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This paper outlines the concept of service user leadership and both describes and reflects on an accredited training programme that enables mental health service users to take a leadership role.

The authors argue for a service user leadership approach and the training programme is reviewed by previous participants

Service users can take on a leadership role if they are given suitable and relevant training and development opportunities. Service user led training can be transformational.

Commissioners of mental health services should consider how to support service user leadership programmes, which can reach places and achieve outcomes that traditional mental health services are unable to attain.

The concept of service user leadership is relatively new and the training programme described in this paper is both original and highly valued by participants with many significant outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a flavour of the content of the LILAC Conference held in Glasgow, UK, in April 2012.

The paper provides an overview of the themes, content, keynote speakers and selected parallel sessions of the LILAC conference.

The conference held a series of parallel sessions covering six key themes: information literacy and the digital future; information literacy research; supporting the research community; transitions: from school through to higher education; information literacy and employability; active learning and creative pedagogical approaches.

The conference provided an insight into emerging trends for information literacy.

This paper looks at the quality and value of leisure and friendships that people with learning disabilities experience in the community. It provides an overview of the problems in developing friendships for people with moderate, severe and profound learning disabilities transferred from hospital to community care and identifies recommendations for commissioners, providers, staff and carers for the development of friendships through leisure in the community.

The social and cognitive development of young people at adolescence can have a marked influence on their health‐related behaviour. Psychological development can be influenced at both inter‐ and intrapersonal levels, and health behaviour can be explained and accounted for by a diverse range of influences. This article discusses issues such as experimentation, self‐esteem and individuality within the framework of current theories of psychological development. It assesses the implications of adolescent development for health education programmes, with specific reference to how psychological development influences the motivation and reinforcement of health‐compromising behaviour, such as smoking.

Assesses smoking education programmes in terms of adolescent psychological development issues and social psychological theory. Evaluates two specific programmes using criteria based on developmental concepts and issues, and in terms of whether the programme is holistic in approach. Illustrates the scope of smoking education strategies, and discusses the subtle differences between the underlying principles of these programmes. Finally, assesses the implications of using authoritarian or negotiated approaches to smoking education with adolescent groups.

Considers the impact of the termination of the Grants for Education Support and Training for health education on the future support of health education in schools. Discusses the results of a national audit of healthy alliances between health promotion units and local education authority schools. The results of the survey showed that specialist health promotion units are enthusiastic about collaborative partnerships with education, but that the axing of the GEST‐funded advisory posts has militated against such initiatives. Demonstrates that relationships between local education authorities and health promotion units have been difficult since April 1993 and are now much more competitive. Concludes that alliances between health and education have an uncertain future.

Assesses the influence of the recent Government reforms in initial teacher education on the health education training of new recruits into the profession. Describes findings from the last major research study into health education in initial teacher training and appraises the new criteria for teacher education courses. Concludes that health education in teacher training is likely to become increasingly marginalized. Highlights contradictions in Government policy and urges professionals to attempt to influence the ways in which higher education institutions interpret the criteria on which courses will be developed and judged.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.