Visual metaphors of living with brain injury: exploring and communicating lived experience with an invisible injury

Brain injury can affect cognitive, emotional and physical functioning – consequences that pose challenges to understanding survivors' perspectives on their lives. Furthermore, the injury may be invisible, even clinically, causing additional confusion for affected individuals, family members, co-workers and clinicians. The present study used photovoice with adult brain injury survivors so they could communicate their lived experience. Participants took photographs, discussed them, and selected some for captions. Half of their selected images are visual metaphors that foster a multifaceted view of brain injury with room for negative as well as positive aspects of their experience. Photovoice provided opportunities to communicate a personal voice during group discussions and in study binders, and a group voice in outreach products. Visual metaphors became vehicles for voice as participants used photovoice to make visible their brain injuries and their efforts to wrestle with the impacts and discover new purpose and meaning in life.     

Reduced rehospitalizations and reintegration of persons with mental illness into community living: a holistic approach

The goal of inpatient rehabilitation services should be directed towards returning persons with mental illness to the community by producing measurable gains in functioning that promote increased personal independence, self-direction, and care to prepare the patient to live in the least restrictive environment. Aftercare compliance was increased and the recidivism rate was cut in half when the aftercare nurse saw the person with mental illness before discharge and a specific appointment was scheduled with the aftercare nurse. The scope of community outpatient services that can be authorized is determined by the outcome of negotiating and communicating between the clinician and case manager.     

Smoking and persistent mental illness: an exploratory study

The rate of smoking is alarmingly high among persons with persistent mental illness and they are no less susceptible to the harmful effects of smoking. Nicotine is a potent, addictive drug which affects neurotransmitters. Smoking can affect psychiatric symptoms as well as blood levels of psychotropic and other medications. Most persons with mental illness are aware of the detrimental health risks of smoking and many are interested in quitting. Poor physical health is associated with efforts to quit. Personal commitment is important to successfully quitting.     

Digital learning across cultures: an account of activity theory

ABSTRACT

This paper explores a teaching and learning process as it unfolds in an online offshore classroom. The paper reports on teaching and learning narratives distilled from different cultures, namely the cultures of educators and students in the context of digital learning environments. Drawing on activity theory as a conceptual framework to analyse the narrative, we employ self-study as a methodological tool for capturing the dynamism and complexities that unravel in intercultural and technology-enabled teaching activities. The framework explores the relationships, tensions and opportunities of diverse activity elements that constitute the design and delivery of digital pedagogies. In the networked intercultural system, sustaining the position of activity elements and the specific relational circuit that they institutionalise is a key task for understanding digital technologies as an influential tool for effective learning and teaching practices. We argue that seeing the digital platform from the perspective of its role in creating dynamic interrelationships in a complex activity system is one way to move beyond the cultural confines of any particular element in the system.     

The experiences of children living with and caring for parents with mental illness

This research provides a three‐way perspective on the experiences and needs of children who are living with and caring for parents with severe and enduring mental illness. The views of children, parents and key workers were sought in order to provide deeper insight into the needs of families and the nature of interfamilial relationships, as well as the relationships between service users and providers. Child protection and medical research has long proposed a link between parental mental illness and the risk to children of abuse, neglect and developmental delay. The inevitability of risk associations is challenged by the research described here and outcomes for children of caring for parents with mental illness are discussed not simply in terms of risk to children but more broadly in respect of, for example, positive parent–child relationships. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Labelling out: the personal account of an ex-alcoholic lesbian feminist

In this paper, I look at my past alcohol dependency from a political as well as personal perspective. I consider the problems caused in my life and that of other lesbians by alcohol abuse, outdated treatment methods and self-help organizations such as AA, which misrepresent social factors leading to alcohol abuse. I focus on a series of themes: the personal and political; lesbian bar styles; alternative realities; lesbian problem drinking; problems facing lesbians in treatment and engaging with Alcoholics Anonymous; treatment as it often is and treatment as it should be.     

Professional culture and organizational morality: an ethnographic account of a therapeutic organization

An ethnographic exploration of the social reality of a counselling and training institute points to the profound impact of the therapeutic paradigm on the 'patterned regularities', the general principles, rules and daily practices, in other words, the organizational morality. The limited house-rules or practices emerged mainly as 'enabling conditions' to let professional autonomy prevail and to maintain the game rather than to prescribe behaviour. Organizational rules, structures, mechanics served as a platform for negotiations among different groups of 'provinces of meaning'. These negotiations do not necessarily show any sense of organizational logic or administrative rationality. Perhaps the opposite is true. Loosely coupled interactions and consensual validation rather than goal-oriented thinking appeared to be the predominant organizational occupation. The irrational, at times even ironic dynamics operative in organizational morality are nevertheless meaningful. They function as 'mapping' and sense-making devices and can be seen as vehicles for reflecting and ordering underlying meanings.     

