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Background: Spoken discourse impairments post‐traumatic brain injury (TBI) are well‐documented and heterogeneous in nature. These impairments have chronic implications for adults in terms of employment, socializing and community involvement. Intervention delivered by a speech–language pathologist (SLP) is recommended for adults with discourse impairments post‐TBI, with an emphasis on context‐sensitive treatment. The developing evidence base indicates a wide array of treatment components for SLPs to evaluate and implement within their clinical practice. However, there is limited insight into how SLPs are currently treating discourse impairments and the rationales informing clinical practice. Aims: To explore the under‐researched area of clinical practice for spoken discourse interventions with adults post‐TBI, including treatment components and clinician rationales, and to contribute towards a shared knowledge base. Methods & Procedures: Participants were recruited via purposeful sampling strategies. Six SLPs participated from Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). Semi‐structured interviews were conducted via Zoom. Interviews were manually transcribed, coded and analysed via a qualitative content analysis approach. Outcomes & Results: :Participants described discourse treatment practices across various settings and TBI recovery stages. Results indicated that SLPs used numerous treatment activities, resources and outcome measures. Intervention approaches primarily targeted social communication skills, strategy development/utilization and insight‐building. Clinical practice conformed to available guidelines where possible, reflected best practice and incorporated components of the research literature. Participants reported using individualized treatment activities aimed at addressing client‐specific factors and rationales prioritized tailored, context‐sensitive and goal‐directed treatment. Conclusions & Implications: This study provided insight into a previously under‐researched area. It highlighted a wide range of treatment activities and factors informing current SLPs' treatment of spoken discourse impairment post‐TBI. Overall, clinical practice and rationales discussed in this study were aligned with best practice and emphasized a contextualized, individualized approach to discourse treatment across service settings and stages of recovery. Participants identified areas requiring further support, including access to training, resources and research, and the challenge of finding suitable outcome measures. Further investigation into discourse management post‐TBI, from initial assessment to outcome measurement, may help inform clinical decision‐making and the transfer of research to practice. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject: Spoken discourse impairments occur in dialogic and monologic productions post‐TBI. Interventions targeting both genres are detailed within the research literature; however, studies exploring clinical practice and decision‐making for discourse interventions post‐TBI are limited. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This study provides new insight into the current treatment targets, activities, resources and outcome measures employed by clinicians supporting adults with discourse impairment post‐TBI. It details the factors that influence clinical decision‐making for this caseload and identifies an emphasis on client priorities and the value of clinician experience. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: This study identifies the broad and complex considerations required to deliver context‐sensitive discourse intervention post‐TBI. It indicates the need for an in‐depth review from assessment to treatment outcomes to better understand and support this area of practice and to direct future research. This study also highlighted the role of clinician experience in discourse intervention and the value of sharing clinical knowledge and resources within and across the profession to support all levels of clinician experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible Summary: What is known on the subject?: It is known that people with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder often experience crises in their mental wellbeing.There is little evidence about the approaches of mental health nurses in community‐based crisis teams when working with people with a diagnosis of BPD. What the paper adds to the existing knowledge?: This paper highlights that limited resources, work‐patterns and issues of stigma present challenges to delivering recovery‐oriented care.The paper highlights that nurses typically try to navigate the challenges to continue to provide individualized care, though their self‐assessment is that this is with mixed success. What are the implications for practice?: The findings suggest that support is needed to develop brief interventions specific to teams working with people with a diagnosis of BPD who are at a point of crisis. Introduction: People with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are often in contact with mental health services at a point of crisis, and in the UK, this includes Crisis Resolution Home Treatment teams (CRHTT). There is a drive for services to be recovery orientated; however, there is little evidence about the degree to which community services achieve this for people with a diagnosis of BPD when in crisis. Research Aim: To understand the perceptions held by CRHTT clinicians about their provision of recovery‐orientated acute care, for people with a diagnosis of BPD. Method: From a purposive sample of a single CRHTT, seven registered mental health nurses were interviewed and Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis framework was used to interpret the data. Results: Five themes emerged: person‐centred care; the timing is wrong; inconsistent staffing; the risks are too great; and BPD as a label. Discussion: The results demonstrate tensions between a drive to deliver person‐centred care and a range of challenges that inhibit this, with the possibility of reframing a recovery approach as "recovery‐ready". Implications for Practice: A whole‐system approach is required to enable a consistent recovery‐oriented approach, but research is also needed for brief interventions specific to this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An understanding of the psychosocial impact of deafblindness on older people is impoverished by a dearth of research in the field. Particularly limited are studies adopting a salutogenesis perspective, in which older deafblind people's coping capacities are explored. Much research focuses on vulnerability to unfavourable outcomes, which may perpetuate negative stereotypes of deafblind people as passive