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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of psychological case formulation meetings for staff in a secure forensic learning disability and autism service.

In total, 89 of the attendees completed a questionnaire prior to the formulation meeting and then another questionnaire following attendance at a formulation meeting.

The results indicate that staff found these to be a helpful, informative and a positive experience professionally and personally. The results suggest that the formulation meetings developed staffs’ psychological understanding about the patient and their problems, helped to increase their empathy towards the patient, increased consistency in the teams’ views, and that the staff felt listened to.

Psychological formulation meetings are established in the current service, and therefore this may be a contributing to factor to the lack of significant change found in some of the items. Therefore, it would be beneficial for future services to complete a service evaluation at a much earlier point of implementation, as this may impact the level of significance.

The findings of this service evaluation suggest that formulation is a beneficial and useful tool for teams and would be a helpful tool for psychologists to use in the clinical work with teams.

This paper aims to propose the lens of social practice theory (SPT) as a means of deepening insights into childhood consumer culture.

The data comprise four qualitative interviews and ten focus groups with 58 8-13 year olds in six diverse schools across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Transcripts were coded with NVIVO10. Analysis was guided by the three elements of SPT: materials, meaning and competence.

Branded technology products and clothes consistently combined with both the socially sanctioned objective of achieving and maintaining a place in the peer hierarchy and also the three skills the authors have labelled “social consumption recognition”, “social consumption performance” and “social consumption communication” in regular, predictable ways to produce an ordered and, thus, reproducible nexus of actions. Analysis of the inter-relationship between these elements showed that children’s consumption is a specific practice, embedded in their everyday routines. Consumption is also linked inextricably to social position; children’s variable performance of it links with their degree of social acceptance and popularity.

Although the study included a broad cross-section of school catchment areas, they cannot be said to represent all British children. Nonetheless, SPT provides an alternative theoretical perspective on children’s consumption by shifting the focus away from the child, the social context or even the products, thus ceasing to privilege the notion that consumption is something external to children that they learn to be socialised into; or to consciously use for their own symbolic or other purposes; or that they have to be protected from.

Consumption practice is deeply embedded in children’s relationships and is inextricably linked to their well-being. Policies seeking to tackle any single element of the practice, such as media literacy training, are only likely to have limited effectiveness. This research implies that responsible marketing measures need to concentrate on the links between all the elements.

This SPT analysis of children’s consumption makes three contributions. First, it provides a much-needed new theoretical perspective beyond the dominant but limited “consumer socialisation” research paradigm that confines analysis of children’s consumption to the functioning of their individual cognitive capacity. Second, it suggests new research methodologies for understanding the interaction between children and the commercial world. Third, it offers a different approach to policymakers tasked with the controversial issue of regulating marketing to children.

In recent years, democracies across Europe have been challenged in ways this paper has not witnessed on such a scale for generations. It is therefore unsurprising that innovations within democracy are emerging, particularly in terms of participatory and deliberative practices. Focusing specifically on local democracy and decision-making, this paper aims to examine ways of democratising future studies as a means of enhancing citizen participation in democracy.

The paper draws upon the growing body of work under the umbrella term of “participatory futures” as a way of contextualising and critiquing the “real-world” application and empirical testing of methods within this field by local municipalities.

It identifies the importance of supporting the development of futures literacy in citizens, public administration officials and political and strategic leaders. The paper demonstrates how broadening the application of existing foresight techniques through their confluence with participatory action research (PAR) principles can create spaces that reignite people’s social imagination. This in turn enables citizens and those working in local municipalities to engage in dialogue about the future.

The paper examines the results of a PAR study, in which innovative participatory future methods were tested as tools for enhancing citizen involvement in local decision-making. Through this, it outlines how foresight practices can be democratised, supporting local democracy to thrive, and identifies future research and practice directions within the field.

This paper aims to explore the protective and risk factors involved in student loneliness after the lockdown measures taken limiting social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic in France.

Using a cross-sectional survey methodology, the authors collected data on a sample of 546 students pursuing management education in a French business school in several campuses. Loneliness was measured by the three-item UCLA loneliness scale. Logistic regression analysis examined the factors influencing student loneliness.

The prevalence of loneliness was 23.4%. Risk factors for loneliness were social isolation especially in terms of intensity and isolation from friends (OR: 5.40), having a regular paid activity (OR: 1.62) and not getting academic help from other students (OR: 2.11) or taking meals alone during the lockdowns (OR: 1.94). Being a male student (OR: 0.47), practicing a sport (OR: 0.64) and studying at a specific campus (OR: 0.43) were protective factors.

Understanding protective and risk factors affecting student loneliness helps higher education decision-makers to take the necessary actions to enhance student well-being which have an effect on learning processes.

Loneliness is a major public health concern among students. Knowledge of the determinants for loneliness are limited and this article attempts to augment this by exploring several protective and risk indicators of loneliness among French students.