Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s

The Great Depression is to economics what the Big Bang is to physics. As an event, the Depression is largely synonymous with the birth of modern macroeconomics, and it continues to haunt successive generations of economists. With respect to labor and labor markets, these facts evidently include wage rigidity, persistently high unemployment rates, and long-term joblessness. Traditionally, aggregate time series have provided the econometric grist for distinguishing explanations of the Great Depression.Recent research on labor markets in the 1930s, however, has shifted attention from aggregate to disaggregate time series and towards microeconomic evidence. This shift in focus is motivated by two factors. First, disaggregated data provide many more degrees of freedom than the decade or so of annual observations associated with the depression, and thus may prove helpful in distinguishing macroeconomic explanations. Second, disaggregation has revealed aspects of economic behavior hidden in the time series but which may be essential to their proper interpretation and, in any case, are worthy of study in their own right.Although the substantive findings of recent research are too new to judge their permanent significance, I believe that the shift towards disaggregated analysis is an important contribution. The paper begins by reviewing the conventional statistics of the United States labor market during the Great Depression and the paradigms to explain them. It then turns to recent studies of employment and unemployment using disaggregated data of various types. The paper concludes with discussions of research on other aspects of labor markets in the 1930s and on a promising source of microdata for future work.My analysis is confined to research on the United States; those interested in an international perspective on labor markets might begin with Eichengreen and Hatton's chapter in their edited volume, Interwar Unemployment in International Perspective, and the vario us country studies in that volume. I begin by reviewing two standard series of unemployment rates, Stanley Lebergott's and Michael Darby's, and an index of real hourly earnings in manufacturing compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).The difference between Lebergott's and Darby's series, which is examined later in the paper, concerns the treatment of persons with so-called â€Å"work relief† jobs. For Lebergott, persons on work relief are unemployed, while Darby counts them as employed. Between 1929 and 1933 the unemployment rate increased by over 20 percentage points, according to the Lebergott series, or by 17 percentage points, according to Darby's series. For the remainder of the decade, the unemployment rate stayed in, or hovered around, double digits. On the eve of America's entry into World War Two, between 9. and 14. 6 percent of the labor force was out of work, depending on how unemployment is measured. In addition to high levels of unemployment, the 1930s w itnessed the emergence of widespread and persistent long-term unemployment (unemployment durations longer than one year) as a serious policy problem. According to a Massachusetts state census taken in 1934, fully 63 percent of unemployed persons had been unemployed for a year or more. Similar amounts of long-term unemployment were observed in Philadelphia in 1936 and 1937.Given these patterns of unemployment, the behavior of real wages has proven most puzzling. Between 1929 and 1940 annual changes in real wages and unemployment were positively correlated. Real wages rose by 16 percent between 1929 and 1932, while the unemployment rate ballooned from 3 to 23 percent. Real wages remained high throughout the rest of the decade, although unemployment never dipped below 9 percent, no matter how it is measured. From this information, the central questions appear to be: Why did unemployment remain persistently high throughout the decade?How can unemployment rates in excess of 10 to 20 perc ent be reconciled with the behavior of real wages, which were stable or increasing? One way of answering these questions is to devise aggregative models consistent with the time series, and I briefly review these attempts later in the paper. Before doing so, however, it is important to stress that the aggregate statistics are far from perfect. No government agency in the 1930s routinely collected labor force information analogous to that provided by today's Current Population Survey.The unemployment rates just discussed are constructs, the differences between intercensal estimates of labor force participation rates and employment-to-population ratios. Because unemployment is measured as a residual, relatively small changes in the labor force or employment counts can markedly affect the estimated unemployment rate. The dispute between Darby and his critics over the labor force classification of persons on work relief is a manifestation of this problem. Although some progress has been made on measurement issues, there is little doubt that further refinements to the aggregate unemployment eries would be beneficial. Stanley Lebergott has critically examined the reliability of BLS wage series from the 1930s. The BLS series drew upon a fixed group of manufacturing establishments reporting for at least two successive months. Lebergott notes several biases arising from this sampling method. Workers who were laid off, he claims, were less productive and had lower wages than average. Firms that went out of business were smaller, on average, than firms that survived, and tended to have lower average wages.In addition, the BLS oversampled large firms, and Lebergott suspects that large firms were more adept at selectively laying off lower- productivity labor; more willing to deskill, that is, reassign able employees to less-skilled jobs; and more likely to give able employees longer work periods. A rough calculation suggests that accounting for these biases would produce a n aggregate decline in nominal wages between 1929 and 1932 as much as 48 percent larger than that measured by the BLS series.Although the details of Lebergott's calculation are open to scrutiny, the research discussed elsewhere in the paper suggests that he is correct about the existence of biases in the BLS wage series. For much of the period since World War Two, most economists blamed persistent unemployment on wage rigidity. The demand for labor was a downward sloping function of the real wage but since nominal wages were insufficiently flexible downward, the labor market in the 1930s was persistently in disequilibrium.Labor supply exceeded labor demand, with mass unemployment the unfortunate consequence. Had wages been more flexible, this viewpoint holds, employment would have been restored and Depression averted. The frontal attack on the conventional wisdom was Robert E. Lucas and Leonard Rapping. The original Lucas-Rapping set-up continued to view current labor demand as a ne gative function of the current real wage. Current labor supply was a positive function of the real wage and the expected real interest rate, but a negative function of the expected future wage.If workers expect higher real wages in the future or a lower real interest rate, current labor supply would be depressed, employment would fall, unemployment rise, and real wages increase. Lucas and Rapping offer an unemployment equation, relating the unemployment rate to actual versus anticipated nominal wages, and actual versus anticipated price levels. Al Rees argued that the Lucas-Rapping model was unable to account for the persistence of high unemployment coincident with stable or rising real wages. Lucas and Rapping conceded defeat for the period 1933 to 1941, but claimed victory for 1929 to 1933.As Ben Bernanke pointed out, however, their victory rests largely on the belief that expected real interest rates fell between 1929 and 1933, while â€Å"ex post, real interest rates in 1930-33 were the highest of the century†. Because nominal interest rates fell sharply between 1929 and 1933, whether expected real rates fell hinges on whether deflation — which turned out to be considerable — was unanticipated. Recent research by Steven Cecchetti suggests that the deflation was, at least in part, anticipated, which appears to undercut Lucas and Rapping's reply.In a controversial paper aimed at rehabilitating the Lucas-Rapping model, Michael Darby redefined the unemployment rate to exclude persons who held work relief jobs with the Works Progress and Work Projects Administrations (the WPA) or other federal and state agencies. The convention of the era, followed by Lebergott, was to count persons on work relief as unemployed. According to Darby, however, persons with work relief jobs were â€Å"employed† by the government: â€Å"From the Keynesian viewpoint, labor voluntarily employed on contracyclical †¦ government projects should certainly be counted as employed.On the search approach to unemployment, a person who accepts a job and withdraws voluntarily from the activity of search is clearly employed. † The exclusion of persons on work relief drastically lowers the aggregate unemployment rate after 1935. In addition to modifying the definition of unemployment, Darby also redefined the real wage to be the average annual earnings of full-time employees in all industries. With these changes, the fit of the Lucas-Rapping unemployment equation is improved, even for 1934 to 1941. However, Jonathan Kesselman and N. E.Savin later showed that the improved fit was largely the consequence of Darby's modified real wage series, not the revised unemployment rate. Thus, for the purpose of empirically testing the Lucas-Rapping model, the classification of WPA workers as employed or unemployed is not crucial. Returning to the questions posed above, New Deal legislation has frequently been blamed for the persistence of high unem ployment and the perverse behavior of real wages. In this regard, perhaps the most important piece of legislation was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933.The National Recovery Administration (NRA), created by the NIRA, established guidelines that raised nominal wages and prices, and encouraged higher levels of employment through reductions in the length of the workweek (worksharing). An influential study by Michael Weinstein econometrically analyzed the impact of the NIRA on wages. Using aggregate monthly data on hourly earnings in manufacturing, Weinstein showed that the NIRA raised nominal wages directly through its wage codes and indirectly by raising prices.The total impact was such that â€Å"[i]n the absence of the NIRA, average hourly earnings in manufacturing would have been less than thirty-five cents by May 1935 instead of its actual level of almost sixty cents (assuming unemployment to have been unaltered)†. It is questionable, however, whether the NIRA really this large an impact on wages. Weinstein measured the direct effect of the codes by comparing monthly wage changes during the NIRA period (1933-35) with wage changes during the recovery phase (1921-23) of the post-World War One recession (1920-21), holding constant the level of unemployment and changes in wholesale prices.Data from the intervening years (1924-1932) or after the NIRA period were excluded from his regression analysis (p. 52). In addition, Weinstein's regression specification precludes the possibility that reductions in weekly hours (worksharing), some of which occurred independently of the NIRA, had a positive effect on hourly earnings. A recent paper using data from the full sample period and allowing for the effect of worksharing found a positive but much smaller impact of the NIRA on wages (see the discussion of Bernanke's work later in the paper).Various developments in neo-Keynesian macroeconomics have recently filtered into the discussion. Martin Bai ly emphasizes the role of implicit contracts in the context of various legal and institutional changes during the 1930s. Firms did not aggressively cut wages when unemployment was high early in the 1930s because such a policy would hurt worker morale and the firm's reputation, incentives that were later reinforced by New Deal legislation. Efficiency wages have been invoked in a provocative article by Richard Jensen.Beginning sometime after the turn of the century large firms slowly began to adopt bureaucratic methods of labor relations. Policies were â€Å"designed to identify and keep the more efficient workers, and to encourage other workers to emulate them. † Efficiency wages were one such device, which presumably contributed to stickiness in wages. The trend towards bureaucratic methods accelerated in the 1930s. According to Jensen, firms surviving the initial downturn used the opportunity to lay off their least productive workers but a portion of the initial decline in e mployment occurred among firms that went out of business.Thus, when expansion occurred, firms had their pick of workers who had been laid off. Personnel departments used past wage histories as a signal, and higher-wage workers were a better risk. Those with few occupational skills, the elderly (who were expensive to retrain) and the poorly educated faced enormous difficulties in finding work. After 1935 the â€Å"reserve army† of long-term unemployed did not exert much downward pressure on nominal wages because employers simply did not view the long-term unemployed as substitutes for the employed at virtually any wage.A novel feature of Jensen's argument is its integration of microeconomic evidence on the characteristics of the unemployed with macroeconomic evidence on wage rigidity. Other circumstantial evidence is in its favor, too. Productivity growth was surprisingly