Fiona Donald, Cameron Duff, Katherine Lawrence, Jillian Broadbear and Sathya Rao
Recovery is an important concept within mental healthcare policy. There is a growing expectation that clinicians adopt approaches that align with the recovery principles, despite…
Abstract
Purpose
Recovery is an important concept within mental healthcare policy. There is a growing expectation that clinicians adopt approaches that align with the recovery principles, despite significant disagreements about what recovery-oriented interventions might look like in practice. It is also unclear how recovery may be relevant to personality disorder. This paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 16 clinicians were interviewed at two mental health services in Melbourne, Australia. These clinicians had specialist training and experience in the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and provided insight regarding the meaning and relevance of the recovery paradigm in the context of BPD. Thematic analysis within a grounded theory approach was used to understand key themes identified from the interview data.
Findings
Thematic analysis suggested that clinicians understand recovery in three distinct ways: as moving towards a satisfying and meaningful life, as different ways of relating to oneself and as remission of symptoms and improved psychosocial functioning. Clinicians also identified ways in which recovery-related interventions in current use were problematic for individuals diagnosed with BPD. Different approaches that may better support recovery were discussed. This study suggests that practices supporting recovery in BPD may need to be tailored to individuals with BPD, with a focus on cultivating agency while acknowledging the creative nature of recovery.
Originality/value
Clinicians are in a strong position to observe recovery. Their insights suggest key refinements that will enhance the ways in which recovery in BPD is conceptualized and can be promoted.
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Julian Waters-Lynch and Cameron Duff
The purpose of this study is to reflect on and analyse the sensory experiences related to the transition to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research seeks to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to reflect on and analyse the sensory experiences related to the transition to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research seeks to understand how these experiences have influenced the integration of work practices into home and family life and the subsequent adaptations and embodied learning that arise in response.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors' research approach incorporates autoethnographic methods to explore the sensory, affective and emotional experiences of transitioning to remote work. The authors draw on principles of embodied learning, as influenced by Gilles Deleuze, and utilise a range of ethnographic tools including note-taking, audio memos, photography, shared conversations and written reflections to gather their data.
Findings
The study illuminates the ways bodies learn to accommodate the new organisational contexts that arise when the spaces, affects and forces of home and work intersect. It demonstrates how the integration of work into the private domain resulted in new affective and material arrangements, involving novel sensory experiences and substantial embodied learning.
Originality/value
This study provides a distinct, sensory-oriented perspective on the challenges and transformations of remote work practices amid the pandemic. By focussing on the affective resonances and embodied learning that emerge in this context, it contributes to the emerging discourse around post-lockdown work practices and remote work in general.
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Fiona Donald, Cameron Duff, Jillian Broadbear, Sathya Rao and Katherine Lawrence
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a complex condition characterized by a number of psychosocial difficulties that typically involve considerable suffering for individuals…
Abstract
Purpose
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a complex condition characterized by a number of psychosocial difficulties that typically involve considerable suffering for individuals with the condition. Recovery from BPD may involve specific processes such as work on how the self is perceived by the individual with BPD and his or her relationships which differ from those common to recovery from other mental health conditions. The details of the processes that may best promote changes within the self and relationships are yet to be established. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 17 consumers from a specialist BPD service were interviewed to identify factors they have experienced that contribute to recovery from BPD. Thematic analysis within a grounded theory framework was used to understand key themes within the interview data. The emphasis was on specific conditions of change rather than the more global goals for recovery suggested by recent models.
Findings
Key themes identified included five conditions of change: support from others; accepting the need for change; working on trauma without blaming oneself; curiosity about oneself; and reflecting on one’s behavior. To apply these conditions of change more broadly, clinicians working in the BPD field need to support processes that promote BPD-specific recovery identified by consumers rather than focusing exclusively on the more general recovery principles previously identified within the literature.
Originality/value
The specific factors identified by consumers as supporting recovery in BPD are significant because they involve specific skills or attitudes rather than aspirations or goals. These specific skills may be constructively supported in clinical practice.
