis would want to resist the analogy with art, and maintain that the ascription of legal validity to a norm does not involve any evaluative dimensions. I argue that this line of response is not very firm, and a better way to defend the separation thesis is to see it as an answer to the question of what makes it the case that an o counts as an F in the relevant society. I try to show that this latter type of question follows from the theoretical context in which the separation thesis comes up, namely, a reductionist explanation of legal validity. My purpose here is to show how a proper construal of the separation thesis, in the context of legal positivism’s reductionist ambition, goes a long way in supporting its truth.