strong after 1932, despite severe weakness in capital investment and a slowdown in innovative activity. Th e rhetoric of the era, that â€Å"higher wages and better treatment of labor would improve labor productivity†, may be the correct explanation.If the reserve army hypothesis were true, the wages of unskilled workers, who were disproportionately unemployed, should have fallen relative to the wages of skilled and educated workers, but there is no indication that wage differentials were wider overall in the 1930s than in the 1920s. It remains an open question, however, whether the use of efficiency wages was as widespread as Jensen alleges, and whether efficiency wages can account empirically for the evolution of productivity growth in the 1930s. In brief, the macro studies have not settled the debate over the proper interpretation of the aggregate statistics.This state of affairs has much to do with the (supreme) difficulty of building a consensus macro model of the depression economy. But it is also a consequence of the level of aggregation at which empirical work has been con ducted. The problem is partly one of sample size, and partly a reflection of the inadequacies of discussing these issues using the paradigm of a representative agent. This being, the case I turn next to disaggregated studies of employment and unemployment. In a conventional short-run aggregate production function, the labor input is defined to be total person-hours.For the postwar period, temporal variation in person-hours is overwhelmingly due to fluctuations in employment. However, for the interwar period, variations in the length of the workweek account for nearly half of the monthly variance in the labor input. Declines in weekly hours were deep, prolonged, and widespread in the 1930s. The behavior of real hourly earnings, however, may have not have been independent of changes in weekly hours. This insight motivates Ben Bernanke's analysis of employment, hours, and earnings in eight pre-World War Two manufacturing industries.The (industry- specific) supply of labor is described by an earnings function, which gives the minimum weekly earnings required for a worker to supply a given number of hours per week. In Bernanke's formulation, the earnings function is convex in hours and also discontinuous at zero hours (the discontinuity reflects fixed costs of working or switching industries). Production depends separately on the number of workers and weekly hours, and on nonlabor inputs. Firms are not indifferent â€Å"between receiving one hour of work from eight different workers and receiving eight hours from one worker. A reduction in product demand causes the firm to cut back employment and hours per week. The reduction in hours means more leisure for workers, but less pay per week. Eventually, as weekly hours are reduced beyond a certain point, hourly earnings rise. Further reductions in hours cannot be matched one for one by reductions in weekly earnings. But, when hourly earnings increase, the real wage then appears to be countercyclical. To test the mode l, Bernanke uses monthly, industry-level data compiled by the National Industrial Conference Board covering the period 1923 to 1939.The specification of the earnings function (describing the supply of labor) incorporates a partial adjustment of wages to prices, while the labor demand equation incorporates partial adjustment of current demand to desired demand. Except in one industry (leather), the industry demand for workers falls as real product wages rise; industry demands for weekly hours fall as the marginal cost to the firm of varying weekly hours rises; and industry labor supply is a positive function of weekly earnings and weekly hours.The model is used to argue that the NIRA lowered weekly hours and raised weekly earnings and employment, although the effects were modest. In six of the industries (the exceptions were shoes and lumber), increased union influence after 1935 (measured with a proxy variable of days idled by strikes) raised weekly earnings by 10 percent or more. S imulations revealed that allowing for full adjustment of nominal wages to prices resulted in a poor description of the behavior of real wages, but no deterioration in the model's ability to explain employment and hours variation.Whatever the importance of sticky nominal wages in explaining real wage behavior, the phenomenon â€Å"may not have had great allocative significance† for employment. In a related paper, Bernanke and Martin Parkinson use an expanded version of the NICB data set to explore the possibility that â€Å"short-run increasing returns to labor† or procyclical labor productivity, characterized co-movements in output and employment in the 1930s. Using their expanded data set, Bernanke and Parkinson estimate regressions of the change in output on the change in labor input, now defined to be total person-hours.The coefficient of the change in the labor input is the key parameter; if it exceeds unity, then short-run increasing returns to labor are present. Bernanke and Parkinson find that short-run increasing returns to labor characterized all but two of the industries under study (petroleum and leather). The estimates of the labor coefficient are essentially unchanged if the sample is restricted to just the 1930s. Further, a high degree of correlation (r = 0. 9) appears between interwar and postwar estimates of short-run increasing returns to labor for a matched sample of industries.Thus, the procyclical nature of labor productivity appears to be an accepted fact for both the interwar and postwar periods. One explanation of procyclical productivity, favored by real business cycle theorists, emphasizes technology shocks. Booms are periods in which technological change is unusually brisk, and labor supply increases to take advantage of the higher wages induced by temporary gains in productivity (caused by the outward shift in production functions).In Bernanke and Parkinson's view, however, the high correlation between the pre- and post -war estimates of short-run increasing returns to labor poses a serious problem for the technological shocks explanation. The high correlation implies that the â€Å"real shocks hitting individual industrial production functions in the interwar period accounted for about the same percentage of employment variation in each industry as genuine technological shocks hitting industrial production functions in the post-war period†.However, technological change per se during the Depression was concentrated in a few industries and was modest overall. Further, while real shocks (for example, bank failures, the New Deal, international political instability) occurred, their effects on employment were felt through shifts in aggregate demand, not through shifts in industry production functions. Other leading explanations of procyclical productivity are true increasing returns or, popular among Keynesians, the theory of labor hoarding during economic downturns.Having ruled out technology s hocks, Bernanke and Parkinson attempt to distinguish between true increasing returns and labor hoarding. They devise two tests, both of which involve restrictions on excluding proxies for labor utilization from their regressions of industry output. If true increasing returns were present, the observed labor input captures all the relevant information about variations in output over the cycle. But if labor hoarding were occurring, the rate of labor utilization, holding employment constant, should account for output variation.Their results are mixed, but are mildly in favor of labor hoarding. Although Bernanke's modeling effort is of independent interest, the substantive value of his and Parkinson's research is enhanced considerably by disaggregation to the industry level. It is obvious from their work that industries in the 1930s did not respond identically to decreases in output demand. However, further disaggregation to the firm level can produce additional insights. Bernanke and P arkinson assume that movements in industry aggregates reflect the behavior of a representative firm.But, according to Lebergott (1989), much of the initial decline in output and employment occurred among firms that exited. Firms that left, and new entrants, however, were not identical to firms that survived. These points are well-illustrated in Timothy Bresnahan and Daniel Raff's study of the American motor vehicle industry. Their database consists of manuscript census returns of motor vehicle plants in 1929, 1931, 1933, and 1935. By linking the manuscript returns from year to year, Bresnahan and Raff have created a panel dataset, capable of identifying plants the exited, surviving plants, and new plants.Plants that exited between 1929 and 1933 had lower wages and lower labor productivity than plants that survived. Between 1933 and 1935 average wages at exiting plants and new plants were slightly higher than at surviving plants. Output per worker was still relatively greater at surv iving plants than new entrants, but the gap was smaller than between 1929 and 1933. Roughly a third of the decline in the industry's employment between 1929 and the trough in 1933 occurred in plant closures. The vast majority of these plant closures were permanent.The shakeout of inefficient firms after 1929 ameliorated the decline in average labor productivity in the industry. Although industry productivity did decline, productivity in 1933 would have been still lower if all plants had continued to operate. During the initial recovery phase (1933-35) about 40 percent of the increase in employment occurred in new plants. Surviving plants were more likely to use mass-production techniques; the same was true of new entrants. Mass production plants differed sharply from their predecessors (custom production plants) in the skill mix of their workforces and in labor relations.In the motor vehicle industry, the early years of the Depression were an â€Å"evolutionary event†, perman ently altering the technology of the representative firm. While the representative firm paradigm apparently fails for motor vehicles, it may not for other industries. Some preliminary work by Amy Bertin, Bresnahan, and Raff, on another industry, blast furnaces, is revealing on this point. Blast furnaces were subject to increasing returns and the market for the product (molten iron) was highly localized.For this industry, reductions in output during a cyclical trough are reasonably described by a representative firm, since â€Å"localized competition prevented efficient reallocation of output across plants† and therefore the compositional effects occurring in the auto industry did not happen. These analyses of firm-level data have two important implications for studies of employment in the 1930s. First, aggregate demand shocks could very well have changed average technological practice through the process of exit and entry at the firm level.Thus Bernanke and Parkinson's reject ion of the technological shocks explanation of short-run increasing returns, which is based in part on their belief that aggregate demand shocks did not alter industry production functions, may be premature. Second, the empirical adequacy of the representative firm paradigm is apparently industry-specific, depending on industry structure, the nature of product demand, and initial (that is, pre-Depression) heterogeneity in firm sizes and costs.Such â€Å"phenomena are invisible in industry data,† and can only be recovered from firm-level records, such as the census manuscripts. Analyses of industry and firm-level data are one way to explore heterogeneity in labor utilization. Geography is another. A focus on national or even industry aggregates obscures the substantial spatial variation in bust and recovery that characterized the 1930s. Two recent studies show how spatial variation suggests new puzzles about the persistence of the Depression as well as provide additional degre es of freedom for discriminating between macroeconomic models.State-level variation in employment is the subject of an important article by John Wallis. Using data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wallis has constructed annual indices of manufacturing and nonmanufacturing employment for states from 1930 to 1940. Wallis' indices reveal that declines in employment between 1930 and 1933 were steepest in the East North Central and Mountain states; employment actually rose in the South Atlantic states, however, once an adjustment is made for industry mix.The South also did comparatively well during the recovery phase of the Depression (1933-1940). Wallis tests whether the southern advantage during the recovery phase might reflect lower levels of unionization and a lower proportion of employment affected by the passage of the Social Security Act (1935), but controlling for percent unionized and percent in covered employment in a regression of employment growth does not elimina te the regional gap. What comes through clearly,† according to Wallis â€Å"is that the [employment] effects of the Depression varied considerably throughout the nation† and that a convincing explanation of the South-nonSouth difference remains an open question. Curtis Simon and Clark Nardinelli exploit variation across cities to put forth a particular interpretation of economic downturn in the early 1930s. Specifically, they study the empirical relationship between â€Å"industrial diversity† and city- level unemployment rates before and after World War Two.Industrial diversity is measured by a city-specific Herfindahl index of industry employment shares. The higher the value of the index, the greater is the concentration of employment in a small number of industries. Using data from the 1930 federal census and the 