and dependent. Identifying deafblind people as a vulnerable group gives rise to misunderstanding of the impairment, perceptions of incapability and neglect of deafblind people's agency. This paper draws on data from the first United Kingdom-based study of vulnerability from the perspectives of older adults ageing with deafblindness. Findings presented here relate to participants' experiences of managing and coping with their felt vulnerability and ageing with deafblindness. The study adopted interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as its qualitative approach. In-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken between October 2014 and July 2016 with eight participants, aged between 48 and 83 years. Data were analysed using an iterative six-step IPA process. Three superordinate themes were identified: taking action to protect self; psychological coping strategies; and accessing and using care and support. Participants' managing and coping strategies, and the care and support they value, respond to elements identified as generating felt vulnerability. Professionals should seek to bolster coping capacity and provide support in ways valued by those ageing with deafblindness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider how a South East project approached systems change to improve unsupported temporary accommodation (UTA) and the changes made for people experiencing multiple disadvantage ("multiple and complex needs"). This paper also covers some matters that are hard to change or uncertain, such as housing shortages and financial constraints. The paper focuses on a case study of the East Sussex Temporary Accommodation Action Group (TAAG) – a multi-agency action group. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative case study involving a thematic analysis of seven semi-structured interviews, with a review of published literature and internal documentation. Findings: This example of setting up a TAAG shows us the value of having a dedicated forum to look at a part of the system that requires changing and to identify what works well. Creating a collaborative and democratic space with a common purpose brings different stakeholders and perspectives together and opens discussions to new ways of working. Equalising partners creates an opportunity to create change from the bottom-up within a system traditionally governed by statutory bodies. This study found that the TAAG has facilitated learning around trauma-informed practice and nurtured more sustainable changes towards a Standards Charter and women-only safe UTA. Originality/value: This is one of the first qualitative case studies of a local systems change approach to improving UTA for people experiencing multiple disadvantage in East Sussex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blended learning (BL) has been widely adopted across the higher education (HE) sector, with a growing body of literature exploring its impact on both students and faculty. However, to date, few studies have examined how students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs) experience BL. This paper presents the results of a qualitative case study investigating the BL experiences of students with SpLDs in a British HE institution. A thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with six participants revealed five major themes regarding the BL experience of students with SpLDs: (1) clarity of purpose and instruction; (2) ease of use; (3) accessibility; (4) fear of 'getting it wrong' in online spaces and (5) interaction and staff engagement. The findings underscore the significance of addressing these areas in order to increase the efficacy of BL to meet the learning needs of students with SpLDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mental capacity legislation in the UK is designed to safeguard the rights of people who may need support, or may be unable, to make autonomous decisions. Very limited evidence has been published about the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the application of mental capacity legislation and, to our knowledge, none on the ability of speech and language therapists (SLTs) to support people with communication disabilities to engage in decision‐making. Aims: To describe how UK SLTs supported people with communication disabilities to make decisions and participate in mental capacity assessments, best interests decision‐making and advance care planning during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Methods & Procedures: This descriptive, cross‐sectional study used an online survey to collect quantitative and qualitative data about SLTs' practice experiences between August and November 2020. SLTs working with a range of adult clinical populations in different care settings were sampled purposively from all UK jurisdictions. Participants were recruited through professional networks and social media. Quantitative data were summarized using descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were analysed thematically. Outcomes & Results: Data were collected from 107 SLTs working in a range of settings across all four UK nations. The sample included SLTs working with people with neurological conditions, learning disabilities, mental health conditions and acute confusion. The need for SLT support appeared to increase during the pandemic. Most respondents were still able to offer support; however, the amount and nature of support varied. Quality of support was impacted by adjustments associated with social distancing and infection control restrictions. Personal protective equipment (PPE) was identified as a barrier to communication. Indirect working methods (e.g., telehealth) were inaccessible to some people with communication disabilities. Most respondents felt confident that legal requirements were upheld, but suggested this group was less able to engage in decision‐making and had reduced access to support to manage their own health conditions. Conclusions & Implications: Some SLT services were limited in their ability to meet the decision‐making support needs of people with communication disabilities during the COVID‐19 pandemic due to structural and systemic barriers. This suggests that existing inequities in the provision of care for people with communication disabilities in the UK were amplified during the pandemic. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: People with communication disabilities may require support from healthcare professionals, including SLTs, to make decisions and communicate their wishes and preferences about their care, in line with mental capacity legislation. There is a lack of published evidence relating to how changes in staff deployment and resource during the COVID‐19 pandemic may have impacted on the ability of SLTs to provide this support. