CASPER plus (CollAborative care in Screen-Positive EldeRs with major depressive disorder): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background: Depression accounts for the greatest disease burden of all mental health disorders, contributes heavily to healthcare costs, and by 2020 is set to become the second largest cause of global disability. Although 10% to 16% of people aged 65 years and over are likely to experience depressive symptoms, the condition is under-diagnosed and often inadequately treated in primary care. Later-life depression is associated with chronic illness and disability, cognitive impairment and social isolation. With a progressively ageing population it becomes increasingly important to refine strategies to identity and manage depression in older people. Currently, management may be limited to the prescription of antidepressants where there may be poor concordance; older people may lack awareness of psychosocial interventions and general practitioners may neglect to offer this treatment option. Methods/design: CASPER Plus is a multi-centre, randomised controlled trial of a collaborative care intervention for individuals aged 65 years and over experiencing moderate to severe depression. Selected practices in the North of England identify potentially eligible patients and invite them to participate in the study. A diagnostic interview is carried out and participants with major depressive disorder are randomised to either collaborative care or usual care. The recruitment target is 450 participants. The intervention, behavioural activation and medication management in a collaborative care framework, has been adapted to meet the complex needs of older people. It is delivered over eight to 10 weekly sessions by a case manager liaising with general practitioners. The trial aims to evaluate the clinical and cost effectiveness of collaborative care in addition to usual GP care versus usual GP care alone. The primary clinical outcome, depression severity, will be measured with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) at baseline, 4, 12 and 18 months. Cost effectiveness analysis will assess health-related quality of life using the SF-12 and EQ-5D and will examine cost-consequences of collaborative care. A qualitative process evaluation will be undertaken to explore acceptability, gauge the extent to which the intervention is implemented and to explore sustainability beyond the clinical trial. Discussion: Results will add to existing evidence and a positive outcome may lead to the commissioning of this model of service in primary care. Trial registration: ISRCTN45842879 (24 July 2012)

A pedagogy of friendship: young children's friendships and how schools can support them?

Children’s friendships are often neglected by teachers and researchers. This phenomenological study conducted with seven children aged five and six years explores young children’s perceptions of their everyday friendship experiences. This multi-method study used role play interviews, drawings and persona doll scenarios to consider children’s everyday experiences of friendship in school. The paper discusses the importance of socio-cultural aspects of children’s friendship including: imaginary friends; losing friends; protecting time and space to develop friendships and children’s routines and practices as they form and maintain friendships. Data and findings are discussed, leading to an original conceptual framework: a ‘Pedagogy of Friendship’. This is designed to help children make meaning from their friendship experiences and also provide practitioners with the opportunity to nurture and scaffold children through their friendship experiences in schools. We suggest that there is a need to raise the profile of children’s friendships in early childhood education and generate an educational perspective on friendship. Finally we conclude that listening to children’s views of friendship indicates that the application of the framework of a ‘Pedagogy of Friendship’ would be beneficial to children’s all round learning and development. Keywords - children's perceptions, phenomenology, friendship, key stage one, Pedagogy of Friendshi

Families’ roles in children’s literacy in the UK throughout the 20th century

This paper explores the changing roles of families in children’s developing literacy in the UK in the last century. It discusses how, during this time, understandings of reading and writing have evolved into the more nuanced notion of literacy. Further, in acknowledging changes in written communication practices, and shifting attitudes to reading and writ- ing, the paper sketches out how families have always played some part in the literacy of younger generations; though reading was frequently integral to the lives of many families throughout the past century, we consider in particular the more recent enhancement of children’s literacy through targeted family programmes. The paper considers policy implications for promoting young children’s literacy through work with families

Exploring T and S parameters in Vector Meson Dominance Models of Strong Electroweak Symmetry Breaking

