Milton Keynes Family-Nurse Partnership: Wave 2A '<i>Collaborative Working with Children's Centres'; a service evaluation</i>

This document reports a qualitative study of experiences with and attitudes towards the Family Nurse Partnership pilot programme in Milton Keynes, focusing on the ways in which the programme has been operating in conjunction with other services for parents with young children, especially young mothers, and the role of the programme in developing client autonomy. The study was carried out in 2010. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with the members of the Family Nurse team, with clients, with local Sure Start Children’s Centre Coordinators and with practitioners in other services associated with the work of the Centres and the FNP team. In all, 37 people were interviewed, including the 7 FNP team members, 15 clients, 5 Children’s Centre coordinators and 10 practitioners in associated services.Opinions about the conduct and efficacy of the FNP pilot scheme were consistently very favourable, with the members of the team, and the scheme materials and practices being held in high regard, both by clients and other services involved. The strengths-based approach was especially valued. Some further development possibilities were identified, concerning the relatively low level of communication that was being achieved between the FNP and other services, and about the perceived inaccessibility to other practitioners of the specific programme-based activities used with FNP clients. These were widely seen as being of potentially great benefit to practitioners outside the scheme.The necessity of understanding the complexity and depth of the needs of young parents also emerged as a core theme, linked with the need to tailor ways of working and offering services so as to avoid stigmatization and hence putting up barriers to client participation. Some concerns were expressed that the fact of being a teenage mother does not in itself always carry a high need association, especially where adequate family and community support is in place, and that needs may also be great in less-young parents where such support is lacking or other risk factors are present.Clients were especially appreciative of the value to them of the close, sustained and supportive relationships that had been established with their Family Nurses. Availability, both practically and emotionally, also emerged as a key factor in client satisfaction and in the maintenance of clients in the programme.Recommendations are made for development opportunities based on the findings of this study

Mothers as parents, fathers as coparents: A mixed methods evaluation of parent support programmes from the perspectives of mothers, fathers, coparents, and project workers.

The current research evaluated the Parents as First Teachers parenting programme based on four stakeholder groups' perspectives: mothers, fathers, coparents, and programme project workers. Stakeholders' views were explored with regard to parenting practices, process of change, family roles, family relationships, community services, and programme participation. This bottom-up approach is in contrast to previous evaluation research, which has often been top-down, placing the evaluators as experts. Furthermore previous research has failed to consider perspectives beyond those of mothers. This evaluation was conducted in three phases using an exploratory mixed-methods design informed by the natural history approach and action research. Phase 1 of the research began in the field, where interviews were conducted with members of all four stakeholder groups. These interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin, 2009) which focuses on participants' unique experiences. In phase 2, bespoke questionnaires were developed from phase 1 findings and combined with previously validated measures of programme evaluation and parenting practices. These were distributed widely to each group of stakeholders and were initially analysed to explore underlying regions within the data using multi-dimensional scaling (Kruskal and Wish, 1978). Parametric and non-parametric correlations were conducted to explore the relationship between the findings of each stakeholder group. In phase 3, all stakeholder groups were invited to participate in focus groups. The data were subject to thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) and used to validate and expand findings from the previous phases. Stakeholder groups' findings from each phase are presented in separate chapters, then compared for similarities and differences. Findings suggest that mothers are often the gateway to fathers' programme participation and the research indicates tire importance of considering parenting and parenting programmes in context to address families' unique needs. Implications are discussed with reference to practice, policy, and training of parenting programmes

Mothers as parents, fathers as coparents : A mixed-methods evaluation of parent support programmes form the perspectives of mothers, fathers, coparents, and project workers

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Mothers as parents, fathers as coparents: A mixed methods evaluation of parent support programmes from the perspectives of mothers, fathers, coparents, and project workers.

