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Engagement in meaningful active and relationships is important for quality of life but, for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, engagement depends on the quality of support received from those around them. This paper describes the process of implementing person‐centred active support in the Avenues Trust, and the findings from the evaluation of the implementation in six pilot residential services. Attention was paid both to training staff and to the motivational structures within the organisation. Both the quality of support provided by staff and the level of engagement increased significantly after the introduction of person‐centred active support. In addition, people experienced decreased self‐stimulatory and injurious behaviour, increased opportunities for choice and control, and higher levels of participation in tasks of daily living, without compromising their community involvement. Staff experienced more and better practice leadership, and staff morale improved within the services, with staff generally more positive about management, more satisfied and less likely to leave. Lessons learnt about the implementation are provided.

At the heart of organizational change lies the extent to which individuals cope with the uncertainties and complexities that change introduces into their work lives. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the behavioral reactions of employees to change and their associated reasons for or against a large-scale technological change implemented in a bank.

A total of 146 bank employees located in 40 bank branches participated two times in providing critical incidents regarding their initial and midcourse reactions to this change.

Results showed that anticipated benefits associated with change initiate positive reactions to change. These reactions are maintained positive due to supervisory support. Resistance is activated by perceived high cost-low benefit change at hand and it is shifted to active support when there is open communication and supervisory support.

Until now the majority of research studies on reactions to change do not investigate the duration and/or continuity of a behavior, assuming that once the reasons behind and the behaviors are formulated these will persist over time.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of staffing levels (one or two staff) on the amount of assistance provided to residents in one group home, and associated levels of resident engagement in activities prior to and following the implementation of active support.

Data on staff assistance and resident engagement were gathered by direct observation across six pre‐test and post‐test 80‐minute sessions, using palmtop computers. Percentage of all non‐overlapping data, an index of effect size, was used to analyse these data.

There was no clear benefit from additional staffing prior to active support training, in terms of staff assistance or resident engagement in activity. However, at post‐test, having two staff yielded increased staff assistance, but with limited evidence of increased resident engagement, despite more continuous staff assistance.

This is the first active support study to examine the impact of staffing levels on resident engagement and staff assistance. Implications for service management and research are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of perceived threat, brand congruence, and social support on consumer coping strategies for a preventative health service.

An online survey of 570 women aged over 50 in one Australian state was conducted (users and non-users of the service). The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

A competing models approach reveals that threat on its own is associated with avoidance coping; however, when brand congruence is high, there is an association with active coping. Social support appears to have a buffering effect on threat and is associated positively with active coping and negatively with avoidance coping.

The study findings suggest that threat appeals should be used with caution in increasing participation in transformative preventative health services due to its double-edged sword effect (increasing both avoidance and active coping). When consumers have social support, this results in active coping and buffers avoidance coping. This research offers useful insights for social marketing and transformative service research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on Bates et al.'s discussion of the importance of subtle support and some of the pitfalls and potential of supporting people on a one to one basis in their community.

This paper reflects on Bates et al.'s account in the context of a wider consideration of the meaning of support and key research findings, especially for people with more severe intellectual disabilities.

Subtle support is important, but it is necessary to be clearer about what it entails.

The paper welcomes the debate about subtle support and calls for the inclusion of a focus on the quality of support provided for people with more severe intellectual impairments. Further, the lessons should be used from empirical research regarding the distribution of assistance and the effectiveness of active support particularly the component known as positive interaction.

HyFlex course design is an effective instructional course design that combines active and transformative learning techniques. HyFlex course design encourages active learning by focusing on interactive activities, discussions, and collaboration. It also allows learners to collaborate effectively and flexibly as a community, providing peer support and opportunities for authentic dialogue and learning experiences. HyFlex course design provides the opportunity for transformative learning through its ability to offer personalized educational experiences to individuals. It facilitates greater customization of the learning experience, allowing individual learners to access tailored educational modules, offer personalized educational experiences to individuals, and effectively develop and build independent and critical thinking skills. This conceptual review, supported by implications from HyFlex literature and triangulated with experts' views undertaking a Delphi study, facilitates understanding the current state of research in HyFlex course design and future application strategies. Existing research has identified HyFlex courses as a promising means of engaging students in active learning. Allowing students to learn through flexibly predesigned mixed online and in-person experiences enables higher levels of student autonomy and supports students in taking more ownership of their learning. This approach can facilitate an understanding of how HyFlex courses can improve active learning practices in higher education. The review study findings identify the reported alignment issues and challenges, suggest four strategies and actions for policymakers and stakeholders, and provide a suggested research agenda for bridging identified research gaps.