Living up to the standards we set: A critical account of the development of anti-racist standards

In this paper we reflect on the work in progress to maintain an active focus on the impact of racism in society, its implications for social work practice, and the development of anti-racist strategies within the whole spectrum of anti-oppressive practice in social work education. We look at some of the ways in which this is being tackled in social work training programmes nationally, and share some of the dilemmas and difficulties encountered in the South West, as well as the achievements so far. We wish to invite debate through a discussion of the processes, principles and context of four years' work to set minimum standards for anti-racist practice. Our aim is to move forward from identifying the problem [S. Collins, P. Gutridge, A. James, E. Lynn & C. Williams (2000) Social Work Education, 19(1), pp. 29-43] to implementing positive change in both content and method of integrating anti-racist strategies in social work and assessing student practice. At all stages of the development work care has been taken to avoid the separation of racism from other forms of oppression and to acknowledge the ways it reconstitutes the experience of service users from minority and majority ethnic groups [F. Williams (1989) Social Policy: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge, Polity)]. It is in this context that agreed standards for anti-racism within anti-oppressive practice are being articulated and adopted or considered by DipSW and Post Qualifying programmes within the Far South West of England. Local DipSW programme personnel in the region have worked consistently to achieve a positive, inclusive and dynamic approach to integrate anti-racist practice in social work education programmes. The authors write from the perspective of being White. We are members of a Forum for Anti-Racist Practice Development and are involved in the development work in different ways. This paper is our perspective of the work for which many individuals and institutions are responsible. We do not represent all those involved, and seek to celebrate rather than claim credit for the work.     

Disablism in the lives of people living with a chronic illness in England and Portugal

This article is based on research about the daily lives of people living with chronic illnesses in England and Portugal. Through the first-person narratives of participants, I argue that the lives of people living with debilitating chronic illnesses are affected by disablism, discrimination and exclusion. These aspects affect them in several important realms of life such as lack of or poor social support, difficulties in obtaining reasonable adjustments or the inability to obtain any kind of state support at all. These aspects are also widespread and compound and greatly influence their lives, beyond or in addition to the physical experience of the illness itself. I conclude that it is fundamental to change these structural and policy aspects and that people should have access to what I have termed a paradigm of sustained well-being, despite the illness.     

Visual representations of ethnic violence: an Indonesian portrayal

The horrific violence that has marred Indonesia's ‘transition to democracy’ raises numerous disconcerting questions; not least of which is how future interested actors or governments – central and regional alike – will tackle these atrocities in a historical framework. How should a series of historical events, such as the killing of thousands of Indonesians by Indonesians be (un)officially remembered? Two paintings that hang in Sambas, West Kalimantan's most prominent cultural centrepiece, the Alwadzi Koebillah kraton, are remarkable, for they give us a glimpse as to how local voices might attempt to possess the historical meanings and readings of Indonesia's recent ethnic strife. Perhaps one of a kind in Indonesia, these paintings boldly portray the bloody battles that took place in Sambas in early 1999, pitting the ‘courageous’ and ‘youthful’ Malays of Sambas against the ‘middle-aged’ and ‘treacherous’ Madurese. These depictions make it abundantly clear that, through this bloodletting, Sambas Malays awoke from their slumber in time to mobilise, to confront and to defeat their nemesis. As an ethnopolitical force, the glorious rise of ‘Malay’ is unmistakable. The broader political context in which these paintings were commissioned, however, invests them with greater significance. Only in a decentralised state, one distinct from the excessive centralism of the New Order, would the (semi) public display of these heroic memorials to local, i.e. non-national, violence be made possible.     

Personal account retirement plans: an analysis of the survey of consumers finances

This report is based on data from the Federal Reserve Board's triennial Survey of Consumer Financies (SCF), which provides the most comprehensive data available on the wealth of American households. The most recent SCF data are for 1998, and this report tracks information from the 1992, 1995, and 1998 surveys. The percentage of families with a participant in a pension plan from a current job increased from 38.8 percent to 41.0 percent over this six-year period. If one focuses exclusively on those families with a worker and in which the head is under age 65, the percentage for 1998 increases to 56.8 percent. The previously documented trend toward defined contribution plans was confirmed and the significance of 401(k)-type plans for those families participating in a pension plan more than doubled, from 31.6 percent in 1992 to 64.3 percent in 1998. The percentage of family heads eligible to participate in a defined contribution plan that did so increased from 73.8 percent in 1995 to 77.3 percent in 1998. Of those families choosing not to participate in a defined contribution plan, 40.3 percent were already participating in a defined benefit plan. Overall, "personal account plans" represented nearly one-half (49.5 percent) of all the financial assets for those families with either a defined contribution plan account, IRA, or Keogh, in 1998. This was a significant increase from 43.6 percent in 1992. The average total account balance in personal account plans for families with a plan in 1998 was $78,417, an increase of 54 percent in real terms over the 1992 balance of $50,914 (expressed in 1998 dollars). For families participating in a defined contribution plan, IRA, or Keogh in 1998, 52 percent of the overall average was attributed to IRA/Keogh balances (43 percent from IRAs alone), and 44 percent of the average was from account balances in defined contribution plans with the current employer. There is a marked tendency for lower-income families to have larger percentages of their total personal account plan retirement portfolio in IRAs, although this trend appears to be fading with time. The impact of rollovers on the average total account balance for all individual account balances appears to be quite large: $152,451 for those with at least one rollover, versus $78,471 for all families participating in at least one personal account plan, regardless of whether they have had a rollover. The vast majority of the rollovers would appear to be going to IRAs, as opposed to a defined contribution plan with a new employer.