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Voice, views and the UNCRC Articles 12 and 13
No full textThe voice of children aged 4 to 8 years is seldom heard in research circles, within the constraints of high-pressure academic model which is the current education system in England. Children are rarely listened to but expected to listen in the current normative societal cycle. This deficiency of active listening as an everyday occurrence impacts on children’s Mental Health. This article will give reference to an original empirical study, Hear Me and Listen. This study carried out in 2018 highlights the minimalistic practice of listening to children aged 4 to 8 years in the everyday. The research method used consisted of the Mosaic Approach. This approach provides various avenues for communication aside from the verbal. Data collected were analysed through a thematic approach. Themes which came from analysis included ‘This Is Me’, ‘Relationships’, ‘Environment’, ‘Curriculum’ and ‘Practitioners’. This article draws on this analysis and concludes that a change in the normative discourse of ‘hearing’ and not acting to one of ‘active listening’ and supporting is a path worth mapping
Educational Isolation: A challenge for schools in England
Get PDFEducational isolation is complex, grounded in location, situated in access to resources and results in reduced agency for schools.
'Educational Isolation: a challenge for schools in England' aims to provide an understanding of this complexity through a considered definition of ‘educational isolation’ and to support schools in accessing resources for school improvement through recommendations for policy makers, funding agencies/organisations and stakeholders.
Part of the complexity is that educational isolation is experienced by schools in different ways. This fluidity makes definition difficult, and the one presented in the report is purposefully broad to encompass the many combinations of challenges of location and consequential limited access to specific resources
Re-thinking sport and physical activity: management responses to policy change
Get PDFPurpose and scope
This special issue contributes to a critical understanding of the challenges key stakeholders across the globe encounter as they seek to manage periods of transition brought about by public policy change relating to the provision of sport and physical activity. Such challenges have, for example, characterised work across the UK where policy change and subsequent strategic responses have been predicated on an alternative vision for the development of an active nation through engagement with broader physical culture. This engagement typically requires established stakeholders across sports sector to operate as part of a new configuration of actors where partnerships are encouraged with a range of public, private and third sector organisations. In the UK the government's sport strategy A sporting future; A new strategy for an active nation (2015), which has promoted concerns for wellbeing, is reflected variously in physical activity, community development, public health, education and environmental agendas.
Seeking a wider range of outcomes through sport-based interventions and establishment of partnerships with non-sport sectors is characteristic of policy aspirations internationally (e.g. Grix & Carmichael, 2012; Kumar et al., 2018; Lyras & Welty-Peachey, 2011; Mansfield, 2016; Skinner, Zakus, & Cowell, 2008; Trendafilova, Ziakas, & Sparvero, 2017; Weed, 2016; Weed et al., 2015; Ziakas, 2015). This special issue, triggered by the thematic problematics emerging from the UK Sport Development Network (UKSDN) 2017 conference, seeks to uncover the global challenges in terms of managing the re-orientation of stakeholder activities and organisational strategies in response to re-alignments of sport policy. The resulting collection of papers in the special issue constitutes a balanced synthesis of contributions from those present at the conference and from academics and practitioners who form part of the wider global sport and leisure management research community
Transformative Evaluation in Youth Work and its Emancipatory Role in Southern Italy
Get PDFThis article draws on the experiences of a group of Italian youth workers who used Transformative Evaluation (TE) to evaluate their practice as part of a wider European research project funded by Erasmus+. The youth workers generated 151 stories of change with young people in their projects. These stories were collectively analysed and through this process the youth workers developed a greater understanding of the impact of their work and of some of the causal mechanisms that enable change to happen. Transformative Evaluation, with its sensitivity to the complexity and the critical potential of ‘lived experience’, is able to illuminate outcomes and process. The empowering and emancipatory potential of transformative evaluation is seen in the way in which it fosters youth workers’ and young people’s self-reflection
The BASES Expert Statement on Mental Health Literacy in Elite Sport
Get PDFResearch demonstrates that elite athletes are not immune to poor mental health (Gorczynski et al., 2017; Rice et al., 2016), which can adversely affect their overall health and performance. Here, elite sport is defined on a continuum from semi-elite (e.g. high-performance youth development programmes) to worldclass elite (e.g. global competitions) (Swann et al., 2015). There are many reasons why elite athletes may experience poor mental
health. Training and performance demands can place considerable psychological stress on elite athletes who also face public and media scrutiny, financial concerns, sudden and prolonged injuries, and retirement, especially when unexpected. Despite these challenges, few elite athletes seek professional help for their mental health
Decreased tibial nerve movement in patients with failed back surgery syndrome and persistent leg pain
Get PDFPurpose
To measure and compare the total and normalised tibial nerve movements during forward bending in patients with and without failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) and persistent leg pain following anatomically successful lumbar decompression surgery and demonstrated no psychological stress. Nerve pathomechanics may contribute to FBSS with persistent leg pain following anatomically successful lumbar decompression surgery.