Future research can provide evidence of the benefits of HyFlex course design and how flexible course design can address the challenges of traditional face-to-face courses, such as reduced student engagement, lack of student-centered approaches, and limited support for different learning styles. Further research can focus on strategies that can be used to promote active learning in HyFlex courses. Moreover, research can investigate how this kind of course design can equip educators with the skills and knowledge needed to design and implement effective and meaningful active learning experiences. Finally, research can assess the potential impact of HyFlex course design on student outcomes, including performance, satisfaction, and engagement.

This mainly conceptual paper summarises the current conceptualisation of personalisation as it applies to people with learning disabilities. It goes on to map out how the drive towards the personalisation of services, its most recent iterations of person‐centred planning, person‐centred funding and person‐centred action, contributes to a better quality of life for people with intellectual disabilities, using the domains and indicators of quality of life set out in the Schalock et al (2002) international consensus. In doing so it describes what you would see in services where person‐centred approaches were being successfully implemented.

Students develop knowledge through an ongoing process of learning embodied in their daily experiences. As citizens, they develop an identity in their communities as they build relationships through recurrent interactions, thus constructing citizenship by strengthening stable interactions. This paper aims to examine the development of student active citizenship within a Jean Monnet module summer school that uses a participative approach and experiential learning.

The research provides a multi-level systems perspective on the learning experience in a Jean Monnet module. It combines state-of-the-art analysis of the Jean Monnet modules reports, analysis of a selected module’s activities and delayed participants feedback analysis. The methodology addresses complexity at multiple levels and leaves sufficient variance to invite readers to test the approaches themselves.

First, opportunities and gaps in the development of active citizen abilities were identified within the Jean Monnet modules. Second, it was established that the use of a participative approach and experiential learning aligned activities in the learning process yielded positive results in participant engagement. Third, long-term effects in the form of an improved understanding of active citizenship and the execution of activities in real life were also observed. The authors point to the need for active communication in the development of a full-cycle experiential learning process. Additionally, the multi-level monitoring model contributed positively towards the continual improvement of the learning process, and thus, provided a learning experience for teachers.

The research is limited regarding the clear articulation of the research results, rendering comparison with other learning experience reports challenging.

For lecturers, the importance of integrating the participative approach into the student learning process is documented; the effects of experience learning on students’ active participation are presented; and the importance of systems perspective on multiple aspects of the learning process is reinforced. For students, an example of the importance of being active in the learning process and using available resources is provided. For policymakers, the paper attests to the importance of learning programmes expanding the limitations of the regular curricula and the need to support additional programmes and the benefits of a participative approach and experience learning in the process of developing active citizens.

The authors point to the need for authentic situational-context experience and active communication in the learning process. Additionally, the authors provide an example of systems investigation of the learning process.

The paper identifies the gap between the Jean Monnet modules and active citizen abilities and provides a potential approach towards reducing them. It also provides a multi-level method for monitoring and adjusting the learning process.

Purpose – Since the mid-1980s, unemployment policy reforms in Europe and throughout the rich democracies have stressed publicly supported activation of the unemployed through both reductions in perceived disincentives to work as well as commitments for improved training, employment services, and related policies. In this chapter, I systematically explore the domestic and international political economic sources of these policy changes.

Methodology/approach – I test a set of hypotheses – original and derivative – about the domestic and international determinants of labor market policy change through pooled time-series cross-section analysis of 1980-to-2002 annual data from 18 capitalist democracies. The dependent variables consist of national spending on active labor market policy, measures of passive unemployment compensation benefits, and the ratio of active to passive unemployment program spending. Causal models account for spatial diffusion of policy reforms as well as core political and economic determinants of policy change.

Findings – I find that Left party governments and coordinated market institutions buoy resources for active labor market programs, maintain relatively generous passive unemployment supports and entitlements, and, at the same time, foster a shift to more active social policy. International trade openness promotes generous active labor market policies while more left-leaning voters and veto points within the polity significantly constrain reductions in unemployment benefits and entitlement rights. De-industrialization reinforces policy reforms toward activation while high unemployment rates engender cuts in passive unemployment benefits and eligibility conditions.

Originality/value – Overall, the chapter demonstrates that the economic effects on policy change notwithstanding, politics fundamentally matters: domestic political dynamics and variations in institutions explain the preponderance of the change (or lack thereof) in unemployment policy.