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This paper aims to report findings of a service evaluation using a human rights-based approach in the training and education of staff in palliative settings.

A non-randomly sampled, uncontrolled, pre- and post-test design. Data was collected at three points over a six-month period during the period April 2017 to September 2019. As a service evaluation no ethical approval was required. Consent was implied by self-completion and submission of questionnaires. In total, 1,402 people attended the training, 480 completed pre- and post-training questionnaires (146 completed the questionnaire at six months), with 86 completing a questionnaire at all three data collection points.

Findings show increased levels of self-reported knowledge and confidence at two weeks and six months post-training. Implementing human rights in the workplace is complex. Difficulties maintaining knowledge and keeping up to date with changes in legislation and traditional ways of working were cited as barriers to service users’ human rights.

More evaluation is required to ensure the positive elements in this evaluation can be applied more widely.

Human rights education has a contribution to make in supporting staff to manage the challenges involved. It may also increase the complexity of decision-making. Training needs to incorporate systems wide approaches and its benefits measured.

The aim was to provide staff with the knowledge to make objective and proportionate decisions about personalised care. The assumption was this would help improve the experience of end of life care.

This is the first evaluation in the UK that we are aware of that has examined the impact of human rights education on end of life care.

The purpose of this paper is to present an evaluation of a programme of training and support provided to staff, which aimed to encourage supported communication environments for people with learning disabilities.

Training, monitoring and support for communication, specifically augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies, was provided by speech and language therapy staff to two residential services over 46 weeks. Staff and service user communications were observed pre- and post-intervention.

In one provision there was an increase in service user initiations and the use of some AAC strategies by support staff. In the other provision there was no change in service user initiations and a decrease in the range of AAC strategies used. It appears that some forms for AAC remain challenging for staff to implement.

This evaluation explores ways of using specialist support services to improve communication environments for people with learning difficulties. Possible reasons for differences in the outcome of the intervention are discussed. Future research into the types of communication interactions experienced by people with learning disabilities across the range of communication styles may be useful so that support staff can be better helped to provide sustained and enriched communication environments.

This chapter argues that including “studying up” (Nader, 1969), a close attention to elites and hierarchy, into the Library and Information Science (LIS) research agenda will strengthen the research the LIS community carries out on information behavior and use. Looking at issues that interest Nader, (i.e., the role class and inequity play in social life), this chapter reviews and critiques LIS user studies. The chapter then illustrates the value this approach can have for LIS researchers.

Fieldwork recently carried out in Maramureş, Romania, suggests that the cooption of science (both its authority and institutions) at local levels has helped the elite legitimatize and profit from cultural tourism as a development strategy. This research also suggests that the differential (elite) access to and use of information and knowledge especially when tied to local institutions and practices of science have been neglected in the analysis of change in post socialist states.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and synthesize the current academic literature on emerging trends to increase CSR reporting credibility.

This paper synthesizes literature on emerging trends to increase CSR reporting credibility from the past ten years, focusing mainly on the most recent five years, by searching ABI/Inform and Business Source Premier for academic papers containing the following keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reporting, CSR, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility.

This paper identifies four relatively unexplored trends to improve CSR credibility: CSR assurance, integrated reporting, CSR reporting standards, and CSR regulation.

This study will be of use to academic researchers to facilitate research and discussion on the credibility of CSR disclosure.

Regulatory agencies, boards of directors, customers, suppliers, and investors are increasingly using CSR information for decision making; therefore the credibility of the information is important.

Much of the extant research investigating CSR has focused on financial performance metrics. The study synthesizes the recent CSR literature, including some interdisciplinary research focusing on emerging accountability trends in reporting. The authors identify several research opportunities that will enhance the authors’ understanding of CSR reporting.

Purpose – This chapter discusses youth participation in a Social Justice Literacy Workshop (SJLW). Participants were predominantly Black youth residing in an urban community with a rich history and important community resources such as libraries and churches. The SJLW used a variety of print texts, videos, artwork, documents, and other texts to explore the topic of police brutality and other justice-related topics.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This chapter uses the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model as a lens to revisit the SJLW as designed and implemented by the first author Tiffany Nyachae. Nyachae designed and implemented the SJLW as space to inspire students to engage in critical thinking and analysis of authentic texts, and to use these textual interactions as an impetus for activism in their community. With the help of her co-authors, Nyachae reflects on the SJLW through a GRR lens to describe how students were scaffolded and supported as they moved toward activism.

