Search results

By older adulthood, the majority of individuals will have experienced at least one traumatic event. Trauma-informed care (TIC) is proposed to improve effectivity of health-care provision and to reduce likelihood of services causing retraumatisation. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of staff training in TIC in older adult services.

TIC training was delivered across eight Older Adult Community Mental Health Teams in the same UK organisation. Questionnaires were administered before and after training: a psychometrically robust measure, the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care, was used to assess TIC-related attitudes, and a service-developed scale was used to measure changes in TIC competence. Data was analysed using linear mixed effects modelling (LMM). Qualitative data regarding the impact of training was gathered one month after training through a free-text questionnaire.

There were 45 participants, all of whom were white British. LMM on pre- and post-data revealed that staff training significantly increased competencies across all measured TIC domains. Overall, staff attitudes were also significantly more trauma-informed after training. Qualitatively, staff identified time as the only additional resource required to deliver the skills and knowledge gained from training.

Training was found to be effective in increasing TIC-related skills and attitudes. Organisations aiming to become trauma-informed should consider staff training as one aspect of a wider development plan.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to examine TIC training for staff working in Older Adults Mental Health Services. Recommendations for services aiming to develop a trauma-informed culture have been provided.

The purpose of this study is to address a critical gap in the existing literature on business excellence implementation. While various studies have examined different aspects of business excellence, there is still a lack of comprehensive research on the optimal organizational excellence architecture (OEA) for an award-winning business excellence journey. The absence of a unified framework has led to inconsistent practices across organizations. The aim of this research based on data collected from 50 organizations across 17 countries is to address this gap and present a refined OEA model.

This study employed quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Member organizations from the Global Excellence Model (GEM) Council participated through an online survey administered via the Qualtrics software platform. Quantitative data were analyzed using the SPSS and Microsoft Excel software tools, while content analysis techniques were applied to the qualitative data to gain detailed insights.

The findings refine and extend the OEA model. These contributions lead to a refined OEA definition and open avenues for future research, enriching the current understanding of BE implementation.

This study introduces a novel concept of OEA to the literature on business excellence implementation. The refined OEA model provides a fresh perspective on the critical components necessary for an award-winning business excellence journey. This research offers significant value to both practitioners and academics by presenting a unified approach to BE implementation, effectively addressing the previously identified gap in BE research.

This paper aims to explore the impact of fourth-party logistics (4PL) adoption on the agility, adaptability and alignment (AAA) capabilities within humanitarian supply chains (HSCs).

Semi-structured interviews with individuals from a large non-government organisation were combined with secondary data to assess the influence of 4PL adoption on AAA capabilities in HSCs.

The results indicate that HSCs exhibit some of the AAA antecedents but not all are fully realised. While 4PL positively affects the AAA capabilities of HSCs, its adoption faces challenges such as the funding environment, data security/confidentiality and alignment with humanitarian principles. The study suggests an AAA antecedent realignment, positioning alignment as a precursor to agility and adaptability. It also identifies three core antecedents in HSCs: flexibility, speed and environmental uncertainty.

The study shows the positive impact 4PL adoption can have on the AAA capabilities of HSCs. The findings have practical relevance for those wishing to optimise HSC performance through 4PL adoption, by identifying the inhibiting factors to its adoption as well as strategies to address them.

This research empirically explores 4PL’s impact on AAA capabilities in HSCs, highlighting the facilitating and hindering factors of 4PL adoption in this environment as well as endorsing a realignment of AAA antecedents. It also contributes to the growing research on SC operations in volatile settings.

The aim of the study is to identify best practices from Business Excellence (BE) award-winning organizations on the use of their BE self-assessment (internal assessment) and third-party assessment (external assessment including BE award assessments) for organizational improvement.

An explanatory sequential mixed methods approach was used to gather data from 50 organizations across 17 countries with varying degrees of BE maturity. Twenty of these, representing 40% of the sample, then participated in semi-structured interviews through which their understanding of the impacts of various practices was explored in more detail. From this sub-sample, three (3) emerged as exemplars used as the case studies reported here.

The findings from the first and broader study of the 50 organizations demonstrate a diverse approach to BE assessments, much of which is tailored to the maturity level of each organization. BE organizations with a high BE maturity level are more likely to conduct regular self-assessments and certificate assessment. Key practices identified in the case study organizations were their unique approach to preparing the organization for assessments irrespective of the BE award criteria, the use of mock assessments to prepare for award assessments, the use of customer-led assessments, thorough action plan review process, the use of internal assessments to grow internal capabilities, participation in regular award assessments, the use of external BE assessors and experts for assessments, increased use of technology to support the assessment process, and varying assessment types by organizational BE maturity.

This research provides a specific and valuable contribution to the existing BE literature by presenting contemporary, real-world examples of best practices in BE assessment. It offers a unique perspective on how award-winning organizations tailor their strategies to meet diverse business needs and strategic objectives.

The shift in policy discourse towards individualism is affecting service provision and access, which has become increasingly conditioned on individual agency and the “deservingness” of the recipient. Gendered and intersectional experiences of homelessness and excluded populations less likely to be living on the streets remain overlooked and unaddressed. This study thus aims to uncover what drives “invisibility” in services for women experiencing multiple disadvantage and the gendered constraints the women are facing when exiting and navigating multiple disadvantage.

The paper draws on in-depth interviews with women who face severe and multiple disadvantage and their support staff. Data is also gathered through survey data and observations with a wide range of frontline service providers, as well as support notes and numerical progress data recorded by one of the service providers.

Contradicting the common assumption that people act as rational actors in their interaction with services, the author found that women’s decisions to (dis)engage may be blinded by forces of multiple disadvantage and mistrust. These are often developed as a result of systemic and gendered constraints that limit women’s capabilities and exercise of choice. Barriers in service access often amplified the personal barriers they were facing and reinforced women’s decisions to not engage with services.

The author hopes that this paper sheds light on the particular set of barriers women with multiple disadvantage face, which will be vital to reach women who face severe disadvantage and provide more effective policies, care and support.

This study gives voice to a particular hidden population: women with multiple disadvantage. It contributes to existing frameworks on agency and choice by understanding gendered barriers behind service engagement and how services themselves may be contributing to women’s invisibility.

Parents whose children have undergone an autism assessment often describe the process as extremely stressful. This affects how parents engage with services post-diagnosis, meaning less likelihood of using subsequent service support despite struggling to cope. Since parents already report many barriers to accessing services, e.g. long waiting lists, lack of co-ordination and limited resources (Sapiets et al. 2023), negative experiences during assessment should not pose another potential barrier to engagement. This study aimed to address how families’ needs can be better met during the assessment process.

In this qualitative study, the author conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 parents whose child had undergone an autism assessment in the last five years. Thematic analysis determined key themes.

The six themes were: clarity and communication, access to support and resources, aftercare, recognition of parent concerns, personalisation of the assessment process and concerns around the use of personal protective equipment/online assessments. These themes led to criteria to assess the quality of autism assessment services in line with parent perspectives.

These parent-informed criteria could facilitate the consideration of parents’ views into service evaluations of autism assessment services across the UK.

Previous research indicates that the autism assessment experience is often extremely stressful and overwhelming for families (Crane et al., 2016). Despite this, guidance to improve autism services rarely prioritises the opinions and experiences of service-users and their families. The criteria presented here were derived from themes identified by interviewing parents on their experiences of the autism assessment process, thus shifting the focus onto service-users.

This policy brief provides policy recommendations on the internal design of new secure children's homes (SCHs).

These policy recommendations are developed from findings from focus group discussions with academics, practitioners, frontline workers, and leaders in child protection services.