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Food Poverty and Youth Work - A Community Response
Get PDFThis article discusses the findings of a small-scale study investigating the impact of food poverty on youth work in community based open access settings. It documents the growing impact of food poverty on the role of youth work in deprived communities and explores the role youth workers play in addressing it. Firstly this ‘community response’ addresses the issue of food poverty in localities where it arises. However, it not only meets basic needs, but it also helps build social capital by enacting important social relationships associated with food by ‘eating together’. Such responses also have the potential to combat stigma and abjection through the creation of critical consciousness and political education. The research also highlights the need for greater coordination of this response and for youth centres to be less isolated from other services. Finally, the legacy of food policy within youth work is highlighted, previously dominated by a focus on healthy eating since Every Child Matters (2003). Post austerity, for many communities the concern is simply ‘eating’
Parents’ Experiences of Starting and Maintaining Exercise: A Qualitative Systematic Review
No full textWe conducted a systematic review of qualitative studies investigating the experiences of parents in relation to their uptake and maintenance of exercise, focusing on aerobic endurance-type exercise. The review aimed to synthesise qualitative findings relating to the motives, barriers, facilitators, emotions, and support of parents, and to suggest applied implications. Electronic bibliographic databases (Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, Scopus, Academic Search Complete, and PsychArticles) were searched with relevant keywords to identify published peer-reviewed journal articles. Articles were included if they used a qualitative methodology to collect and analyse the data, and if they involved parents (of at least one child up to age 18) engaging in one or more type of aerobic endurance-type exercise from a position of limited fitness and parenthood. Ten studies were included in the final review, which used a narrative synthesis of data. Findings unique to the parent population were identified: parents were motivated to exercise as they believed it made them a better parent; mothers found it difficult overcoming the ‘ethic of care’; both mothers and fathers experienced the emotions of guilt, although its impact differed between parent roles; parenthood resulted in a decline in confidence; and parents reported a lack of social support and self-regulatory capacity. These findings also reflect wider social determinants of health, in their racialised, gendered, and classed nature. To support parents in maintaining exercise uptake, the findings suggest that practitioners should promote reasons for exercise that align with parents’ core values to facilitate autonomous motivation
Person-Centered Health Promotion: Learning from 10 Years of Practice within Long Term Conditions
Get PDFThe utilization of person-centered care is highlighted as essential for health promotion, yet implementation has been inconsistent and multiple issues remain. There is a dearth of applied research exploring the facets of successful implementation. In this paper, a person-centered wellbeing program spanning various groups is discussed, outlining the central principles that have allowed for successful outcomes. Ten years of pragmatic pre–post service evaluation have shown consistent improvement in measures of functional capacity and wellbeing. The method for this paper is a reflective exploration of the theory and practices that can explain the continual improvement the clinics have achieved over 10 years. Core principles relate to connecting with people, connecting through groups, and connecting with self. The operationalization and theoretical explanation of these principles is outlined. The discussion of these principles posits essential factors to prioritize to advance the implementation of person-centered care in health promotion for long-term conditions
How was it for you? University practice educators’ reflections on delivering a creative clinical placement during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK
No full textIn September 2020 during the UK national lockdown associated with the coronavirus pandemic, three cohorts of speech and language pathology (SLP) students from different year groups were due to start their clinical placements. Faced with a significant shortfall of placement offers, principally from national health providers, six university-based
SLP staff provided virtual placements using computer-simulated learning environments provided by Simucase®. Final year students worked in small groups and rotated around clinical specialisms. They engaged in a range of tasks including role-play, assessment selection, devising intervention materials, and writing case notes. Written reflections by SLP staff were recorded individually and analysed, by taking a phenomenological approach, for
shared perspectives including realism in clinical education, role diversification and the importance of feedback. Implications for allied health programs are discussed
One-year post-operative comparison of visual function and patient satisfaction with trifocal and extended depth of focus intraocular lenses
No full textPurpose
To evaluate visual performance with trifocal and extended depth of focus IOL at 1 year post-operatively.
Setting
BMI Southend Hospital.
Design
Cohort study.
Methods
An age-matched cohort of forty subjects bilaterally implanted with the AT LISA 839MP trifocal IOL (20 patients, 40 eyes) and the Tecnis Symfony extended depth of focus IOL (20 patients, 40 eyes) were assessed at 3–6 months and 12–18 months post-operatively. Primary outcome measures were distance (6 m), intermediate (70 cm), near visual acuity (40 cm), and analysis of defocus profiles. Secondary outcomes included contrast sensitivity, Radner reading performance, quality of vision and assessment of halos.
Results
Distance visual acuity (VA) and defocus areas were similar (p = 0.07). No significant difference in intermediate VA was noted but the intermediate area of focus was greater in the EDoF (0.31 ± 0.12 LogMAR*m−1) compared to the trifocal (0.22 ± 0.08LogMAR*m−1) (p = 0.02). However, all near metrics were significantly better in the trifocal group. 80% of trifocal subjects were spectacle independent compared to 50% EDoF subjects. Quality of vision questionnaire found no significant differences between groups, however halo scores were greater at 3–6 months in the trifocal group (p < 0.01) but no differences were noted at 12–18 months.