1931 Special Census of Unemployment, Simon and Nardinelli show that unemployment rates and the industrial diversity index were positively correlated across cities at the beginning of the Depression.Analysis of similar census data for the post-World War Two, period, reveals a negative correlation between city unemployment rates and industrial diversity. Simon and Nardinelli explain this finding as the outcome of two competing effects. In normal economic circumstances, a city with a more diverse range of industries should have a lower unemployment rate (the â€Å"portfolio† effect), because industry-specific demand shocks will not be perfectly correlated across industries and some laid-off workers will find ready employment in expanding industries.The portfolio effect may fail, however, during a large aggregate demand shock (the early 1930s) if firms and workers are poorly informed, misperceiving the shock to be industry-specific, rather than a general reduction in demand. Firms in industrially diverse cities announce selective layoffs rather than reduce wages, because they believe that across-the-board wage cuts would caus e too many workers to quit (workers in industrial diverse cities think they can easily find a job in another industry elsewhere in the same city), thus hurting production.Firms in industrially specialized cities, however, are more likely to cut wages than employment because they believe lower wages â€Å"would induce relatively fewer quits† than in industrially diverse cities. Thus, Simon and Nardinelli conclude, wages in the early 1930s were more rigid in industrially-diverse cities, producing the positive correlation between industrial diversity and unemployment. Improvements in the quantity, quality, and timeliness of economic information, they conjecture, have caused the portfolio effect to dominate after World War Two, producing the postwar negative correlation.Although one can question the historical relevance of Simon and Nardinelli's model, and the specifics of their empirical analysis, their paper is successful in demonstrating the potential value of spatial data in unraveling the sources of economic downturn early in the Depression. Postwar macroeconomics has tended to proceed as aggregate unemployment rates applied to a representative worker, with a certain percentage of that worker's time not being used. As a result, disaggregated evidence on unemployment has been slighted.Such evidence, however, can provide a richer picture of who was unemployed in the 1930s, a better understanding of the relationship between unemployment and work relief, and further insights into macroeconomic explanations of unemployment. To date, the source that has received the most attention is the public use tape of the 1940 census, a large, random sample of the population in 1940. The 1940 census is a remarkable historical document. It was the first American census to inquire about educational attainment, wage and salary income and weeks worked in the previous year; nd the first to use the â€Å"labor force week† concept in soliciting information about labor f orce status. Eight labor force categories are reported, including whether persons held work relief jobs during the census week (March 24-30, 1940). For persons who were unemployed or who held a work relief job at the time of the census, the number of weeks of unemployment since the person last held a private or nonemergency government job of one month or longer was recorded.The questions on weeks worked and earnings in 1939 did not treat work relief jobs differently from other jobs. That is, earnings from, and time spent on, work relief are included in the totals. I have used the 1940 census sample to study the characteristics of unemployed workers and of persons on work relief, and the relationship between work relief and various aspects of unemployment. It is clear from the census tape that unemployed persons who were not on work relief were far from a random sample of the labor force.For example, the unemployed were typically younger, or older, than the average employed worker (u nemployment followed a U-shape pattern with respect to age); the unemployed were more often nonwhite; and they were less educated and had fewer skills than employed persons, as measured by occupation. Such differences tended to be starkest for the long-term unemployed (those with unemployment durations longer than year); thus, for example, the long-term unemployed had even less schooling that the average unemployed worker.Although the WPA drew its workers from the ranks of the unemployed, the characteristics of WPA workers did not merely replicate those of other unemployed persons. For example, single men, the foreign-born, high school graduates, urban residents, and persons living in the Northeast were underrepresented among WPA workers, compared with the rest of the unemployed. Perhaps the most salient difference, however, concerns the duration of unemployment. Among those on work relief in 1940, roughly twice as many had been without a non-relief job for a year or longer as had u nemployed persons not on work relief.The fact that the long-term unemployed were concentrated disproportionately on work relief raises an obvious question. Did the long-term unemployed find work relief jobs after being unemployed for a long time, or did they remain with the WPA for a long time? The answer appears to be mostly the latter. Among nonfarm males ages 14 to 64 on work relief in March 1940 and reporting 65 weeks of unemployment (that is, the first quarter of 1940 and all of 1939), close to half worked 39 weeks or more in 1939. Given the census conventions, they had to have been working more or less full time, for the WPA.For reasons that are not fully clear, the incentives were such that a significant fraction of persons who got on work relief, stayed on. One possible explanation is that some persons on work relief preferred the WPA, given prevailing wages, perhaps because their relief jobs were more stable than the non-relief jobs (if any) available to them. Or, as one WP A worker put it: â€Å"Why do we want to hold onto these [relief] jobs? †¦ [W]e know all the time about persons †¦ just managing to scrape along †¦ My advice, Buddy, is better not take too much of a chance. Know a good thing when you got it. Alternatively, working for the WPA may have stigmatized individuals, making them less desirable to non-relief employers the longer they stayed on work relief. Whatever the explanation, the continuous nature of WPA employment makes it difficult to believe that the WPA did not reduce, in the aggregate, the amount of job search by the unemployed in the late 1930s. In addition to the duration of unemployment experienced by individuals, the availability of work relief may have dampened the increase in labor supply of secondary workers in households in which the household head was unemployed, the so- called â€Å"added worker† effect.Specifically, wives of unemployed men not on work relief were much more likely to participate in the labor force than wives of men who were employed at non-relief jobs. But wives of men who worked for the WPA were far less likely to participate in the labor force than wives of otherwise employed men. The relative impacts were such that, in the aggregate, no added worker effect can be observed as long as persons on work relief are counted among the unemployed.Although my primary goal in analyzing the 1940 census sample was to illuminate features of unemployment obscured by the aggregate time series, the results bear on several macroeconomic issues. First, the heterogenous nature of unemployment implies that a representative agent view of aggregate unemployment cannot be maintained for the late 1930s. Whether the view can be maintained for the earlier part of the Depression is not certain, but the evidence presented in Jensen and myself suggests that it cannot.Because the evolution of the characteristics of the unemployed over the 1930s bears on the plausibility of various macro economic explanations of unemployment (Jensen's use of efficiency wage theory, for example), further research is clearly desirable. Second, the heterogenous nature of unemployment is consistent with Lebergott's claim that aggregate BLS wage series for the 1930s are contaminated by selection bias, because the characteristics that affected the likelihood of being employed (for example, education) also affected a person's wage.Again, a clearer understanding of the magnitude and direction of bias requires further work on how the characteristics of the employed and unemployed changed as the Depression progressed. Third, macroeconomic analyses of the persistence of high unemployment should not ignore the effects of the WPA — and, more generally, those of other federal relief policies — on the economic behavior of the unemployed. In particular, if work relief was preferred to job search by some unemployed workers, the WPA may have displaced some growth in private sector emplo yment that would have occurred in its absence.An estimate of the size of this displacement effect can be inferred from a recent paper by John Wallis and Daniel Benjamin. Wallis and Benjamin estimate a model of labor supply, labor demand, and per capita relief budgets using panel data for states from 1933 to 1939. Their coefficients imply that elimination of the WPA starting in 1937 would have increased private sector employment by 2. 9 percent by 1940, which corresponds to about 49 percent of persons on work relief in that year. Displacement was not one-for-one, but may not have been negligible.My discussion thus far has emphasized the value of disaggregated evidence in understanding certain key features of labor markets in the 1930s — the behavior of wages, employment and unemployment — because these are of greatest general interest to economists today. I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention other aspects of labor markets examined in recent work. What follow s is a brief, personal selection from a much larger literature. The Great Depression left its mark on racial and gender differences.From 1890 to 1930 the incomes of black men increased slightly relative to the incomes of white men, but the trend in relative incomes reversed direction in the 1930s. Migration to the North, a major avenue of economic advancement for Southern blacks, slowed appreciably. There is little doubt that, if the Depression had not happened, the relative economic status of blacks would have been higher on the eve of World War Two. Labor force participation by married women was hampered by â€Å"marriage bars†, implicit or explicit regulations which allowed firms to dismiss single women upon arriage or which prohibited the hiring of married women. Although marriage bars existed before the 1930s, their use spread during the Depression, possibly because social norms dictated that married men were more deserving of scarce jobs than married women. Although the y have not received as much attention from economists, some of the more interesting effects of the Depression were demographic or life-cycle in nature. Marriage rates fell sharply in the early 1930s, and fertility rates remained low throughout the decade.An influential study by the sociologist Glen Elder, Jr. traced the subsequent work and life histories of a sample of individuals growing up in Oakland, California in the 1930s. Children from working class households whose parents suffered from prolonged unemployment during the Depression had lower educational attainment and less occupational mobility than their peers who were not so deprived. Similar findings were reported by Stephan Thernstrom in his study of occupational mobility of Boston men.The Great Depression was the premier macroeconomic event of the twentieth century, and I am not suggesting we abandon macroeconomic analysis of it. I am suggesting, however, that an exclusive focus on aggregate labor statistics runs two risk s: the facts derived may be artifacts, and much of what may be interesting about labor market behavior in the 1930s is rendered invisible. The people and firms whose experiences make up the aggregates deserve to be studied in their diversity, not as representative agents.I have mentioned census microdata, such as the public use sample of the 1940 census or the manufacturing census manuscripts collected by Bresnahan and Raff, in this survey. In closing, I would like highlight another source that could be examined in future work. The source is the â€Å"Study of Consumer Purchases in the United States† conducted by the BLS in 1935-36. Approximately 300,000 households, chosen from a larger random sample of 700,000, supplied basic survey data on income and housing, with 20 percent furnishing additional information.The detail is staggering: labor supply and income of all family members, from all sources (on a quarterly basis); personal characteristics (for example, occupation, age , race); family composition; housing characteristics; and a long list of durable and non-durable consumption expenditures (the 20 percent sample). Because the purpose of the study was to provide budget weights to update the CPI, only families in â€Å"normal† economic circumstances were included (this is the basis for the reduction in sample size from 700,000 to 300,000).Thus, for example, persons whose wages were very low or who experienced persistent unemployment are unlikely to be included in 1935-36 study. A pilot sample, drawn from the original survey forms (stored at the National Archives) and containing the responses of 6,000 urban households, is available in machine-readable format from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan (ICPSR Study 8908). Robert A. Margo Vanderbilt University

