Developing recovery oriented services and co-production in mental healthcare: Building- up on existing promising organisational practices

Recovery, as a patient-centred emergent transformative concept in mental healthcare, requires a change in the culture and practice of organisations at different levels. This paper investigates the potential of nurturing existing recovery oriented initiatives as promising practices for the re-orientation of mental healthcare provision. In the field of social innovation, promising practices are intended as very context-linked sustainable practices which open up possibilities of societal radical transformation based on people’s real needs and existing assets. Similarly, in mental healthcare services, the authors argue that emergent promising recovery oriented and co-produced practices can favour the shift from a traditional top-down culture to a more collaborative one. This paper is based on an experimental action-research project, Recovery CO–LAB, developed in collaboration with the Mental Health Department of Spedali Civili di Brescia, aiming to explore how service design could help the organisation to increase its orientation toward recovery

Measuring the Recovery Orientation of Assertive Community Treatment

BACKGROUND: Approaches to measuring recovery orientation are needed, particularly for programs that may struggle with implementing recovery-oriented treatment. OBJECTIVE: A mixed-methods comparative study was conducted to explore effective approaches to measuring recovery orientation of assertive community treatment (ACT) teams. DESIGN: Two ACT teams exhibiting high and low recovery orientation were compared using surveys, treatment plan ratings, diaries of treatment visits, and team leader–reported treatment control mechanisms. RESULTS: The recovery-oriented team differed on one survey measure (higher expectations for consumer recovery), treatment planning (greater consumer involvement and goal-directed content), and use of control mechanisms (less use of representative payee, agency-held lease, daily medication delivery, and family involvement). Staff and consumer diaries showed the most consistent differences (e.g., conveying hope and choice) and were the least susceptible to observer bias but had the lowest response rates. CONCLUSIONS: Several practices differentiate recovery orientation on ACT teams, and a mixed-methods assessment approach is feasible

Capabilities For Catching-up: Economic Development and Competitiveness in Uganda: Implications for Human Resource Development

The study summarizes desk research for a GTZ report on the human resource dimension of Uganda's economic development

Learning from Other Communities

This paper reflects a synopsis of the work in person/family-centered planning representative of its implementation across a variety of disability service systems, including prisons, schools, community-based service agencies and institutional settings. The authors who have contributed to this paper have direct experience in the field working with individuals who have disability labels of severe and persistent mental illness, mental retardation and developmental disabilities, and learning disabilities. It is their hope that this paper will serve to guide the emerging best practice in the design and delivery of person-centered service delivery systems

Enhancing Brand Equity Through Sustainability: Waste Recycling

Unlike many existing research studies that explain reverse marketing from a purchasing perspective, this study recognizes it as an honest effort made by managers aiming to promote sustainability by purposefully managing waste and discusses the spillover effect of their initiatives on brand equity. It argues that efficient recycling of products through reverse marketing by a brand demonstrates its sincere intent to adopt sustainable business practices and enhances its equity in the marketplace. A business-to-business viewpoint has been used to combine knowledge about waste recycling and management through reverse marketing based on the unpretentious operations and management practices. The propositions reflect on the criticality of engaging business customer firms in a procedural mechanism of recycling for increase in brand equity as the success of reverse marketing. A comprehensive adoption of an initiative like waste management through reverse marketing by a brand highlights how sustainability initiatives can create value for the customers of the brand and ultimately drive brand equity

Product ecodesign and materials: current status and future prospects

The aim of this paper is to discuss the current status of ecodesign in the industry and its future implications for materials. There is today more and more focus on the environmental impacts of products during their whole life cycle. In particular, ecodesign aims at integrating environmental aspects during the product's design process as any other criterion, in order to reduce the life cycle impacts. Although a lot of product environmental impact assessment and Design for Environment tools already exist, environmental aspects are unfortunately rarely routinely integrated into product development process in the industry. This is mainly due to the fact that current ecodesign tools are little adapted to designers' practices, requirements and competencies. After the sequential and DfX paradigms, design of products is today maturing into Integrated Design, where multiple points of views and expertise have to be considered at the same time to progressively define the product

Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of strengths model case management (SMCM) with Chinese mental health service users in Hong Kong