Methods
Tibial nerve movement during forward bending was measured in two groups of patients following anatomically successful lumbar decompression surgery. FBSS group (N = 37) consisted of patients with persistent leg pain following lumbar surgery, and non-FBSS (N = 37) were patients with no remaining leg pain following lumbar surgery. Total and normalised tibial nerve movement at the popliteal fossa was measured by a previously validated ultrasound imaging technique and compared between the two groups, and also between the painful and non-painful leg within the FBSS group.
Results
Both the mean total and normalised tibial nerve movement were significantly decreased in the FBSS group in both legs when compared to the non-FBSS group (P < 0.05). The total and normalised tibial nerve movements were also more restricted in the painful leg (P < 0.05) when compared to the non-painful side within the FBSS group.
Conclusion
This was the first study to quantify the decreased total and normalised tibial nerve mobility in FBSS patients with persistent leg pain when compared with non-FBSS patients following anatomically successful lumbar decompression surgery. Further research could investigate the efficacy of intervention, such as nerve mobilisation in this particular group of patients with failed back surgery syndrome and limited nerve mobility
Women in powerful conversation: collaborative autoethnography and academia
Get PDFWorking as women in academia may still be regarded as “complex and fraught with myths, gross generalisations and mixed emotions” (Barakat, 2014:1). In this paper we articulate the collaborative autoethnographic process in which we have been engaged over some time and through which we have challenged generalisations, explored emotions and illuminated further our complex identities as women in academia. Sharing and making visible our collaborative autoethnographic conversations and writing to other readers is risky and exposes us to possible censure. We realise that we are susceptible to being disparaged for being self-indulgent – a common criticism of autoethnography – yet we contend that our conversations and writing are both self and socially luminous as we connect our ‘selves’ with the UK higher education context. The paper’s main focus is the collaborative autoethnographic process in which we have been engaged. Examples from our conversations and writing are included in order to demonstrate the power of this process and its potential and wider relevance for research
The pedagogy of technology in outdoor learning or use of the GoPro to enhance learning and teaching
Get PDFPhosphorus nutritional knowledge among dialysis health care providers and patients: a multicenter observational study
Get PDFBackground-aims
Phosphorus nutritional knowledge level of hemodialysis patients and renal nurses has been found to be low, while respective knowledge of nephrologists has not been studied yet. There are equivocal results regarding the association of phosphorus nutritional knowledge level and serum phosphorus values. The aim of this study was to assess phosphorus nutritional knowledge of hemodialysis patients, nephrologists and renal nurses and seek potential interventions to improve patients’ adherence to phosphorus and overall nutritional guidelines.
Methods
This cross-sectional observational study was conducted on sixty eight hemodialysis patients, 19 renal nurses and 11 nephrologists who were recruited from 3 hemodialysis units in Greece. Phosphorus nutritional knowledge of the participants was assessed by a 25-item item questionnaire (CKDKAT–N) which included 15 questions on phosphorus and 10 questions on protein, sodium, and potassium knowledge.
Results
Nephrologists had higher CKDKAT–N total (19.1 ± 3.6 vs 14.1 ± 2.8 and 13.2 ± 2.8, P < 0.01) and phosphorus knowledge scores (10.6 ± 2.7 vs 7.6 ± 2.2 and 7.3 ± 2.0, P < 0.01) compared to renal nurses and patients respectively. There were no differences in total and phosphorus knowledge scores between nurses and patients. Patients and nurses answered correctly significantly less questions regarding phosphorus compared with the rest of the questions (P < 0.01) while no such difference was found in nephrologists. Serum phosphorus was positively correlated with phosphorus knowledge score (r = 0.31, P = 0.02), and negatively correlated with patient age (r = −0.34, P < 0.05). None of the patients, 11% of the nurses and 27% of the nephrologists answered correctly all three questions regarding P, K and Na dietary recommendations (P < 0.01).
Conclusions
The study confirms that hemodialysis patients have low renal nutrition knowledge while higher nutritional phosphorus knowledge does not lead to lower serum phosphorus values. Alarmingly, renal nurses have been found to have a similar level of knowledge with hemodialysis patients, something that needs to be taken into account when training the new dialysis staff. Nephrologists have superior knowledge; however they are still lacking essential nutritional knowledge that could affect patients' and nurses’ overall understanding. Continuing education on nutrition of nephrologists and renal nurses could improve nutrition care of hemodialysis patients