John Steinbeck’s use of Realism Essay

John Ernst Steinbeck has written many award winning novels, some of which has even been produced as plays that captured audiences everywhere. Steinbeck wrote about real life experiences using realism, characterization, and dreams to emphasize his points and make an impact on his readers in order to reform or change society. The realism used in Steinbeck’s works is not only effective in informing the reader of circumstances that should be changed, but this nineteenth century literary style also creates great feelings of empathy toward the characters and their dreams. Steinbeck used realism to convey his points for a purpose, and his main purpose was that he wanted something to be made known to the public. Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath both tell of the hardships people went through and also the harsh conditions of their situations. The characters in both of these novels play and important role in personalizing the occurring events for the reader, making the novel more effective in getting the writers’ messages across to the audience. Steinbeck’s use of the American Dream and the will for the characters to succeed is also evident throughout the two novels. These dreams help the reader to relate to the characters, therefore making a bigger impact on those who read the novel. John Steinbeck’s novel â€Å"The Grapes of Wrath†, tells of a very harsh journey to California that the Joads, like many other families in the 1930s Depression era, embarked upon in order to find work and escape their dying farms in Oklahoma. During the depression a severe drought covered the plains, called the Dust Bowl. This natural disaster destroyed any chance that the farmers had of making a living, and they were forced to travel west and leave their homes in hopes of finding a job. Part of the novel’s sense of realism comes from the setting. The Joads head to California from Oklahoma and their journey is characterized by poverty, starvation, death, and suffering (Stegener 405). Steinbeck not only utilizes the setting as a sense of realism but also uses vivid description and specific details to draw attention to the numerous hardships encountered by the families forced to travel west in search of opportunity (Jackson 316). The first evening after the Joads leave their home, they stop on the side of the road to help another family. This family  is very thankful for the Joads help, and offers their tent for the Joads’ sickly grandfather, but unfortunately Grandpa passes away that night. The family is troubled from the very start of their journey and Steinbeck creates feelings of sympathy toward the Joads as well as the other families in the same situation. As the novel progresses, the family’s disparity becomes more and more evident. Grandma Joad dies shortly after Grandpa does and since the Joads are indigent and can barely meet ends to survive, they are forced to beg for money to bury Grandma Joad. Despite family’s disappointments, they just keep going (Britch and Lewis). As they continue to travel the Joads encounter many more obstacles, but there is one incident as the novel comes to a close. Rose of Sharon, the oldest daughter, goes into labor and her baby is stillborn. Rose of Sharon notices a dying old man who is malnourished and offers him her breast milk so that he might be able to survive. As the novel closes, the reader is left with despair and a sense of loneliness. Steinbeck’s uses of realism makes a strong impact on the reader, which makes this one of the greatest American novels ever written (Jackson 316). Of Mice and Men was also written during the time of the 1930s, the depression era. This novel is a short story of two men a small, short, and smart guy named George and a big, tall, mentally retarded man named Lennie. The novel is based around these two main characters and their journey to fulfill their dream to find true happiness on a farm that they can one day call their own (Hearle) In â€Å"Of Mice and Men† the use of realism is not only seen through the depressing life of George and Lennie, but it also shows the life that Crooks, a black stable hand on the farm, had. The character of Crooks is used to symbolize the social standing of the black community occurring during the time at which the novel is set. Crooks is a lonely African American on the farm that feels out of place. As George and Lennie explain their dream to Crooks he brushes them off and says that no one around here can implement their dreams. This realism gives the reader an impression that Crooks has absolutely no hope. However, Crooks may be pessimistic, but yet even he has a dream, which is the hope of one day experiencing the joys of  his childhood again. Crooks’ character is portrayed as very lonely in the novel, this is evident when Crooks explains, â€Å"A guy needs someone.† (Mice 77). Crooks is telling the reader the need of human interaction. This realism that Steinbeck uses shows the reader the harsh realities of the black community during the time of the depression in the 1930’s Steinbeck not only uses realism to make an impact on his readers but he also uses strong characterization to his advantage as well (Howard). By using characters such as Ma Joad and Curley’s wife, he is able to personalize the novel for the reader. This technique that Steinbeck uses makes the reader feel like he/she can relate with the characters’ struggles, therefore, creating a greater sense of understanding toward the characters’ situations (Horn). These two characters can best be described as strong, courageous, and they show great amounts of integrity as well as faith. In order to write a great book that will make an impact on the reader, the author must not only use realism but also have a strong sense of characterization for the reader to relate to. Steinbeck successfully achieved both of these aspects of a great novel. John Steinbeck’s character, Ma Joad in â€Å"The Grapes of Wrath†, is the epitome of a strong character. She is a supportive, loving woman, and surprisingly the family’s center of strength (Britch and Lewis). She is intent on keeping the family whole and together. The family looks to Ma Joad for their source of hope and encouragement. She is the emotional and physical backbone of the family, and it is very important to her to provide the family with comfort, nourishment, and support. â€Å"Without warning Grandpa began to cry. His chin wavered and his old lips tightened over his mouth and he sobbed hoarsely. Ma rushed over to him and put her arms around him. She lifted him to his feet,her broad back straining, and she half lifted, half helped him to the tent† (Wrath 185). Steinbeck makes it clear to the reader in this passage that Ma is the first to step up in times of need, and she puts others before herself no matter what. â€Å"Under the spread of the tarpaulin Grandma lay on a mattress, and Ma sat beside her. The air was stifling hot, and the flies buzzed in the shade of the canvas. Grandma was naked under a long piece of pink curtain. She turned her old head restlessly from side to side, and she  muttered and choked. Ma sat on the ground beside her, and with a piece of cardboard drove the flies away and fanned a stream of moving hot air over the tight old face. Rose of Sharon sat on the other side and watched her mother† (Wrath 285). The reader notices several times throughout the novel that Ma will care for anyone in need no matter what the circumstance. â€Å"In show of her fundamental spirit she accepts Casey into the family because the Joads just do not refuse ‘food an’ shelter or lift on the road to anybody that ask[s]'† (Britch and Lewis). She takes it upon herself to look out for to avoid any discouragement to the other family. Grandma dies in the back of the wagon with Ma by her side, but trying to avoid any discouragement to the other family members, Ma does not share the news until they have reached their stopping point. The strength that Ma shows in this situation is far great that any exhibited by the other family members. â€Å"Her capacity to care marks the measure of her self-respect. â€Å"As the action progresses her caring does not change in kind but rather grows in breadth and intensity† (Britch and Lewis). By creating such a noble character, Steinbeck greatly influences his readers, and his efforts in sharing the hardships these families in the 1930s went through are successful. The character of Curley’s wife is a very vivid and unique one. She represented the way that women were viewed by society as a whole. Steinbeck portrayed Curley’s wife as a temptress, when actually the woman is just craving for attention. Steinbeck made Curley’s wife stand out by the fact that she was the only woman on the ranch, she was the only one who dressed to impress, and the only person without a full name (Thesing). Steinbeck often used very colorful statements like â€Å"She had full, rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages. She wore a cotton dress and red mules, and the insteps of which were little bouquets of red ostrich feathers† (Mice 31). These vivid and wild descriptions that Steinbeck created for Curley’s wife is just one of the many characters that Steinbeck created, in order for the reader to feel or relate to what the character is going through. In Curley’s wife’s case she is an attention deprived woman that is just one of the many lonely people on the ranch. â€Å"Of Mice and Men† and â€Å"The Grapes of Wrath† both examine the morality and necessary actions the characters choose as they pursue their dreams. Steinbeck uses the concept that dreams are better that reality, but that the dream is really hard to grasp. This concept is also used by three other famous authors who are Crane, Norris, and Dreiser (Benson 256-257). What is the American dream? The American dream is the faith held by many Americans, that through hard work, courage, and determination one can adhere financial prosperity and also some believe that it is led to an emphasis of material wealth as a measure of success and/or happiness. Like many people today the characters George, Lennie, Candy, Curley’s wife, and the Joads all wanted the American dream. Most of their dreams of success, wealth and prosperity were depleted by the harsh realities of life. Most of the characters in the novel Of Mice and Men have a dream of something. George and Lennie are best friends that go everywhere together. Their dream is to someday own a farm of their own and have rabbits to tend to. The dream to Lennie is an antidote to disappointment and loneliness, and he often asks George to recite the description of the farm to him. This dream is ultimately lost when Lennie kills Curley’s wife and George kills Lennie towards the end of the novel. This dream was later shared by two other friends on the farm, Candy and Crooks. As the reader can see these dreams are one way that the characters can cover up the loneliness and hopelessness of their existence. One other character in the novel that had a dream is Curley’s wife. Curley’s wife’s dream is her fantasies in becoming a part in movies and having a life of luxury. This dream is shattered and never fulfilled, because of the dissatisfaction of her life and when she is accidentally killed by Lennie. As the reader can see the dreamers in the novel are undermined by the hard facts of reality (Astro 43). In the 1930s the country suffered ecological devastation called the depression. During this economy downfall the mid-west prairie state families suffer from a large drought that leaves them with nothing to survive. This terrible phenomenon is called the Dust Bowl. In attempt to escape this unforgettable time, a family called the Joads dream of wealth and success in  the great state of California. In order to pursue their dream they have to leave their belongings behind. This journey carries death and suffering with it when Grandma and Grandpa Joad dies and many of the family members leave the family. The family left Oklahoma in order to find jobs in California (Hearle). The Joad’s dream, which is well known as the American dream, is shattered by certain events and conditions that the Joads faced. In conclusion, John Steinbeck’s style of writing impacted society just as he had hoped. He wrote about real life experiences and hardships to show the reader what people went through, like the Joads and the many characters in â€Å"Of Mice and Men†. Steinbeck informed the reader of what families had to overcome, which ultimately impacted whoever read his novels. The use of realism, characterization, and dreams in his two novels made them the greatest American novels in history. Works Cited Astro, Richard Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 9: American Novelists, 1910-1915. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Ed. James J. Martine. Saint Bonaventure University. Gale Research 1981. 413-68 Benson, Jackson J., â€Å"John Steinbeck: Novelist as a Scientist,† in Novel: A Forum on Fiction. Spring, 1977, 228-264. Britch, Carroll and Cliff Lewis, â€Å"Growth of the family in The Grapes of Wrath,† in Critical Essays on Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Ed. John Ditsky, G.K. Hall. 1989, 97-108. Hearle, Kevin Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 212: Twentieth-century American western writers. Second series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Ed. Richard H. Carcoft Brigham Young University. Gale Research Group. 1999, 278-294. Horn, Jason G. Dictionary of Literary Biography: volume 275. Twentieth century American Nature Writers: Prose A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Ed. Roger Thompson, Virginia Military Institute, and J. Scott Bryson. St. Mary’s College. Gale Group 2003. 314-323 Jackson, Joseph Henrey. â€Å"The Finest Book John Steinbeck has written.† Contemporary Literary Criticism, volume 59. Ed. Roger Matuz. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc. 1990. 316-317. Levant, Howard. â€Å"The Novels of John Steinbeck: A Critical Study.† Contemporary Literary Criticism, volume 75. Ed. Thomas Volteler. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc. 1993, 356-351. Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath New York, New York: Penguin Books U.S.A Inc. 1992. Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men, New York, New York: Penguin Putnam Inc. 1993. Stegner, Wallace, â€Å"The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer† Contemporary Literary Criticism, volume 34. Ed. Sharon K. Hall. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 1985. 405. Thesing, William B. Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 7: Twentieth-century American Dramatists, first series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Ed. John MacNicholas University of South Carolina, Gale Research. 1981. 271-276.

