Getting into probation speak....

I didn't realise when I was sat in the lectures that were part of the MSc in Public health and health promotion at the University of Manchester why there was constant reference to 'interventions' rather projects schemes or programmes. These would be regarded as more suitable terms for health promotion activity within say the context of regeneration funded initiatives which is one of the major frames that health promotion is understood within at present. It was only when I started reading through the glossary in a home office document, the Supervision of Community Orders, that I realised that the term, intervention, was one that was used in probation. It is perhaps something that an 'offending' community may be sensitive about - why draw this term to use when there may be nothing in terms of substantial links between an offending individual, and an offending community that perhaps doesn't participate in life in the same way as other communities have learnt to do.

It may be something that I haven't been sensitive enough about in the past as I seem to recall having drawn in inappropriate language from alien professions in other circumstances myself. It's justifiable to challenge this and discussing this type of issue is very much about monitoring professional boundaries. When I did it, it was something of a mistake in a psychology seminar to once mention an issue that a fine art student had stated to me - that youth culture to an extent swings in terms of optimism and pessimism in the seventies from folk hippie and glam rock optimism to the pessimistic punk and then back to the early part of the decade, the 1980s being flowing lavish pretentious new wave followed by a solid indie guitar scene leading to the rebirth of negativity in the form of punk-rooted grunge. What may have been interesting about this may have been the overall action of the music scene as a whole to mimic the mood swings of a manic depressive having extensive lows and rather ridiculous highs - I don't know if this is perhaps the worst case of music journalism which already has very severe low points or not - perhaps there is some intention within EMI to do this to the music scene in order to create a beast that youth-music-culture is. Whether this has been notably repeated since I can't say - perhaps the recent indie guitar band revival is part of a much larger project than we're currently led to believe - am I just confusing the da'vinci code with NME, or should I cut down the amount of cannabis I'm smoking before it becomes a class B drug again.

Ho hum, I just wish I could think of something sensible to write about... why not just think about the levellers turning up in the early 1990s as part of the ridiculously optimistic and detached way of thinking of the crustie.... who can say.