Mothers' voices: hearing and assessing the contributions of 'birth mothers' to the development of social work interventions and family support

This paper focuses on interviews with ‘birth mothers’ who experienced successive losses of their children to public care in one local area of London, England. Interviews were conducted during a project partnership between a London borough and university staff, aiming to provide a localised, pilot support initiative which responded to mothers’ viewpoints. To ‘hear’ mothers’ own voices more clearly, we analysed interview transcripts using a methodology which separates out elements of how the interviewee tells her story, how she speaks about herself and about her relationships, taking into account surrounding social complexities and researchers’ reactions to the story. To explain how professionals could subsequently draw upon these ‘mothers’ voices’ for a pilot support initiative, we identify some key messages for professionals from these interviews, including: women wanting clear and honest communication between themselves and workers, and between staff; women often feeling ‘let down’ by professional procedures and court processes that were moving too fast for them to keep up; women wanting to be treated with more respect. Women respected some professionals but not others and this seemed to relate partly to personalities. Some mothers experienced being ‘left alone’ or ‘abandoned’ to deal with the aftermath of children’s removal and/or adoption

Learning to deliver LGBT+ aged care: exploring and documenting best practices in professional and vocational education through the World Café method

Substantial evidence on the adverse impact of ageing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) populations through the lack of inclusive care services has highlighted the need for education and training of the health and social care workforce to enhance their skills, knowledge and capabilities in this area. We describe a cross-national collaboration across four European Union countries called BEING ME. This collaboration examined the current pedagogic environment within professional, vocational and community-based education to identify what is most valuable for addressing these needs. The World Café method enabled a process of structured learning and knowledge exchange between stakeholders resulting in: (a) identification of best practices in pedagogies, (b) generation of tailored co-produced educational resources, and (c) recommendations on how to improve the knowledge and capabilities of future care professionals in the area of LGBT+ affirmative practices. Combined with themes from the post-Café evaluation, our findings suggest that underpinning professional and vocational education with a person-in-environment perspective facilitates going some way to acknowledging the historical context of older LGBT+ people's lives. Addressing the unique needs of sub-populations within LGBT+ communities and setting these in the context of holistic and person-centred care may better enable the meeting of their unique diverse needs for ageing. Recommendations are made for learning and teaching strategies to support improved LGBT+ aged care

Study of the Usability of the WYRED Ecosystem Using Heuristic Evaluation

[EN]The WYRED ecosystem is a composition of Open Source tools and the people involved in the project, i.e., partners, stakeholders and young people between the ages of 7 and 30 years. The main component of this ecosystem is the WYRED Platform. The WYRED Platform relies on communities, which are a set of interaction spaces where conversations and research projects are developed. Every community has a person or persons in charge of its management, which are the so-called facilitators, and also a set of members, mainly young people, interacting through discussion threads. The high levels of interaction required to accomplish the WYRED Platform’s goals lead to the necessity of ensuring that the system is accepted by its final users. Given this need, a preliminary study was performed to analyze the usability of the Platform from the point of view of young people. However, it is also crucial that the ecosystem meets usability criteria for the facilitators, due to their role of encouraging young people to participate and serving as a guide in the conversations taking place within communities, as well as in the research projects developed by the young people about different topics related to the digital society. Therefore, a usability study targeting facilitators was carried out to reach insights about how these users value the system’s usability. This usability study was performed through a combination of two techniques, a heuristic analysis by experts and the Computer System Usability Questionnaire to collect the experience of the real users

A Homogeneous, High-Throughput Assay for Phosphatidylinositol 5-Phosphate 4-Kinase with a Novel, Rapid Substrate Preparation

Phosphoinositide kinases regulate diverse cellular functions and are important targets for therapeutic development for diseases, such as diabetes and cancer. Preparation of the lipid substrate is crucial for the development of a robust and miniaturizable lipid kinase assay. Enzymatic assays for phosphoinositide kinases often use lipid substrates prepared from lyophilized lipid preparations by sonication, which result in variability in the liposome size from preparation to preparation. Herein, we report a homogeneous 1536-well luciferase-coupled bioluminescence assay for PI5P4Kα. The substrate preparation is novel and allows the rapid production of a DMSO-containing substrate solution without the need for lengthy liposome preparation protocols, thus enabling the scale-up of this traditionally difficult type of assay. The Z’-factor value was greater than 0.7 for the PI5P4Kα assay, indicating its suitability for high-throughput screening applications. Tyrphostin AG-82 had been identified as an inhibitor of PI5P4Kα by assessing the degree of phospho transfer of γ-$^{32}$P-ATP to PI5P; its inhibitory activity against PI5P4Kα was confirmed in the present miniaturized assay. From a pilot screen of a library of bioactive compounds, another tyrphostin, I-OMe tyrphostin AG-538 (I-OMe-AG-538), was identified as an ATP-competitive inhibitor of PI5P4Kα with an IC$_{50}$ of 1 µM, affirming the suitability of the assay for inhibitor discovery campaigns. This homogeneous assay may apply to other lipid kinases and should help in the identification of leads for this class of enzymes by enabling high-throughput screening efforts

