Exploring the support needs of Pakistani families with disabled children: A participatory action research study

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Pakistani families with disabled children are among the most disadvantaged population groups in the UK. Previous research has indicated difficulties with accessing support services as well as problematic attitudes towards disability within the Pakistani community. As no substantial improvement in their situation was evidenced since early studies in the 1990s, a participatory action research study was undertaken with six Pakistani families to explore how an actionoriented, emancipatory approach could facilitate them to explore their support needs and how these might be met, in further depth. An occupational justice perspective was used to clarify how cultural and familial expectations influenced family members’ occupational balance and well-being. After an exploratory phase in which all family members were interviewed and family interactions observed in their own homes, three action research groups were formed for women, men and children respectively. Each group carried out their own action research around their chosen topic. Through participation in the project the participants gained important skills as well as a better understanding of their situation and how they could be more proactive in improving it. Furthermore, the fact that all family members were actively involved in the project helped them to start implementing changes in behaviour and communication at home. Key findings of the study were that the importance of faith in accepting the disabled child and dealing with negative community attitudes needs to be recognised and fostered; that the social model of disability needs to be more explicit about the influence of religion and culture on the lived experience of disabled people; that the central support need of parents is for practitioners to build up a supportive relationship with them as persons in their own right; and that (the lack of) belongingness had a very significant impact on the disabled child’s and their mothers’ well-being

Self preservation comes at a cost: Why British National Health Service Paramedics might be choosing a healthier but poorer retirement

Objectives: To explore and portray the perspectives of National Health Service Ambulance personnel related to the latest rise in the National Health Service occupational pension age.Methods: Data gathering took the form of 35 in-depth interviews. A thematic analysis was used to characterise and articulate key concepts and meanings. The analysis applied interpretive techniques, as views expressed were from personal experiences, and allowed for an in-depth analysis of shared meanings.Results: The themes reported captured the desire of many Ambulance personnel to exit their employment well in advance of their retirement age, despite satisfaction gained from patient care. This early exit is being driven by increased worry that the work demands of the job are unsustainable, especially for older workers, as clinical responsibilities increase and theirsocial support diminishes. Also, Ambulance personnel feel betrayed by their employers, because their retirement is being delayed further by another change in their pensionable age.Conclusion: There is an increased orientation for ‘living for today’ and indications of a willingness to sacrifice salary and pension income in order to protect their health in older age, which has implications for long-term financial and general wellbeing in retirement

Should I stay or should I go? - 2:Monitoring influences on NHS staff retention in the post COVID-19 world Winter 2020 to spring 2023

The issue of staff retention in the NHS is not new but has been brought into sharp relief in the post-COVID-19 era of unpreceded staff shortage. While steps have been taken to train new health professionals and recruit from overseas, net gains to the NHS staff complement are at risk of being significantly blunted or defeated in the absence of finding ways to stabilise and enhance the retention of established staff. At the institutional level, what has been widely characterised as a pandemic of early­ exit risks a spiral of inter-related losses becoming endemic. Foreseeable impacts include loss of expertise and institutional memory, degraded capacity to deliver patient care, degraded workforce and work-team stability, loss of return on investment in health professional training, and increased human resource costs to employers (e.g. recruitment and employment of bank/agency staff). All have implications for standards of patient care and the potential to negatively impact on the well-being of staff in-post to the extent that it risks degrading their disposition and/or capacity to remain.The foundation research on which this report is based, 'Should I stay or should I go? NHS staff retention in the post COVID-19 world: Challenges and prospects', was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, in response to the UKRI open­ call for COVID-19 relevant social research in spring 2020, supplemented by follow-on funding from the health sector. At its inception the research aims were to provide human resource strategy and policy relevant insight into:•the impact of the COVID-19 experiences and its legacy on employees' strength of attachment, commitment and capacity to remain in NHS employment;•the relative salience and strength of push and pull variables on staff stay versus leave intentions and behaviour;•what might need to change to motivate/enable current employees to remain in NHS employment; and•the need, nature and scope for intervention to maintain/enhance retention rates.At Wave Four of our survey, the scope of data gathering broadened from its initial focus on primary impacts arising from COVID-19 in 2020/21 and its legacy to include other features of the post-pandemic work environment, including: staff shortages, workload, job-demands, working conditions, pay and other background climate factors on staff resilience, capacity and disposition to remain.This report provides an overview of headline findings from the NHS employee survey component of our research. The survey sample covered all staff types, however a central focus was on health professionals and associated care staff, due to the more restricted scope for personnel substitution.The current report is focused on findings from Wave Four of the survey, conducted in spring 2023, and represents an update on and point of comparison with findings from the three earlier waves (winter 2020/21, summer/autumn 2021 and spring/summer 2022), published in the University of Bath Institute for Policy Research report series in January 2023 (Weyman et al. 2023).In common with Wave Three, the Wave Four survey was completed by a sample of NHS employees in England. Waves One and Two were completed by UK-wide samples. However, the close alignment of the response profiles across the devolved nation samples in Waves One and Two gives confidence to considering Waves Three and Four findings to have UK-wide generalisability and relevance

