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BackgroundChinese students are extremely vulnerable to developing mental illness. The stigma associated with mental illness presents a barrier to seeking help for their mental health. ObjectiveThe Linking Hearts—Linking Youth and ‘Xin’ (hearts) project is an implementation science project that seeks to reduce mental illness stigma and promote the mental health of university students in Jinan, China. The Linking Hearts project consists of 3 components. In this paper, we outline the protocol for the first component, that is, the contextual assessment and analysis of the mental health needs of university students as the first step to inform the adaptation of an evidence-based intervention to be implemented in Jinan, China. MethodsSix local universities will participate in the Linking Hearts project. A total of 100 students from each university (n=600) will engage in the contextual assessment through self-report surveys on depression, anxiety, stress, mental health knowledge, and mental health stigma. Quantitative data will be analyzed using several descriptive and inferential analyses via SPSS. A small number of participants (144 students and 144 service providers) will also be engaged in focus groups to assess the socio-environmental contexts of university students’ health and availability of mental health resources. Qualitative data will be transcribed verbatim and NVivo will be used for data management. Social network analysis will also be performed using EgoNet. ResultsLinking Hearts was funded in January 2018 for 5 years. The protocol of Linking Hearts and its 3 components was approved by the research ethics boards of all participating institutions in China in November 2018. Canadian institutions that gave approval were Ryerson University (REB2018-455) in January 2019, University of Alberta (Pro00089364), York University (e2019-162) in May 2019, and University of Toronto (RIS37724) in August 2019. Data collection took place upon ethics approval and was completed in January 2020. A total of 600 students were surveyed. An additional 147 students and 138 service providers took part in focus groups. Data analysis is ongoing. Results will be published in 2021. ConclusionsFindings from this contextual assessment and analysis will generate new knowledge on university students’ mental health status, mental health knowledge, and resources available for them. These findings will be used to adapt and refine the Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment-Linking Youth N’ Xin intervention model. The results of this contextual assessment will be used to inform the adaptation and refinement of the mental health intervention to promote the mental health of Chinese university students in Jinan. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)RR1-10.2196/25009

This study mainly explored psychological stress due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and how it related to parents' views of school success in mainland China. The Psychological Stress Questionnaire and Views of Social and Academic Success were administered to 213 parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Results showed that parents' and children's characteristics were related to psychological stress due to COVID-19, which significantly negatively predicted parents' views of school success. The contributions, limitations, and implications of the present research are discussed.

Despite decades of practice and development, social work education in India is still Western-centric. Social work in India is still not well recognised: it does not have an accrediting body or professional recognition within the country. This study gives voice to a sample of social work students regarding some of the challenges they face, including the curriculum, pedagogy, recognition of the profession and the practicum. The study is based on interviews with students from five universities in India and includes concrete recommendations for improving the professional training of social work students.

This study mainly explored psychological stress due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and how it related to parents' views of school success in mainland China. The Psychological Stress Questionnaire and Views of Social and Academic Success were administered to 213 parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Results showed that parents' and children's characteristics were related to psychological stress due to COVID-19, which significantly negatively predicted parents' views of school success. The contributions, limitations, and implications of the present research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Herein, an electron-deficient phthalazinone unit containing a unique Sp3 hybrid nitrogen atom as an acceptor to cut off the ether bond was presented and three Donor-Acceptor (D-A) conjugated fluoropolymers via Classical Aromatic Nucleophilic Displacement Polymerization (CANDP) method were successfully synthesized. These polymers exhibit excellent thermostability. The 5% weight loss temperature of PDT2TF under nitrogen atmosphere is high, up to 470 °C. This is due to that the D-A conjugation between thiophene-phthalazinone units affects its resonance energy and stabilizes the thiophene-phthalazinone structures. These three fluoropolymers show strong absorptions and fluorescence in visible light region both in solution and thin film states. The band gaps ( Eg) of these polymers are narrower than that of their corresponding di-NH capped monomers, owing to the good electronic communication properties of the Sp3 nitrogen atom in the phthalazinone unit. The Eg value of PDT3TF is decreased to 2.03 eV. These results indicate that phthalazinone unit is an efficient acceptor and could exhibit strong D-A effect with thiophene unit. Also, the Sp3 nitrogen atom in the phthalazinone shows good electronic wave function and charge transport properties. This facile CANDP synthetic method combined with Sp3 CN bond linked electron-deficient phthalazinone unit affords polymers with controllable photoelectric properties. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2016, 54, 3470-3483 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a large-scale survey of the assets, income, and housing of the urban poor in the city of Jinan, Shandong Province. The survey shows that although the Minimum Standard of Living (MSL) for urban dwellers has played an important role in securing people's basic needs, many poor families still have difficulty making ends meet, most poor families own few assets other than housing, and there are large differences in asset ownership and housing among the urban poor. The following recommendations are offered to help the poor meet their basic needs and accumulate assets for poverty alleviation: MSL aid should be moderately increased, income should not be the only eligibility criterion for MSL aid, and a social welfare system based on asset building should be established to help the poor accumulate assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of this special issue originated from a research collaboration meeting which took place at Shandong Youth University of Political Science, PR China in 2019 between the social work educators from India and China (guest editors of this special issue). The idea was further encouraged by our own teaching experience to social work students and the questions we encountered during discussion with students on multiple dimensions of poverty and how it impacts on the services and interventions rendered by professional social workers? The editorial team consists of four members having vast teaching and academic administrative experience in reputed educational institutions, where as one member is an early career researcher exploring social work education and research through international exposures and research. This special issue aims to explore the following objectives- Extent to which poverty is addressed in social work curriculum? The ways in which social work address poverty and the related concerns in different socio-political contexts? Perspectives of social work educators and students on poverty and the manner in which these affect their sensitivity and professional development?

