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This paper examines the empirical research on police reassurance following a collective trauma event (CTE).

Using a scoping review methodology, this paper sought to establish the extent, range and nature of published literature on policing responses to collective traumatic events, and to identify key features of this form of direct practice. Included papers needed to focus on police responses oeassurance with the public related to events (pre-or post) that could be regarded as collective trauma events by nature or scale. Searches were conducted using the Web of Science, SCOPUS and PsychINFO databases for literature published between January 2000 and December 2019.

Fourteen articles met the inclusion criteria. The key themes identified: (1) measuring the impact of reassurance and community policing; (2) community attitudes to policing and social disorder/critical events; (3) police workforce responses to traumatic events; and (4) interventions to support police to respond to their community.

Future research needs to examine the elements that create a robust organisational infrastructure that can withstand the demands of policing in ordinary and extraordinary times. Fundamental to the studies in this review is the relationship between the police agencies and the community. The nature of this relationship and how it can be strengthened to ameliorate the negative impact of CTEs in communities needs further exploration.

This paper provides important findings that can inform future reassurance policing practice and research.

Deliberate self‐harm (DSH) is a serious public health problem and, although in the past research has focused mainly on the DSH patient, it is now recognised that parental involvement in the therapeutic process is beneficial. This study aimed to understand parents' concerns, expectations and experiences following an episode of deliberate self‐harm in young people in order to identify their support needs.

This was a qualitative study using a phenomenological approach. Data were generated primarily from face‐to‐face, in‐depth interviews with parents of young people who had self‐harmed and with health professionals directly concerned in the management of DSH patients.

The study suggests that an incident of DSH by their son or daughter is an extremely traumatic experience for parents. Parents reported being deeply distressed with feelings of helplessness, they had concerns regarding coping with their child on discharge from hospital and were worried about the possibility of future incidents. These anxieties were exacerbated by a perceived lack of information and support from some health professionals. These results suggest that parents need more support and if given this they might be enabled to better contribute to improving the long term prognosis for their child.

The information reported here may help health professionals to engage more fully with parents as they have a key part to play in the success of the therapeutic process. The findings could be used to increase awareness and understanding amongst health professionals and so facilitate the development of mutual trust and understanding between all parties involved in the therapeutic process.

Without exception, research on the contribution of the Prison Listener Scheme as a form of peer support for those who self-harm in custody has focussed on men in prison. Women’s experience of custody is shaped by their experiences of hegemonic masculinity that also mediate through women’s roles as mothers and caregivers. Women’s self-harm is similarly influenced by these gendered experiences. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Listener Scheme as a form of peer-to-peer support for women contributes to women managing their self-harm in a female prison.

The paper used a case study design with a mixed-methods approach using a quantitative questionnaire with prison staff (n = 65) and women in custody who had self-harmed (n = 30). Qualitative methods included a focus group with Prison Listeners (n10) and semi-structured interviews with women who self-harm (n10) and prison staff (n10). Four days were also spent observing the prison environment.

Findings suggest that women seek support from other women as peer Listeners for three main reasons; their previous difficult experiences with men, a displacement of the mother role and their attachment needs in custody. Research suggests that women often have significant addictions and mental health concerns and are more likely than their male counterparts to engage in self-harm (Prison Reform Trust, 2017). In addition, women’s self-harm acts as a coping method for “intrapersonal issues” which documents self-harm as a result of frustration and lack of control in custody as opposed to “interpersonal issues” which documents self-harm as a result of relationship difficulties with partners (Walker et al., 2017). This paper suggests that peer support schemes internationally should be tailored to providing support for these types of gendered experience to support women who self-harm in custody. This has implications for the training and support of Listeners in women’s prisons.

This exploratory research was conducted in one female prison and while can be considered to test proof of concept is limited in its generalisability.

This paper suggests that Listeners providing peer-to-peer support for women in custody who self-harm may encounter triggers for this behaviour based on women’s experiences including; how women relate to men; women’s experience of the way custody displaces their role as mothers and women’s need for safe attachments in custody. These gendered experiences have implications for the training and development of peer support schemes in women’s prisons, such as the Listener scheme. Further research is needed to compare the gendered types of support Prison Listeners provide depending on whether they are in male or female prisons.

Peer and professional support are important for women in prison to help them tackle a range of issues including self-harm. To date, research has not explored in any depth how women experience peer support provided in prison to help them manage their self-harm including peer support provided through the Listeners Scheme. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This was a case study in one women’s prison employing mixed, qualitative methods. These included a questionnaire distributed to women and staff, a focus group with prison listeners, semi-structured interviews with women who self-harmed and semi-structured interviews with prison staff, together with a series of observations in the prison site.

While women in prison welcomed both professional and peer support their support preferences were influenced by how serious women considered their self-harm to be and the degree to which they regarded their relationships with staff as trusting and/or supportive. The therapeutic community (TC) that operated in the prison facilitated different relationships between women who self-harmed in prison and staff, than have hitherto been reported in the research literature. These relationships described by women and staff as “more open” allowed women to seek staff support when managing their self-harm behaviours. Women sought peer support from listeners in addition to staff support particularly at times when staff were unavailable for example at evenings and weekends.

The case study design was conducted in one women’s prison which operated a TC. The principles of the TC that operated in the prison are supported by the wider literature on TCs as conducive to good mental health. Findings are thus relevant for establishments with TCs .

Women opted for support from staff for helping them to manage their severe self-harm, over and above the peer support available through the prison Listener Scheme. This finding contrasts with previous research that suggests women trying to manage their self-harm in prison prioritise support from their peers because staff are often found to harbour unhelpful attitudes to women’s self-harm that makes seeking support difficult.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the discourses that shape nurses’ understanding of self-harm and explore strategies for working with people who self-harm in a relational and a recovery-oriented manner.

Self-harm is a relatively common experience for a cohort of people who present to the mental health services and is, therefore, a phenomenon that mental health nurses will be familiar with. Traditionally, however, mental health nurses’ responses to people who self-harm have been largely framed by a risk adverse and biomedical discourse which positions self-harm as a “symptom” of a diagnosed mental illness, most often borderline personality disorder.

This has led to the development of largely unhelpful strategies to eliminate self-harm, often in the absence of real therapeutic engagement, which can have negative outcomes for the person. Attitudes towards those who self-harm amongst mental health nurses can also be problematic, particularly when those who hurt themselves are perceived to be attention seeking and beyond help. This, in turn, has a negative impact on treatment outcomes and future help-seeking intentions.

Despite some deficiencies in how mental health nurses respond to people who self-harm, it is widely recognised that they have an important role to play in self-harm prevention reduction and harm minimisation.

By moving the focus of practice away from the traditional concept of “risk” towards co-constructed collaborative safety planning, mental health nurses can respond in a more embodied individualised and sensitive manner to those who self-harm.

This paper adds further knowledge and understanding to assist nurses’ understanding and working with people who self-harm in a relational and a recovery-oriented manner.

The purpose of this study is to consider how carer harm is understood, surfaced and responded to in contemporary policy, practice and research.

This paper offers a reflective commentary on the current “state of play” relating to carer harm drawing on existing research and related literature. This study focuses on how we define carer harm and what we know about its impact; lessons from, and for, practice and service provision; and (some) considerations for policy development and future research.

The authors highlight the importance of engaging with the gendered dimensions (and inequalities) that lie at the intersection of experience of care and violence and the need to move beyond binary conceptions of power (lessness) in family and intimate relationships over the life course. They suggest that changing how we think and talk about carer harm may support practitioners to better recognise the impact of direct and indirect forms of carer harm on carers without stigmatising or blaming people with care needs. The findings of this study also consider how carer harm is “hidden in plain sight” on two accounts. The issue falls through the gaps between, broadly, domestic abuse and adult and child safeguarding services; similarly, the nature and impact of harm is often kept private by carers who are fearful of the moral and practical consequences of sharing their experiences.

