Parents’ perspectives of discharge information and support for their newborn baby during COVID-19: a cross-sectional survey

Background There was no scientific knowledge available about parenting in a pandemic at the start of this study. The study was necessary to ascertain parents’ experiences, sources of information and support. Methods A cross-sectional online survey, recruiting via social media during July - August 2020, in collaboration with two local Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership groups in three rural English counties. Participants were parents of newborn babies who had been discharged from a maternity unit or had a home birth. Responses were analysed using descriptive statistical, thematic and content analysis. Results Participants (N=371) were predominantly mothers (n=369, 99.4%), aged between 25-34 (n=252, 67.8%), fit and healthy (n=314, 85%), white British (n=351, 94,5%) on maternity leave (n=252, 67.9%) and for half of the participants this was their first baby (n=186, 50.1%). Three sub-themes included: lack of information (antenatally and postnatally), lack of professional support and social support (which linked to the impact of ‘no partner’ restrictions). Lack of support for breastfeeding or feeding problems impacted mothers’ experiences. Parents relied on information from online sources and social media due to the lack of specific professional advice about the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic for their baby. A challenge for mothers was the lack of support for breastfeeding or feeding problems Conclusion Parents navigated their postnatal journey without the anticipated support from professionals or their normal social support networks, relying on information from online sources and social media due to a lack of pandemic specific information from professionals. Reduced postnatal services negatively affected the information and support received by new parents

Decision-Making in Organizational Crisis in Traditional and Self-Managed Organizations: Towards a hybrid approach

Purpose Effective crisis management is essential for all organizations and both traditional and self-managed organizational structures have their advantages and challenges, when dealing with a crisis. Decision-making in self-managed organizations can be faster, however, the lack of clear chains of command can hinder strategic direction and coordination of resources. Considering the opportunities and drawbacks of both traditional and self-managed organizational structures in terms of crisis, this paper explores the potential for a hybrid model of the self-managed organization. Design/methodology/approach This paper reviews the literature on crisis in traditional and self-managed organizations and considers the potential for a hybrid model of the self-managed organization. Findings Self-managed organizations offer speed and flexibility through decentralized decision-making, however they can struggle with coordination during large-scale crises, whereas traditional hierarchical structures provide clear command chains and centralized control but may be slower due to bottlenecks. To address this, the authors propose a hybrid model that combines the strengths of both systems, enabling organizations to operate with the agility of self-managed organizations during normal conditions and seamlessly shift to a traditional command structure during crises. Such an approach seeks to optimize responsiveness and coordination based on situational demands, although further research is needed to develop and test such a model. Originality This work proposed a hybrid self-managed organizational model that can dynamically switch between decentralized and centralized structures based on the demands of a situation, something existing models like Holacracy or Teal do not accommodate. Unlike prior approaches that advocate either fully autonomous or hierarchical systems, this paper introduces a flexible operational framework that integrates the strengths of both, aiming to optimize decision-making speed and coordination during crises. This concept challenges the rigidity of current models and opens new avenues for adaptive organizational design

Multi-level feature fusion networks for smoke recognition in remote sensing imagery

Smoke is a critical indicator of forest fires, often detectable before flames ignite. Accurate smoke identification in remote sensing images is vital for effective forest fire monitoring within Internet of Things (IoT) systems. However, existing detection methods frequently falter in complex real-world scenarios, where variable smoke shapes and sizes, intricate backgrounds, and smoke-like phenomena (e.g., clouds and haze) lead to missed detections and false alarms. To address these challenges, we propose the Multi-level Feature Fusion Network (MFFNet), a novel framework grounded in contrastive learning. MFFNet begins by extracting multi-scale features from remote sensing images using a pre-trained ConvNeXt model, capturing information across different levels of granularity to accommodate variations in smoke appearance. The Attention Feature Enhancement Module further refines these multi-scale features, enhancing fine-grained, discriminative attributes relevant to smoke detection. Subsequently, the Bilinear Feature Fusion Module combines these enriched features, effectively reducing background interference and improving the model’s ability to distinguish smoke from visually similar phenomena. Finally, contrastive feature learning is employed to improve robustness against intra-class variations by focusing on unique regions within the smoke patterns. Evaluated on the benchmark dataset USTC_SmokeRS, MFFNet achieves an accuracy of 98.87%. Additionally, our model demonstrates a detection rate of 94.54% on the extended E_SmokeRS dataset, with a low false alarm rate of 3.30%. These results highlight the effectiveness of MFFNet in recognizing smoke in remote sensing images, surpassing existing methodologies. The code is accessible at https://github.com/WangYuPeng1/MFFNet