Free School Meal Entitlement (FSME) as an indicator of socioeconomic deprivation in Northern Ireland:Advantages, disadvantages and alternatives

The purpose of this research was to assess whether FSME is fit for purpose as a proxy measure of socioeconomic deprivation and the feasibility of supplementing or replacing it with alternative indicators of socioeconomic status (SES)

Using participatory and creative methods to facilitate emancipatory research with people facing multiple disadvantage: a role for health and care professionals

Participatory and creative research methods are a powerful tool for enabling active engagement in the research process of marginalised people. It can be particularly hard for people living with multiple disadvantage, such as disabled people from ethnic minority backgrounds, to access research projects that are relevant to their lived experience. This article argues that creative and participatory methods facilitate the co-researchers’ engagement in the research process, which thus becomes more empowering. Exploring the congruence of these methods with their professional ethos, health and care professionals can use their skills to develop them further. Both theory and practice examples are presented

Using Self-Affirmation to Increase Intellectual Humility in Debate

Intellectual humility, which entails openness to other views and a willingness to listen and engage with them, is crucial for facilitating civil dialogue and progress in debate between opposing sides. In the present research, we tested whether intellectual humility can be reliably detected in discourse and experimentally increased by a prior self-affirmation task. Three-hundred and three participants took part in 116 audio and video-recorded group discussions. Blind to condition, linguists coded participants’ discourse to create an intellectual humility score. As expected, the self-affirmation task increased the coded intellectual humility, as well as participants’ self-rated prosocial affect (e.g., empathy). Unexpectedly, the effect on prosocial affect did not mediate the link between experimental condition and intellectual humility in debate. Self-reported intellectual humility and other personality variables were uncorrelated with expert-coded intellectual humility. Implications of these findings for understanding the social psychological mechanisms underpinning intellectual humility are considered

Consumer preferences for written and oral information about allergens when eating out

Understanding the subtle negotiations and difficulties encountered by FA/FIs when eating out can serve as a guide for legislators and food providers; by encouraging provision of clear written and verbal allergen information, and training of proactive, allergen-aware staff. This, in tandem with legal requirements for allergen information provision, paves the way for FA/FIs to feel more confident in eating out choices; and to experience improved eating out experiences

Environmental adjustment needs of children with special educational needs in Austrian mainstream schools : the child and teacher perspective

Children with special educational needs included in Austrian main stream schools are provided with special educational support, which aim to create learning environments, that meet the children’s needs on an individual level. Little is known about what adjustments children with special educational needs in mainstream school classes require to promote participation in school occupations. This is the first study in Austria exploring the student-environment-fit from self-perceived chil dren’s perspective and comparing this to teachers’ perspective by using the School Setting Interview. In this cross-sectional matched pairs study twenty-five children (mean age 12.5 ± 1.4) with special educational needs and twenty-one teachers from six Austrian second ary schools were interviewed. Participants’ ratings were analyzed descriptively and statistically with Wilcoxon-Sign Rank Test. Reported adjustments from the child and teacher perspectives were analyzed with qualitative content analysis and presented using the occupa tional, social and physical environmental dimensions from the Model of Human Occupation. Results indicate perceived student environment-fit differs between school activities as well as between children and teachers. Three out of 16 school activities showed a statistically significant difference between children and teacher matched-pair analysis. Children perceive more unmet needs then teachers. Most adjustments are reported in the social environment dimension and inform practitioners what adjustments are perceived to be useful for children with Special Educational Needs and their tea chers. Both children’s and teacher’s perspectives provide valuable information. Significantly, children in this study were able to identify required needs and describe adjustments. To increase participation in school occupations, children can and need to be actively included in the decision-making process

Exploring the support needs of Pakistani families with disabled children : a participatory action research study

Pakistani families with disabled children are among the most disadvantaged population groups in the UK. Previous research has indicated difficulties with accessing support services as well as problematic attitudes towards disability within the Pakistani community. As no substantial improvement in their situation was evidenced since early studies in the 1990s, a participatory action research study was undertaken with six Pakistani families to explore how an actionoriented, emancipatory approach could facilitate them to explore their support needs and how these might be met, in further depth. An occupational justice perspective was used to clarify how cultural and familial expectations influenced family members’ occupational balance and well-being. After an exploratory phase in which all family members were interviewed and family interactions observed in their own homes, three action research groups were formed for women, men and children respectively. Each group carried out their own action research around their chosen topic. Through participation in the project the participants gained important skills as well as a better understanding of their situation and how they could be more proactive in improving it. Furthermore, the fact that all family members were actively involved in the project helped them to start implementing changes in behaviour and communication at home. Key findings of the study were that the importance of faith in accepting the disabled child and dealing with negative community attitudes needs to be recognised and fostered; that the social model of disability needs to be more explicit about the influence of religion and culture on the lived experience of disabled people; that the central support need of parents is for practitioners to build up a supportive relationship with them as persons in their own right; and that (the lack of) belongingness had a very significant impact on the disabled child’s and their mothers’ well-being.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo