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Supporting people to age in place and ensuring good quality of life for people living with dementia (PLWD) are public health priorities, but little is known about the needs and experiences of community-dwelling people living with rarer dementias. Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a rare form of dementia which predominantly affects visual processing, and is currently mostly understood from a biomedical perspective. Theoretically underpinned by the Stress Process Model, in phase I of this PhD study I sought to better understand the lived experience of a diagnosis of PCA using dyadic interviews. The interviews revealed a convoluted diagnostic journey, difficulties in interacting with the physical environment (e.g. locating objects) and wide-ranging psychosocial ramifications (e.g. interdependence), but also the resourcefulness dyads were showing in responding to these difficulties, and the complexity of the relational contexts this stress process was happening within. I sought to better understand the complexity of these intersecting physical and psychosocial environments in phase II with a series of all-day home-based observations of people living with PCA and typical, memory-led Alzheimer’s disease. This phase was theoretically underpinned by relational citizenship and used an embedded case study design with focussed ethnographic methods (including participant observation, conversational interviews, field notes and video recording). Participants’ ways of being in, engaging with, and acting on the world were challenged differentially by diagnosis and according to disease stage. Despite this, all participants were finding ways to continue engaging with their environments and in meaning-making via various activities. The main findings are encapsulated in three themes: (1) The fun and the function of activities; (2) Reciprocities of care, and (3) The constitution and continuity of (a changing) self. Implications for research, theory and practice are discussed, relating to meaningful versus measurable activities, the acknowledgement of diagnostic differences, and enduring expressions of selfhood for PLWD.

The mental health of children and young people is a significant concern and recent research points to the key role that schools can play in supporting this area. There is a growing interest in school based mental health interventions and at the time of embarking on this study the Targeted Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS) project was a new three year pilot project which aimed to assist Local Authorities (LAs) to develop their own innovative models of mental health support in schools for pupils at risk of, or experiencing mental health problems. The LA in which the study took place was one of 25 wave one 'pathfinders'. The key aim of the TaMHS project in this LA was to improve emotional well-being in nine project schools. The local model sought to achieve this through building capacity at school level via both the provision of a universal/whole school approach and by incorporating targeted interventions for young people who were at risk of, or experiencing mental health problems. The importance of involving young people in the evaluation of mental health services is an increasingly accepted phenomenon and there are a number of benefits of including children in shaping their own mental health provision. This thesis is an evaluative study of practice in the real world which explores young peoples' perceptions of TaMHS after one year of the project being operational within one LA. The study obtains the views of targeted young people in order to investigate some of the perceived successful and unsuccessful factors associated with the project's implementation and to appraise the initial impact of the project. It also examines targeted young people's perspectives with regard to the future development of the project and reviews the utility of pupil voice in helping to improve school based mental health provision. Qualitative data was obtained from 45 targeted young people who had some involvement with TaMHS using nine focus groups which took place in each project school. Thematic analysis was used to enable the predominant key themes to be reported. The findings serve to highlight that the voice of the child can be used to increase understanding of the initial impact of the TaMHS project in one LA, as well as illustrating positive and negative aspects which in turn can lead to suggestions for improvements to school based mental health provision. Predominant areas that young people felt that the project had impacted on included social skills; interpersonal skills; relationships; behaviour; emotional well-being; and access to activities. Key themes which highlight factors that young people viewed as good about TaMHS incorporated learning; behaviour; interpersonal skills; emotional well-being; enjoyment; and activities. Examples of key themes which reflect how young people felt the project could be improved included environment; extending the project; more of the same; and activities. In light of the findings, recommendations for the development of TaMHS and for school based mental health provision in general are offered.

Viral outbreaks and zoonoses are expected to increase in incidence globally over the coming decades. Anthropomorphic-driven changes like altered climate, urbanisation and growing populations increase the interaction and proximity of animal species, providing increased opportunities for virus host switching, e.g. zoonosis, and evolution. Understanding the evolution, diversity and abundance of viruses within vertebrates is vital to prepare for future viral outbreaks and provide the tools to develop transmission mitigation strategies, rapid detection methods, treatments and vaccines to prevent global biodiversity loss. In this thesis, the overarching aim was to discover new viruses in vertebrates to understand the evolutionary history of viral families, their host ranges, genetic exchange, and the diseases they cause. For viral discovery, we developed novel bioinformatics workflows to allow high-throughput analysis of terabytes of next-generation RNA and DNA sequencing data. We focussed on historically under-studied vertebrates - amphibians, reptiles and marsupials and used a combination of metatranscriptomic and genomic data to identify both exogenous (infecting) and endogenous (fossilised) viruses in 270 RNA datasets and 19 animal genomes from 147 different species. The first chapter investigated viruses in amphibians and reptiles; key intermediate species in the early evolution of terrestrial vertebrates. We took 235 RNA datasets from 122 species and identified 26 novel DNA and RNA viruses from 15 viral families, highlighting the unsampled diversity of viruses circulating in these wild animals. In the second and third chapters we studied Australian marsupials; early mammals that have evolved in geographical isolation for hundreds of millions of years. We screened 35 RNA datasets and 19 genomes and identified over 80,000 endogenous virus fragments, primarily from Retroviridae. We identified both exogenous and endogenous viruses to better understand the unique Australian virome that has established through marsupial coevolution, and their impact on the animals they have infected. We provide evidence for the extensive invasion of endogenous retroviruses throughout Dasyuridae marsupials which may contribute to genomic instability and their increased rates of cancer. It is estimated that only