Recovery perspectives and narratives of hope of young people experiencing psychosis

Recovery focus has shifted in recent years towards understanding the impact of mental health difficulties on the wider individual context. This includes focus on social inclusion, engendering hope and peer support. For adolescents, psychosis and mental health treatment may interrupt typical developmental tasks such as individuation and successful stage progression. The aim of this research was to expand understanding of how young people with psychosis experience hope. This included how hope was experienced in specific domains and to which factors young people attributed changes in their hopefulness. The study employed a qualitative non-experimental design, using a semi-structured interview schedule developed in accordance with narrative methodology. Ten young people between 16 - 26 years old were interviewed. The experience of hope as an overarching strand throughout the narratives had three common elements; a sense of belonging, the importance of information and the significance of planning and occupation in relation to hope. Work was often a goal within domain-specific hope, and friendships seemed to be less apparent. The study concludes that for some young people, psychosis can act as a turning point towards hopeful thinking. Information can both promote and hinder hope and the importance of meeting others with lived experience in engendering hopeful thinking and greater social inclusion should be considered when working with young people

Mathematics, mastery and metacognition: how adding a creative approach can support children in maths

Background: Children who hold an incremental view of ability show greater perseverance, improved help-seeking skills and are better able to cope with unexpected challenges. Classroom instruction can influence how children view themselves as learners. Aim: To explore how mastery-orientated classroom instruction, collaborative learning and metacognitive reflection can foster learners’ attitudes to their task performance. We hypothesised that using a mastery-oriented approach within a mathematics curriculum encourages metacognition, improves motivation and helps children achieve an underlying understanding of mathematical concepts thus improving mathematics performance. Method: This paper reports an 11-week project aiming to embed problem-solving strategies within a mastery-oriented whole-class environment. Children completed pre- and post-task semi-structured interviews and maths problems in addition to the 11-week collaborative maths project. Participants were 24 children from a rural primary school in East Sussex, 12 boys and 12 girls (mean age 8 years and 9 months). The interviews are presented qualitatively and a repeated measures analysis of variance on mathematics motivation and performance was conducted. Findings: The learners showed increased metacognitive reflection on learning strategies as well as increases in girls’ motivation for mathematics. Limitations: This is a small sample size and, being conducted within a typical everyday classroom, there were several uncontrolled variables. Although change was evident in both attitude and maths scores, it was difficult to apportion added value to the different variables contributing to the change in maths scores. Conclusions: Challenging children’s perceptions of mathematics encouraged greater self-reflection and increased motivation for girls

An exploration of young people’s narratives of hope following experience of psychosis

Aims: To expand understandings of how young people with psychosis experience hope. This included to which factors young people attributed changes in their hopefulness and the role played by professionals and others with lived experience. Method: Ten young people recovering from an experience of psychosis were interviewed using narrative methodology. Results: The experience of hope as an overarching strand throughout the narratives had three common elements: sense of belonging, which included social inclusion, the importance of information and the significance of planning and occupation. Professionals played an important role in facilitating small steps forwards. Conclusions: The findings suggest the importance to young people of a sense of belonging and achieving small goals to facilitate hopeful thinking and, for clinicians, the value of supporting new peer relationships and meaningful occupation

Ethyl 3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrrole-2-carboxyl­ate

In the title compound, C9H13NO2, there are two independent mol­ecules per asymmetric unit. The mol­ecules are very similar and almost planar, with the ethoxy­carbonyl group anti to the pyrrole N atom. The two independent mol­ecules are joined into dimeric units by strong hydrogen bonds between NH groups and carbonyl O atoms

Please mind the gap: students’ perspectives of the transition in academic skills between A-level and degree level geography

This paper explores first-year undergraduates’ perceptions of the transition from studying geography at pre-university level to studying for a degree. This move is the largest step students make in their education, and the debate about it in the UK has been reignited due to the government’s planned changes to A-level geography. However, missing from most of this debate is an appreciation of the way in which geography students themselves perceive their transition to university. This paper begins to rectify this absence. Using student insights, we show that their main concern is acquiring the higher level skills required for university learning

Photophysical and photochemical properties of potential porphyrin and chlorin photosensitizers for PDT

Structural and optical properties as well as photophysical and photochemical parameters (excited S₁ and T₁ state lifetimes at 77 K and in the presence of O₂ in solution at 293 K; efficiencies of singlet oxygen, ¹Δg, generation) are presented for porphyrins and chlorins with potential for the PDT of cancer: chlorin p₆ and its trimethyl ester, chlorin e₆ and its Na₃ and K₃ salts, purpurin-18 and its monomethylester, 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(3-methoxyphenyl)porphyrin (TPPM), 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(2,4-difluoro-3-methoxyphenyl)porphyrin (TPPMF) and GaTTP in different solvents (ethanol, toluene, pyridine and buffer pH 7.4) at 77–300 K. It has been shown that for monomeric chlorin e₆, chlorin p₆ and its derivatives the photophysical parameters are similar, as follows: fluorescence lifetimes τₛ in the presence of oxygen are 3.2–4.5 ns at 293 K; fluorescence quantum yields φ₁ vary from 0.1 to 0.2 depending on the solvent; phosphorescence quantum yields φ₁ are of t order 10⁻⁵; T₁ state lifetimes τT = 1.5–2.0 ms at 77 K and 250–390 ns at 293 K in the presence of O₂. By use of the direct kinetic measurement of singlet oxygen emission at 1.27 μm on laserexcitation the quantum yields of ¹Δg generation by chlorins have been measured: φΔ = 0.35−0.68. In this case values of φ₁ and φΔ depend strongly on the solve probably because of the formation of aggregates. For TPPM, TPPMF and Ga-TPP the φΔ values measured are higher (0.87–0.98) and are explained by the higher intersystem crossing S₁ → T₁ quantum yields

Constructing Memories of Holmfirth through 'Last of the Summer Wine'

Last of the Summer Wine (BBC, 1973-2010) was filmed in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, UK for 37 years. Its presence in the town has affected collective memories of the space and place of the region. In examining Summer Wine’s continued presence in Holmfirth even after it has ceased production, we investigate how the series as a text, institution and brand serves to spatially inform Holmfirth and construct, embed and inform cultural memory

Reclaiming feminist futures : co-opted and progressive politics in a neoliberal age

This article engages with the influential narrative about the co-optation of feminism in conditions of neoliberalism put forward by prominent feminist thinkers Nancy Fraser, Hester Eisenstein and Angela McRobbie. After drawing out the twin visions of 'progressive' feminist politics that undergird this narrative — cached out in terms of either the retrieval of past socialist feminist glories or personal reinvention — we subject to critical scrutiny both the substantive claims made and the conceptual scaffolding invoked. We argue that the proleptic imaginings of all three authors, in different ways, are highly circumscribed in terms of the recommended agent, agenda and practices of progressive politics, and clouded by conceptual muddle over the meanings of 'left', 'radical' and 'progressive'. Taken together, these problems render the conclusions of Fraser, Eisenstein and McRobbie at best unconvincing and at worst dismissive of contemporary feminist efforts to challenge neoliberalism. We end the paper by disentangling and redefining left, radical and progressive and by sketching a contrasting substantive vision of progressive feminist politics enabled by this reconceptualisation