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Caterina Manfrini and Cameron Duff
Across the public sector, and especially in the delivery of health and social care and support, practicing innovation is a difficult and seldom rewarding activity. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Across the public sector, and especially in the delivery of health and social care and support, practicing innovation is a difficult and seldom rewarding activity. The organisational barriers inhibiting innovation adoption in healthcare settings have been widely discussed. What is less well understood is what motivates staff to persist with innovation efforts despite these barriers. This paper contributes to recent studies of the role of care and compassion in innovation processes within social care settings not only to generate new insights into the motivations underpinning innovation efforts but also to help illuminate how staff overcome barriers to innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
We crafted a series of vignettes from our recent ethnographic studies of innovation across the health and social care sectors in Australia and Denmark, involving semi-structured interviews, observation and field notes. Within the Danish case, we explore an instance involving a formal organisational focus on identifying and sustaining innovation within local service deliver. With the Australian case, we present an informal approach, where the process of identifying and sustaining innovation derives from moments of spontaneous employee engagement and initiative.
Findings
Reflecting on the examples of “frugal innovation” presented in these vignettes, the major contribution of this study is to situate care and compassion as critical social, affective and material aspects of the practice of innovation in health and social care settings. Our analysis indicates how the practice of innovation is shaped by diverse relations of caregiving, where compassion emerges as a key source of motivation, aspiration and application that inspires staff to seek novel solutions to enduring healthcare challenges.
Originality/value
We develop our argument with reference to recent interdisciplinary orientations to care and compassion in the healthcare literature, incorporating contributions from feminist scholars and the ongoing articulation of feminist care ethics in the study of innovation.
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Nayanthara De Silva and P.L.I. Wimalaratne
This study attempts to identify a simple and efficient framework to be implemented in the Sri Lankan construction industry to inculcate a “safe and healthy” working environment…
Abstract
Purpose
This study attempts to identify a simple and efficient framework to be implemented in the Sri Lankan construction industry to inculcate a “safe and healthy” working environment for its workforce.
Design/methodology/approach
The occupational safety and health (OSH) management strategies that could be implemented in the construction sites were identified through a comprehensive literature survey and a pilot survey. A questionnaire survey was carried out among the safety and health (S&H) experts to explore the most effective OSH management strategies and thereafter to derive OSH mechanisms to promote the safer and healthy environment in the construction sites. Success of these mechanisms in the local industry was analyzed and was subsequently used to develop the OSH management framework.
Findings
A total of 35 significant OSH management strategies, unsafe and unhealthy factors as risk factors for fatal and non‐fatal situations were identified. A further ten OSH management mechanisms were established as adequate safety supervision, site environment, controlling the workers' safe and healthy behaviour, centralized OSH management unit, resources and insurance policies, management commitment, supportive devices, OSH documentation, OSH education and awareness, and OSH committee. Further, these ten mechanisms were used to establish the OSH framework to be implemented in Sri Lankan construction sites.
Originality/value
OSH management in the Sri Lankan construction industry can be enhanced by implementing the proposed OSH management framework.
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Iain Cameron, Billy Hare and Roy Duff
– Present findings from a UK study, funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), on the relationship between safety advisor roles and safety performance.
Abstract
Purpose
Present findings from a UK study, funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), on the relationship between safety advisor roles and safety performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Roles and organisational factors for contractors’ safety advisors (independent variables) were derived from existing literature. The dependent variable was “safety performance”, measured by accident incidence rate (AIR). Data were provided by 101 contractors and variance of means analysis was conducted.
Findings
Contractors using only external safety consultants had an average AIR approximately three times those with internal safety staff. However, simply increasing internal safety personnel did not lead to increased safety performance. Contractors, where at least one safety advisor had authority to give orders had a lower mean AIR than those who did not. Other significant variables were: delivering safety training to employees; vetting sub-contractors; and the inclusion of an environmental management role.
Practical implications
Employing at least one full-time internal safety person is better than relying solely on a safety consultant. If these safety advisers report to senior management then they have a greater chance of influencing others to act safely or commit resources to manage safety. Delivery of training, vetting sub-contractors and including environmental duties should feature in safety advisor roles.
Originality/value
The assumption that merely increasing safety personnel improves safety has been challenged. It is apparent from these findings that what the safety personnel actually do is more important than how many are employed. This is a major finding in relation to theory and practice which challenges previous research.
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Critical drug studies have developed a significant body of work that illuminates understanding of gender and drug use as well as drug pleasures. However, framing the study of…
Abstract
Critical drug studies have developed a significant body of work that illuminates understanding of gender and drug use as well as drug pleasures. However, framing the study of women and their drug pleasures through critical drug studies presents potential limitations. The posthuman turn de-emphasises the primary goal of drug use: a particular subjective experience. Both the language and theoretical frameworks of new materialism potentially distance researchers, as interlocutors, from engaging the human experience of drug pleasures, rendering drug use abstract and unknowable.