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: This study provides novel evidence about the ways in which UK SLTs supported people with communication disabilities to engage in mental capacity assessments, best interests decision‐making and advance care planning during the COVID‐19 pandemic. In some cases, the amount and quality of decision‐making support available was affected negatively due to changes in healthcare delivery and resource management and SLT working practices. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: This study suggests that some people with communication disabilities experienced greater barriers to receiving professional support to maximize their autonomy and manage their health conditions during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Speech and language therapy services and healthcare commissioners should consider how best to ensure equitable service delivery to this population in resource‐limited situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social care Personal Assistants (PAs) are directly employed by individuals to assist with activities of daily living such as help or support with personal care, shopping, household tasks and community participation. This option is encouraged by UK public funding. In England, disabled people's support organisations initially offered assistance with such arrangements, although numbers doing this have declined. The Covid‐19 pandemic provided the opportunity to ask those remaining organisations providing support for PA employers about their activities during this time and the questions being posed to them by PA employers. This paper reports data from 15 interviews undertaken March–July 2021 with disability support organisation representatives. We identified one overarching theme 'Working to prevent and challenge marginalisation of PA employers', with three related subthemes: (1) Advocating for the voice of a forgotten group; (2) Needing to be proactive and (3) Adapting to new tasks and ways of working. Participant accounts focused on representing the needs of disabled people to the authorities and providing concise, timely and accurate information to PA employers, particularly around the use of public funds during Covid‐19. Remote working amplified the digital‐divide, resulting in these organisations working hard to ensure PA employers received important information about their support options. Befriending services and Covid‐hubs were established by some organisations to reduce isolation and risks of poor mental health amongst PA employers. Many of the challenges facing PA employers existed pre‐pandemic but were perceived to have been heightened during it, reflecting the value of and need for the work of these local support organisations. Our findings suggest areas where effective contingency planning drawn from closer collaboration between disability support organisations and central and local government might usefully be focussed. The potential for specific services or organisations to be commissioned to provide such support is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology‐dependent children are a sub‐population of seriously ill children with life‐limiting conditions who are being cared for at home by their families. Although home‐based care has been the model of care for these children since the late 1980s, there is a paucity of literature about parents' experiences of having home adaptations made to enable their home to be a place of care for their child. Using the findings from auto‐driven photo‐elicitation interviews conducted between August 2017 and June 2018 with 12 parents (10 mothers and 2 fathers) who have a technology‐dependent child (aged 5–25 years) living in England, Scotland and Wales and David Seamon's five concepts of at‐homeness (appropriation, at‐easeness, regeneration, rootedness and warmth) as a conceptual framework, this paper addresses how parents' experienced home adaptations. Thematic analysis generated a meta‐theme of 'Home needs to be a home for all family members' and the three key themes: (1) 'You just get told' and 'you're not involved'; (2) It's just the 'cheapest', 'quickest', 'short‐term' approach; (3) Having 'control' and 'thinking things through.' The need to involve parents in decision‐making about adaptations that are made to their home (family‐informed design) is clear, not only from a cost‐saving perspective for the state, but for creating an aesthetic and functional home that optimises health, well‐being and feelings of at‐homeness for the entire family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: British South Asians have a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity than the wider population. Bradford (UK), with its high Pakistani presence and levels of economic deprivation, has exceptionally high instances, especially in deprived areas where many Pakistanis reside. British Pakistani women in Bradford are more likely to be overweight and obese. There is uncertainty on how these women can be aided to manage their weight. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore the obesity concerns of Pakistani women living in deprived inner‐city areas of Bradford. Methods: Three focus groups interviews were carried out with 23 Pakistani women living in deprived areas of Bradford. Data were analysed thematically. Results: This exploratory study identified a wide range of concerns that women had around managing their weight. Participants disclosed distrust in information given around medication, conflicting dietary information and reported low levels of trust in women‐only organized physical activities. Cultural barriers were identified, which included the gender role of the woman, the lack of culturally appropriate dietary advice, cultural misunderstandings of what constitutes a healthy diet and healthy weight, the lack of culturally suitable exercise facilities and conforming to family and community expectations. Other concerns were language barriers around a lack of understanding, the inability to read Urdu and reliance on others to translate information. Conclusion: These findings have implications for researchers, local authorities, policy makers and others with an interest in reducing the rates of obesity in this population. Recommendations include training health practitioners to be culturally aware of the diet and eating practices of this community, exploring different ways to support socially isolated women to be more physically active at home, addressing physical activity and diet misconceptions and designing obesity management information materials appropriate for a range of literacy levels. Patient or Public Contribution: Public contributors were involved in the development of the interview guide and design of the research. A pilot focus group with participants