The Cost of Caring: Empathic Relationships and Emotional Labour in Early Years Management

This article explores the outcomes of research (Hodgkins, 2023) based in England, that ex-amined the impact of empathic relationships on early childhood practitioners. Partici-pants held various job titles, such as early years educator, learning support assistant, and nursery manager, and came from diverse early childhood settings in England. Of the nine participants, four had positions with management responsibility, either as the set-ting manager or deputy manager. Participants kept reflective diaries of their empathic interactions with children and families, which were followed up with semi-structured interviews. The research revealed significant emotional labour for practitioners and un-derscored the need for more emotionally supportive supervision in the profession. It al-so highlighted the unique stress on those with management responsibility, who support children, families, and staff. In this article, the researcher and an early years manager who participated in the study, examine the role of empathy and emphasise the need to acknowledge and support managers

The challenges of teaching complexity sciences to novice learners in public administration

There is a rich history of examining the functions and activities of public administration through the lens of complexity theory. Arguments for training and educating public administrators in this discipline are both longstanding and highly relevant in the modern-day context. This paper seeks to add to the existing literature which explores educational methods for teaching complexity sciences to public administrators through a novel analysis that integrates two different psychological domains - applied cognitive psychology and adult developmental psychology. Introducing the notion of thought architecture, this analysis will first acknowledge that public administrators are likely novices in complexity, due to their limited exposure to necessary declarative and conceptual knowledge and their stage of adult development. Second, this analysis will show that features of a complex system exist in tension with instructional methods typically associated with helping novices acquire knowledge or advance in their stage of adult development. In light of this finding, appropriate and useful instructional strategies drawn from these two psychological domains that help to reconcile this tension will be discussed

Maddi, Aaron, Steve, Hollie - Autistic Joy: A&E Accessibility and Environment Podcast

Writer and producer Maddi Crease, Director Aaron Shrimpton, Sound designer Steve Pretty, and choreographer Hollie Dee, discuss their film Autistic Joy

Exploring the Promises of Affordances across Spaces and Places

This textbook is for university students training to become physical education teachers. It includes the work of multiple physical education scholars from around the world who have built spaces that lead to a socially just world through the vehicle of movement. The book contains practical activities, dialogue questions, and foundational principles from Eastern and Western philosophy

Nurturing Compassionate Connections: A Guide to Practitioner Empathy in the Early Years

In a profession where empathy and compassion form the bedrock of impactful interactions, yet remain relatively unexplored, this book endeavours to be a beacon of inspiration and guidance. The book explores what compassionate relationships might look like and translates extensive research into actionable steps that practitioners can easily integrate into their routines. Chapters: ● Include guidance for fostering effective, empathetic relationships with colleagues and young children, as well as extending empathy to parents and carers ● Offer suggestions for supporting and promoting positive behaviour, with guidance on embracing empathy in challenging situations ● Prioritise practitioner wellbeing and include real-life case studies of nurturing connections, recognising both the demands and satisfaction of the profession ● Are full of reflective prompts and activities to reshape the narrative of early years practice and equip practitioners to navigate challenges with resilience. Nurturing Compassionate Connections advocates a strengths-based approach and aspires to redefine the landscape of compassionate practice, enriching the journey of those who care for young children. It is essential reading for all early years practitioners and allied professionals

Exploring the secret garden of further education professional development: reflecting on the researcher’s honesties and opening the honesty box

This article engages in an examination of reflecting upon a researcher’s honesties within the context of conducting an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The purpose of this article is to outline how a researcher’s reflexivity and awareness of emotions is central to IPA research which investigates Further Education practitioners’ lived experiences of the Advanced Teacher Status (ATS), and its potential impact upon practitioners’ professional identity and agency