Tom Grimwood
I am a Professor of Social Philosophy and Head of the Graduate School at the University of Cumbria. My research explores the intersection between professional practices and philosophy, looking at specific sites where intellectual pursuit and its material conditions are placed in tension with one another: whether in applied service delivery (such as the concepts underlying health provision or social work practice), or in cultural discussions (such as irony, cliche, silence and ignorance). I work mainly in the hermeneutic tradition, drawing together philosophy with contemporary art, video games, film and public debate.
I also lead Health and Society Knowledge Exchange (HASKE), which is a contract research and evaluation centre that has a particular focus on cultural change in health and care provision, exploring new intervention pathways, allied health role change and training, and regional health determinants.
Address: Centre for Research in Health and Society (CRiHS)
Institute of Health
Lancaster LA1 3JD
I also lead Health and Society Knowledge Exchange (HASKE), which is a contract research and evaluation centre that has a particular focus on cultural change in health and care provision, exploring new intervention pathways, allied health role change and training, and regional health determinants.
Address: Centre for Research in Health and Society (CRiHS)
Institute of Health
Lancaster LA1 3JD
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Books by Tom Grimwood
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Problem_with_Stupid/EH-3EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
Today, the social world is marked by deep-rooted complexities, tensions and challenges. Health workers and social workers are constantly reminded to employ critical thinking to navigate this world through their practice. But given how many of these challenges pose significant problems for the theories that these subjects have traditionally drawn upon, should we now be critical of critical thinking – its assumptions, its basis, and its aspirations – itself? Arguing that health and social work theory must reconsider its deep-rooted assumptions about criticality in order to navigate complex neoliberalism, post-truth, and the relationship between language and late capitalism, it examines how the fusion of theory and practice can re-imagine critical thinking for health and social work in social work. It will be of interest to all scholars, students and professionals of social work and health and social care.
This book is the first examination of the cliché as a philosophical concept. Challenging the idea that clichés are lazy or spurious opposites to genuine thinking, it instead locates them as a dynamic and contestable boundary between ‘thought’ and ‘non-thought’. It unpacks the constituent phenomena of clichés – repetition, the readymade, same-ness – through readings of ‘anti-philosophical’ thinkers such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sloterdijk, and Groys, within sites of the cliché in practice: memorial poppies, cinematic reboots, art installations and more.
Rejecting the idea that clichés should be dismissed out of hand on normative frameworks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ thinking, or ‘new’ and ‘old’ ideas, it instead interrogates the material, cultural and archival ground on which these frameworks are built.
1. Interpretation: Social Work and Hermeneutics
2. Community: The Case of the Missing Community
3. Identity: A Short Word from Nietzsche: Marginalisation, Recognition and Ressentiment
4. Ethics: Three Concerns About Human Rights
5. Documents: The Politics of Writing
6. Self: Who Am I, and What do I Actually Do?
7. Culture: The Culture Industry
8. Knowledge: Professionalised Practice and the Locus of Expertise
Papers by Tom Grimwood
The survey respondents held a variety of clinical and non-clinical roles within NHS 111 and the Clinical Hub. The findings indicate that the IUC workforce is motivated to care for their patients and utilise a range of communication and cognitive skills to undertake their telephone triage roles. In total, 67% of respondents indicated that their work was stressful, particularly the volume and intensity of calls. Although the initial training prepared the majority of respondents for their current roles (73%), access to continuing professional development (CPD) varied across the workforce with only 40% being aware of the opportunities available. A total of 81% of respondents stated that their shifts were regularly understaffed which indicates that the retention of IUC staff is problematic; this can put additional pressure on the existing workforce, impact on staff morale and create logistical issues with managing annual leave entitlements or scheduling time for training.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Problem_with_Stupid/EH-3EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
Today, the social world is marked by deep-rooted complexities, tensions and challenges. Health workers and social workers are constantly reminded to employ critical thinking to navigate this world through their practice. But given how many of these challenges pose significant problems for the theories that these subjects have traditionally drawn upon, should we now be critical of critical thinking – its assumptions, its basis, and its aspirations – itself? Arguing that health and social work theory must reconsider its deep-rooted assumptions about criticality in order to navigate complex neoliberalism, post-truth, and the relationship between language and late capitalism, it examines how the fusion of theory and practice can re-imagine critical thinking for health and social work in social work. It will be of interest to all scholars, students and professionals of social work and health and social care.
This book is the first examination of the cliché as a philosophical concept. Challenging the idea that clichés are lazy or spurious opposites to genuine thinking, it instead locates them as a dynamic and contestable boundary between ‘thought’ and ‘non-thought’. It unpacks the constituent phenomena of clichés – repetition, the readymade, same-ness – through readings of ‘anti-philosophical’ thinkers such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sloterdijk, and Groys, within sites of the cliché in practice: memorial poppies, cinematic reboots, art installations and more.
Rejecting the idea that clichés should be dismissed out of hand on normative frameworks of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ thinking, or ‘new’ and ‘old’ ideas, it instead interrogates the material, cultural and archival ground on which these frameworks are built.