Ethics, Discretion, and Police Misconduct Essay

Ethical police conduct is not as complicated as everyone assumes about defining the perimeters that â€Å"ethics† cover. Ethics, for a lot of people, is a vague concept. Then again, being ethical as a servant is simply doing what one needs to do to deserve the term â€Å"professional. † In this case, ethical police is about ensuring that safety is present in a particular community. He or she must be able to successfully gain the approval of every citizen especially when it comes to ensuring safety. Along with gaining the approval of everyone is gaining the respect of the people. One cay say that a police is being ethical once he or she gains the respect of people. Ordinary citizens have a good nose for well-behaved police officers. If a police officer gains public trust and the public depends on the police in confidence, then he or she is doing the job well . That said, police ethics covers professionalism, decency and morality He or she has to be honest and loyal. He or she has to attend to the needs of the citizens, especially those who need information, volunteer to be witnesses to crimes or register complaints (DC Watch, 1997). A police practices ethics if he or she enforces laws without a tinge of prejudice and bias, regardless of the backgrounds of the people involved in a specific case. He or she should always be fair when it comes to choosing who to arrest. Police ethics is about being fair in his or her practice or discretion. Police discretion can mean two things. First, it can mean having the police sentence a criminal and second, it can be an act of identifying whether a person is guilty or innocent. Technically, people who are in the authority are the ones allowed to do this. In the criminal justice system, policemen are allowed to practice discretion, but only to a certain degree. In policing, discretion is highly unavoidable. Arresting suspects or criminals will never be possible without discretion. Discretion is needed primarily because policemen need to decide who to arrest for a particular violation. Also, if a police calls the attention of someone who violates traffic rules, discretion is needed in issuing a warning to the violator. Discretion in policing is very much normal, desirable and unavoidable simply because police departments explicitly authorize it. Meaning, police departments allow policemen to practice discretion. The issue, then, when it comes to police discretion, lies on how policemen use discretion. Discretion, indeed, has its limitations, too (Kelling, p. 37) . In this case, what a police officer is allowed to do when it comes to discretion is to get in the way of a particular panhandling incident. Then again, an intervention done on the use of race as a basis is already a form of police misconduct. Another example would be practicing discretion over allowing youths to drink outside after curfew hours. Police officers may allow these people to stay in a park to drink, but they should not give their consent to those who are underage for alcohol consumption. Also, in controlling neighborhood groups, policemen can access a specific community. Then again, once they gain access to that neighborhood, it is police misconduct to discriminate against minority groups (Kelling, Ibid). Police offers are also allowed to use force. Then again, force must only be used within appropriate means. The use of force come in five different forms which include firearm, impact, electronic, chemical and physical force. Police officers are legally allowed to use these forces reasonable. This clearly goes to show that determining whether the use of force is excessive or not is then unclear. The use of force can not be measured by counting the number of times an electric shock was caused or the number of bullets shot. Because of this, excessive use of force is then covered by the circumstances and beliefs surrounding the incident. Force becomes excessive only when a police officer does not find it highly necessary to apply force to someone. The use of force must always be reasonable. Force becomes unnecessary and excessive once it is not justified. Also, when a police officer uses more force than what is required, it is already considered excessive (Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2007).

