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User involvement and co-production are imperative to the design, delivery and evaluation of service provision. This chapter provides a brief introduction to these concepts as they relate to mental health, addiction and dual diagnosis. This occurs through an exploration of models of user involvement, particularly, Arnstein’s ladder of participation and MHERs engagement continuum. This is followed by exploring the benefits of user involvement at both a micro and macro level. Co-production – as the highest form of participation is also introduced followed by how these concepts are noted within policy. These concepts are imperative to the creation of a recovery-orientated service that meets the needs of the whole person and their supporters.

This paper presents findings from an exploration of the experiences of staff employed on sessional, part-time or fixed-term contracts (termed contingent staff), focusing on their perceptions and experiences of identity within a UK higher education context.

A comparative case study approach was adopted within a qualitative, interpretivist framework. Semi-structured interviews were used to facilitate an in-depth comparative analysis of the experiences of 11 contingent staff. Thematic analysis was employed to compare identity and practice across two settings to uncover distinct and shared factors.

Participants highlight several critical issues within the study units, including identity and perceived value, team dynamics, clarity of roles and the sense of inclusion within the broader academic community. The findings also reveal that the boundaries between educational roles – including educator, facilitator, coach, mentor and those associated with pastoral care – are increasingly indistinct, suggesting a convergence of pedagogical approaches and holistic practice.

This study provides insights into the underexplored area of pedagogic practice and identity among contingent staff in the UK higher education sector. Unlike previous research, which may broadly examine mentoring roles or apprenticeship outcomes, this study specifically highlights educators' identity perceptions and experiences on contingent contracts, providing a lens on their professional landscape. Employing a comparative case study design enhances the findings by allowing an in-depth juxtaposition of experiences across two distinct higher education institutions.

A large number of studies indicate that coercive forms of organizational control and performance management in health care services often backfire and initiate dysfunctional consequences. The purpose of this article is to discuss new approaches to performance management in health care services when the purpose is to support innovative changes in the delivery of services.

The article represents cross-boundary work as the theoretical and empirical material used to discuss and reconsider performance management comes from several relevant research disciplines, including systematic reviews of audit and feedback interventions in health care and extant theories of human motivation and organizational control.

An enabling approach to performance management in health care services can potentially contribute to innovative changes. Key design elements to operationalize such an approach are a formative and learning-oriented use of performance measures, an appeal to self- and social-approval mechanisms when providing feedback and support for local goals and action plans that fit specific conditions and challenges.

The article suggests how to operationalize an enabling approach to performance management in health care services. The framework is consistent with new governance and managerial approaches emerging in public sector organizations more generally, supporting a higher degree of professional autonomy and the use of nonfinancial incentives.

This paper aims to identify and evaluate resolutions to key learning and teaching challenges in very large courses that involve practical mathematics, such as foundational finance.

A design-based research approach is used across three semesters to iteratively identify practical problems within the course and then develop and evaluate resolutions to these problems. Data are collected from both students and teachers and analysed using a mixed-method approach.

The results indicate that key learning and teaching challenges in large foundational finance courses can be mitigated through appropriate consistency of learning materials; check-your-understanding interactive online content targeting foundational concepts in the early weeks; connection points between students and the coordinator to increase teacher presence; a sustained focus on supporting student achievement within assessments; and signposting relevance of content for the broader program and professional settings. Multiple design iterations using a co-design approach were beneficial to incrementally improve the course and consider multiple perspectives within the design process.

This paper develops a set of design principles to provide guidance to other practitioners who seek to improve their own courses.

The use of design-based research and mixed-method approaches that consider both student and teacher perspectives to examine the design of very large, foundational finance courses is novel.