While a topic of considerable interest in the 1990s and early 2000s, there has been little literature on partnership working in the public sector in recent years. This is surprising given that the practice has been extended through the national roll-out of Neighbourhood Policing in England and Wales in 2008. This article presents a reassessment of how the police operate in partnership with other agencies. In contrast to the previous literature, our research suggests that police officers involved in partnerships find them effective, crucial to their work and, at times, enjoyable. Rather than conflicting with traditional police culture, partnership work is enhanced by, and enhances, the police orientation towards the pragmatic. We explore the implications of this for our understandings of police culture.

Background: Cognitive Muscular TherapyTM (CMT) is an integrated behavioural intervention developed for knee osteoarthritis. CMT teaches patients to reconceptualise the condition, integrates muscle biofeedback and aims to reduce muscle overactivity, both in response to pain and during daily activities. This nested qualitative study explored patient and physiotherapist perspectives and experiences of CMT.Methods: Five physiotherapists were trained to follow a well-defined protocol and then delivered CMT to at least two patients with knee osteoarthritis. Each patient received seven individual clinical sessions and was provided with access to online learning materials incorporating animated videos. Semi-structured interviews took place after delivery/completion of the intervention and data were analysed at the patient and physiotherapist level.Results: Five physiotherapists and five patients were interviewed. All described a process of changing beliefs throughout their engagement with CMT. A framework with three phases was developed to organise the data according to how osteoarthritis was conceptualised and how this changed throughout their interactions with CMT. Firstly, was an identification of pain beliefs to be challenged and recognition of how current beliefs can misalign with daily experiences. Secondly was a process of challenging and changing beliefs, validated through new experiences. Finally, there was an embedding of changed beliefs into self-management to continue with activities. Conclusion:This study identified a range of psychological changes which occur during exposure to CMT. These changes enabled patients to reconceptualise their condition, develop a new understanding of their body, understand psychological processes, and make sense of their knee pain.

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In a previous issue of this journal, Ellis Cashmore (2002) M. O'Neill & S. HoldawayJournal of Ethnic and Migration Studies racism), but that they are actually harmful, presenting a false outward image of effective action. His respondents were highly critical of both targeted minority ethnic recruitment and general police diversity training. These, they argued during interviews, were ‗window dressing', and did not encourage real solutions to institutional racism. Cashmore offered his own suggestions for change (2002: 338-40), which he saw as alternatives to the current recruitment and training policies. One suggestion was to ‗fast-track' minority ethnic officers into higher ranks, a technique he called ‗accelerated action', in a similar way to how some officers with university degrees are currently accelerated. Cashmore argued that this would show that promotion is possible for minority ethnic officers and would increase their visibility within the workforce and the areas policed. He also suggested the development of a ‗national template' of good policing practice that would chart ‗instances of appropriate and helpful policing', especially those that involved minority ethnic police officers and civilians (Cashmore 2002: 339). These events would be organised and stored at a central office as a reference source for all police services nationwide, available by the police intranet. Cashmore saw these two suggestions as having the potential to be more effective in addressing the needs of minority ethnic police officers, staff and community members than targeted recruitment and diversity training.This article re-examines Cashmore's arguments and develops them in the light of findings from our recent research on Black Police Associations (BPAs) in England and Wales. This research investigated the role and general experiences of the BPAs in their police forces. 2 We conducted formal, taped interviews with the chair and deputy chair (or general secretary) of about two-thirds of the BPAs in existence at the time (a total of 33, involving visiting 23 constabularies, one of which served as a pilot). These semi-structured interviews ranged from one hour to almost three hours. We also interviewed the Assistant Chief Constable holding a personnel portfolio, the Director of Human Resources and the chair of the local Police Federation board for each force. Many topics were discussed during our interviews, such as relationships between the BPA and senior management, the history of how each BPA formed, and the challenges BPA members have faced since then. Discussions about recruitment and training came up frequently, although they were not the main focus of each interview.The transcripts of the interviews with BPA chairs and deputy chairs/general secretaries (45 interviews in total) are the main source of our data for this paper. These BPA executive officers are often experts in their own right on issues of recruitment and training due to their extensive involvement in the programmes, either in executing or evaluating them. Ea...

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