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This article argues for the introduction of patient‐held health care records for people with learning disabilities. The evidence reviewed demonstrates that people with learning disabilities have more health care needs than other adults in society but receive less health care than others. The rationale for implementing hand‐held records is considered from three perspectives: a consumer point of view, an analysis of how personal health profiles can help to overcome existing barriers to health care and the existing evidence. The initial experiences of introducing personal health records are described.

Work-life challenges experienced by employees navigating pregnancy, maternity, and parenting young children are well documented in the literature. Correspondingly, work-life balance policies and provisions aimed at supporting affected staff are well established in many modern organizations. Within this agenda however, complications within maternity journeys, and specifically the intersection with mental health has been neglected. In this chapter, we consider the work-life issues associated with perinatal (pregnancy and post-birth) mental illness. After introducing perinatal mental illness, and its impact on individuals and families, we consider the two-way relationship between illness and work: how employment factors influence the development of perinatal mental illness and recovery trajectories, with implications for family life; and how such illnesses impact work and employment. We offer key insights from our empirical research on this topic in the context of UK policing, highlighting challenges linked to the nature of police work and organization culture, and issues that are more broadly applicable to how maternity and mental illness are treated in the workplace. The chapter offers recommendations for people management practice aimed at reducing or mitigating occupational factors that exacerbate illness and maximizing those facilitating recovery in the perinatal period and beyond, thus advancing work-life inclusion.

The practice of public relations (PR) is shaped by the ‘life world’ of the professionals; moreover, both the experiences of the professionals and societal changes shape the profession in a particular area (Hodges, 2006). Women have always played an important part in the development of PR as a profession and academic field in Turkey. Since PR Association of Turkey was established in 1972, five out of eight presidents have been women, and most of the members are also female. Female PR practitioners represent 70% of the total workforce of PR sector in Turkey, and most of the communication agencies are led by female entrepreneurs.

However, research on women' positions and their multiple roles in PR in Turkey are limited.

This chapter uses a qualitative study with 27 in-depth one-on-one interviews conducted in order to analyse female PR practitioners' experiences related to (1) the start of their careers, (2) their career experiences, (3) their evaluation of the profession, and lastly (4) their career goals. The interviewees included agency owners, managers, deputy general managers and group directors.

The research aimed to discover the female PR professional experience in respect of the difficulties they face in their practice and everyday life, advantages and/or disadvantages of being a female PR professional in Turkey and the ways women balanced their career and family duties.

There has been a tradition of comparative research into the health services of England and Sweden. This has focused mainly on health care financing, organisational structures and health inequalities (Anderson 1972; Helco 1974; Heidenheimer and Elvander 1980; Ham 1988; Ham et al 1990). Less attention however has been paid to the policies on, and philosophies of, public health and health promotion in the two countries. This may of course be because it is only comparatively recently that such policies have come to the fore on the political agenda in both countries. It is on these areas that we focus our attention. Consequently this paper will do three things. First, describe the current policies on public health and health promotion at national level in both countries. Second, draw attention to the differences and similarities which are manifest in the policies of these two countries and develop a summary of the two national strategies. Third, we will consider some possible reasons and explanations for the contemporary emergence of public health.

This research aimed to better understand what influences the acceptability of non-cash incentives to encourage voluntary blood donation among those who have and have not donated blood.

This paper used data from two cross-sectional surveys with Australian blood donors (n = 768) and non-donors (n = 1,087).

Cost-benefit evaluation, embarrassment and deal proneness were found to be important predictors, explaining 4.4%–27.2% of the acceptability of six different types of non-cash incentives, in addition to demographic (age, gender, education, income), geographic (region) and behavioural (blood donor status) characteristics. Cost-benefit evaluation remained the strongest predictor, irrespective of blood donor status. People who were more embarrassed to receive an incentive generally for donating blood were slightly more accepting of health checks and charity donations, and less accepting of deal promotions. People who were more likely to respond to promotional deals generally were also more accepting of all types of incentives for blood donation; interaction effects demonstrated this was particularly true for non-donors.

Findings direct attention to factors that will improve the design and implementation of incentive programs to maximise their acceptability and impact without undermining organisational reputation, as well as point to psychographic characteristics that should be considered when evaluating the adoption and effectiveness of incentives for encouraging blood donation.

This paper extends our understanding of what explains the acceptability of different incentive types to encourage voluntary blood donation, beyond geographic, demographic and behavioural characteristics of people who do and do not donate blood.

This chapter explores the extent to which female public relations (PR) practitioners perform professionalism in the workplace by interrogating and examining their professional behaviours. Using an ethnographic approach, where the researcher is immersed in the field, it uncovers the lived experiences and behavioural responses of women working in PR agency environments in the United Kingdom and enables a rich description of professional behaviours to emerge.

