Learning opportunities through camping for mental health nursing

1. To equip nurses with the skills necessary for working with disturbed people, nurse educators need to be mindful of not watering down the essential skills necessary for nurses to deal with difficult behaviour in all branches of nursing. 2. These components of a mental health clinical experience should equip the graduate to deal with the pressures of dealing with disturbed people in any environment, as the skills learned generalize to any branch of nursing. 3. Universities can combine with traditional hospital services and community mental health services to provide services to clients with mental illness. An additional benefit is in providing students with an intensive clinical learning experience that reinforces the theory taught in the classroom.     

Identity Development in a Multicultural Context: risks and educational opportunities

On the basis of a case study carried out among young people of Italian origin in Siidbaden (Germany) and Southern Italy, this article will consider the issue of migration: an opportunity or a risk factor for the positive development of personality. After discussing favourable and unfavourable factors which might have positive or negative consequences on the young migrants’ personality development in a multicultural situation, some educational consequences will be highlighted. The object of this paper is to further stimulate the discussion on the methods of intercultural education.     

Threats and solutions: multiculturalism,religion and educational policy

The purpose of this article is to discuss how the interplay between multiculturalism, religion and education is described in Finnish national policy documents. The research question was as follows: How is the interplay between multiculturalism, religion and education portrayed in Finnish national policy? The data examined in this study included the national policy documents from 1998 to 2009. The qualitative analysis proposed five policy concerns with regards to multiculturalism, which were political radicalisation, ethnic relations, active citizenship, identity formation and human dignity. Religion seemed to be portrayed in a different manner in the different areas of concern. In the policy documents, religion is generally viewed both as a threat and as a solution in an increasingly multicultural society. In future, studies should be carried out concerning the intertwining of religion, power and nationality in school everyday practices.     

Foster child health care supervision policy

Foster children represent a high-risk group for physical, emotional, and social health problems, yet few federal or state policies explicitly address foster child health. This article reviews foster child health and the legal background for policy, then discusses components of a comprehensive health care supervision program.     

Erasing mothers with disabilities through Canadian family-related policy

Through public policy the Canadian state claims to empower disadvantaged groups such as disabled mothers and their families. Equality means accommodation of difference and a fair share of society's resources according to the principles of Section 15 in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Through an examination of family-related policy, procedures and financing this paper shows how women with disabilities have been disadvantaged in regard to mothering. The author argues that where disabled mothers have experienced discrimination, they have been restricted in their rights as Canadian citizens.     

Navigating stormy waters: Challenges and opportunities for social work in mental health

The reforms driven by the National Mental Health Strategy have created both opportunities and challenges for social work as a profession. This paper examines the rapidly changing context for practice in mental health, including policy change, and developments in the education and training of the mental health workforce. Key practice issues identified for social work include: (i) the need to establish a viable paradigm for practice; (ii) a more positive response to the challenge of evidence-based practice models; (iii) a national agenda for education and training; and (iv) the importance of working collaboratively with consumers and families in a way that values their human rights and the lived experience of mental illness.     

Improving community health through evaluations

There has been an increasing emphasis on sustainable communitydevelopment in recent years, which is linked to community healththrough quality of life and intergenerational considerations.Evaluations are one of the basic tools to improving communityhealth with the most effective evaluations being those thatare meaningful to the community itself, and which provide tangiblefeedback and incentives for improved performance. Drawing onwell-known methods, this paper illustrates four important componentsof community evaluations. Although each method incorporatessome or all of these components, their achievements to datehave been limited. The reasons for this, as well as how evaluationscan play a more effective role in improving community health,are discussed.     

Introduction of a child sexual abuse policy in a health district

SUMMARY. Three one day workshops for 40 senior clinical staff were held to introduce a new Operational Policy on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) and to provide them with a teaching package to enable them to run ‘cascade’ teaching sessions for other staff and colleagues. Part I of this paper describes an evaluation of the workshop; Part II describes an evaluation of the cascade The workshop evaluation showed that knowledge about CSA and policy issues was already good, but although that knowledge did improve after the workshop, attitudes about sexual behaviour were not changed by the workshop. Evaluation of the cascade also showed an increase in knowledge after the dissemination exercise     

Orphans at risk in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence on educational and health outcomes

Based on comparable data for eleven sub-Saharan African countries with especially high rates of orphanhood, we examine how orphanhood affects children’s educational and health outcomes. Using household fixed-effects to control for influences at the household level, we show that orphans do not only fare worse than non-orphans because they tend to live in poorer households, but that they are also at a disadvantage compared to non-orphans within the same household. They lag behind in education and are more often malnourished and stunted. (The coefficients on the health outcomes are only statistically significant for some of the countries and some of the health measures, however.) Moreover, we show that non-orphaned children not living with a biological parent are also worse off compared to biological children of the same caregivers. Educational gaps are particularly evident for children whose mother is deceased or absent. The additional effect of paternal death or absence is rather modest or insignificant in most countries.     

Racial/ethnic segregation and health disparities: Future directions and opportunities

Health researchers have investigated the association between racial segregation and racial health disparities with multilevel approaches. This study systematically reviews these multilevel studies and identifies broad trends and potential directions for future research on racial segregation and health disparities in the US. After searching databases including CINAHL and MEDLINE, we systematically reviewed 66 articles published between 2003 and 2019 and found four major gaps in racial/ethnic segregation and health disparities: (a) the concept of segregation was rarely operationalized at the neighborhood level, (b) except for the evenness and exposure dimension, other dimensions of segregation are overlooked, (c) little attention was paid to the segregation between whites and non‐black minorities, particularly Hispanics and Asians, and (d) mental health outcomes were largely absent. Future directions and opportunities include: First, other segregation dimensions should be explored. Second, the spatial scales for segregation measures should be clarified. Third, the theoretical frameworks for black and non‐black minorities should be tested. Fourth, mental health, substance use, and the use of mental health care should be examined. Fifth, the long‐term health effect of segregation has to be investigated, and finally, other competing explanations for why segregation matters at the neighborhood level should be answered.     

Explanation and social policy: 'the' problem of social inequalities in health

Inequalities in rates of sickness and mortality between social groups has long been a matter of concern and of inquiry in Britain. Disciplinary differentiation has resulted in the problem now being treated within what have become three distinct intellectual traditions. These are social administration, epidemiology, and sociology, and the accounts they provide differ significantly from each other. This is partly because 'the' problem is somewhat differently defined in each; and partly because of their different orientations to theory and to practical amelioration. This article explores the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and raises the possibility of a more adequate explanation than any one discipline provides. The implications for study of social administration are considered.