A grounded theory study of psychologists’ consideration of their clients’ parenthood

Section A provides an overview of the impact of parental mental health difficulties on the person’s family. The current health policies and clinical guidelines in relation to family-inclusive care are discussed, along with research exploring service users’ families' views and experiences of adult mental health services. Studies investigating mental health professionals’ family-inclusive care practices are critically reviewed, followed by a consideration of how psychological theories conceptualise parenthood. The paper concludes by identifying areas for future research in this field. Section B is an empirical paper. Background. Potential negative outcomes for children who grow up with a parent suffering from mental illness are well-documented, including attachment difficulties and later mental health problems. However, research to date has not investigated how therapists conceptualise their clients’ parenthood, with the aim to protect the future mental health of the clients’ children. Aims. To explore how parenthood is considered in therapies provided by psychologists in adult mental health services. Method. In-depth interviews were carried out with psychologists working in adult mental health services in the UK. Thirteen psychologists were interviewed, and the data were analysed using grounded theory. Results. A preliminary model was generated, which comprised of five categories: drivers, therapist factors, psychological theorising, client variables, and risks. The inter-relations between these categories are complex, and the degree of psychologists’ consideration of their clients’ parenthood is based on the nature of such overlaps. Conclusions. Psychologists are skilled at formulating the role of their clients’ parenthood, but do not necessarily address and support this role directly. The reasons for this are multifaceted, but any lasting change in practice is likely to require changes in services’ infrastructures and policies that support family-inclusive practices. Section C provides a critical reflection of the research project by addressing four pre-determined broad questions: the development of my own research skills in the course of the project, how the project could have been improved, how conducting this research has impacted on my own clinical work with clients, and areas for future research

CAS in Teaching Basics of Statistical Learning (Study of Mathematical Software and Its Effective Use for Mathematics Education)

Visual demonstrations provide a convenient way to illustrate the work of algorithms and help students to understand them. Modern Computer Algebra Systems (such as Mathematica or Maple) provide not only opportunity for analytic and numerical calculations, but also convenient tools for solving optimization problems, image construction and animations. It makes CAS a good resource to use in the classroom since the code is usually compact and clear, allowing students to make changes and experiment easily. We model the work of Rosenblatt's perceptron and simple Support Vector Machines (SVMs) using Wolfram Mathematica. Constructed models are used to demonstrate basic concepts and ideas in the introductory courses on SVMs and Statistical Learning