Natalie Drew, Michelle Funk, Caroline Kim, Crick Lund, Alan J. Flisher, Akwasi Osei, Sheila Ndyanabangi, Joshua Ssebunnya and John Mayaye
The purpose of this paper is to provide detailed assessments of the mental health laws of Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide detailed assessments of the mental health laws of Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.
Design/methodology/approach
The mental health laws of four countries were assessed both by country partners and staff of WHO, Geneva, using the World Health Organization (WHO) Checklist on Mental Health Legislation, which examines the level of coverage of key issues in mental health laws.
Findings
The older laws of Ghana, Uganda and Zambia do not address fundamental human rights of people with mental health conditions. South Africa's more recent Mental Health Care Act (2002) incorporates critical human rights standards, though certain provisions fail to adequately safeguard against potential violations. For mental health legislation to maintain currency with human rights standards it must be regularly reviewed and updated.
Originality/value
The findings highlight the urgent need to revise the mental health laws of Zambia, Uganda and Ghana, and to plan ways to address the gaps identified in the relatively new South African mental health law. The entry into force of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008 signals a new era in how mental health legislation is to be drafted. The identification of gaps in national laws, as has been undertaken by the four countries, is an important first step towards putting in place legal frameworks to promote the rights of people with mental health conditions in line with current international human rights standards.
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In this chapter, I ask what catching up means in the practice of collaborative policymaking. During ethnographic fieldwork among municipal policymakers and semi-public managers in…
Abstract
In this chapter, I ask what catching up means in the practice of collaborative policymaking. During ethnographic fieldwork among municipal policymakers and semi-public managers in child and family services in the Netherlands, I found the central actors constantly catching up. These are not interactions that we generally see in accounts of public policymaking, nor has this ‘mundane’ activity been systematically analysed. Based on many hours of participant observation, and illustrated through a composite narrative, I demonstrate how catching serves to construct the participants’ identity (who am I in this meeting), and relationship (what is our relation in this meeting), and to make sense of the specific situation of the meeting (what is it we are doing here) and of the larger ‘world’ beyond (what has happened and might structure what we will be doing here). I argue that catching up is a connective practice, connecting temporalities, spaces, knowledge and people. Within its actions, the informal and the formal are entangled.
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Michelle Funk, Natalie Drew and Martin Knapp
This paper, which builds on the findings of WHO's Report on Mental Health and Development, aims to highlight the health, social, economic, and human rights effects of unaddressed…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper, which builds on the findings of WHO's Report on Mental Health and Development, aims to highlight the health, social, economic, and human rights effects of unaddressed mental disorders in low and middle income countries (LMICs) and to propose effective strategies to address mental disorders and their impacts as part of an overall development strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first reviews the findings of relevant research on mental disorders and poverty and then proposes solutions that can be adopted by countries to promote development.
Findings
This evidence of strong links between poverty and mental disorder supports the argument that mental disorders should be an important concern for development strategies. Mental disorders have diverse and far‐reaching social impacts, including homelessness, higher rates of imprisonment, poor educational opportunities and outcomes, lack of employment and reduced income. Targeted poverty alleviation programmes are needed to break the cycle between mental illness and poverty. These must include measures specifically addressing the needs of people with mental health conditions, such as the provision of accessible and effective services and support, facilitation of education, employment opportunities and housing, and enforcement of human rights protection.
Originality/value
The paper highlights that four out of every five people suffering from mental disorders are living in LMICs. Many LMICs have identified mental health as an important issue, yet lack the finances and technical expertise to address the problem. Having mental health on the agenda of development organizations will be a critical step for overcoming the negative development consequences of mental disorders.
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Sally Anne Sambrook, Natalie Jones and Clair Doloriert
Employee engagement (EE) is a highly popular topic within workplace research, but has been studied almost exclusively from a quantitative, survey based approach, both in academic…
Abstract
Purpose
Employee engagement (EE) is a highly popular topic within workplace research, but has been studied almost exclusively from a quantitative, survey based approach, both in academic and consultancy led research. Yet, employee engagement is essentially an individual concept, concerning self, and this highly personal dimension fails to be captured in positivistic surveys. This paper offers a novel methodology in an attempt to address this deficit.
Design/methodology/approach
This complex concept needs to be studied from a more interpretivist and ethnographic angle, acknowledging that EE exists within a cultural context. The paper proposes the use of a contemporary, and somewhat contentious, form of ethnography, autoethnography (AE) that weaves together the researcher's personal and participants' experiences to illuminate the phenomenon.