Conclusions
Near vision is significantly better for the trifocal, thus greater levels of spectacle independence. The range of intermediate vision was greater for the EDoF but no difference in intermediate VA. In the early period, differences in contrast sensitivity and halo size/intensity were noted, however, by one-year these measures were not significantly different
“I’m just a TA”; From mixing paints to managing safeguarding and class teaching: An exploration of teaching assistant's perceptions and roles in school
No full textThis small-scale piece of research listened to the stories, experiences and perceptions of teaching assistants to hear their lived experiences of the role of teaching assistant. To hear how expectations have altered with/without legislative and framework guidance and consideration of the individuals who take up teaching assistant roles, in a climate where there is a succinct lack of legal requirement for any training or qualifications to be undertaken prior to or during the job role. The findings indicated that there appears to be an ethos within primary educational settings that teaching assistants can ‘do it all’ at ‘all times’, that there is a lack of clarity in role and responsibilities across the ‘unqualified staff’, and furthermore that they self-position as “Just a TA”
Risk management of Covid-19 in Early Years Settings in the UK
No full textOn 18 March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic spread around the world, the United Kingdom Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, made a statement on Coronavirus to the UK Public via National Television. He stated
“So, I can announce today and Gavin Williamson [is] making statement now in House of Commons, that after schools shut their gates from Friday afternoon, they will remain closed for most pupils – for the vast majority of pupils- until further notice… So, we are simultaneously asking nurseries and private schools to do the same, and we are providing financial support where it is needed”
(Gov.UK, 2020).
Schools and Early Years Settings closed on that Friday afternoon, 20 March 2020, to all but the children of critical workers (Doctors, nurses, care staff, supermarket workers and other staff who were vital to the pandemic response) and vulnerable children (children with an Education and Health Care Plan, children looked after by the local authority and children with a social worker (DfE, 2020a). More than 69,000 early years providers closed to all children during the first national lockdown (Local Government Association, 2021) whilst others furloughed staff (Education Policy Institute, 2020) developed rotas for those staff working so that they did not work every week
Developing a Sense of Place
No full textThis chapter explores the theoretical foundations of what is meant by a sense of place, and the challenges and opportunities that developing a sense of place brings to outdoor education now and in the future. We take an international perspective based on a shared understanding of our roles as practicing university outdoor educators. Our discussion of sense of place in higher education is rooted in shared place-responsive teaching experiences in two locations: Plymouth, UK and Reykjavik, Iceland. We advocate for place-responsive education and encourages educators to take a critical view regarding human relationships with culture, time, and nature. A critical approach to outdoor education leads to reconstructing it as more than just activities and a focus on relations between self, others, and nature. It means at times slowing down and moving away from the fast and furious adrenaline-charged experiences and giving space to experiential, aesthetic, and more mindful embodied fieldwork experiences. In the foreseeable future, educators are challenged to look at nature as hyperreal and be open to embracing new, exciting and different ways of developing a sense of place
A Realist Case Study Inquiry of English Primary School Physical Activity Initiatives
Get PDFConcern that children are not engaging in enough physical activity (PA) to bring about health benefits is a crisis globally. This paper aims to examine primary school-based PA initiatives from within an English context. A qualitative inquiry was adopted and underpinned by the socio-ecological model. The study was presented through a realist case study of three selected primary schools to reveal a collection of context-mechanism-outcome statements across five levels of the socio-ecological model (individual, interpersonal, institutional, community and policy). The findings highlighted a multi-layered interaction of PA within the school setting as well as the school’s own relationships with external influences. Three key components emerged from the research findings; these included the 1) teacher’s unintentional facilitation of simple PA in classroom settings, 2) innovative uses of community networks as an additional resource to schools and 3) the uncovering of a complexity of external influences from home, community and policies on school-based initiatives
The Table-top Visual Search Ability Test for children and young people: Normative response time data from typically developing children
Get PDFFive table-top tasks were developed to test the visual search ability of children and young people in a real-world context, and to assess the transfer of training related improvements in visual search on computerised tasks to real-world activities. Each task involved searching for a set of target objects among distracting objects on a table-top. Performance on the Table-top Visual Search Ability Test for Children (TVSAT-C) was measured as the time spent searching for targets divided by the number of targets found. 108 typically developing children (3-11 years old) and 8 children with vision impairment (7-12 years old) participated in the study. A significant correlation was found between log-transformed age and log-transformed performance (R2 = 0.65, p = 4 × 10−26) in our normative sample, indicating a monomial power law relationship between age and performance with an exponent of −1.67, 95% CI [−1.90, −1.43]. We calculated age-dependent percentiles and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis indicated the 3rd percentile as the optimal cut-off for detecting a visual search deficit, giving a specificity of 97.2%, 95% CI [92.2%, 99.1%] and sensitivity of 87.5%, 95% CI [52.9%, 97.8%] for the test. Further studies are required to calculate measures of reliability and external validity, to confirm sensitivity for visual search deficits, and to investigate the most appropriate response modes for participants with conditions that affect manual dexterity. Additionally, more work is needed to assess construct validity where semantic knowledge is required that younger children may not have experience with. We have made the protocol and age-dependent normative data available for those interested in using the test in research or practice, and to illustrate the smooth developmental trajectory of visual search ability during childhood