Findings – Students brought their own understandings of police brutality and awareness of activism to the SJLW. These prior understandings were shaped both by their own lived experiences but also by their awareness of and interaction with social media. During the SJLW, youth read and discussed the novels All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely (2015) and Hush by Jacqueline Woodson (2002). The youth engaged in activities and discussions about how prevalent issues in each novel connected to larger social and political concerns. Students discussed the current events, engaged in reflective writing, read short pieces, and analyzed documents and videos. The SJLW was successful in such a way that all students felt comfortable voicing their opinions, even when opinions differed from their peers. Students demonstrated critical thinking about issues related to justice. All students completed an action plan to address injustice in their community. While applying the GRR to this context and reflecting, first author Nyachae began to consider the other scaffolds for youth that could have been included, particularly one youth, JaQuan, who was skeptical about what his community had done to support him. Nyachae revisits the SJLW to consider how the GRR helped to reveal the need for additional scaffolding that JaQuan or other youth may have needed from leaders in the SJLW. A literature review also revealed that very few literacy practices have brought together the GRR and social justice teaching or learning.

Research Limitations/Implications – This chapter demonstrates that the GRR framework can be effectively applied to a justice-centered teaching and learning context as a reflective tool. Since very little research exists on using the GRR framework with justice-centered teaching, there is a need for additional research in this area as the GRR model offers many affordances for researchers and teachers. There is also a need for literacy researchers to consider elements of justice even when applying the GRR framework to any classroom or out-of-school context with children and youth.

Practical Implications – The GRR can be a useful tool for reflecting the practices of literacy and justice-centered teaching. Just as the GRR can be a useful framework to help teachers think about teaching reading comprehension, it can be an effective tool to help teachers think about supporting students to grow from awareness to activism in justice-centered teaching and learning.

Originality/Value of Paper – This chapter is one of only a handful of published works that brings together a social justice perspective with the GRR.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Library professionals are well aware that a telecommunication revolution is beginning. In Mississippi it is well underway; almost 20 percent of the national supercomputing power is located in the state: MTel, WorldCom (formerly LDDS) and Mobile Telecommunications—all major players in the telecommunications field—have headquarters in Mississippi and are serving the business sector of America.

Professions involved with the construction industry need to become more aware of disaster risk management (DRM) activities if lessons are to be learned from the past and a resilient built environment attained in the future. This study aims to focus on identifying which construction‐associated stakeholders should be involved with DRM initiatives in the UK, and when these stakeholders should be involved. This research is thereby unique and a key step in the longer‐term aim of identifying how stakeholders should be involved and what issues they need to address regarding the integration of DRM into construction decision making.

This paper presents the findings of a UK‐wide questionnaire survey, semi‐structured interviews and a validation exercise involving a range of professionals from construction, planning, insurance, emergency management and local/national government agencies.

This research identifies the key construction stakeholders that should be responsible for ensuring that resilience issues become integrated and ensuring the key stages of the design‐construction‐operation process where their inputs are required.

The finding presented are an important and logical step in the longer term aim of identifying how stakeholders should be better involved and what issues they need to address regarding the integration of DRM into construction decision making.

The purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, this research aims at helping countries implement an equitable, innovative and context-appropriate stay-home game plan for the millions of disadvantaged and under-privileged students severely affected by the forfeiture of school closures; and secondly, this study proclaims that the burgeoning popularity of gamification has the potential to lay the bedrock foundation for ‘Literacy in the New Norm’.

The temporal closure of schools around the world to limit the spread of the COVID-19 has resulted in massive educational disruptions triggering adverse effects and bringing much of education under grave threat. Through a review of the current empirical and conceptual literature, this study proposes a new gamification concept in a non-technology environment.

Well underway are global dialogues that hold conversations on implementing mitigation strategies to counter the looming global health crisis. This has generated the impetus for a more concerted effort by concerned governments and international organizations to identify appropriate solutions for the continuity of learning so that the learning never stops. While educators and learners plunge further into the core of reconstructing education, the authors recognize that the fundamentals of technology and virtual connectivity have all along contributed to the multi-faceted e-learning stage set. However, concerns regarding the paradigm shift to remote online learning would certainly exacerbate inequalities cardinally felt across disadvantaged communities around the globe.

As the world is currently bound by strict isolation measures, learners of all ages have been relegated to the confines of their homes. For the most part, the stark realities of technological mishaps that have befallen underprivileged school children, serve as a reminder to help target children all over the world who are in most peril of losing ground in terms of continued education. It is on these grounds that the criterion set out in this article elucidates the nature and scope of a supplementary stay-home game plan detailing the use of game affordances that bear intelligently in the creation of home-based activities for parents to give it their best effort in fostering a collaborative and meaningful parent-child relationship that spawns the new language of literacy in the new norm.