How do secondary school counsellors work with other professionals?

Counselling services based in secondary schools across the UK are becoming common place. Indeed, several of the home nations have national strategies and targets to introduce universal counselling into schools to address the mental health needs of young people more effectively. This study explores how secondary school counsellors work with other professionals within and outside schools in the delivery of services. Sixteen school counsellors from across the UK were interviewed, in four different focus groups - 2 in England (n=8) and 2 in Scotland (n=8). The findings indicate that the professional relationships counsellors have with other colleagues have a direct influence upon the quality of the service they feel able to offer. Time spent with colleagues when setting up services was viewed as highly beneficial, as was time spent building relationships and connections with colleagues within the school and from external agencies and organisations, as well as having a senior member of staff to liaise with. It is apparent that attending to relationships outside of the counselling room may influence the positive outcomes for the counselling service and its clients generally. Implications of these findings may influence the time counsellors are employed by commissioners, and how counsellors use their time allocation in schools to ensure that effective services are both achieved and maintained. The research also points to the need for future research into the processes and practices in the delivery of school counselling across the UK. Karen Cromarty and Kaye Richards British Association for Counselling and Psychotherap

Meditation: A Balance of Human and Social Growth in Education

This best practice article explores meditation as a holistic method of nurturing the balanced integration of human and social development in educational environments. It inquiries into the meaning of meditation and considers a dilemma that exists between the holistic meditation practices of its traditional religious and yogic practitioners, and recent academic studies of meditation in educational contexts which often seek scientific explanations focusing on quantitative studies for utilitarian and institutional purposes. In performing the research, this article examines the writings and Dharma talks of two world-renowned Buddhist monks and meditation experts about the practice and purpose of meditation. The article concludes by considering the application of meditation as a holistic concept in educational studies which may enrich the integrated growth of students and faculty in contemporary education

Key Factors to Maintaining Treatment Fidelity in an Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Model of CBT

The aim of this contribution is to provide evidence and greater theoretical understanding of the relationship between key factors that maintain treatment fidelity in CBT, outside of research settings. This spans decades in CBT training, supervision and practice, contributing new terms, concepts, models and clinical recommendations. The series culminates by focusing on Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). A coherent body of work emerges, when an ‘empirically-grounded clinically interventions’ approach is applied. This uses practice-based research, pilot data and preliminary studies, combined with original empirical evidence. Aims are achieved by defining and appraising five topics - Treatment Fidelity, Service-Model Fidelity, Training, Clinical Supervision and Service Framework. Once their key functions are established, their inter-relatedness emerges. The rationale has a basis in findings that clinical outcomes in research do not always translate into services, despite insignificant demographic differences and more experienced practitioners in services. This hypothesises, services with more variables that increase treatment fidelity to known interventions, will be linked to superior clinical outcome. Whilst drilling deeper into key concepts at one level, the overarching theme remains the tension between outcome research in CBT and its failure to translate into standard clinical services. This historical lack of replication was a factor in the modernisation agenda of IAPT. Three broad recommendations and implications for future research are concluded from the series. First, adhering to a High Dose Narrow/Bandwidth (HD/NB) model (Cromarty 2016), increasing the dose of the primary intervention allows IAPT practitioners to closer match treatment fidelity and clinical outcomes of research trials. The Australian IAPT contributions explicitly showcase this, supporting the hypothesis that services with increased treatment fidelity yield superior clinical outcomes. Secondly, HD/NB interventions must be supported by Service-Model Fidelity (Cromarty 2016). The delivery system in which HD/NB principles operate is equally important. This recommendation for integrating clinical improvement and service-redesign models, notes Treatment Fidelity is not guaranteed in clinical services with training, supervision and best-practice alone. Placed within an optimised service model such as IAPT, the joint strengths of key variables are amplified. Further research on service model being a possible factor of improved clinical outcome is recommended. Thirdly, if known problems translating research into clinical practice persist, additional research closing the gap, can originate from the clinical practice! CBT has an actual empirical basis in clinical observation with additional theoretical aspects, researching and treating numerous variables, including psychosocial and psychological processes. CBT clinical practice possesses several overlapping features with single-case methodology. Small scale, service-based studies allow convenient samples, with high inference and low numbers. They have high clinical and face validity with the ability to study individual change processes. The advent of IAPT services allows a more robust two-way process to augment controlled research. They are ideal grounds for translating research findings into services due to inexorably linked variables, combining to improve treatment fidelity. This constitutes a continual two-way process by recipient IAPT services increasing the empirical basis of practice-based research. This can contribute back into the wider evidence base to inform future large-scale research

Investigating attentional function and cognitive fluctuations in Lewy body dementia

