BARF THE MAWG he's his own best friend

ARE THE GIRLS INCLUDED? if so, let's have a blast!

THE UNITED STATES who says it's not classy?

THE ROAD it sneers at your frail attempt to be punctual today

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During the 2017 Conference & Expo in Boston, the Standards Quest took participants through a journey of the Standards Development Process.  Participants answered questions on the Public Input, Public Comment, Technical Meeting (NITMAM), and

NFPA's 2017 Conference & Expo features presentations informed by research and practice and reflect thought leadership in the field. Sessions address new areas this year such as: effective and efficient enforcement, building electrical safety

As most of us know, states across the U.S. can no longer rely on a defined fire season. This sobering truth is especially evident in California where the fire season is 70 days longer than it was 40 years ago, and fire ignitions in the state have greatly

  These were the words of Captain Peter Berger of Hallandale Beach Fire Rescue as he spoke to a full house of fire service industry leaders — along with his partner Captain Greg Moulin of DFW Airport Fire Services — on the topic of

The wildfire disaster that struck Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada in May 2016 destroyed more than 2,400 structures and created insured losses of more than $3.5 billion. The incident captured the hearts and minds of the media and citizens the world over,

  During the session Promoting A Culture Of Safety And Fitness To Prevent Cancer, Heart Disease, and Injuries in Boston Firefighters at NFPA’s Conference & Expo (C&E), Dr. Michael Hamrock, a former firefighter and medical

This article explores the impact of abandonment abuse and neglect, not only on children but, centrally, on the foster carers, adopters and kinship carers who parent children where it has been deemed that a return home to birth parents is not in their interests. (For purposes of simplicity we will refer to these carers as ‘parenting figures’.) In doing this we aim to provide parenting figures with support and understanding as well as reducing the feelings of isolation that is often integral to parenting ‘looked after’ children.

Explores how the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS) promotes the delivery of cost effective social services in Scotland that will support the achievement of positive outcomes for people accessing support. It identifies a number of principles that underpin the work of IRISS and suggests how these facilitate innovative evidence-informed practice. The approach to evidence-informed practice comprises four pillars of activity. The first pillar focuses on improving awareness and access to evidence and is exemplified by the Learning Exchange, the IRISS Insights series, and audio and video recording. The second pillar refers to strengthening the evidence base and is discussed in the context of work on self-directed support. Improving skills and confidence to use evidence forms the third pillar and is represented by work on data visualisation and peer support for self-evaluation. The final pillar is embedding evidence in organisations, through co-production, creating spaces to test and challenge evidence, and through the development of evidence-based products. Supporting people to share knowledge, learn from each other and to collectively produce new knowledge and solutions is an innovative approach but also one which should be cost-effective. Pre-print. Published in Evidence and Policy, 2014 (10)4 as Embedding research into practice through innovation and creativity: a case study from social services

This is a paper produced as part of the PROP2 (Practitioner Research: Outcomes and Partnership) programme, a partnership between the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) at the University of Edinburgh and IRISS that was about health and social care in Scotland. This paper was written by Raymond Brennan from ENABLE Scotland who participated in the PROP2 programme. This research is an attempt to understand the difficulties people with learning disabilities face around friendships and relationships. Recent evidence produced in the ‘Keys to Life’ highlights the impact social isolation has on people with learning disabilities. This research is concerned with the experiences parents and children have when choosing their options of schooling, and if the ‘Circle of Friends’ approach would make the option of mainstream school less daunting.

Systematic review produced by the EPPI-Centre in 2015.This systematic review aimed to evaluate the effect of HAART and ARV monotherapy on liver disease progression and liver-related mortality in individuals co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C, including in patients with haemophilia.

Report 68 published by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in November 2014. This report will help readers to understand the Learning Together methodology.

This is a paper produced as part of the PROP2 (Practitioner Research: Outcomes and Partnership) programme, a partnership between the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) at the University of Edinburgh and Iriss that was about health and social care in Scotland. This paper was written by Geraldine Ditta from Alzheimer Scotland who participated in the PROP2 programme. People living with dementia are at risk of becoming socially isolated and disconnected from their local communities. Reactions from others on being told someone has dementia can have a significant impact on the person with dementia’s sense of self. This study sought to explore the perceptions of people with dementia in relation to attitudes within their communities and how they subsequently respond. Semi-structured interviews were carried out to examine how they feel about their lives with dementia.

Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) Report 72 from SCIE Roundtable held on 5 March 2015. This roundtable session explored the kind of leadership required to make the Care Act a success.

Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) Report 73 from SCIE roundtable discussion held on 26 March 2015. This report considers the potential of technology to transform how health and social care services are delivered.

As part of the implementation of the Equal Partners in Care (EPiC) Highland Carer’s Strategy 2014-2017 it was agreed to undertake a review of respite for Adult Carers of Adults (aged 16+). Independent consultants were commissioned by NHS Highland through Connecting Carers to undertake this work. There are four groups of people – totalling an estimated 200 people - with whom conversations have taken place during the review: Carers and staff from carer support organisations – more than 75 carers have given their views; Health and social care workforce – we have met with just over 50 people who have given their views and shared our initial findings with more than 60 others; Respite providers – we have met with staff from 15 organisations that are providers of respite Those staff responsible for overseeing the commissioning, planning and administration of respite.

The 10th international short break conference took place in Edinburgh from 13 to 15 September 2016. This conference report explores the barriers experienced in accessing short breaks and how these have been overcome.

