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The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of “Roma health and wellbeing” as a focus of attention in European research and in policy and the possible detrimental consequences of action founded on a generic representation of “Roma health.”

Based on discussions with and research conducted by scholars who work directly with Roma communities across European regions from a wide range of academic disciplines it suggests how future research might inform: a more nuanced understanding of the causes of poor health and wellbeing among diverse Roma populations and; actions that may have greater potential to improve the health and wellbeing among these populations.

In summary, the authors promote three types of research: first critical analyses that unpick the implications of current and past representations of “Roma” and “Roma health.” Second, applied participatory research that meaningfully involves people from specific self-defined Roma populations to identify important issues for their health and wellbeing. Third, learning about processes that might impact on the health and wellbeing of Roma populations from research with other populations in similarly excluded situations.

The authors provide a multidisciplinary perspective to inform research that does not perpetuate further alienation and prejudice, but promotes urgent action to redress the social and health injustices experienced by diverse Roma populations across Europe.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the psychometric characteristics of male offenders who joined a democratic therapeutic community and their relationship to attrition.

Residents who left therapy prematurely during the assessment phase (N = 46) and residents who left therapy prematurely during core therapy (N = 202) were compared to residents who completed therapy (N = 52) on two psychometric measures: Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices and The Blame Attribution Inventory.

A multinomial logistic regression analysis showed higher levels of external blame can predict attrition during therapy; those with higher levels of external attribution are significantly more likely to leave therapy prematurely, including both during the assessment phase and during core therapy. Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices score did not significantly predict whether an individual left therapy prematurely.

Support was found for existing research within the academic evidence base. The findings have both empirical and clinical utility, suggesting during the assessment phase of therapy, practitioners can identify residents that may require additional support to maintain engagement, minimising the potential for premature departure. The implications of the findings are discussed, with suggestions made for future research.

Whilst an urgent need for collaboration is increasingly seen in education to better respond to socio-educational challenges, in practice, collaboration between primary school teachers and their partners is hampered by barriers. The aim of this study is to shed light on these barriers from a human resource management (HRM) angle, using the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework.

Quantitative and qualitative data were collected amongst staff in 16 child centres offering joint pre-school, education and childcare.

The authors' findings suggest that in general, both teachers and childcare workers perceive themselves as skilled and motivated for collaboration. They perceive aspects of opportunity to perform as most important barriers.

Based on this research, school leaders are advised to organise opportunities for collaboration, especially by fostering an inclusive organisational climate and scheduling sufficient time for collaboration.

This paper contributes to the relatively scarce body of research on HRM within the education sector. Furthermore, it illustrates the applicability of the AMO model for gaining insight into how educational management can be utilised to foster increased collaboration between teachers and childcare workers.

Hippotherapy is an emerging area of paediatric occupational therapy practice in Ireland. It is a treatment strategy used by specially trained occupational therapy practitioners, physical therapists and speech language pathologists as part of the intervention programme to facilitate functional gains. This paper aims to explore parents’ perspectives on children’s participation in home-based occupations following hippotherapy treatment.

Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight participants. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. In accordance with thematic analysis, line-by-line coding was completed to identify codes. Codes were organised into categories, which were grouped to develop themes.

Three core themes were identified: lack of knowledge regarding hippotherapy as an occupational therapy intervention; children’s increased participation in home-based occupations secondary to improved physical, psychological, communication and social skills; and the unique hippotherapy environment as a motivating factor for children to engage in occupational therapy intervention.

Findings from this study support the growing body of evidence that hippotherapy is an effective means of intervention for increasing physical, psychological, social and communication skills. The participants report positive effects following hippotherapy on their children’s participation in home-based occupations. It highlights a link between the unique hippotherapy environment and children’s increased engagement in occupational therapy. Given that no published hippotherapy-specific literature related to occupational therapy exists in the Irish context, and given that hippotherapy is an emerging area of practice in Ireland, this paper contributes to the knowledge base.

This paper considers the specific opportunities and challenges of engaging in ethnographic research with organisations in which the researcher participates as a volunteer ethnographer.

The findings in this paper are based on four years of ethnographic research within a social enterprise.

This paper finds that there are significant benefits of the role of the volunteer ethnographer and suggests ways to address some of the challenges.

As the field of social enterprise and ethnography grows and researchers engage with methodological discussions about participant observation, the authors suggest that attention should also be paid to the specifics of the role of the volunteer ethnographer.

There is growing interest in the use of ethnography in social enterprises. This paper offers unique insight into how this methodology has been applied in the context of self-reliant groups and the importance of the engaging with discussion about the specific role of the volunteer ethnographer.