Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Become an OU student

Download this course

Share this free course

Understanding mental capacity
Understanding mental capacity

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

Glossary


Browse the glossary using this index

Special | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | ALL

C

Care management

This title was introduced under the 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act ad refers to the process and role, usually undertaken by a social worker, whereby a person’s care is assessed and managed according to the person’s needs and their eligibility to receive services. This eligibility is determined by the social service department with responsibility for these services in the geographical location in which the person is resident.


Child protection

A shorthand reference to the intervention into the lives of children who are deemed to be at risk of harm. Intervention can come from a number of agencies including social services, police, doctors and nurses.


Criminal justice

The upholding of social control and deterrence of crime. Criminal justice covers three main processes: the creation of law, its adjudication and any correction that is deemed necessary by society.


D

Devolution

Devolution is the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration. In the United Kingdom devolution transferred power from the Westminster Parliament to the devolved law-making bodies in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

S

Sectioned

A term used having been committed compulsorily to a psychiatric hospital in accordance with a section of a mental health act.

Social construction

A general term that sometimes is applied to theories that identify the socially created nature of social life. Specifically it refers to the notion that society is actively produced by human beings which show the world as made or invented.