Background: Evidence shows that there is a high prevalence of mental health challenges including depression and anxiety, among Chinese university students. Providing mental health care providers with professional training is crucial to implementing effective mental health promotion initiatives in university settings. Globally, the focus of the mental health system is shifting to recovery and the importance of empowerment is increasingly being emphasized. There is a call to integrate empowerment education into professional training programs for health service providers with the goal of mobilizing them to become mental health champions capable of advancing mental health care., Method: The ACE-LYNX (Acceptance and Commitment to Empowerment-Linking Youth and Xin i.e., "heart(s)" in Chinese) intervention took place at six universities in Jinan, Shandong Province, China. It aimed to promote mental health literacy and build capacity among mental health service providers (MHSPs) to enable them to become mental health champions at their universities and beyond. A total of 139 university MHSPs participated. We collected pre-, immediate post- and three-month-post-surveys. In addition, we recruited forty-five participants to take part in three-month- post-intervention focus group interviews to explore their experiences taking part in ACE-LYNX and applying the knowledge, skills, and insights they gained from the intervention., Result: This paper reports on the effects of empowerment education, which is a key component of ACE-LYNX, on the MHSPs. Four themes were identified: 1) conscious awareness and behavioral change through psychological empowerment users; 2) professional insights and motivation for organizational empowerment; 3) non-self in the continuum of collective empowerment; and 4) interdisciplinary challenges and divergences in empowerment action., Discussion: We found that it is critical to integrate empowerment education into professional training. The process of MHSPs developing their empowerment practice is characterized by their moving from individual to collective empowerment along a continuum, with organizational and collective empowerment taking place in a longer time frame. Experiential learning, empathy education, and critical reflection accelerated the continuous iterative transformative process of empowerment practices. To advance the integration of empowerment into mental health care, the engagement of organizational decision-makers and policy makers in empowerment training is critical to ensure alignment of empowerment values and competence at all levels of service provision., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Wang, Gao, Hao, Tsang, Wong, Fung, Li, Jia and Cheng.)

Five porous ether-linked phthalazinone-based covalent triazine frameworks (PHCTFs) were successfully constructed via ionothermal polymerizations from flexible dicyano monomers containing asymmetric, twisted, and N-heterocyclic phthalazinone structure. All the building blocks could be easily prepared by simple and low-cost aromatic nucleophilic substitution reactions, showing the large-scale application potential of thermal stable phthalazinone structure in constructing porous materials. Generally, the flexible building blocks are avoided to prevent the networks from collapsing in constructing high surface area porous materials. Our experimental results revealed that the introduction of the substituents can effectively decrease the probability of the network interpenetration from the longer struts and the intermolecular/intramolecular intercalation from the increased degree of conformation freedom in the flexible ether-linkage, the BET surface areas of PHCTFs increasing from 676 to 1270 m 2 g -1 . Meanwhile, the effects of introducing different sizes (methyl or phenyl group) and amounts (one or two) of substituents on the porosities of the target polymer networks were also investigated in detail. The high CO 2 adsorption capacity of 10.3 wt % (273 K, 1 bar) can be ascribed to the strong affinity of the electron-rich N,O-containing networks with CO 2 . Excitingly, PHCTF-5 demonstrates the high CO 2 /N 2 selectivity up to 138 (273 K, 1 bar), according to the ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) for the higher proportion of V micro accompanied the electron-rich heteroatoms characteristic. Such high CO 2 adsorption capacity and good separation properties are superior to those of many other microporous organic polymers. These properties along with easily up-scalable synthesis make porous PHCTFs promising candidates applied in gas sorption and separation field.