Advocacy for People with Learning Difficulties: The Role of Two Organisations

This thesis is about advocacy for people with learning difficulties. It has been undertaken through a detailed study of two different types of advocacy organisations - People's Voices (a situation-based, one-to-one advocacy group) and Talkback (a self-advocacy group). Both organisations are based in Buckinghamshire. The research had two main aims. The first was to explore the values, principles and theories that underpin the work of advocacy organisations, and to consider how they are borne out in practice. This required a thorough analysis of organisational processes and relationships between group members. The second aim was to assess how advocacy organisations interact with and are shaped by the wider environment. This involved an in-depth examination of the local (historical and socio-political) context, as well as relations between the groups and external stakeholders - in particular, statutory bodies. The research found that although members of advocacy groups are generally inspired by a similar vision, ideas about how this might be achieved varied among respondents. Whilst the groups were guided by a strong set of values and principles, these were sometimes difficult to implement in practice - particularly with regard to how advocacy organisations are run. The thesis also showed that whilst advocacy organisations can and do direct their own agenda, they also face pressures from the wider environment - most notably through commissioning arrangements. In this way the thesis shed light upon wider questions concerning the relationship between statutory bodies and the voluntary sector, in the health and social care field in England. The research revealed the complexity of advocacy organisations, and highlighted the need for more in-depth, localised studies

Students, academic reading and information literacy in a time of COVID

Reports on a panel discussion held at LILAC 2022 on student academic reading during the COVID-19 pandemic. Draws on data from two surveys, but also discusses the implications of this research for teachers and information literacy (IL) practitioners. In summary, students carried out almost all their academic reading in electronic format, due to the restrictions in place. However, in common with research conducted prior to the pandemic, their preferences for reading in print format remained. Students also report doing less of their assigned readings, feeling more tired as well as reporting other negative health benefits from excess use of screens and devices. The study has implications for librarians, learning developers and for academic staff assigning course readings to students. Ongoing research in this area is recommended.&nbsp

The Feast of Saint Thomas Becket at Salisbury Cathedral: Ad Vesperas

Thomas Becket of Canterbury (1118 – 1170), an English financial clerk turned Archbishop of Canterbury, is considered one of the most significant figures in the conflict between clerical and secular powers during the Middle Ages. The archbishop was brutally killed in his own cathedral at the hands of four knights of King Henry II (r. 1154-1189). Thomas was quickly sanctified as a martyr and his cult and veneration commenced immediately following his death. The local veneration and esteem for Thomas was so strong in fact that the monks at Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, closed the cathedral immediately following his death, between January 1171 and Easter 1171, out of fear that someone would come and steal the body of the martyr away. Many people in Canterbury and throughout southern England were healed by the remains of Thomas’s body, with many miracles occurring through interaction with water and his blood. So many miracles took place that pilgrims began to flock to Canterbury Cathedral to experience the healing power bestowed by Thomas’s body. Two monks at Canterbury Cathedral were assigned to guard the tomb and make account of the miracles attributed to Thomas in the years following his martyrdom. Benedict of Peterborough was one of the monks. In the years following his death, Benedict wrote an entire office to Thomas suitable for a monastic institution, an effort that is hypothesized to have been composed either in the years 1173 or 1174 immediately after his canonization.. Thomas’s office, however, was later adopted by secular uses for application in secular institutions–that is, cathedral environments where the clerics do not take holy orders and are not cloistered. One such institution is Salisbury Cathedral. The secular use for southern England in the middle ages was the Sarum Use. Liturgical books for both Sarum and Roman Use included Thomas’s feast day in the Proper of the Time, and within the octave of Christmas. The placement of this celebration, among feasts otherwise devoted exclusively to the life of Christ and a few of his contemporaries, speaks of the impact that Thomas’s martyrdom had upon western Christendom. This thesis seeks to investigate the content and significance of the liturgy devoted to Thomas within the Sarum Use and its potential importance to the laity through their access to the procession preceding First Vespers. However, a reconstruction of the liturgical content of the entire feast day devoted to Saint Thomas Becket is outside the scope of this particular project, due to the necessity of having to consult all of the extant copies of liturgical books of the Sarum Use, such as Breviaries, Processionals, and Antiphoners. Therefore, a smaller scope seems feasible to attempt here. Thanks to the inclusion of a procession at First Vespers, the very first office for Thomas’s feast day of December 29th is an ideal starting place to begin to study the details of the Sarum use as it pertains to Thomas Becket. One great difficulty in studying Thomas’s First Vespers arises in the search for sources which include the feast. Because of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation in England, Thomas’s name and much of the material pertaining to his veneration were scratched out from medieval manuscripts of liturgical office books, as mandated by King Henry VIII (r. 1509–1547). This severs a direct connection for consulting sources between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. The fact that this happened in England also abruptly ended my original desire to reconstruct First Vespers in as original context as was possible. Since very few original manuscripts of the office exist on the Island, I looked to the earliest versions that could be found. These turn out to be liturgical books of secular use printed on the continent in the early sixteenth century, in Paris. Since books with the secular use seem to survive in the most complete form and are themselves based on the original monastic use in which the texts and music for Thomas’s feast were composed by Benedict in the twelfth century, the secular use has been chosen as the most desirable aspect for investigation. One other reason to use the secular use was the opportunity it provides to collate and contextualize the procession for First Vespers, the music it used, and the rubrics particular to Salisbury Cathedral, where two important parts are at play. At Salisbury there is an altar dedicated to Thomas Becket, and in medieval times the cathedral was home to secular clerics. For First Vespers, two antiphons–text and music–are apparently missing from Thomas’s feast in the 1531 Sarum Breviary. My attempt to rectify this omission necessitated consulting continental monastic manuscripts. Other considerations for this study in terms of reconstruction included the investigation of how the different feasts were ranked within the Breviary. Initially, of course, Thomas’s specific entry in the Breviary, within the Proper of the Time, was used to make a general outline of the feast. Sometimes the parts of the office within the Proper of the Time were difficult to fit in to the basic Vespers layout, because the office omits some of the expected parts of the service. If something was missing, the feasts for the common of the saints was usually able to supply the missing information. This piecing together proved much more difficult than was anticipated. This reconstruction served multiple purposes: to understand the difference of the Sarum use in medieval England in relation to the larger Roman Rite and to shed light on the importance of localized liturgical practices. As one of the most influential figures in medieval England, Thomas is a dynamic character who was not only venerated after death through the office written for his feast day–which was a mark of high regard–but also led an interesting life while he was on earth