ICON 2019: International Scientific Tendinopathy Symposium Consensus: Clinical Terminology

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.Background Persistent tendon pain that impairs function has inconsistent medical terms that can influence choice of treatment.1 When a person is told they have tendinopathy by clinician A or tendinitis by clinician B, they might feel confused or be alarmed at receiving what they might perceive as two different diagnoses. This may lead to loss of confidence in their health professional and likely adds to uncertainty if they were to search for information about their condition. Clear and uniform terminology also assists inter-professional communication. Inconsistency in terminology for painful tendon disorders is a problem at numerous anatomical sites. Historically, the term ‘tendinitis’ was first used to describe tendon pain, thickening and impaired function (online supplementary figure S1). The term ‘tendinosis’ has also been used in a small number of publications, some of which were very influential.2 3 Subsequently, ‘tendinopathy’ emerged as the most common term for persistent tendon pain.4 5 To our knowledge, experts (clinicians and researchers) or patients have never engaged in a formal process to discuss the terminology we use. We believe that health professionals have not yet agreed on the appropriate terminology for painful tendon conditions.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

"Teta, s kom si ti lezbijka?" Z izobraževanjem proti nevidnosti LGBT+ starih ljudi v socialni in zdravstveni oskrbi [Slovenian] / "Auntie, with whom are you lesbian?": with education against the invisibility of LGBT+ old people in social and health care [English]

socialni in zdravstveni oskrbi Specifične značilnosti življenjskih potekov in preteklih izkušenj LGBT+ starih ljudi zahtevajo znanje in ozaveščenost zaposlenih v skrbstvenih poklicih. V članku s pomočjo mednarodne perspektive osvetlimo temeljne teme področja vključujoče oskrbe LGBT+ starih ljudi, s posebnim poudarkom na slovenskem kontekstu, in pri tem izčrpno uporabimo spoznanja evropskega projekta »Being me« (2018–2020). V projektu smo raziskovali dobre prakse na področju izobraževanja in razvili spletna učna gradiva ter pripomočke za zaposlene v socialni in zdravstveni oskrbi. Med načeli in pristopi, ki so nas vodili pri raziskovanju, so bili v ospredju poudarek na medpresečnosti, odpornosti, perspektivi moči, življenjskih zgodbah in sodelovanju z LGBT+ starimi ljudmi v vseh fazah projekta. (English) The specific characteristics of life course and past experiences of LGBT+ old people require knowledge and awareness on the part of carers. In this paper, an international perspective to shed light on key issues in the field of inclusive care for LGBT+ older people is used, with a particular focus on the Slovenian context, drawing extensively on the findings of the European project “Being me” (2018–2020). In the project, we aimed to explore best practice in the area of education and to develop online learning materials and tools for social and health care workers. Among the principles and approaches that guided our research, the focus was put on intersectionality, resilience, strengths perspective, life stories, and collaboration with LGBT+ old people in all phases of the project

A feasibility study of a theory-based intervention to improve appropriate polypharmacy for older people in primary care

Background: A general practitioner (GP)-targeted intervention aimed at improving the prescribing of appropriate polypharmacy for older people was previously developed using a systematic, theory-based approach based on the UK Medical Research Council’s complex intervention framework. The primary intervention component comprised a video demonstration of a GP prescribing appropriate polypharmacy during a consultation with an older patient. The video was delivered to GPs online and included feedback emphasising the positive outcomes of performing the behaviour. As a complementary intervention component, patients were invited to scheduled medication review consultations with GPs. This study aimed to test the feasibility of the intervention and study procedures (recruitment, data collection). Methods: GPs from two general practices were given access to the video, and reception staff scheduled consultations with older patients receiving polypharmacy (≥4 medicines). Primary feasibility study outcomes were the usability and acceptability of the intervention to GPs. Feedback was collected from GP and patient participants using structured questionnaires. Clinical data were also extracted from recruited patients’ medical records (baseline and 1 month post-consultation). The feasibility of applying validated assessment of prescribing appropriateness (STOPP/ START criteria, Medication Appropriateness Index) and medication regimen complexity (Medication Regimen Complexity Index) to these data was investigated. Data analysis was descriptive, providing an overview of participants’ feedback and clinical assessment findings. Results: Four GPs and ten patients were recruited across two practices. The intervention was considered usable and acceptable by GPs. Some reservations were expressed by GPs as to whether the video truly reflected resource and time pressures encountered in the general practice working environment. Patient feedback on the scheduled consultations was positive. Patients welcomed the opportunity to have their medications reviewed. Due to the short time to follow-up and a lack of detailed clinical information in patient records, it was not feasible to detect any prescribing changes or to apply the assessment tools to patients’ clinical data. Conclusion: The findings will help to further refine the intervention and study procedures (including time to follow-up) which will be tested in a randomised pilot study that will inform the design of a definitive trial to evaluate the intervention’s effectiveness