We revisit the electroweak precision tests for Higgsless models of strong EWSB. We use the Vector Meson Dominance approach and express S and T via couplings characterizing vector and axial spin-1 resonances of the strong sector. These couplings are constrained by the elastic unitarity and by requiring a good UV behavior of various formfactors. We pay particular attention to the one-loop contribution of resonances to T (beyond the chiral log), and to how it can improve the fit. We also make contact with the recent studies of Conformal Technicolor. We explain why the second Weinberg sum rule never converges in these models, and formulate a condition necessary for preserving the custodial symmetry in the IR.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures; v3: refs added, to appear in JHE

An ecological perspective on children’s play with digital technologies in South Africa and the United Kingdom

This paper reports a mixed-methods study of the play of children (3–11) with digital technologies in South Africa (SA) and the United Kingdom (UK), discussing the interrelatedness of access to devices and the Internet, contextual realities, and adult-child relations. An adapted ecological model [Bronfenbrenner (1979) The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press] guided analysis. Parents and carers in the UK were more likely than their SA counterparts to report children's engagement in object, construction and transgressive digital play, correlating with access differences, especially to tablet devices. However, play incorporating technologies was extensive, even in contexts in SA with limited access to a wide range of devices or readily available internet. Despite relying primarily on smartphones, children in SA were more likely to create digital content unassisted than those in the UK. The qualitative data complicate understandings of particular play types, including transgressive digital play

Certified to make a difference’: the motivation and perceptions of newly qualified early years teachers in England

The last 20 years have brought numerous workforce reforms to the early years sector, enacted in the name of professionalisation, including the recent introduction of a new postgraduate qualification, the Early Years Teacher Status. This article features data from interviews with 22 participants who had just completed this award and situates their views in the relevant policy context and alongside a discussion of what it means to professionalise the early years sector and create a graduate led workforce. The data support findings from similar studies of Early Years Professionals, namely that the interviewees are passionate about working with young children. They view the sector as in need of change, and themselves as potential leaders and agents of change. The participants endorse the view that up-skilling the workforce is essential to the professionalisation of the sector and improving the quality of early years educatio

A funds of knowledge approach to examining play interests: listening to children’s and parents’ perspectives.

Children’s interests are widely recognised as pivotal to meaningful learning and play in the early years. However, less is known about how children’s diverse interests may contribute to relationships within peer cultures. This article builds upon previous studies to argue that participation in sociocultural activity generates interests informed by funds of knowledge that children reconstruct in their play. It reports findings from an interpretive study that used filmed footage of children’s play as a provocation to explore the perspectives of children, parents and teachers. The article presents original insights regarding some ways in which mutually constituted funds of knowledge afford opportunities for children to co-construct meaning within peer cultures. The findings also indicate that interests arising from diverse funds of knowledge may contribute to the interplay of power, agency and status during play. This raises some issues regarding how matters of inclusion and exclusion are understood and responded to within early years settings. The article recommends that teachers and researchers engage critically with children’s individual and collective funds of knowledge in order to better understand the complexities of play cultures

Curriculum in early childhood education: critical questions about content, coherence, and control

A continuing struggle over curriculum in early childhood education is evident in contemporary research and debate at national and international levels. This reflects the dominant influence of developmental psychology in international discourses, and in policy frameworks that determine approaches to curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. Focusing on early childhood education, we argue that this struggle generates critical questions about three significant themes within curriculum theory: content, coherence, and control. We outline two positions from which these themes can be understood: Developmental and Educational Psychology and contemporary policy frameworks. We argue that within and between these positions, curriculum content, coherence, and control are viewed in different and sometimes oppositional ways. Following this analysis, we propose that a focus on ‘working theories’ as a third position offers possibilities for addressing some of these continuing struggles, by exploring different implications for how content, coherence, and control might be understood. We conclude that asking critical questions of curriculum in early childhood education is a necessary endeavour to develop alternative theoretical frameworks for understanding the ways in which curriculum can be considered alongside pedagogy, assessment, play, and learning

Erratum to: CASPER plus (CollAborative care in screen-positive EldeRs with major depressive disorder): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Published onlinePUBLISHED ERRATUMThe original article is available at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/18985.n/