Key challenges and pitfall to virtual team performance Essay

Key challenges and pitfall to virtual team performance - Essay Example Companies also face the challenge of training and updating the technology used by the virtual team members. Defining the best task technology fit is another challenge that influences virtual team performance. Organizations face the challenge of scheduling meetings since the virtual team members live in different geographical areas with distinct time zones (Kirkman, Rosen, Gibson, Tesluk, & McPherson, 2002). Companies/individuals require complex technological applications to enhance virtual team performance (Ebrahim, Ahmed, & Taha, 2009). Moreover, virtual team performance experiences decreased control of activities since it involves virtual members. Mistrust and communication barriers also depict pitfalls in virtual team performance. Virtual team members develop divergent thoughts subject to cultural and functional diversity experienced in virtual activities Ebrahim, Ahmed, & Taha, 2009). Moreover, effective virtual team performance requires special training and motivation of virtual team members. The members are invisible and virtual meetings are seemingly ineffective since they do not involve physical interactions and personal feelings (Robb, 2014). Virtual environments do not offer detailed analysis of salient issues (Robb, 2014). Moreover, the members face the problem of working in different time zones that is very confusing. Kirkman, B., Rosen, B., Gibson, C., Tesluk, P., & McPherson, S. (2002). The Seven Challenges to Virtual Team Performance: Lessons from Sabre, Inc. Retrieved from:

Clinical supervision Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Clinical supervision - Essay Example afterwards, in order to analyze it"(Goldhammer 1969)Four years after Goldhammer outlined his model for clinical supervision, Cogan did an analysis of Goldhammer's work and with the assistance of supervisors of teachers at Harvard University, Cogan adopted his own Clinical Supervision model, albeit it has three more steps than the pioneering model, the minor variance in the number of steps does not water down or conflict in concept. Cogan, however, does exhibit some flexibility as he offers, "certain phases may be omitted or altered, or new procedures instituted, depending upon the successful development of the working relationship between the supervisor and the teacher"(Cogan 1973 10-12). The fact that an allowance is kept alive for the possible retrofitting of a model, is an extremely salient point; because one might not always be successful in keeping the practice and theory diversities at a minimum, therefore adjustment might be necessary in both the model and its presentation.A third model was designed by Acheson & Gall (1987), this model possesses only three steps; planning conference; observation and feedback conference. The Peer Assistance and Review states that, "The clinical Supervision concept is intended to be a cyclic process. This implies that the supervision process is not a one time "drop in" event, but rather, the teacher and the supervisor will work together through a series of cycles to enhance the teachers abilities"(PAR) Anderson & Krajewsk i(1993 pp 175-176), are working on a similar flexible plane as Cogan as they maintain, "teachers are not compelled to follow a sequential order, "they can cut them to suit the situations in which they find...Goldhammer (1969) defines the term ‘clinical’ as, â€Å"it is meant to imply supervision up close† That is the supervisor actually observes the teacher in the classroom, collects data on the observation, and uses the data for analysis following the observation†Goldhammer believed that the supervisory process is prime to embody an aire of open communication and trust between the teacher and his/her consulting teacher. The most basic element in the process is how the teacher feels about their personal level of capabilities. There has been an evolutionary explosion in the area of Clinical supervision in the past ten years. We have come to see the practice of development of cognitive coaching, peer coaching, and action research. Either one of these three processes can work in accord with either of the three clinical supervision models mention herein. If either of the processes is applied individually, as in the case of cognitive coaching; wherein Cos ta and Garmston (1994) , describes as, â€Å"a non-judgmental set of practices built around a planning conference, lesson observation, and a reflective follow-up conference†(Costa & Garmston). These processes breakdown a group of basic assumptions, guidelines, and skills which can work in all contact with other teachers, learners, and the parents. It follows, that when all three of these processes are super imposed over the various steps of either of the three models mentioned, it is a given that we are then reckoning with a major positive shift in the learning environment.

The attraction and retention of older workers presents opportunities Research Paper

The attraction and retention of older workers presents opportunities and problems for many employers. Critically evaluate the ma - Research Paper Example Based on literature findings, the present study highlights some of the most significant positive and negative implications for HRM. The main point that stands out in the minds of employers while employing older workforce is their contribution or performance. Considering the changing trends in businesses, competition, customer expectations etc, most organisations favour younger workforce that are more energetic and innovative. Other perspectives that point at choosing younger workers include lesser productivity from older workers and loss of knowledge due to higher turnover of older workers (Ashworth, 2008). The main HR challenges that haunt contemporary organisations, according to the CIPD report on Healthy Working Lives (2012) include sustainable employee motivation and commitment, employee turnover, knowledge retention, performance improvement and sustenance, and employee development. Engaging older workers in learning activities and skill development has been a challenge for manag ers (Gray & McGregor, 2003); however, it should also be noted that older workers’ immense experience makes them the knowledge bank that can be effectively used through appropriate practices (Ranzijn, 2004; Murray & Syed, 2005), and this positive attribute can be of great assistance in difficult situations that would otherwise be challenging for younger workforce. Employing older workforce presents critical implications to the HR function from diversity perspective. Of the many findings from their study on diversity programs employed by Fortune 500 companies, Ryan, Hawdon and Branick (2002) identified that most of the Forture 500 companies put significant efforts towards adopting diversity, which eventually fails or is not up to the expected standards, i.e, the number of aged workforce is proportionately low compared to other groups. This study suggests the need for enhancing diversity programs for older workers. This lag could be two-folded, one being company’s lack of interest in hiring older workforce and lack of interest from the older workforce to join jobs/companies that do not provide flexibility and ergonomics conducive to their working requirements. Yet, efforts to employ older workforce are being adopted by many organisations, which also provide various benefits and facilities for this group (Feinsod & Davenport, 2006). From cost/economic implications perspective, investment in older workers could be high in certain spheres but also low in others. For instance, Encel’s (1998) studies identified that older workers were more punctual and had less absenteeism besides their higher commitment, loyalty, knowledge, and ability to handle pressures. These aspects certainly provide greater advantage to managers in terms of cost reduction due to absenteeism and turnover. However, it is a general perception that older workers tend to require greater medical care and hence would incur higher expenses in terms of insurance and other compensatio n benefits; but, studies indicate that these costs also depend on other factors (Feinsod & Davenport, 2006). Based on their research, Guest and Shacklock’s (2005) viewpoint is that older workers

Implementation of a COP program based on the scenario given Assignment

Implementation of a COP program based on the scenario given - Assignment Example There is also a citizen’s patrol project which will help the police with monitoring areas where there may not be a patrol at that moment so help can be called in immediately. An outline and overview of the project is given in this paper as to how it will be implemented. Introduction This is a proposal memo to address the problems at the Anytown Shopping Mall in our city which has had a 75% increase in crime and robberies over the years 2009 to 2011. In light of the fact that it is determined that homeless people have set up camps in parking lot areas where there is very little lighting installed, and that there have been numerous robberies conducted in parking lot sections, the Anytown Police Department is designing a project to help with cutting down crime and restoring a safe environment for our citizens to be able to shop and work safely in, and around, the Anytown Shopping Mall. It is our plan to bring back businesses to this area as a number of the shopping mall businesse s have left recently because of the unsafe conditions for both workers and customers (Class information 2013). The community-oriented policing program being created is called ANYTOWN ANYTIME FREEDOM SHOPPING program which will address several issues: eliminating transit camps in parking lots, a system of patrols that covers all sections of the parking area and in the mall as well, a protection system for workers and customers of the mall and finally, a determination of what public works projects must be developed, such as a new lighting strategy, for all areas of the parking infrastructure (Class information 2013). 1. The social forces that exist for this problem are that there are numerous homeless people who are camping out in the poorly lit areas of the shopping mall’s parking sections, particularly in underground parking. This creates an unsafe hazard for those workers who must come in early and leave late at night (Craven 2009). For shoppers, the danger is the high chanc e of being robbed, particularly when carrying packages. Aside from the obvious dangers from robberies, muggings, and potential car jackings, the areas where there are camps are very unsanitary, particularly as there are no restrooms (Dempsey & Forst 2013). It is unclear at this time whether the homeless also go into the shopping mall, when it is open, in order to use the restroom facilities. Preparation 2. The first steps in preparing for the program is to have a meeting, or several meetings, with shop owners in the mall in order to hear what incidents they have encountered, which would help in designing the plan of action (Craven 2009). This would also include those businesses which have left the area and finding out specifically what issues they had as regards conducting business in the mall. In addition to the meetings, it is also important to assess from crime reports where crimes in that area have occurred the most and what type they are (Hunter & Barker 2011). Once this inform ation has been developed, then more strategic planning can take place. 3. The social and special interest groups that should be involved in this process are the business owners in the mall, the shopping mall administration officers, any current security teams that are already in place, as most malls have their own team, and also the city manager and district representative. It is important to have reflections from all the above people and to have them

By using the bookVibe History of Hip Hop, Yes, Yes Yall, and unit 1&4, Essay

By using the bookVibe History of Hip Hop, Yes, Yes Yall, and unit 1, critique and comparing and contrasting the information, the presentation, the relevance - Essay Example Such as his song for Hailie in 'mocking bird' and how he feels he has screwed up for her in 'when I'm gone'. Rap is music, music is entertainment, rap is feelings and emotions and to entertain with feelings and emotions one has to be able to gain control of them to be able to logic whether a person is proper or improper in the means they show their mentality. Not all rappers do this whether because they feel it's a freedom and democracy of discussion and rapping about what could drive others crazy or about the dictatorship of what they believe to be correct and true on life issues which they have learned growing up, like 50-cent's saying that where he comes from has no plan B so he's got to take the chances he's got to be able to face life consequently 'properly'. Most youth have no experience in life except what they read, listen to in music and thus relate to it in a manner which is shallow because it is shallow in words and this is why they could 'relate' because it is not literature by Victor Hugo or Roman Roland in his tragedy 'Antoinette'.