This End of Project Report describes an innovative Transition to Work Programme for young people with autistic spectrum diagnoses and is the result of a pilot programme developed by Lothian Autistic Society (LAS) and Scottish Outdoor Education Centres (SOEC) and made possible through funding from Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). The pilot had the twin aims of developing employability skills and exploring the therapeutic value of the outdoors. 

This research compares the different approaches to supporting carers of people with dementia across the UK, US and beyond.  Carried out by the University of Birmingham, this work explores the role and experience of carers in different national contexts, highlighting good practice examples and making policy and practice recommendations.  Unsurprisingly perhaps, the report highlights just how much we have in common with other countries in trying to make available effective, personalised supports against a backdrop of increased demand and diminishing resource.  Interestingly, the report explores the language of ‘respite’ which it suggests has ‘negative overtones’ and proposes a more creative approache to service provision is needed.

Donald Trump's kept it pretty low key on Twitter in recent days. That didn't stop him from penning a little St. Paddy's Day sentiment though. If only he'd spell checked before sending it off though. Then again, would we expect anything less than this from the guy with a wide-reaching, well-developed reputation already for spelling shit in his own language incorrectly?

Yeah, yeah, we know. Here are some Trump Memes to smooth it over.

Say what you will about the President, but there's no denying that his Twitter habits have given us hours of entertainment. His latest Twitter escapade was regarding Time Magazine's 'Person of the Year' issue. On Saturday  President Trump tweeted "Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named "Man (Person) of the Year," like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!" Parodies from comedians such as Julia Louis Dreyfuss and Billy Eichner began pouring in, along with riffs on New Yorker cartoons. Here are some of our favorites. 

And on a side note, here are some of our favorite tremendous Trump memes that are nearly unbelievable.

Just in case you missed it because you were too busy perusing tremendous Trump memes, Donald Trump has a profound fear/hatred of sharks. Naturally, the internet was ready to step up and offer moral support, or just, you know, troll the sh*t out of him. 

While Trump Memes have been online for a while by now, the internet has come up with a brand new meme in light of footage of Donald Trump craning his neck over the voting booths to check his wife Melania's ballot. Possibly because everyone has a lot of time on their hands while they wait in insanely long voting lines.

Everyone needs to read this woman's insightful Facebook post amidst the whole college admission's scandal dominating our news feeds. 

To #TrumpYourCat, you should brush your pet, then form the hair into a "toupee", and place it on top of their head. Oh, and you can thank Donald Purrump for this genius idea!

And if you need some more Trump memes <-- those are simply tremendous

Has Trump seen people holding signs on the internet before? It never turns out well.

These people are not afraid to carry on hilarious protest signs and tell the world what they really think of Donald Trump's Presidency. Via: Sad and useless  

Just when we thought we'd never get anything better than Donald Trump grasping that orb, we get this dark-humored, delightfully awkward pic that just oozes cringe. Naturally, people were ready to flood Twitter with some entertaining captions. 

North Korea released a smiling picture of Kim Jong-Un and were VERY specific about pointing out the fact that the image was untouched. Obviously the first thing the internet did when they got a hold of the image was to touch it up a bit. The results were glorious.

Queen Elizabeth wore a neon green outfit to her 90th birthday party. What could go wrong? Oh right, the internet...

Look, we definitely don't want to hate on any particular candidate or take sides in this presidential election cycle, but Joe Biden has just been so meme-able this election season that we really had to take advantage of the material handed to us. We think that Biden supporters and haters alike will be able to laugh at these.

We've been seeing these Bernie Sanders memes practically everywhere on the internet lately, and they don't appear to be stopping any time soon! Here's our last gallery in case you missed 'em. 

We sincerely hope you're not sick of political memes yet, because we've still got far to go before the 2020 presidential elections, so buckle up!

Meet the Shadow team in charge of developing an app meant to help tally the votes from the Iowa caucus on Monday night. The purpose of the app was to help the process run more smoothly, but in the end it proved to be a complete and utter disaster, as precinct chairs supposedly couldn't get the app to actually work, in turn causing a delay in reporting.

The delay was blamed on "inconsistencies" in reporting, but honestly, who really knows what the truth is.

The team is reportedly run by people who worked on Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016. Additionally, 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg's campaign paid the tech firm over $40,000 in 2019 leading many to suspect foul play.

But this is America, and we can't possibly have problems with corruption, right?

As of right now, we still don't have all the results from the caucus, so while you continue to anxiously refresh the New York Times page, have some hot Twitter takes on the people (rats) behind Shadow, Inc.

While we would love for election season to be over right about now, we've gotta admit that the resulting political memes have been top-notch. The internet has been loving this particular dank meme, which shows Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripping up Donald Trump's State of the Union speech.

You're probably already aware that Michael Bloomberg, cringey billionaire extraordinaire and 2020 presidential candidate, has been reaching out to various big-name meme accounts on Instagram asking them to post content that makes him look a little more...hip to the kids, shall we say? 

But apparently he's doing something right with his presidential campaign, as he's been soaring in the polls and we're seeing ads for him practically everywhere.

Normally we don't like to get too political, but it's clear that Bloomberg was not hugged enough as a child.

In these trying and crazy times, Kentuckians are looking to Governor Andy Beshear for answers. His daily 5pm livestream updates have become popular for their wholesome messages and his amusing call-outs to stubborn bingo halls that just won't close for coronavirus quarantining. He's even earned himself a Facebook meme page, entitled "Andy Beshear Memes for Social Distancing Teens." 

Check some of them out below!