HCES: a new approach to environmental sanitation planning for urban areas

This paper presents the Household-Centred Environmental Sanitation (HCES) approach, jointly developed by the WSSCC and Eawag/Sandec (Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries). The presentation explores its origins, theoretical foundations and the problems it seeks to address. HCES is a method which proposes to start the holistic planning process with household decisions on service needs, and then move outward from the household to the neighbourhood, town and upper levels of government. Thus, the link between community expression of needs and mobilization of resources to solve them and other inputs from higher up the line is assured. The second part of the paper explores a new approach to widening system and technology options for household-centred approaches by thinking as sanitation as a ’cradle-to-grave’ system rather than stand-alone technologies

Mobile phones for collecting WASH data in low-income countries

Based on our experience using both paper-based and mobile phone data collection methods, we consider the advantages and disadvantages of each in relation to water and sanitation research in low-income countries. We compare the two methods in terms of Usability, Data Quality, Data Monitoring, Data Transfer, Cost, and Ethics and Corruption. We conclude that paper-based surveys are best suited for small sample sizes and/or in locations with unreliable mobile networks. Otherwise, mobile phones are an excellent, increasingly low-cost and easy to manage method for high-quality data collection

Self–reported versus observed measures : validation of child caregiver food hygiene practices in rural Malawi

Few studies have attempted to measure the differences between self-reported and observed food hygiene practices in a household setting. We conducted a study to measure the level of agreement between self-reported and observed food hygiene practices among child caregivers with children under the age of five years in rural Malawi. Fifty-eight child caregivers from an intervention and 29 from a control group were recruited into the study. At the end of a nine-month food hygiene intervention, household observations were conducted followed by self-reported surveys. Overall, practices were found to be more frequently reported than observed in both groups. However, the difference between self-reports and observed practices was minimal in the intervention compared to the control group. The odds ratio results confirm that more desirable practices were observed in the intervention group compared to the control group. Despite the effects of reactivity during observations, the study results imply that the intervention group did not just improve their knowledge, but also translated the messaging into better practice. Researchers and implementing agencies in water, sanitation and hygiene and food hygiene sector should ensure that interventions are context-appropriate, and that effective methods of observation are used to confirm any reported effects of an interventio

What works in community health education for adults with learning disabilities: A scoping review of the literature

Background Research suggests there is insufficient good quality information regarding the effectiveness of health education aimed at adults with intellectual disabilities. By analysing the literature, this review aimed to identify what constituted effectiveness in this context. Method Relevant evaluations were extracted from bibliographic databases according to pre‐specified criteria. Papers were analysed using QSR NVivo 11 by developing a narrative synthesis and analytic framework that identified and explored text addressing the research question. Results Twenty‐two studies were included. The review identified two broad components of effective health education: mechanisms and context. Mechanisms included embedded programme flexibility, appropriate and accessible resources, and motivational delivery. An effective context included an accessible and supportive environment and longer term opportunities for reinforcement of learning. Conclusions Important gaps in the literature highlighted a need for further research addressing community learning experiences of adults with intellectual disabilities as well as the effectiveness of infection prevention programmes

Calculated or caring? : Neanderthal healthcare in social context

Explanations for patterns of healed trauma in Neanderthals have been a matter of debate for several decades. Despite widespread evidence for recovery from injuries or survival despite impairments, apparent evidence for healthcare is given limited attention. Moreover, interpretations of Neanderthal’s approach to injury and suffering sometimes assume a calculated or indifferent attitude to others. Here we review evidence for Neanderthal healthcare, drawing on a bioarchaeology of care approach and relating healthcare to other realms of Neanderthal social life. We argue that Neanderthal medical treatment and healthcare was widespread and part of a social context of strong pro-social bonds which was not distinctively different from healthcare seen in later contexts. We suggest that the time has come to accept Neanderthal healthcare as a compassionate and knowledgeable response to injury and illness, and to turn to other questions, such as cultural variation or the wider significance of healthcare in an evolutionary context

Increasing private sanitation investments: the Urban Affordable Clean Toilets (U-ACT) project

The goal of the Urban Affordable Clean Toilets (U-ACT) project was to determine the effectiveness of subsidies, extended payback periods, and targeting in stimulating households’ investment in non-sewered sanitation systems. Between 2010 and 2013 we implemented a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with 1,200 households in 40 slums in Kampala. Vouchers, which allowed house owners to purchase a Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) at different price levels and with different payback options were randomly offered to tenants and house owners. Our results indicate that increasing the payback period and adequate targeting are almost as effective in increasing take-up rates as halving VIP prices. Overall, the U-ACT project resulted in the construction of over 150 VIP latrines for over 1,500 people in Kampala slums