The current research evaluated the Parents as First Teachers parenting programme based on four stakeholder groups' perspectives: mothers, fathers, coparents, and programme project workers. Stakeholders' views were explored with regard to parenting practices, process of change, family roles, family relationships, community services, and programme participation. This bottom-up approach is in contrast to previous evaluation research, which has often been top-down, placing the evaluators as experts. Furthermore previous research has failed to consider perspectives beyond those of mothers. This evaluation was conducted in three phases using an exploratory mixed-methods design informed by the natural history approach and action research. Phase 1 of the research began in the field, where interviews were conducted with members of all four stakeholder groups. These interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin, 2009) which focuses on participants' unique experiences. In phase 2, bespoke questionnaires were developed from phase 1 findings and combined with previously validated measures of programme evaluation and parenting practices. These were distributed widely to each group of stakeholders and were initially analysed to explore underlying regions within the data using multi-dimensional scaling (Kruskal and Wish, 1978). Parametric and non-parametric correlations were conducted to explore the relationship between the findings of each stakeholder group. In phase 3, all stakeholder groups were invited to participate in focus groups. The data were subject to thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) and used to validate and expand findings from the previous phases. Stakeholder groups' findings from each phase are presented in separate chapters, then compared for similarities and differences. Findings suggest that mothers are often the gateway to fathers' programme participation and the research indicates tire importance of considering parenting and parenting programmes in context to address families' unique needs. Implications are discussed with reference to practice, policy, and training of parenting programmes

Machine learning for surrogate process models of bioproduction pathways

Technoeconomic analysis and life-cycle assessment are critical to guiding and prioritizing bench-scale experiments and to evaluating economic and environmental performance of biofuel or biochemical production processes at scale. Traditionally, commercial process simulation tools have been used to develop detailed models for these purposes. However, developing and running such models can be costly and computationally intensive, which limits the degree to which they can be shared and reproduced in the broader research community. This study evaluates the potential of an automated machine learning approach to develop surrogate models based on conventional process simulation models. The analysis focuses on several high-value biofuels and bioproducts for which pathways of production from biomass feedstocks have been well-established. The results demonstrate that surrogate models can be an accurate and effective tool for approximating the cost, mass and energy balance outputs of more complex process simulations at a fraction of the computational expense

Technoeconomic analysis for biofuels and bioproducts.

Technoeconomic analysis (TEA) is an approach for conducting process design and simulation, informed by empirical data, to estimate capital costs, operating costs, mass balances, and energy balances for a commercial scale biorefinery. TEA serves as a useful method to screen potential research priorities, identify cost bottlenecks at the earliest stages of research, and provide the mass and energy data needed to conduct life-cycle environmental assessments. Recent studies have produced new tools and methods to enable faster iteration on potential designs, more robust uncertainty analysis, and greater accessibility through the use of open-source platforms. There is also a trend toward more expansive system boundaries to incorporate the impact of policy incentives, use-phase performance differences, and potential impacts on global market supply

How families prepare their children for tooth extraction under general anaesthesia: Family and clinical predictors of non-compliance with a ‘serious game’

Objective: To explore family and clinical factors for usage of an online serious game designed to prepare children with ECC for dental treatment under general anaesthesia. Design: Observational study. Secondary data of 60 children, aged 5-to-7, randomised to the intervention group in a phase-III randomised controlled trial [NIHR Portfolio 10006, ISRCTN: 18265148] testing the efficacy of the serious game http://www.scottga.org (available online). Usage was captured automatically, with each click, in real time. The total number of replays and total number of missing slides per game-run performed by the child, were recorded and used to monitor usage. Compliance outcomes were: total time running the game and number of completely missed slides. Results: 57/60 played the game. Median age of parent/carer was 32. For 74% of the families, fathers resided at home and for 65% the parent/carer had A-levels-to-university education. At recruitment, 70% of the children were reported as anxious/highly-fearful and 37% as “significantly psychologically disturbed”. Conclusions: Factors for non-compliance were absence of a father at home (P = 0.01) and higher child-anxiety (P = 0.01) and, to a lesser extent, a low parent/carer education level (P = 0.09). Interactive cartoons featuring dental assessment, oral health messages and modelling featured in the more popular slides.</p