This study sets out recommendations to this effect and invites an ongoing conversation about how change for carers and families can be realised.

Indefinite immigration detention causes well-documented harms to mental health, and international condemnation and resistance leave it undisrupted. Health care is non-independent from immigration control, compromising clinical ethics. Attempts to establish protected, independent clinical review and subvert the system via advocacy and political engagement have had limited success.

The purpose of this study is to examine the following: how indefinite detention for deterrence (exemplified by Australia) injures asylum-seekers; how international legal authorities confirm Australia’s cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; how detention compromises health-care ethics and hurts health professionals; to weigh arguments for and against boycotting immigration detention; and to discover how health professionals might address these harms, achieving significant change.

Secondary data analyses and ethical argumentation were employed.

Australian Governments fully understand and accept policy-based injuries. They purposefully dispense cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and intend suffering that causes measurable harms for arriving asylum-seekers exercising their right under Australian law. Health professionals are ethically conflicted, not wanting to abandon patients yet constrained. Indefinite detention prevents them from alleviating sufferings and invites collusion, potentially strengthening harms; thwarts scientific inquiry and evidence-based interventions; and endangers their health whether they resist, leave or remain. Governments have primary responsibility for detained asylum-seekers’ health care. Health professional organisations should negotiate the minimum requirements for their members’ participation to ensure independence, and prevent conflicts of interest and inadvertent collaboration with and enabling systemic harms.

Australia’s aggressive approach may become normalised, without its illegality being determined. Health professional colleges uniting over conditions of participation would foreground ethics and pressure governments internationally over this contagious and inexcusable policy.

Adolescence and emerging adulthood are key developmental stages with high risk for trauma exposure and the development of mental and substance-use disorders (SUDs). This study aims to compare the clinical profiles of adolescents (aged 12–17 years) and emerging adults (aged 18–25 years) presenting for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and SUD.

Data was collected from the baseline assessment of individuals (n = 55) taking part in a randomized controlled trial examining the efficacy of an integrated psychological therapy for co-occurring PTSD and SUDs (PTSD+SUD) in young people.

Both age groups demonstrated complex and severe clinical profiles, including high-frequency trauma exposure, and very poor mental health reflected on measures of PTSD, SUD, suicidality and domains of social, emotional, behavioral and family functioning. There were few differences in clinical characteristics between the two groups.

Similarity between the two groups suggests that the complex problems seen in emerging adults with PTSD + SUD are likely to have had their onset in adolescence or earlier and to have been present for several years by the time individuals present for treatment.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to compare the demographic and clinical profiles of adolescents and emerging adults with PTSD + SUD. These findings yield important implications for practice and policy for this vulnerable group. Evidence-based prevention and early intervention approaches and access to care are critical. Alongside trauma-focused treatment, there is a critical need for integrated, trauma-informed approaches specifically tailored to young people with PTSD + SUD.

Interest in psychological resilience has grown rapidly in the last couple of decades (Britt, Sinclair, & McFadden, 2016; King & Rothstein, 2010; Youssef & Luthans, 2007). Psychological resilience occurs when a person can “recover, re-bound, bounce-back, adjust or even thrive” in the face of adversity (Garcia-Dia, DiNapoli, Garcia-Ona, Jakubowski, & O’flaherty, 2013, p. 264). As such, resilience can be conceptualized as a state-like and malleable construct that can be enhanced in response to stressful events (Kossek & Perrigino, 2016). It incorporates a dynamic process by which individuals use protective factors (internal and external) to positively adapt to stress over time (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Rutter, 1987). Building on the dual-pathway model of resilience, we integrate adaptive and proactive coping to the resilience development process and add a heretofore unexamined perspective to the ways in which resilience changes over time. We propose that resilience development trajectories differ depending on the type of adversity or stress experienced in combination with the use of adaptive and proactive coping. We outline the need for future longitudinal studies to examine these relationships and the implications for developing resilience interventions in the workplace.