Early Roman politics Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Early Roman politics - Assignment Example The era marked the creation of the Rome Republic ruled by magistracies including praetors, tribunes, censors, and aediles (Winterling 57). The Republic also had a voting assembly that would vote on crucial matters like war. Series of wars and attacks would weaken Romans political system, but the Republic was able to regain its dominance in the Mediterranean Sea region and become politically strong again. The Late Republic era marked the dominance of senators on the countrys political system though emergency of influential individuals like Julio Ceasar would shape early politics in Rome (Winterling 54). Julio Ceasar came at a time when politics situation in Rome was restless with clear political divisions. The republic governance also marked early Roman politics. The Senate had full legislative power. The era also marked autocratic rule by emperors whose presence meant that the Senate could only function as an advisory body to the Emperor. The early political situation in Rome depicts a republic with weak political institutions a factor that would lead to the fall of some

Hooks law Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Hooks law - Lab Report Example The magnitude of this restoring force is directly proportional to the stretch in the relation below. From the relation it is evident that if a plot of F as a function of ∆ l has a linear proportion. This provides confirmation that the spring conforms to Hookes Law and enables us to find k mathematically. (Sears, 1981) The objective of this experiment is to study the behavior of ordinary springs in static and dynamic situations. We will determine the spring constant,  k , (K which is the stiffness of the spring), for an individual spring using both Hookes Law and the properties of an oscillating spring system. Figure 2 indicates that for forces greater than about 4.5N (notice intercept of best fit), there is a linear relation between force and extension. For small loads such a relationship fails, since the fit curve does not intercept the y axis at zero. It is assumed that this is caused by an initial "set" in the spring which requires some initial load to overcome. This is apparent if one stretches the spring manually and then releases it. It seems to snap shut at the last moment. These were used to plot the line on the graph. The slope of the line, ignoring loads of less than 4.5N, was found to be 147.36 N/m. From Equation 1, we see that we need to multiply this quantity by g to calculate a value for the spring constant of k = 217.4  ± 1.8 N/m. A graph of force versus the magnitude of displacement resulted in the expected straight line in the range of forces examined and is consistent with Hooke’s law. The slope of this line, 147.36 N/m, is the spring constant, which agrees with value found by taking the average of the calculated spring constant. The intercept for the best fit straight line intersects close to the origin, which is also consistent with Hooke’s law. The potential sources of error in this experiment are due to the precision of the location measurement using the meter rule and the accuracy of the slotted masses used. The meter

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving Essay Example for Free

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving Essay A popular theme in literature concerns the concept of growing up, a painful process by which a character achieves maturity, self-knowledge and confidence. In the novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, the character of Owen Meany achieves this painful process. Owen Meany is introduced in the novel as a remarkable individual and throughout it can be observed how the brilliant child evolves into the memorable individual that he turns into. In the novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, Owen Meany matures, gains self-knowledge and confidence to become the miracle that his character was. Owen Meany was obviously a brilliant child, but was still able to improve on his excellent character as he was growing. This can be seen through Owens maturity level. He was always remarkable advanced and mature for his age, but as he became older, he understood even more than before. His best friend was Johnny Wheelwright. In their friendship, Owen looked after Johnny. He gave him advice and even helped him out academically. When Johnny was bitter about his mother not revealing to him who his father was before she died, Owen came up with a mature response, Of course, as Owen pointed out to me, I was only eleven when she died, and my mother was only thirty; she probably thought she had a lot of time left to tell me the story. She didnt know she was going to die, as Owen Meany put it. (Irving 10) In the face of irrationality, Owen found it easy to point out the logic. The easy way he comes up with intelligent responses to difficult questions are proof of this childs brilliance. Later on his life, the reader sees that Owen has matured in regards to his perspective on Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. Kennedy had been somewhat of a hero in Owens mind and he had felt betrayed by him. He is able to later recover from this viewpoint and analyze the situation differently. Shes just like our whole country not quite young anymore. But not old either; a little breathless, very beautiful, maybe a little stupid, maybe a lot more smarter than she seemed. And she was looking for something I think she wanted to be good. Look at the men in her life Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, maybe the Kennedys. Look at how good they seem! Look at how desirable she was! She was never quite happy She was just like our whole country Those famous powerful men did they really love her? Did they take care of her? If she was ever with the Kennedys, they couldnt have loved her they were just using her . People will do and say anything just to get the power; then theyll use the power just to get a thrill . The country is a sucker for powerful men who look good, we think theyre moralists and then they just use us. Thats whats going to happen to you and me were going to be used. (Irving 431) Owen Meany is very good at analysis, and he uses these talents to make conclusions on many things. It is an excellent example of his maturity. When Owen first discovered that JFK might be having an affair with Marilyn Monroe, he was shocked. Now, he is able to rationalize it and see JFK in a different light. He is able to come up with educated ideas concerning JFK and Marilyn Monroe. His metaphor of Marilyn Monroe and the United States is an excellent one. Both Marilyn Monroe and America have a great deal in common because of their mutual exploitation by the rich and powerful. Owen Meany learns a great deal about himself through the course of his life. He is convinced that there are reasons for all things. One of his strongest conviction stems from what his parents told him about him being born in the same way as Jesus. Due to this, Owen feels very convinced and assured of himself. He is a highly intelligent child: I know three things. I know that my voice doesnt change, and I know when Im going to die. I wish I knew why my voice never changes, I wish I knew how I was going to die; But God has allowed me to know more than most people know so Im not complaining. The third thing I know is that I am Gods instrument; I have faith that God will let me know what Im supposed to do, and when Im supposed to do it. (Irving 366) Owen has complete faith that there are reasons for his being the way he is. This is an example of Owens self-knowledge. He knew these things with a complete certainty and accepted them. Few people will have blind faith in something. Owen had questions, but he still put his faith in God, bowing to his superiority. He knows who he is. He understands his purpose. He is told by many that he is crazy and insane for thinking that there is a plan for why he has the voice he has. He is also told that he should run far away from what he thinks his destiny is, but Owen is not most people. He knows what his destiny is and runs towards it. Owens self-awareness and knowledge is what allows him to feel that he is headed towards the right path. In the end, Owen was right. He is able to save the Vietnamese children, It was not only because he spoke their language; it was his voice that compelled the children to listen to him it was a voice like their voices. That was why they trusted him, why they listened. DOONG SA, he said, and they stopped crying. (Irving 612) In the end, Owen is to be admired for his self-knowledge. Johnny would now be wrong in thinking Owen to be strange for thinking that his odd voice had a purpose. It did have a purpose. Owens voice helped him save the Vietnamese children. Owen Meany has a great deal of confidence in himself. If he sets his mind to do something, he can do anything. Owen Meany desperately wanted to join the army and be able to fight so that he could fulfill his purpose that he discovered in his dream. If theres a war and Im in the army, I want to be in the war I dont want to spend the war at a desk. Look at it this way: we agree that Harry Hoyt is an idiot. Whos going to keep the Harry Hoyts from getting their heads blown off? (Irving 462) The way that Owen ended the statement, almost makes him sound cocky. In a way, he is, but another term to describe it would be that Owen is confident. He places total trust in God that what will happen will happen. He is confident that he is going to die, fulfill his purpose in life and be a hero. It is uncanny how unshakable Owens faith is. Most people are unable to practice what they preach, and Owen does what he thinks is right. He does live by his rules. It is unbelievable that he is willing to throw away his life because of his faith in God. He does not even have any proof of assurance that God does exist, but in his mind he does not need any. When Owen would be practicing his basketball shot with Johnny and it would get dark, he would ask Johnny if he could still see a statue of Mary Magdalene after it became completely dark. He would ask Johnny how he could be certain that she was still there, if he could not see her, You absolutely know she isnt there even though you cant see her? Well, now you know how I feel about God I cant see Him but I absolutely know he is there! (Irving 451) Owen explains to Johnny that he just knows in his gut and instinctively that God exists. In the same way that people can understand and accept that other things exist without physical proof, Owen is convinced of the existence of God. His confidence is daunting. It is unusual for a person to be so rationally convinced about theology and at the same time be willing to go to extremes in the name of God. When he was getting closer to the day of his death, he had doubts, I dont know why hes here I just know he has to be here! But I dont even know that not anymore. It doesnt make sense! Where is Vietnam in all of this? Where are those poor children? Was it all just a terrible dream? Am I simply crazy? Is tomorrow just another day? (Irving 604) Owen is growing up. He is scared and confused. He doesnt know why Johnny has to be there for his dream to come true. He doesnt know if anything is going to happen. His doubts are the most important step to his growing up. In the end, he was right all along. The character, Owen Meany, was a miraculous one, due to his maturity, self-knowledge and confidence, in the novel A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. Owen was always mature for his age, but he was able to improve on it and make better judgements. He understood that although Kennedy was someone who had been a hero to him, that things are not always as you want them to be. He was able to open his mind to this, and eventually accept the possibility that Kennedy might have behaved inappropriately. Owen had an extreme amount of assurance in himself. He just knew some things and did not feel the need to question them too much. He knew that there was a reason for his voice and although, he wanted to know why, he did not feel daunted by this. He had faith in his ability to do things, even some that he did not manage to do, such as, going to war. Owens confidence is the last important point in his path to growing up. He had doubts and fear, but in the end his confidence in God and himself won out. Owen finally grew up, when he did what he was meant to do by God.