not included in the present paper was used to help test and refine the focus group questions. Interview transcripts were member checked by participants, and participants assisted with data analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carers of people with dementia can experience reduced health and well‐being, but little is known about how best to support them. There is some evidence to suggest that case management may improve outcomes for carers but less evidence about the features of case management services that can effectively support carers of people with dementia. Admiral Nursing operates a case management approach staffed by specialist nurses and is the only service of its kind in the United Kingdom dedicated to helping people with dementia and their carers. This paper reports qualitative findings from a mixed methods study of Admiral Nursing. For the qualitative strand of the project, data were collected in focus groups and in‐depth interviews with carers of people with dementia (n = 35) and analysed thematically using the framework approach. The aim of this analysis was to understand differences between the experiences of the carers in our sample with and without Admiral Nursing, applying Freeman's model of continuity of care (Freeman et al., Continuity of care, 2000). Participants who had received Admiral Nursing were recruited from two geographical locations and carers without experience of this service were recruited from two different areas. We found that carers in our sample felt 'supported' in circumstances where they received an ongoing service from an Admiral Nurse or other professional with expertise in dementia who was able to develop a meaningful relationship with them over time. We conclude that ongoing support, expertise in dementia and a meaningful relationship are key features of relationship continuity common in carers' reports of feeling supported. Specialist nurses are well placed to provide this continuity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This grounded theory study sought to explore how older adults' experience the transition from living at home to a care home with a specific focus on the latter part of the first year of the move. The study was carried out within a large Health Trust in the UK between August 2017 and May 2019. Purposive sampling was used in the initial stages of data collection. Thereafter and consistent with grounded theory methodology, theoretical sampling was employed to undertake semi‐structured interviews with 17 individuals from eight care homes between 5 and 12 months after the move. This paper reports five key categories which were: (a) The lasting effect of first Impressions 'They helped me make my mind up' (b) On a Journey 'I just take it one day at a time', (c) Staying connected and feeling 'at home' 'You get something good out of it you know...you get hope'. (d) Managing loss and grief 'It was important for me to say cheerio to the house' and (e) Caring relationships 'I didn't realise that I was lonely until I had company'. Together these five categories formed the basis of the core category 'The Primacy of 'Home' which participants identified as a place they would like to feel valued, nurtured and have a sense of belonging. This study identifies that it is important for individual preferences and expectations to be managed from the outset of the move. Individuals and families need to be supported to have honest and caring conversations to promote acceptance and adaptation to living in a care home while continuing to embrace the heart of 'home'. Key recommendations from this study include the need to raise awareness of the significance of the ongoing psychological and emotional well‐being needs of older people which should be considered in policy directives and clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Complexity' is theorised as a characteristic of modern food systems that poses a challenge to improving population diets. This paper seeks to explore the discursive deployment of 'complexity' in the context of public health. Doing so helps inform a more critical assessment of commercial and political determinants of health, and of 'complexity' as a prevailing frame for public health issues. Qualitative methods were used to explore 'responsibility' for healthy eating in the food system in the United Kingdom. Discourse analysis was conducted on corporate and government documents, and interviews with industry and government stakeholders. The aim was to examine the implications of 'complexity' within discourses of dietary public health. 'Complexity' was used not only to characterise dietary public health problems but also as a rhetorical device in public health narratives. It performed two main discursive functions: firstly, to represent diet-health problems as so multi-layered and difficult that they are intractable. Secondly, and despite this acknowledged complexity, to deflect from food system actions for improving diet to 'simpler' and non-food interventions, by industry and government. These uses of 'complexity' serve to attribute primary responsibility to individuals for dietary choice and to obscure inaction by government and industry, who have most control over the determinants of those choices. In short, 'complexity' can be used discursively to generate a smokescreen masking policy inaction in addressing public health problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a commentary regarding the centrality of critical reflection in social work before discussing a research project drawing on a sample of ten social work students as they approached the end of their social work training in one English university. The original intention of the research was to focus solely on students' perceptions of critical reflection, but when using a more reflexive approach, we identified that participants utilised the focus groups as an opportunity to discuss their practice learning experiences per se before considering and discussing critical reflection. Most students were placed in child protection social work teams and discussed how they felt unprepared for such a fast-paced and stressful environment. Participants felt that the expectations some practitioners had of students were unrealistic, and not always commensurate with the Professional Capabilities Framework. Students highlighted the use of practice scenarios in developing their knowledge and skills particularly when considering their application of critical reflection. This study highlights the significance of adequate preparation for practice and argues for a more focussed agenda for future research exploring the culture of learning, including those factors that inhibit students sharing their concerns as well as the training needs of educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]