In a historical context in which women’s intoxication has invoked shaming and criminalisation, control of their bodies, and silencing of dissent, scholarly activism by and inclusion of women who use drugs should be foundational to critical drug studies. Autoethnography offers a modality by which personal narrative becomes a convention of academic writing. It also presents a way of performing the self critically and authentically within conceptual frameworks that explore the complex, intersectional politics of women’s drug use, ways that are representationally missing in the scholarship. An ethics of care as part of one’s practice of the self proposes a radically different way of framing drug use. The recognition and normalisation of drug pleasures as the complicated, emergent, expressions of ethical self-care that they are for women (and all people who use drugs) promises fertile ground for future scholarly exploration. Research based in the lived experience of women who use drugs will help establish languages that resituate drug use in the phenomenology of their experience.
This paper aims to report on the findings from a research project, commissioned by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), investigating the integration of health and safety…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to report on the findings from a research project, commissioned by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), investigating the integration of health and safety (H&S) with construction planning.
Design/methodology/approach
A combination of group and individual interviews were undertaken with qualitative methods of analysis to develop an integrated process model.
Findings
The model developed uses “Gateway” decision points, which allows flexibility and the early integration of H&S at a strategic level, although detailed planning is still required through the use of integrated management tools.
Practical implications
This study will help practitioners who wish to integrate CDM principles using a process model. It has also informed the HSE with policy decisions for their review of the Construction Design and Management Regulations 1994.
Originality/value
Previous research on construction H&S has tended to concentrate on site management. This study extends knowledge and understanding of how H&S can be integrated at the planning stage of projects.
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This paper aims to present findings on research funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) on factors contributing to superior safety performance amongst…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present findings on research funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) on factors contributing to superior safety performance amongst construction firms in the UK – specifically, the level of training received by site managers.
Design/methodology/approach
A random sample of 100 construction firms provided details of the type and duration of health and safety (H&S) training received by their site managers. This was analysed against a three point scale: up to two days training; the Site Managers Safety Training Scheme (SMSTS) five days training; and, National/Scottish Vocational Qualification for H&S – Level 3 or above. This was cross‐tabulated with their Accident Incidence Rate (AIR).
Findings
The results were as follows: up to two days training gave a mean AIR=1825; SMSTS mean AIR=1566; N/SVQ 3 or above mean AIR=211. This shows that increased durations of training are associated with lower accident rates. If duration is accepted as a measure of “level” of training then the findings support the hypothesis that increased levels of training lead to increased safety performance.
Research limitations/implications
The sample was skewed with over 70 per cent having accident rates lower than the industry average. This is common in such studies and is difficult to control without losing data. It also meant non‐parametric tests were used. The findings cannot be reliably extended to organisations with turnover less than £4m.
Practical implications
These findings add a new dimension to previous studies that have generally compared the mere presence, or otherwise, of training with safety performance.
Originality/value
The paper establishes a baseline in relation to the minimum level of H&S training for site managers as well as providing evidence for increased investment to achieve superior performance.
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The purpose of this paper is to review aspects of innovation, research and development paradigms and paradigmatic changes which have occurred in construction over recent years.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review aspects of innovation, research and development paradigms and paradigmatic changes which have occurred in construction over recent years.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach combines reviewing literature and some theory within the context of the author's experiences as a participant in the construction industry and associated research and education.
Findings
The paper concludes that much has been re‐cycled, often under amended titles. There is notable scope and advisability in paradigm shifts from reductionist/determinist approaches to stochastic approaches which accommodate complexities of interdependencies plus moves from “hard” positivism to “softer” constructivist perspectives.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is limited in validity and reliability due to the methods employed. However, the conclusion does stress the essential of researchers being aware of and articulating the limitations of their work; the need for sound theoretical foundations is stressed in regard to both topics and methods.
Practical implications
Proper examinations of research, including ontologies, epistemologies, validities and reliabilities, as well as the topics under investigation, promotes good research and its application and avoids recycling of “popular” topics in periodically amended guises.
Originality/value
The paper expresses the author's original views, developed over a quite extensive and varied career; however, it expresses views held fairly widely but seldom expressed beyond “closed doors”.