Dualism and idealistic monism Essay Example for Free

Dualism and idealistic monism Essay In philosophy and more specifically metaphysics, dualism has been defined as the belief that two fundamental and incompatible types of things that make up the universe; idealistic monism argues instead that the universe is made up of just one thing, and that is the realm of ideas or the mind. Hence, if one were to very simplistically state the difference between dualism and idealistic monism, one may argue that dualism stands for the concept of body versus mind whereas idealistic monism stands for just the mind as being the sole component of everything. Monism in general implies the belief that the Universe is not made up of diametrically opposite concepts or entities, but just one thing that can have many manifestations but in its essential nature, remains the same. While idealistic monism argues that all is made up the mind or ideas, materialistic monism states that only the physical realm makes up everything, and the mental can be ultimately reduced to the physical as well. Plato argued that there exists a realm of ideas where there are forms of ideas that the Universe commonly reflects, and that these immutable ideas are superior and immortal as opposed to the transient objects themselves. Thus, he argued the idea of something is more real than the thing itself. He also said that the mind is identical with the soul, but that the soul pre-exists and survives the body. Later, Berkeley and Kant added to the discourse of idealism by agreeing that all the manifestations of all that happens in the physical world have its root in the mind and in the realm of ideas. The dualists’ argument of all reality being divided between matter and mind seems perhaps the most natural, at least at first glance, because in the physical world the distinctions between the mind and matter are so clearly distinguishable. Human beings tend to see the two as separate entities and see how one might function even as the other is unable to, in case of illness or injuries. Also, through the ages, folklore and religion have always made a clear distinction between two forces that govern the workings of the universe: good and evil, benevolent and malevolent, mortal and eternal. Thus, it is easy to understand why these arguments may be considered legitimate. However, dualism talks about a very extreme universe where there don’t seem to be any grey areas that merge these extreme concepts of benevolence and malevolence or body and mind. Monism attributes oneness in the entire Universe. The proponents of monism have included Parmenides, Melissus, and Spinoza and more recently, Horgan and Potrc. They hold that there really is just one thing that makes everything up, and that it is extremely complex in the number of variations it can take. Idealistic monism stands for the concept that this â€Å"one thing† is the consciousness or the realm of the mind, from where everything else is conceived and thus given physical shape. If the mind had not thought up something, it would not exist in either the mental or the physical plane. Thus, whatever is physical can be brought fundamentally to the mental realm and said to have originated from there. At the most basic level, therefore, all reality for the idealist monist originates in the mind in the form of an idea, and this idea is more real than any physical structures that it might give birth to, because it is eternal and cannot ever die or cease to be. In this way, ideas form the entire universe and will continue to do so as generations of humans live and die. I think that idealism is more plausible than dualism. Firstly, I do not agree with the dualist extremes that are always incompatible and as a sum of opposites that make up the universe. I do not think the universe can be explained as simply as that, because at many points these two extremes do seem to converge and coexist in a way so as not to seem wholly incompatible. It does seem more plausible to me that the realm of the mind is more â€Å"real† than anything else because ideas are eternal and make up the world. Thus, I tend to agree with the monist viewpoint – about a world that is complex but is made up of the realm of ideas that are immutable. Monistic philosophy seems to embrace the existence of seemingly contradictory things in a way that is much more accepting and broader than the dualistic view.

The Role Of Mental Health Nurses Nursing Essay

The Role Of Mental Health Nurses Nursing Essay Finally there will be identification of the relevant skills and knowledge that was gained as a result of the series of this encounter. I will identify CASH model, for further knowledge and skills in my training. I will adhere to confidentiality issue in line with the Nursing and Midwifery Code of professional conduct (The Code, 2008) therefore pseudonyms will be used throughout in the commentary. Recovery is a deeply personal, unique process of changing ones attitudes, values, feelings, goals, skills and/or roles. It is a way of living a satisfying, hopeful, and contributing life even with limitations caused by the illness. (Boardman, 2010) The journey of recovery may have ups and downs but a period of illness does not necessarily mean that recovery stops it may in fact be part of the longer-term process of growth and development(Repper Perkins, 2003) Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (2008) states that the principles of recovery is about building a meaningful and satisfying life as defined by the person whether or not there is reoccurring symptoms or problems, recovery is a movement away from pathology illnesses and symptoms of health strength and wellness. Rethink (2008) also suggested four important component of recovery as finding, maintaining hope i.e. believing in ones self, optimistic about the future, re-establishing of a positive identity, building a meaningful life, taking responsibility and control . Fredrick, a 41 year old gentleman of African origin who struggles with drug addiction, came into contact with the drug and alcohol services for treatment informally. Fredrick was living in a hostel and was well known to the service. At the initial interview Fredrick stated that his childhood was bad and his parents separated when he was still a little child. His grandmother was responsible for his upbringing. Fredrick declined to give information regarding his parents. He further confirmed that his drug addiction started when he separated from his partner, the mother of his three children. He became anxious when he became unemployed and was unable to get back to work. Fredrick said he has a prison record for shop lifting, he said he did this to sustain his drug addiction. At the assessment, the nurse asked Fredrick why he was just coming into treatment now, what has he been doing for the past two months and what does he want from the services? because he was informal. I felt that the question was aggressive due to the way the nurse was asking him. Positive reinforcement and rewards such as praise from others have been suggested as improving self-esteem (Logan 1985). Huberman and OBrien (1999) found that positive reinforcement was one of the factors that resulted in improvements in the work of therapists and in the progress of patients in mental health. Positive reinforcement can be used here to reward Fredrick for coming in that was what the nurse should have asked him, how he has been coping and what has kept him going for the last two months, this can be his strength and which can use to plan and work collaboratively with him. Shepherd (2007) states that we should encourage self-management of mental health issues by providing information, reinforcing existing coping strategies. Perkins, (2007) also stated that clients may be encouraged to write down their symptoms and coping strategies, by focusing on small steps for change, increase their sense of self control over distressing events (Scips 5.4.3). The nurse discussed with Fredrick various options which was recommended by NICE, (2005) guidelines (SCiP 5.3.1) valuing the need for evidenced based practice such as abstinence based treatment, those that can help him to stop taking drugs, harm reduction; those that reduce the risk involved in using drugs and maintenance treatment, that is taking opioid substitute. The nurse reflected on the issue of pharmacology intervention for detoxification. NICE, (2007a) and the D.O.H 2007 guidelines recommend that methadone or Buprenorphine should be offered as the first choice of treatment. The nurse also reflected on the key ingredient of recovery-oriented practice, provide by Borg and Kristiansen (2004). The nurse discussed what he hopes to achieve through treatment and giving him information and various options (SCiP5.4.2) providing good meaningful choice and collaboration, the nurse was also able to give Fredrick information which enables him to make informed choice and also manage his ris k appropriately, treat him with respect regardless of his problem. The NMC of professional conduct (2002) explains that you must respect the patients as an individual. This means that you look at all the diverse elements that make up a patient. This provides the basis of holism. Siviter (2004) outlines that holism and holistic care look at the patient as a whole person, with distinctive and individual needs and condition. Holism ensures the nurse to see more than just the situation the patients are in care. It encourages them to look at the way the patients feel, what is paramount to them and their families, their living condition and their beliefs. It focuses on their spiritual, emotional, physiological, psychological and cultural needs. This ensures the care given meets all patients needs in a respectful and dignified way. Fredrick was prescribed Methadone since that was his choice he was titrated for three days, and he comes in for observation for possible side effect or withdrawals symptoms daily. The nurse gave him information and leaflets on the medication (SCiP 5.4.2). The nurse also reflected on the key ingredient of recovery-oriented practice, provided by Borg and Kristiansen (2004). I felt this was a good example of empowering him to take responsibility of his treatment. Tunmore and Thomas states that care plan can be used as a therapeutic tool, and also as a means of engaging clients and family in care. My skills has improved by using the tenets of recovery as stated by various authors and the chief nursing officers review of mental health putting values into practice, improving outcomes for service users and working as a positive modern professional. I also learnt that recovery does not necessarily mean cure but it is when someone is able to leave a normal life despite an illness or disability. I will continue to update myself with available evidence in order to deliver a patient centre care and improve my skills and practice. My working with the nurse and Fredrick, I was able to apply recovery approach in according to the Chief Nursing Officer review (D.O.H.. 2007), using best based available evidence by NICE and the D.O.H drug and substance misuse and I was able to establish and sustain a trusting, meaningful, therapeutic and collaborative relationship with the nurse and Fredrick by involving him in planning his care, these according to (NIHME 2005) needs to be the core to all relationships. I was also able to give Fredrick information which enables him to make informed choice and also manage his risk appropriately like. I have being able to treat him with respect regardless of his problem and my interventions have been evidenced based. I was not too confident in working with Fredrick since I was still training so I have to work under supervision of the nurse and I also lacked the knowledge of Motivational interviewing (MI) such as not cohering the client into taking decision but after discussion with the psychologist, reading researches, I now feel confident in using MI in my practice when I qualify. It will comprise of reading literatures and journals on how to build a therapeutic relationship. To read more on motivational interviews techniques and relapse prevention management, enhance my skills and practice. In conclusion this reflection has discussed my therapeutic encounter with a client I worked with who is drug dependant. It highlighted how I was able to build a therapeutic relationship by collaboration with Fredrick to address his drug use using the best based evidence supported by NICE guidelines and UK clinical guidelines for drug misuse, the NTA model to stabilize and maintain him. The reflection also discussed how the professionals (nurses) were able to enable and support recovery from drug use and able to live a meaningful life. These were achieved by using the tenets of recovery as stated by various authors and the chief nursing officers review of mental health putting values into practice, improving outcomes for service users and working as a positive modern professional. Recovery does not necessarily mean cure but it is when someone is able to leave a normal life despite an illness or disability.