Developing principles of best practice for art therapists working with children and families

In 2010 the British Association of Art therapists asked art therapists working with specific client groups to produce clear guidelines about current views on best practice in the field. Using the Nominal Group Technique and a modified Delphi process, the special interest group Art Therapists working with Children Adolescents and Families (ATCAF) produced 18 Principles of Best Practice with a range of associated indicators. This paper presents the methods and the results of that process followed by a brief discussio

Developmental contexts and features of elite academy football players: Coach and player perspectives

Player profiling can reap many benefits; through reflective coach-athlete dialogue that produces a profile the athlete has a raised awareness of their own development, while the coach has an opportunity to understand the athlete's viewpoint. In this study, we explored how coaches and players perceived the development features of an elite academy footballer and the contexts in which these features are revealed, in order to develop a player profile to be used for mentoring players. Using a Delphi polling technique, coaches and players experienced a number of 'rounds' of expressing their opinions regarding player development contexts and features, ultimately reduced into a consensus. Players and coaches had differing priorities on the key contexts of player development. These contexts, when they reflect the consensus between players and coaches were heavily dominated by ability within the game and training. Personal, social, school, and lifestyle contexts featured less prominently. Although 'discipline' was frequently mentioned as an important player development feature, coaches and players disagreed on the importance of 'training'

A systematic review and synthesis of outcome domains for use within forensic services for people with intellectual disabilities

Aims. In response to the large number of people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) and offending behaviour being treated in psychiatric hospitals, this study identified and developed the domains that should be used to measure treatment outcomes for this population using both a systematic review and consultation exercises. Methods. A systematic search of relevant databases, and sixty studies met the eligibility criteria, and findings were synthesised using content analysis. The findings were refined within a consultation and consensus exercises with carers, service users, and experts. Results. The final framework encompassed three a priori superordinate domains (a) effectiveness, (b) patient safety, and (c) patient and carer experience. Within each of these, further sub-domains emerged from our systematic review and consultation exercises. These included severity of clinical symptoms, offending behaviours, reactive and restrictive interventions, quality of life and patient satisfaction. Conclusions. To index recovery, services need to measure outcome using this framework

The tissue microarray data exchange specification: A community-based, open source tool for sharing tissue microarray data

BACKGROUND: Tissue Microarrays (TMAs) allow researchers to examine hundreds of small tissue samples on a single glass slide. The information held in a single TMA slide may easily involve Gigabytes of data. To benefit from TMA technology, the scientific community needs an open source TMA data exchange specification that will convey all of the data in a TMA experiment in a format that is understandable to both humans and computers. A data exchange specification for TMAs allows researchers to submit their data to journals and to public data repositories and to share or merge data from different laboratories. In May 2001, the Association of Pathology Informatics (API) hosted the first in a series of four workshops, co-sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, to develop an open, community-supported TMA data exchange specification. METHODS: A draft tissue microarray data exchange specification was developed through workshop meetings. The first workshop confirmed community support for the effort and urged the creation of an open XML-based specification. This was to evolve in steps with approval for each step coming from the stakeholders in the user community during open workshops. By the fourth workshop, held October, 2002, a set of Common Data Elements (CDEs) was established as well as a basic strategy for organizing TMA data in self-describing XML documents. RESULTS: The TMA data exchange specification is a well-formed XML document with four required sections: 1) Header, containing the specification Dublin Core identifiers, 2) Block, describing the paraffin-embedded array of tissues, 3)Slide, describing the glass slides produced from the Block, and 4) Core, containing all data related to the individual tissue samples contained in the array. Eighty CDEs, conforming to the ISO-11179 specification for data elements constitute XML tags used in the TMA data exchange specification. A set of six simple semantic rules describe the complete data exchange specification. Anyone using the data exchange specification can validate their TMA files using a software implementation written in Perl and distributed as a supplemental file with this publication. CONCLUSION: The TMA data exchange specification is now available in a draft form with community-approved Common Data Elements and a community-approved general file format and data structure. The specification can be freely used by the scientific community. Efforts sponsored by the Association for Pathology Informatics to refine the draft TMA data exchange specification are expected to continue for at least two more years. The interested public is invited to participate in these open efforts. Information on future workshops will be posted at (API we site)

Future scenarios to inspire innovation

In recent years and accelerated by the economic and financial crisis, complex global issues have moved to the forefront of policy making. These grand challenges require policy makers to address a variety of interrelated issues, which are built upon yet uncoordinated and dispersed bodies of knowledge. Due to the social dynamics of innovation, new socio-technical subsystems are emerging, however there is lack of exploitation of innovative solutions. In this paper we argue that issues of how knowledge is represented can have a part in this lack of exploitation. For example, when drivers of change are not only multiple but also mutable, it is not sensible to extrapolate the future from data and relationships of the past. This paper investigates ways in which futures thinking can be used as a tool for inspiring actions and structures that address the grand challenges. By analysing several scenario cases, elements of good practice and principles on how to strengthen innovation systems through future scenarios are identified. This is needed because innovation itself needs to be oriented along more sustainable pathways enabling transformations of socio-technical systems

Integration of occupational risk prevention courses in engineering degrees: Delphi study

Engineering syllabi often lack courses covering occupational risk prevention. In Spain, professional competences are awarded along with the completion of a university degree. This means that new graduates are certified in areas in which they have received little or no training, such as occupational risk prevention. However, the academic reforms established by the Bologna Process, which strives to homogenize university degrees throughout Europe, compels European universities to design new syllabi. The main goal of this paper is to define a framework for including occupational risk-prevention education in the new engineering syllabi. This exploratory research applied the Delphi methodology to a panel of 59 experts, using questionnaires assessed with a four-point Likert scale through two rounds. A website supported the information flow. According to the experts who participated in this study, education and training in occupational risk-prevention is essential for improving the safety culture within a company or workplace. The experts concurred that this subject should be a separate mandatory course in all engineering degree programs. The participants recommended that an optional course should be considered only if a mandatory course is not approved. It was also deemed desirable to integrate occupational risk prevention as a cross-field subject in other technological courses, even if the curriculum already includes some related courses. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.Cortés Díaz, JM.; Pellicer Armiñana, E.; Catalá Alís, J. (2012). Integration of occupational risk prevention courses in engineering degrees: Delphi study. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice. 138(1):31-36. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943-5541.0000076S3136138

“Till the muddle in my mind have cleared awa”: can we help shape policy using systems modelling?

This paper considers how some well-documented deficiencies of mental models make it difficult to create effective policies, and suggests that systems modelling can begin to address this issue. To illustrate the argument three short cases are presented. These relate to specific domains but demonstrate how systems modelling can illuminate different general phenomena: effects on labour costs (unintended consequences and feedback); fishery management (accumulation and non-linearity) and child protection (worldviews and sense-making). Six levers for increasing the use of systems modelling in the policy arena are then discussed. The paper closes by emphasising the opportunities for systems modellers in the Anthropocene Era