Helen Cameron

Typology of Religious Characteristics of Social Service and Educational Organizations and Programs—A European Response

The authors are to be congratulated on the clarity and precision of their discussion of faith-based organizations as providers of human services in the United States. They offer their typology in a provisional and exploratory way that bodes well for its ongoing contribution to what at times is a heated debate. As a European commentator, I can offer distance but not objectivity. Although the involvement of faith-based organizations in welfare provision in Europe is increasing, governments have not energetically championed it and so the ideological debate is low-key. As someone who has both studied and participated in the Christian provision of human services, I aim here to offer some different questions that will no doubt reveal my views.

The Morality of the Food Parcel

Abstract This article is adapted from a public lecture give as part of the Ebor Lectures whose 2013–14 series was entitled “The Morality of Austerity”. Its purpose was to invite public reflection on the churches’ most extensive response to austerity, the provision of emergency food often through food banks. After looking at reasons for the pressure on peoples incomes, the article offers some historical, international, and political context to the provision of emergency food. Five concerns are raised in dialogue with the parable of the two sons in Luke 15. The article closes by proposing five actions that can be taken to trigger further reflection on emergency food as a response to austerity.

Professional Identity, Regulation and Formation—A Review of Values in Professional Practice: Lessons for Health, Social Care and Other Professionals

Summary This review article engages with the themes of identity, regulation and formation found in Pattison and Pills Values in Professional Practice (2004).1 The three authors are professionals who engage with the themes and uncover questions relevant to their own practice. These themes are also found in Contact 144 with its focus on professionalism and so contrasting views are illustrated from that source. The review concludes that identity, regulation and formation are linked by trust and knowledge/power. The institution of professionalism rests upon the possibility of social trust and also upon acceptance by lay people of the power conferred by specialist knowledge.