1. Interpretation: Social Work and Hermeneutics
2. Community: The Case of the Missing Community
3. Identity: A Short Word from Nietzsche: Marginalisation, Recognition and Ressentiment
4. Ethics: Three Concerns About Human Rights
5. Documents: The Politics of Writing
6. Self: Who Am I, and What do I Actually Do?
7. Culture: The Culture Industry
8. Knowledge: Professionalised Practice and the Locus of Expertise
The survey respondents held a variety of clinical and non-clinical roles within NHS 111 and the Clinical Hub. The findings indicate that the IUC workforce is motivated to care for their patients and utilise a range of communication and cognitive skills to undertake their telephone triage roles. In total, 67% of respondents indicated that their work was stressful, particularly the volume and intensity of calls. Although the initial training prepared the majority of respondents for their current roles (73%), access to continuing professional development (CPD) varied across the workforce with only 40% being aware of the opportunities available. A total of 81% of respondents stated that their shifts were regularly understaffed which indicates that the retention of IUC staff is problematic; this can put additional pressure on the existing workforce, impact on staff morale and create logistical issues with managing annual leave entitlements or scheduling time for training.
The first part of this paper presents the thesis that a major impact of postmodernism and social constructivism on culture was to create the conditions where artists abdicate their authorship through fear of being termed authoritarian. It is assumed that artworks cannot reveal truths, as truth itself is a social construct. To assert a truth claim would merely be to pick one narrative from many. What is post-truth if not the impossibility of truth claims? We argue that the resulting suspicion of artistic expertise renders artworks 'empty signifiers' onto which any meaning can be projected, by anybody. If SEA has become an empty signifier, then we can read populist politics in the same vein. During the Brexit campaign Michael Gove infamously declared ‘Britain has had enough of experts’, and when asked what Brexit means Theresa May responded that 'Brexit means Brexit', for example.
The second part of this paper offers a deconstructive antithesis, arguing that the role of postmodernism and social constructivism is overstated in the creation of post-truth. We argue that the valorisation of objectivity and truth merely reify particular terms. Reification is read as a form of ‘monumentalising’ which drives a dysfunctional model of cultural value, and consequently contributes to instabilities around social identities and fuels cultural tensions. So-called ‘unmonumental’ art (including SEA) is actually monumental in its reification of equality. It is this monumentalising process, rather than postmodernism per se, that has the bigger impact on post-truth.
The paper concludes with a call for art to retain a dialectical tension between equality and the production of truth as a cultural value; a dialectic which involves the careful reinstatement of artistic authorship and a more sincere vision of SEA’s political ambitions and signification.
This paper examines the key cultural motifs commonly invoked to capture such a tension, in terms of a medium hitherto under-explored in terms of its cultural expressions of heroism and deviance: the video game. Video games routinely employ ‘madness’ as a narrative trope, a plot device or, in some cases, a condition of play. Whilst always limited and fallible as representations of ‘genuine’ madness, they nevertheless provide a significant space for analysing how madness and heroism are associated, and, indeed, the possibilities they offer for reclaiming experiences of madness from its wider cultural representation. Far from being a minority past time, video gaming exerts a key influence on the contemporary cultural sphere, superseding the film and print media industries in sales since 2009.
The paper analyses two particular recurrent motifs in particular. The first is the representation of madness through the ‘monstrous double’. With this motif, players are confronted with madness as a ‘dark side’ to a character’s personality, an uncontrollable ‘other’ whose relation to the player is usually embedded within a wider moral choice within the game’s plot. Rooted in 19th century literary accounts of madness, we argue that this motif essentially casts madness as a demonic ‘other’ to the hero, which is rendered purposeful only when ultimately overcome by a principle of normality. The second motif is the ‘tentacle’. Whether attached to an enemy or the player themselves, the tentacle expresses an unpredictable, uncontrollable and contagious force which defies conventional gameplay strategy. As such, the tentacle offers a more complex motif of madness and its disempowering relation to heroism. However, if the monstrous double under-states the subversion of heroism through madness, the tentacle over-states this by its wider cultural association with otherwise unrelated threats – sea monsters, aliens, and sexual predation. Both motifs are, therefore, always inadequate to represent madness, but in exploring its inadequacy, the paper shows how such attempts to represent the heroism of madness reveals particular assumptions about the nature, first, of heroism, and second, the debilitation of madness.
The aims of the project were to:
- Identify the critical facets of an asset-based approach to Widening Participation for young people from Cumbria.
- Using these facets, and other information, to create an asset-based approach (to WP) for young people from Cumbria.
What constitutes a ‘rural and/or coastal context’ in relation to Widening Participation?
How can the contextual dimensions of Widening Participation be understood and accounted for when outreach activities are delivered?
What is the existing evidence for ‘what works’ for outreach activities in similar contexts outside of Cumbria?
The report will help to inform future outreach activities and evaluation by providing a detailed and nuanced account of the rural and coastal contexts from the perspective of young people, including recommendations that can be used by partners and the Hello Future central team to support outreach activities.
An evaluation commissioned by Health Education England. Following the publication of Better Births (National Maternity Review, 2016), and to support the Government’s target of halving stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths by 2025, Health Education England introduced the Maternity Safety Training Fund to distribute over £8.1 million to NHS trusts with maternity services in England. The purpose of this initiative was to fund multidisciplinary training to improve maternity safety and care for mothers and babies. Health and Social Care Evaluations at the University of Cumbria were commissioned to conduct an evaluation of the impacts and outcomes of the Maternity Safety Training Fund.
This is the 12-month evaluation report of the Morecambe Bay PACS Vanguard, conducted by HASCE at the University of Cumbria.
The Care Homes pilot was initiated in January 2014 across the Kendal area. This pilot introduced a structured, proactive care approach to identifying and managing health needs in the elderly patients. The model involved coordinated work of multidisciplinary professionals, consisting of a Prescribing Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Pharmacist, Practice Medicine Manager and a Dietician. These positions undertook a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to identifying care needs, with a key aim of reducing the strain on primary and acute care.
The evaluation of the pilot took a mixed-methods approach, utilising existing data for statistical analysis, and semi-structured interviews for qualitative analysis.