Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the value of appreciative inquiry (AI) methodology in enabling co-productive work within mental health service development.

The methodology of AI is described and observations on its use in mental health service improvement are considered.

AI is a really helpful tool in supporting service improvement and is particularly applicable in mental health discussions involving service users and carers. Many service users and carers engaging with service development discussions have had adverse past experiences which can inhibit their successful contribution to planning discussions. AI allows a more positive reflection on how services can be improved which can help achieve positive results.

AI methodology is a really useful tool in supporting improvement discussions across health, and other public, services, and is particularly valuable in engaging mental health service users and carers in such activity.

The method is useful across service development needs and could be developed to support mental health service improvement locally, regionally and nationally. Developing the use of this method could make a real contribution to improving relations between service users, carers and health staff and support meaningful and positive change in the delivery of mental health services.

Helping to overcome dissonance between service users and carers, and health staff and commissioners; and developing the use of appreciative enquiry could enhance the value of co-production as a key driver for service improvement.

The author is aware of little discussion of the value of appreciative enquiry in the growing literature around co-production in mental health.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the operation of a review into service user involvement within mental health services, which was led by service users using appreciative enquiry (AE).

The paper gives a descriptive account of the operation of the project and highlights the barriers to its success and how these were addressed. The project itself used AE methods to overcome some of the challenges to engaging service users around improvement activity. The approach was different to the conventional application of AE as people were engaged individually through interviews and their views generalised collectively by the service user team conducting the interviews.

The project findings are reported through considering the recommendations made as a result of the work but the wider aims of challenging power relationships and developing service user leadership are also discussed.

The paper suggests that replicating and developing the use of AE driven by service users is a positive tool in empowering recipients of mental health services.

The author suggests that this method could be a valuable tool in meeting the current UK Government policy of empowering local communities to take greater control of public service provision.

This project is an example of enabling leadership to arise from the grassroots of an organisation, turning the conventional concept of leadership on its head and challenges senior staff as to who might know best about how to improve services. It represents a novel approach to taking forward the empowerment agenda widely supported in Western democracies.

THE question of the advisability of exercising a censorship over literature has been much before the public of late, and probably many librarians have realised how closely the disputed question affects their own profession.

As high school and college graduates enter today's highly competitive and diverse, globalized economies, cultural competence and social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies continue being essential skills for college, career, and life success. These capabilities are more than valuable assets, they are employability requirements in a modern workforce dependent on navigating relationships and interactions between people from different backgrounds. In education, educators are increasingly expected to cultivate these skills within equitable learning environments for all students, international and domestic. Recent research demonstrates greater need to support international students in the United States who often experience unique academic barriers, stressors, and lack of support services for managing international relocation and integration into unfamiliar academic and cultural systems. To better understand how culturally responsive SEL education can serve as a lever for increasing equitable conditions for international students and to contribute research-based practices on how distance learning can strengthen culturally responsive SEL skills, the following chapter introduces how one online academic and cultural studies course influenced high school and undergraduate international students. Through qualitative and quantitative sources (e.g., written homework reflections; cultural orientation indicator (COI) report; paper: My Action Plan; course evaluation survey), themes emerged from the data that identified how explicit online SEL education, using a culturally responsive lens, contributed to gains in cultural competence, educational equity, academic and professional development, and self-efficacy.

Through the credit they furnish, materials suppliers provide a form of working capital for most construction contractors. This paper considers the implications of this for crediting organizations (i.e. suppliers). It is shown that a supplier's financial turnover movement (or lack of it) can be modelled and predicted with some accuracy by considering a number of characteristics of their credit control department. The models are developed from analysis of data obtained from a survey of 55 UK materials suppliers' credit control and debt collection procedures. The statistical technique of multivariate‐discriminant analysis (MDA) is used. Predictive accuracy of the models is tested on an independent, hold‐out sample of 10 suppliers' characteristics. It is found that ‘risk‐taking’ suppliers who protect themselves from bad debt by using insurance; suppliers who employ a third‐party organization to evaluate potential debtors' creditworthiness; and suppliers who service only one construction trade with materials, achieve significantly greater financial growth than those suppliers who do not exhibit these characteristics.

Defines ethics and examines the controversy surrounding teaching ethics in business schools. Traces the link between personal values and business schools, and discusses strategies for developing and maintaining ethical businesses.

An EU Asia-Link grant offered the opportunity to examine the appropriate sequence of teaching and learning for architecture students working in developing countries. That process is more or less taken for granted wherever architecture is taught as a discipline, yet its premises are seldom examined in any detail. Following a suggestion by A. N. Whitehead, a sequence of learning is described, which gives a proper place to design. The thinking of the American philosopher Donald Schön is re-examined to see if it throws light on the practice of architecture and the principles to be adopted in teaching it. I argue that, properly constituted, a studio-based programme of architectural education remains an appropriate methodology for the teaching of design in the context of developing countries, even as it acts as a critique of the conventional pedagogic methodologies of parent institutions in both west and east.

The concepts of ‘information literacy’ and ‘digital literacy’ are described, and reviewed, by way of a literature survey and analysis. Related concepts, including computer literacy, library literacy, network literacy, Internet literacy and hyper‐literacy are also discussed, and their relationships elucidated. After a general introduction, the paper begins with the basic concept of ‘literacy’, which is then expanded to include newer forms of literacy, more suitable for complex information environments. Some of these, for example library, media and computer literacies, are based largely on specific skills, but have some extension beyond them. They lead togeneral concepts, such as information literacy and digital literacy which are based on knowledge, perceptions and attitudes, though reliant on the simpler skills‐based literacies

The study reported in this article investigates whether or not consumers from Turkey and New Zealand attach similar levels of importance to various information sources in their purchase decisions and whether they are similar (dissimilar) in their opinions on advertisement in various media. Customers surveyed in Istanbul and Wellington serve as the database. Study results and their implications are discussed.