Fawkes argues that research into roles in PR ‘has tended to assess roles using management rather than sociological theory’ (2014, p. 2). That is not to say that all PR research adopts the same paradigmatic stance. Several scholars have encouraged the development of a research agenda rooted in social theory. Holtzhausen called for a move away from what she termed the ‘modernist approach to organizations’ (2002, p. 251), which focuses on management discourse, and encouraged instead a focus on the postmodern concept of discourse, where meaning is constructed and conveyed through social and institutional practices.

In seeking to discover the ‘lived experience’ of female practitioners, this chapter locates professionalism in the context of their behaviours and enables individuals to articulate their understandings of the relationship between performance and professionalism. Using Goffman's (1959) work on social encounters as performances in conjunction with Foucauldian discourse and Feminist theory, this chapter explores the three stages of performing professionalism – preparation, performance and reception – through the eyes of women working in PR agencies in the United Kingdom to explore their lived experience and determine how gender affects their performance of professional behaviour.

Testing boundaries in the context of encountering horror representations have long been of interest to cultural studies scholars. There have been rich cultural accounts of how audiences negotiate with what is frightening or disgusting on screen (Hill, 2005) not just in general but also in what concerns specific social groups as well (e.g. children, Buckingham, 2000). Horror, disgust and the emotion of fear have not been examined in the Greek context so far and it is our aim to attempt a first investigation of how certain groups of viewers engage with the horror genre. We draw upon the argument that fear from encountering horror is a socially based emotion through which people do not just test their own boundaries but also their boundaries within a group of peers (Hill, 2005). Given that women are stereotypically thought to be more afraid than men, we are particularly interested to see how women aged between 20 and 35 in Greece engage with fear or disgust in the mainstreamed context of the horror offered by American Horror Story. We are particularly interested in the ways they perceive horror but also deadly women or female villains. Our interest in this particular series lies not only in its popularity across the world but also because of its nature as a representative series of the horror genre and because all different narratives it offers are mostly based on female characters primarily as villains. Also, as a text available across different cultures, it could probably allow us to engage with cross-cultural research in the future. Therefore we wish to conduct an online survey with women aged 20–35 in Greece, followed by focus groups with women of the same age group in an attempt to provide both a mapping and a further investigation of the topic.

The canonical narratives (Bruner, 2004) of contemporary research with children include participation, agency and voice. This inclusive language has saturated research literature throughout the development of the “new” social studies of childhood (James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998). Their presence was highlighted as illuminating greater understanding of the social realities of children’s lives but they mask and mute as much as they reveal. Heralded as the holy grail of emancipatory research with children, participatory methods have come to be recognized almost exclusively as the route for ethical practice and valid data. The absence of substantial, critical evaluation results in these concepts being little more than “cherished conceits” (Segal, 1999, p. 118). There has been a lack of thorough interrogation of what participation actually means and the data and social relations it produces. Participation implies collaboration and reciprocity but is counter-intuitively used to seek and promote the agentic child enshrined in neoliberalism. Children as social beings negotiate complex social relations (Richards, Clark, & Boggis, 2015) but this is often lost in research encounters which privilege the individual voice, informed by an under-interrogated definition of agency. Instead of following the neoliberal agenda we argue that recognizing the ways in which participatory methods, agency, and voice can and should promote reciprocal and relational social realities is vital to a better understanding of the worlds of children. We call not for their expulsion from research methods but for a re-evaluation of the assumptions that lie beneath and what is produced in their name.

The purpose of this article is to analyse the extent to which the CIPD's professional project can be successfully realised.

The study is based on a two‐fold literature review that analyses the professional project with reference to nascent professions. This review is then applied to the CIPD's qualification scheme through a documentary analysis of four key components of it.

Analysis suggests that whilst a high degree of professional closure has been achieved, the concomitant rise in professional and organisational status sought by the CIPD has not and is unlikely to do so in the future.

Whilst the arguments presented need further empirical study, our analysis suggests that the policy aims and initiatives advanced by the CIPD do not eradicate the tensions and ambiguities that have long characterised personnel roles.

This analysis questions whether the CIPD's professional standards are yielding the business skills and knowledge needed to be an effective business partner; seeing the advent of individual chartered status as an implicit recognition of the standards inadequacies in equipping its students appropriately.

The paper contributes to knowledge in two areas: firstly, the difficulties faced by emergent professions in a wider political economy that has witnessed the erosion of professional power. Secondly, that the ambiguities faced when managing people in a capitalist market economy will not be resolved by recourse to the unitarist and managerial approaches seen in the CIPD's professional programme.