Findings
This paper briefly reviews extant literature on employee engagement, explains autoethnography and argues that AE is a highly suitable method to capture both the individual and social nature of self in employee engagement.
Research limitations/implications
To understand how employee engagement works, we need to get at the depth of the concept, and the paper offers an innovative methodological contribution to achieve this. To date, this approach has received limited attention and only minimal anecdotal evidence is presented to support the argument for AE. However, there is substantial scope for further research adopting this novel, collaborative approach.
Practical implications
An autoethnographic approach provides both emic (insider) and etic (outsider) perspectives on the phenomenon, thus harnessing both the experiences of those involved in AE initiatives (e.g. HR practitioners managing EE and employees being engaged) but also the researcher's experiences and interpretations of being engaged in their work, to elicit more rich, layered insights. Such nuanced understanding can help facilitate more appropriate, authentic and realistic interventions to harness employees' whole self and engagement.
Originality/value
Autoethnography provides an innovative approach to studying employee engagement, offering an appropriate alternative to quantitative, snap-shot studies and is more in keeping with the founding scholar's intentions for research on this topic.
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Eric Rosenthal and Laurie Ahern
– The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the human rights imperative to end the segregation of children in orphanages and other residential institutions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the human rights imperative to end the segregation of children in orphanages and other residential institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on international human rights standards under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other treaties, as well as documentation gathered by Disability Rights International (DRI) over the past 20 years.
Findings
DRI has found that institutionalization of children exposes them to high risk of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Even clean and well-staffed orphanages are psychologically damaging. Well intentioned but misguided donors often perpetuate institutionalization by investing in the building or rebuilding of institutions instead of investing in community-based alternatives.
Originality/value
Through the Worldwide Campaign to End the Institutionalization of Children, DRI is calling for a moratorium on all new placements of children in orphanages. No new institutions should be built. Research shows that children thrive in a family or family-like environment, and all children are capable of being supported to live in the community.
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The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of healthcare offered by a Greek Public Psychiatric Clinic. Special attention is paid to the degree to which the Clinic promotes…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the quality of healthcare offered by a Greek Public Psychiatric Clinic. Special attention is paid to the degree to which the Clinic promotes human rights, social inclusion, and autonomy.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper opted for an exploratory study using the open-ended approach of grounded theory, including 21 depth interviews with patients, staff members and patients’ relatives, documentation review and observation by an independent assessment team consisting of the author, a sociologist with mental disabilities, and a psychologist using the World Health Organization QualityRights tool kit which uses the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as its frame. The data complemented by a group discussion with employees in another Clinic of the same hospital.
Findings
The paper provides empirical insights about how the steps taken by the Psychiatric Clinic to address several of the themes drawn from the CRPD require either improvement or initiation to comply fully with the convention's themes, and how this compares unfavorably with the Urology Clinic.
Research limitations/implications
Sample size and restriction of the data to only one mental health facility limit the generalizibility of the results. Staff who reported professional burnout and cuts in wages may have been be susceptible to recall bias due to current negative mood. Respondent patients may also have failed to disclose their true experiences due to fear of punishment.
Originality/value
The paper uses a new methodology and instrument to assess current practice in mental health facilities in relation to international human rights standards emanating from the CRPD as well as the degree of parity between mental health and general health services.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss human rights assessment and monitoring in psychiatric institutions from the perspectives of those whose rights are at stake. It explores…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss human rights assessment and monitoring in psychiatric institutions from the perspectives of those whose rights are at stake. It explores the extent to which mental health service user/psychiatric survivor priorities can be addressed with monitoring instruments such as the WHO QualityRights Tool Kit.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on the outcomes of a large-scale consultation exercise with people with personal experience of detention in psychiatric institutions across 15 European countries. The consultation took place via one focus group per country and extended to a total of 116 participants. The distinctive characteristic of this research is that it imparts an insider perspective: both the research design and the qualitative analysis of the focus group discussion transcripts were done by a social researcher who shared the identity of service user/survivor with the participants.
Findings
The paper highlights human rights issues which are not readily visible and therefore less likely to be captured in institutional monitoring visits. Key issues include the lack of interaction and general humanity of staff, receipt of unhelpful treatment, widespread reliance on psychotropic drugs as the sole treatment and the overall impact of psychiatric experience on a person's biography.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the way participants were recruited, the research findings do not offer a representative picture of the human rights situation in particular countries. They point clearly, however, to new directions for human rights research in the psychiatric context.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates the indispensability of experiential knowledge for not only securing and improving but also extending the understanding of human rights standards in psychiatry.