Direct Payments, Independent Living and Mental Health

This report is based on a study of the National Pilot to implement direct payments in mental health which took place across five Local Authority sites in England from February 2001 to July 2003. The evaluation used the experiences of the pilot sites as a vehicle through which to understand the factors involved in successfully implementing direct payments in mental health. The evaluation took place in 2002-2003 during the last year of the pilot. This chapter provides an overview of the direct payments and mental health literature and outlines the background to both the National Pilot and the evaluation

Vilhelm Lundstedt’s ‘Legal Machinery’ and the Demise of Juristic Practice

This article aims to contribute to the academic debate on the general crisis faced by law schools and the legal professions by discussing why juristic practice is a matter of experience rather than knowledge. Through a critical contextualisation of Vilhelm Lundstedt’s thought under processes of globalisation and transnationalism, it is argued that the demise of the jurist’s function is related to law’s scientification as brought about by the metaphysical construction of reality. The suggested roadmap will in turn reveal that the current voiding of juristic practice and its teaching is part of the crisis regarding what makes us human

How can students-as-partners work address challenges to student, faculty, and staff mental health and well-being?

Mental health has emerged as a critical area of attention in higher education, and educational research over the last 15 years has focused increasingly on emotions and wellbeing at all stages of education (Hill et al., 2021). While definitions of well-being vary, most are premised on “good quality of life” (Nair et al., 2018, p. 69). Within the last few years, we have experienced an intersection of several forces that undermine or threaten good quality of life. These include the uncertainties prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic (Hews et al., 2022, U.S. Surgeon General, n.d.), climate change (Charlson et al., 2021), racism and social injustices (Williams & Etkins, 2021), the cost-of-living crisis (Montacute, 2023), and the lack of motivation and higher incidence of mental health issues associated with growing concerns about job prospects and income (Chowdhury et al., 2022). This fifth iteration of Voices from the Field explores some of the ways in which students-as-partners work can address challenges to the mental health and well-being of students, faculty, and staff. This focus, proposed by members of the IJSaP Editorial Board, both responds to the intersecting realities named above and remains true to the goal of this section of the journal, which is to offer a venue for a wide range of contributors to address important questions around and aspects of students-as-partners work without going through the intensive submission, peer-review, and revision processes. The prompt we included in the call for this iteration of Voices was: “In what ways can students-as-partners work address challenges to the mental health and well-being of students, staff, and faculty posed by the current realities in the wider world (socio-political, environmental, economic, etc.) that affect higher education?

Enabling access to direct payments: an exploration of care co-ordinators’ decision-making practices

Background: Increasing demands for the greater take-up of direct payments necessitates the willingness and ability of care co-ordinators to be able to meet this challenge. Aim: To consider how workers have responded to direct payments in practice and how they can enable or limit greater access. Method: The analysis presented here is primarily based on 20 in-depth interviews with care co-ordinators who took part in an evaluation of a national pilot to implement direct payments in mental health. Results: Three key responses were identified which mediated care co-ordinators' pursuit of direct payments as an option for clients: using selective criteria; incorporating it into a dominant framework (of ‘providing services’) and re-conceptualizing their role as enabling greater capacity for choice and control. In order to make sense of these responses it was necessary to examine their conflicting work context. Conclusions: Initiatives such as direct payments suggest the need to re-appraise the role of care co-ordinators and may require a significant shift in the focus of their practice. Whilst tensions inherent in their role may make this shift difficult, the analysis also suggests that it could lead to opportunities for putting into practice ideas about user empowerment which should be central to their practice

Use of the patientMpower app with home-based spirometry to monitor the symptoms and impact of fibrotic lung conditions:Longitudinal observational study

Background: Daily home-based spirometry in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) has been shown to be feasible and clinically informative. The patientMpower app facilitates home-based spirometry along with home-based monitoring of IPF-related symptoms. The patientMpower app can be downloaded to the user’s mobile phone or tablet device, enabling the recording of objective and subjective data. Objective: The aim of this paper is to report on the 1-year experience of using patientMpower with home-based spirometry by 36 participants with self-reported pulmonary fibrosis (PF) treated with usual care. Methods: Self-selecting participants enrolled in this community-based participatory research program through a patient advocacy group in their country: Irish Lung Fibrosis Association in Ireland and PF Warriors in the United States. Disease severity was comparable with a baseline mean predicted forced vital capacity (FVC) of 64% and 62% in the Irish and US participants, respectively. Both groups of participants were allocated to identical, in-country, open-label, single-group observational studies and were provided with a Bluetooth-active Spirobank Smart spirometer integrated directly with patientMpower. Data collected via patientMpower included seated FVC (daily), breathlessness grade (modified Medical Research Council scale score), step count, medication adherence, and symptoms and impact of IPF on daily life, which were measured by a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) scale that was specifically developed for IPF. Longitudinal patient-reported data on oximetry and oxygen consumption were also collected. Results: A large majority of the 36 participants reported that their experience using patientMpower was positive, and they wanted to continue its use after the initial 6-week observation. Out of 36 participants, 21 (58%) recorded home-based spirometry without prompting for ≥180 days, and 9 (25%) participants continued with recording home-based spirometry for ≥360 days. Conclusions: The patientMpower app with associated Bluetooth-connected devices (eg, spirometer and pulse oximeter) offers an acceptable and accessible approach to collecting patient-reported objective and subjective data in fibrotic lung conditions.</p

Teaching : making a difference

Teaching: Making a Difference has been developed to provide the pre-service teacher with new and contemporary lenses for helping them develop as future educators. It is relevant to students in undergraduate and postgraduate teacher programs. This multi-authored volume draws on the expertise of each contributor and reflects the latest contemporary research. The text is supported by a unique multi-media package designed to meet the needs of individual learners. [Book Synopsis]Click <a href="http://research.usc.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/usc:8422">here</a> to view the USC Research Bank entry for the Second Edition published in 2013

Schemes providing support to people using direct payments: a UK survey

This report sets out the main findings from a survey of schemes providing support to direct payment users. The survey represented the combined efforts of three multidisciplinary research teams involved in national studies of direct payments: a team from the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); a team from the Universities of Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow; and a team from the Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS), the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities (FPLD) at the Mental Health Foundation and the Health Service Management Centre (HSMC) at the University of Birmingha