Introduction Strengths-based approaches mobilise individual and environmental resources that can facilitate the recovery of people with mental illness. Strengths model case management (SMCM), developed by Rapp and Goscha through collaborative efforts at the University of Kansas, offers a structured and innovative intervention. As evidence of the effectiveness of strengths-based interventions come from Western studies, which lacked rigorous research design or failed to assure fidelity to the model, we aim to fill these gaps and conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to test the effectiveness of SMCM for individuals with mental illness in Hong Kong. Methods and analysis This will be an RCT of SMCM. Assuming a medium intervention effect (Cohen’s d=0.60) with 30% missing data (including dropouts), 210 service users aged 18 years or above will be recruited from three community mental health centres. They will be randomly assigned to SMCM groups (intervention) or SMILE groups (control) in a 1:1 ratio. The SMCM groups will receive strengths model interventions from case workers, whereas the SMILE groups will receive generic care from case workers with an attention placebo. The case workers will all be embedded in the community centres and will be required to provide a session with service users in both groups at least once every fortnight. There will be two groups of case workers for the intervention and control groups, respectively. The effectiveness of the SMCM will be compared between the two groups of service users with outcomes at baseline, 6 and 12 months after recruitment. Functional outcomes will also be reported by case workers. Data on working alliances and goal attainment will be collected from individual case workers. Qualitative evaluation will be conducted to identify the therapeutic ingredients and conditions leading to positive outcomes. Trained outcome assessors will be blind to the group allocation. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval from the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Hong Kong has been obtained (HRECNCF: EA1703078). The results will be disseminated to service users and their families via the media, to healthcare professionals via professional training and meetings and to researchers via conferences and publications

New Deal Labor Policy and the Containment of Radical Union Activity

New Deal labor policies were designed with the stability of the capitalist economy in mind. Their pro-union provisions responded to labor militance and served to head off the formation of a radical working-class movement. The National Labor Relations Act established procedures which encouraged unions to pursue peaceful collective bargaining rather than a more activist course. Although the enforcement of pro-union policies was weak, the fact that they were adopted gave the impression that the state was sensitive to worker interests. When the crisis ended with the onset of World War II, the state reverted to an approach which more directly restricted worker militance

Globalisation in the Malaysian context : the experience of Malay adolescents with 'conduct disorders' : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū Aotearoa/New Zealand

The process of globalisation offers opportunities for a country to progress to be a greater and more competitive nation. The Malaysian government is highly inspired by the concept of globalisation in progressing towards the vision of becoming a developed nation by the year 2020. Globalisation as a process is very demanding, requiring changes to the Malaysian political, cultural, economic, educational and social landscape. These changes have presented immense challenges to Malay adolescents where Western values have conflicted with traditional values and aspirations. Without adequate preparation, the potential incommensurability of values affects the locally defined wellbeing among Malay adolescents. Given that, how Malay adolescents understand and adapt to the globalisation process remains elusive. Therefore, this research is designed to explore the experiences of Malay adolescents who are considered to experience ‗conduct disorders‘ within the Malaysian context of globalisation. This research is a qualitative research inquiry, which utilised Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a method of analysis. IPA is an approach that explores in detail personal lived experience to examine what the world is like from the point of view of the participants. Initial data was collected from 28 participants with 12 participants selected from a rehabilitation centre for young offenders in Malaysia for a more thorough analysis. The lived experience of the participants is presented and explained through three levels of analysis, the participants' demographic background and history, detailed life experiences of each case and finally, the meaning they attached to their experiences. The analysis suggests that the understanding of the Malay adolescents is constructed reflecting the changes in the dynamic of all segments of life alongside the emerging new lifestyles that are embedded in the processes of globalisation. Their lived experiences are described by referring to a complex relationship with and various tensions between different tenets. Those tenets include the traditional Malay cultures, values, beliefs and practices, which are much influenced by Islamic teaching, and the emergent new values and worldviews associated with globalisation and modernisation. Due to their vulnerability regarding self-characteristics, innate capabilities and the systemic flaws of relevant support systems, they are described as problematic in meeting the new, yet challenging environment. The participants lost their primary and reliable sources of survival. Instead, they are being introduced to various alternative resources that promote values and cultures that are against the normality of local practices. As a result, they end up in the criminal justice system. Realising that they have gone ―off track‖, the participants shared their intention to recover through various strategies, which include both action oriented and cognitive frameworks, but at the same time, they expected to face a range of hassles that may contribute to some difficulties for them to make progress. This research comes out with an argument that questions the appropriateness of the relevance of the diagnostic system of conduct disorders as defined in DSM. The experiences of the participants‘ suggested that they simply reacted to the changing context which offered immense challenges to their lived experiences. Therefore, rather than disordered the adolescents can be understood as responding to the conflicting conditions they face. Keywords: Malay adolescents, globalisation, conduct disorders, lived experiences, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysi