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The purpose of the study is to investigate female prisoners’ perspectives on why they gain weight while in prison.

A qualitative design was used with semi-structured interviews with six females currently residing in a prison in the south of England.

Analysis of the data generated three themes relating to the reasons why women gain weight in prison. These were labelled as “The only thing you haven’t got to ask permission for is your food, it’s just handed to you”, “If you’ve been stripped of the things that make you happy, or that you are addicted to, eating can soothe you” and “prison can make you take better care of your health”.

The results identify perceived reasons why women gain weight in prison uniquely from the female prisoner perspective. The implications of the research identify the need for systemic change throughout different prison departments to enable women to maintain a healthy weight during their custodial sentence.

This research explored the impact that the relatively new role of the Health and Wellbeing Lead upon the health and wellbeing of children and their families at this school.

This case study took place in a primary school (children aged 4–11) in the South-West of England. Data was collected through activities with children, semi-structured interviews with senior staff and parents and a “learning walk”.

Our data suggested that this role provided compassion, unconditional positive regard and respect for parents, factors that are frequently absent from research into parent partnerships in education. The role presented as invaluable in tackling the many mental and physical challenges that parents faced in rearing their children, and in providing their children with the best possible chance of success.

This is a single Case Study and, as such, may or may not be representative of similar schools. We also question to what extent the findings demonstrated the strength of this role per se, or whether the impact could simply be the result of a uniquely caring and passionate individual.

We concluded that this was a role needed in all schools, recognising the key role that parents play in their child’s wellbeing, and the indirect impact that parent mental health can have upon their child’s success.

It is vital that this role is not used as an excuse by the government to further reduce the already denuded Social Services landscape within communities. It is also important that this responsibility does not become yet another burden added to already overstretched teaching staff.

This research presents a fresh perspective on the multiple pressures that parents face and how these can impact upon their child's education.

The purpose of this paper is to report on two research studies that explored how older adult residents in assisted living facilities in the United Kingdom (UK) experienced changes to their social activity and well-being during the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.

A qualitative design was used and combined interview data from 13 residents across five assisted living facilities in the UK. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Four themes were developed. The first theme “being locked in” explores the reduction in social contact and feelings of imprisonment experienced by assisted living residents. The second theme “keeping everyone safe” discusses the ways in which isolation was rationalised by older adults through drawing on narratives around safety and protection of others. The third theme “finding new ways to connect” illustrates how learning new skills enabled assisted living residents to maintain connections with others and highlights the novel opportunities for connection presented by communal living. The final theme “keeping a positive outlook” underlines how positive thinking and hope for the future enabled residents to cope with isolation.

The findings from this study present a novel insight into the experience of assisted living residents during Covid-19 restrictions. While it is known that isolation during lockdowns had negative well-being implications for community-dwelling older adults, this study highlights some of the ways that communal living was protective for assisted living resident well-being.

Securing ethical approval can be a frustrating and opaque experience for some creative practice research students who may find the processes required of them not well suited to their specific inquiry. This can lead to an erosion of trust between students and their institutions. This paper aims to synthesize perspectives representing both creative practice research supervisors and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to develop recommendations for improving processes and supporting creative practice research training.

The authors used dialogical inquiry (Wells et al., 2021) to facilitate a dialogue between the authors, who represent different stakeholders in the ethical review process for creative arts research students. Focus topics for the dialogue were developed collaboratively based on existing literature.

Based on the dialogue, the authors make the following recommendations: frame ethics as part of project design alongside aims and methodology rather than as project logistics; structure ethics review processes to ensure ongoing engagement between research students and IRBs; and share exemplars and templates as part of research training. Additionally, the authors advocate for the need to create continuing opportunities for dialogue.

Previous work interrogating ethical review processes for creative practice research has adopted a clear position from either a creative practice researcher or an IRB member perspective. This dialogue facilitates a novel synthesis of these positions, ensuring the recommendations support the objectives of both IRBs and creative practice researchers.

