Children with Long Covid: Co-producing a specialist community public health nursing response

© 2021 MA Healthcare Ltd. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.12968/johv.2021.9.10.418Globally, children have been profoundly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in many ways. Whilst the majority of children with acute COVID-19 infection experience mild illness and fully recover, substantial numbers go on to experience Long Covid. Long Covid is clinically identified by experience of persistent (and sometimes different) symptoms for many months after the acute infection (even in children who were asymptomatic). There is currently no agreed consensus on the case definition of Long Covid but real-world data from American health insurance firms and the UK Office for National Statistics report that children with Long Covid experience: intestinal symptoms, pain, breathlessness, cognitive dysfunction and post-exercise malaise. The current understanding of the natural history, diagnostics and treatments of Long Covid is limited, meaning the medical model in isolation is not helpful. Health visitors and school nurses are ideally placed to case-find children with Long Covid and co-produce child and family-centred care.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

The lived experience of forgiveness/unforgiveness in victims of violent crime : an empirical phenomenological study.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.The aim of this study was to investigate the lived experience of forgiveness or unforgiveness in individuals who had been victims of violent crime. 6 participants who had experienced violent crime underwent an in-depth interview (Silverman, 2000) aimed at gathering descriptions of their life world with respect to their experience of forgiveness/unforgiveness. The method used to analyse the transcriptions was Giorgi's (1985) phenomenological method adapted slightly by Wertz (1985 as cited in Giorgi,1985). Findings indicated that the capacity to forgive is associated with the way in which individuals see themselves, others, their world and their perpetrators. Results were discussed with reference to the literature reviewed and an Object Relations Theoretical framework was introduced in order to explain and illuminate some of the findings. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed as well as recommendations for future research

Professionals’ perceptions of young males in child sexual exploitation policy: a critical policy genealogical analysis

Background: The discourse on young males affected by or involved in child sexual exploitation (CSE) is often silenced due to the preoccupation with, and generally greater publicity of, female victims within professional practice, policy and research. Historical and contemporary CSE discourse is largely conceptualised through Feminism and Moral Panic Theory, enmeshed within a general reduction of available professional vocabulary in English child protection policy. This thesis aims to investigate these discourses. Methodology: This research analyses CSE policy implementation between 2000 and 2016 with alternative social theories within a critical policy genealogy (CPG). The CPG considers Foucault’s position of the ‘qualified speakers’ on childhood sexuality to identify the ethics of CSE policy enactment. Two specific methodologies are utilised to establish the discourse and counter-discourse on multiple levels: a critical realist synthesis of CSE policy literature (n=44) and a Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis of policy actors (n=18) in a geographically-defined case study. Results: By bringing together the critical realist and Foucauldian-inspired datasets, the CPG presents six discourse norm circles (Elder-Vass 2011, 2012) involved in CSE policy enactment: political influences; visibility / surveillance; the construction of the ‘perfect victim’; inclusivity for young males; local governance; and championing the specialist / minority voice. CSE policy is understood, experienced and perceived inconsistently by policy enactors across a range of fields, however those within the voluntary sector are key to developing better understandings of the realities of young males. Conclusions: Policy enactors are stuck in a constant negotiating position, or dance, between co-existing realities of CSE presented by government policy and its implementation. They have to try to make sense of these dances of power (dynamism) by attempting to implement, whilst simultaneously adapting policy expectations to accommodate CSE victims. It is only through this dynamism, however, a new knowledge on young males can be revealed

Being orientated towards social justice: learning for health visitor practice

© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Peer reviewe

The potential of educational comics as a health information medium

Objectives To investigate ways in which educational comics might provide support in dealing with feelings and attitudes towards health conditions, as well as improving understanding of factual information and to identify potential weakness of comics as a medium for health information. Methods Semi-structured interviewees with eleven university students who either had a mental or physical health condition themselves or had a family member with a health condition. Results The result highlighted the potential value of comics as a format for health information. In addition to conveying factual information, comics offer opportunities for self-awareness, reassurance, empathy, companionship and a means to explore the impact of illness on family relationships. However, there are notable barriers to the greater use of comics to provide health information, namely, a lack of awareness of, and easy access to, educational comics, along with the perception that comics are exclusively light-hearted and for children. Conclusions Currently, the full potential of comics in health settings is not being realised. Health information professionals may be in a position to address this issue through identifying, cataloguing, indexing and promoting comics as a legitimate format for health information

Special Issue: Child Protection Vocabulary in Professional Judgement – Fit for Purpose?

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Component Analysis of Apparent Losses

Water Supply & Sanitation

Analysis and implementation of the speaker adaptation techniques : MAP, MLLR, and MLED

Thesis (MScEng)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The topic of this thesis is speaker adaptation, whereby speaker-independent speech models are adapted to more closely match individual speakers by utilising a small amount of data from the targeted individual. Speaker adaptation methods - specifically, the MAP, MLLR and MLED speaker adaptation methods - are critically evaluated and compared. Two novel extensions of the MLED adaptation method are introduced, derived and evaluated. The first incorporates the explicit modelling of the mean speaker model in the speaker-space into the MLED framework. The second extends MLED to use basis vectors modelling inter-class variance for classes of speech models, instead of basis vectors modelling inter-speaker variance. An evaluation of the effect of two different types of feature vector - PLP-cepstra and LPCCs - on the performance of speaker adaptation is made, to determine which feature vector is optimal for speaker-independent systems and the adaptation thereof.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die onderwerp van hierdie tesis is spreker-aanpassing, dit wil sê, die verandering van 'n spreker-onafhanklike spraakmodel om nader aan 'n spreker-afhanklike model vir 'n individu te wees, gegewe 'n klein hoeveelheid spraakdata van die individu. Die volgende sprekeraanpassing-metodes word geëvalueer: MAP, MLLR en MLED. Twee nuwe uitbreidings vir die MLED-metode word beskryf, afgelei en geëvalueer. Die eerste inkorporeer die eksplisiete modellering van die gemiddelde sprekermodel van die sprekerruimte in die MLED metode. Die tweede uitbreiding maak gebruik van basisvektore vir MLED wat vanaf die interklas-variansie tussen 'n stel sprekerklasse in plaas van die interspreker-variansie afgelei is. Die effek van twee tipes kenmerk-vektore - PLP-kepstra en LPCC's - op die prestasie van sprekeraanpassings-metodes word ondersoek, sodat die optimale tipe kenmerk-vektor vir spreker-onafhanklike modelle en hul aanpassing gevind kan word