PhD ThesisLewy body dementias (LBD), which include dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson’s disease with dementia (PDD), are characterised by attentional dysfunction and fluctuating cognition. The underlying aetiology of these clinical features is poorly understood, yet such knowledge is essential for developing effective management strategies. The aim of this project was to determine the specific facets of attention affected in LBD patients, and to use high-density electroencephalography (EEG) to delineate the underlying pathophysiology and how this relates to cognitive fluctuations. Methods: Attentional network efficiency was investigated in LBD patients (n = 32), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients (n = 27), and age-matched healthy controls (n = 21) by using a modified version of the Attention Network Test (ANT). The ANT, a visual attention task, probes the efficiency of three anatomically defined attentional networks: alerting, orienting and executive conflict. Participants completed the ANT whilst undergoing EEG recordings (128 channels). In a subsample of the participants (22 DLB, 24 AD, 19 controls), time-frequency wavelet analyses were conducted to investigate event-related spectral perturbations (ERSP), between 4-90 Hz, in the 500 ms post-stimuli presentation. Attentional network ERSP was calculated by contrasting the oscillatory reactivity following relevant stimuli. Results: Overall mean reaction time was slower in the dementia groups (AD and LBD) relative to the controls, and the LBD group were slower than the AD group. Behaviourally, there were no group differences regarding the orienting effect. However, both dementia groups exhibited reduced executive conflict processing efficiency, and a lack of an alerting effect. Electrophysiologically, the DLB group exhibited a profound lack of post-stimulus oscillatory reactivity below 30 Hz, irrespective of stimulus condition. For the alerting network, the DLB group exhibited attenuated reactivity in the lower frequencies (< 30 Hz); in the theta range (4-7 Hz) the controls and AD group showed global synchronisation (across all regions), peaking at approximately 300 ms, which was absent in the DLB group. Lack of DLB theta synchronisation between 200-450 ms over the right parietal cortex was associated with a ii higher total score on the Clinical Assessment of Fluctuation scale. Orienting and executive conflict network reactivity was comparable across all groups; primarily intermittent synchronisation, of reduced power relative to the alerting network, diffuse across the time and frequency domains in all regions. Conclusions: Attenuated global oscillatory reactivity in the DLB group specific to the alerting network (the network associated with the ability to maintain an alert state) is indicative of this fractionated aspect of attention being differentially affected in the DLB patients relative to the AD and control groups. Lack of theta reactivity in the parietal regions may contribute to the underlying pathophysiology of cognitive fluctuations in DLB.Alzheimer’s Research U

Reflections on a research initiative aimed at enhancing the role of African languages in education in South Africa

In the South African educational domain, there are an increasing number of initiatives which attempt to address the inequities in the system by providing support in an African language at various levels. Many of these initiatives use translation of texts in various subject areas as a major method of support which necessarily involves terminology development. This article puts forward the argument that although linguistic andconceptual development are inextricably linked, provision of translations, terms and word lists may not be sufficient to encourage ‘deep’ learning of the key concepts in the disciplinary content areas. The challenges arising out of the present educational context in South Africa require a more holistic approach, including language provision and management, professional translation and back translation, more inclusive methodsof terminology development with richer contextualization and the enrichment of teachers’ pedagogic content knowledge. The argument arises out of a re-examination of the findings from research into the development of two multilingual resource books for use by teachers of mathematics and science at secondary school level. These resources were developed in order to facilitate understanding of key concepts in themathematics and science disciplines and will undergo a re-appraisal of the extent of their effectiveness in meeting these aims

Building a knowledge base for language teaching through translanguaging

The aim of the research reported on in this article was to explore the effects on student learning and performance of the use of two languages of instruction, viz. isiZulu and English, in a course on the teaching of isiZulu as an additional language at school level. The course was for third year BA students considering a language teaching career. The content of the course came from the Applied Linguistics field and had not been translated from English into isiZulu. In addition, the discipline content was taught by a non-isiZulu speaking applied linguistics lecturer who had recently joined a three-year major course in isiZulu but was not fluent. The course was team taught by the Applied Linguist and an isiZulu lecturer who made the content accessible to the students through translation of difficult terms and concepts into isiZulu. Students were free to use either language. The research questions focused on how the two languages interacted naturally within a translanguaging framework in order to scaffold learning, and whether and how the use of isiZulu would facilitate understanding of key disciplinary concepts when the terminology had not yet been developed. Class sessions were recorded and transcribed with informed consent. Instances of translanguaging were analyzed in terms of the functions they were fulfilling within a broad discourse analysis framework. Findings revealed that what began as planned and systematic code-switching became, over time, translanguaging. Students appreciated the affordance for meaningful engagement with the subject content as they found it easier to challenge the lecturers and to present their own points of view in isiZulu. The experience also created rich affordances for building an academic discourse in isiZulu. Finally, teaching on the course created learning experiences for the lecturers who increased their knowledge of the languages concerned and the subject content respectively.Keywords: applied linguistics; codeswitching; isiZulu; language learning; languages of learning and teaching (LoLTs); language scaffolding; tertiary level; translanguagin