The purpose of this chapter is to propose a framework that can assist school leaders in working toward respect that is mutual, and integrated with their other school improvement efforts. I define mutual respect as the work of intervening on those power asymmetries typically found in classrooms – both between teachers and students, and among diverse groups of students – by way of according children increased equality, autonomy, and equity. Drawing on empirical examples from an ethnographic and comparative study of four elementary schools situated across two educational systems (i.e., Montessori and International Baccalaureate (IB)) and two national contexts (i.e., the United States and Canada), I highlight the need for a framework for mutual respect. The work of embedding symmetry – particularly in schools, which reflect the racism, classism, sexism, ableism, and heterosexism that is ever-present in broader society – is anything but straightforward. This is because: (1) mutual respect is multidimensional, and these dimensions can reinforce and conflict with one another in unexpected ways; and (2) mutual respect can be operationalized via a school's instructional, organizational, and social practices, again in ways that may conflict or work synergistically. By highlighting the complexity of leading for mutual respect, this framework is a first step toward supporting such efforts in leadership preparation and practice.

With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six Sigma and innovation training, using action learning, on public-sector employees’ creative role identity and innovative work behavior.

The authors studied a public service agency in Singapore in which a five-day Lean Innovation Training was implemented, using a combination of Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools, with a simulation on day one and subsequent team-based project coaching, spread over six months. The authors administered pre- and postintervention surveys among all the employees, and initiated group interviews and observations before, during and after the intervention.

Creative role identity and innovative work behavior had significantly improved six months after the intervention, enabled through senior management’s transformational leadership. The training induced managers to role-model innovative work behaviors while cocreating, with their employees, a renewal of their agency’s core processes. The three completed improvement projects contributed to an innovative work culture and reduced service turnaround time.

Starting with a role-playing simulation on the first day, during which leaders and followers swapped roles, the action-learning type training taught all the organizational members to use various Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools. This nimble Lean Innovation Training, and subsequent team-based project coaching, exemplifies how advancing the staff’s creative role identity can have a positive impact.

This case was written using primary data through various channels, including in-depth structured interviews with the CEO and other individuals at the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay (CCTB), as well as exchanging email messages and phone conversations with employees at CCTB. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. In addition, one of the authors took a tour of the main offices of CCTB and took notes on the physical facilities as well as the information provided by the tour guide. Public information from CCTB was used to enhance the information and provide background. All accounts presented in this case are real, and no information was altered or fabricated.

Clara Reynolds had been CEO of CCTB for over eight years. The agency had almost tripled its budget in the time she had been there. Her leadership style had positively impacted the culture of the organization. Employees valued her open and transparent leadership style. Employees saw her commitment to training employees, creating work–life balance and helping employees be exceptional at their jobs. There was an issue, however, with Transcare, the organization’s ambulatory service. The performance of the business was declining, and Clara wanted to update the board within 60 days at the next quarterly board meeting. She was not sure what she could do to increase engagement with Transcare’s staff, which would show the board that the staff was fully willing to do what was necessary.

This case is appropriate for teaching undergraduate or graduate-level courses in leadership, organizational behavior or principles of management. It is designed to be discussed during one class period. It will save time and improve the flow if the students read the case before class and are prepared when they arrive. Any information needed for the case discussion has been presented in the case; no further research by the students is necessary. Students should think about the role of leadership in a nonprofit. They should put themselves in the protagonist’s shoes throughout the reading of the case.

This paper aims to present journey mapping as a creative practice that can be used to “do doctoral education differently”, specifically, in a way that supports the wellbeing of doctoral students and centres students often excluded in post-secondary planning and program development. It understands journey mapping through the lens of feminist care ethics, critical and decolonizing disability studies, theories of Indigenous relationality, systems thinking, and action-oriented approaches.

Using collaborative autoethnography, it critically analyses authors’ experiences of a journey mapping process initiated by students in a new interdisciplinary doctoral program in Ontario, Canada. For this study, the authors invited all students currently enrolled in the program and the Program Director to share their reflections on their experiences with journey mapping as a creative practice. They then conducted collaborative data analysis, working together to identify common themes, experiences and tensions which arose throughout the journey mapping process.

The study analysis positions journey mapping as a creative practice of collective memory, which can facilitate connection, healing and change. It suggests that this practice can be used to resist problematic ideals of individualism, and competition within academia, by offering a process through which graduate students can build community, advocate for programmatic changes, and move towards individual and collective wellbeing.

Drawing on the lived experiences in an interdisciplinary doctoral program, this paper brings together work that explores student experience and creative practice in graduate education with the practice of journey mapping, to highlight the possibilities and tensions of using this approach. In the changing landscape of doctoral education, practices that centre students’ voices and support student wellbeing must be developed, and the resources needed to support such practices better understood.