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Service user involvement is called for at every level of NHS delivery in the United Kingdom (UK). This article describes a model of service user participation in the development of mental health nurse curricula in a UK university. Using a research model of participatory action research, the Participation In Nurse Education (PINE) project has now become mainstream in the mental health branches at the university. Service users led the design and implementation of the teaching sessions and led the data collection and analysis. Research participants were the service user trainers and the student nurses who were involved in being taught in the early stages of the project. The benefits of the work to both trainers and students are identified as well as some of the difficulties.

This report is the result of a five‐month survey of information provision in the London Borough of Islington. It looks at information on learning opportunities for adults and complements Brenda Neale's survey of adult learner needs which identified a lack of accessible information as a major barrier for adults in the Borough wishing to return to learning.

Calls to attention the ways in which education has been mobilized in the service of dominant economic ideology. Looks particularly at the corporatization of Australian universities and argues that this will lead to a serious degradation of the system as a whole.

This descriptive qualitative study explores how working conditions impact the health of taxi drivers in Toronto, Canada.

Drivers were recruited between September 2016 and March 2017. A total of 14 semi-structured qualitative interviews and one focus group (n = 11) were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed inductively through a socioecological lens.

The findings of this study are as follows: drivers acknowledged that job precariousness (represented by unstable employment, long hours and low wages) and challenging workplace conditions (sitting all day and limited breaks) contribute to poor physical/mental health. Also, these conditions undermine opportunities to engage in health-protective behaviors (healthy eating, regularly exercising and taking breaks). Drivers do not receive health-enabling reinforcements from religious/cultural networks, colleagues or their taxi brokerage. Drivers do seek support from their primary care providers and family for their physical health but remain discreet about their mental health.

As this study relied on a convenience sample, the sample did not represent all Toronto taxi drivers. All interviews were completed in English and all drivers were male, thus limiting commentary on other experiences and any gender differences in health management approaches among drivers.

Given the global ubiquity of taxi driving and an evolving workplace environment characterized by growing competition, findings are generalizable across settings and may resonate with other precarious professions, including long-haul truck operators and Uber/Lyft drivers. Findings also expose areas for targeted intervention outside the workplace setting.

Health management among taxi drivers is understudied. A fulsome, socioecological understanding of how working conditions (both within and outside the workplace) impact their health is essential in developing targeted interventions to improve health outcomes.

Sarah Burroughes and John Bartle describe the highly innovative SMaRT scheme operated by Nottingham Community Housing Association. This demonstrates how the application of new technologies can allow the remodelling of conventional supported accommodation and floating support approaches to create a whole new approach to supporting independence.

FIRST THINGS FIRST. A self‐respecting research project must be baptised with a good acronym. Indeed, without this attribute it cannot be taken seriously, and it is not stretching facts too far to suggest that in some cases someone has thought up a snappy acronym and then evolved a research project to hang onto it. My own research projects have been singularly unfortunate in this respect. The first had the initials TCP, and it was not long before this was translated into the ‘antiseptic project’. The current one is known as OIP, and this combination of letters, if said properly with the tongue placed against the tonsils, resembles the mating call of the lesser black‐backed gull. Since the project is not directly concerned with birds (or even with ornithology), the relevance of the acronym seems doubtful. However, a firm of consultants is now working on the problem, and the next project should be suitably labelled.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the processes underlying a systems perspective on work–life balance (WLB), with a particular focus on the tensions and role negotiations that arise within and across work and non-work roles.

The authors employed a qualitative methodology, conducting 42 interviews with lawyers at large law firms, which is a context notorious for long work hours.

While a cornerstone of a systems view is that balance is social in nature, and that negotiations occur among stakeholders over role expectations, the process through which this happens has remained unexamined both theoretically and empirically. The authors learned that negotiating around work and non-work role expectations are often contested, complex and fluid. The authors contribute to the literature by elaborating on how these negotiations happen in the legal profession, describing factors that inhibit or facilitate role negotiation and exploring how interdependencies within work systems and across work and non-work systems shape these negotiation processes.

The findings offer a more nuanced conceptualization of the system-level perspective on WLB, and in particular an enriched explanation of work and non-work role negotiation. The authors encourage employers who are interested in promoting WLB to ensure that their employees feel empowered to negotiate their roles, particularly with others in their work systems.

The problems of One‐Man‐Bands (OMBs) began to be taken seriously in the early 1980s when the Aslib OMB group was formed. The group received considerable attention in the professional press, and became the object of a study by Judith Collins and Janet Shuter who identified them as “information professionals working in isolation”. Many of the problems identified in the Collins/Shuter study remain — not least of these being the further education and training needs of OMBs. These needs are studied in this report. The author has firstly done an extensive survey of the literature to find what has been written about this branch of the profession. Then by means of a questionnaire sent to the Aslib OMB group and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (INVOG), training and education needs have been pinpointed. Some of these needs have then been explored in greater detail by means of case studies. The author found that the most common deterrents to continuing education and training were time, cost, location, finding suitable courses to cover the large variety of skills needed and lastly, lack of encouragement from employers. The author has concluded by recommending areas where further research is needed, and suggesting some solutions to the problems discussed.

Questions the validity of the KGOY dictum, ie that kids are getting older younger; this has been the driving force behind much dialogue about marketing to children over recent years. Explores the presumptions behind this trend: children are brand aware at earlier ages, they are more technologically aware and “graduate“ from dolls and action figures earlier, and puberty itself is earlier in girls; other issues like obesity, school violence, child abduction and terrorism demonstrate the involvement of children’s issues with the adult world. Reports a KGOY recalibration exercise by KidShop, however, which finds that children, while being aware of issues, are in fact quite satisfied with their status as children, rather than wanting to be older than they are.

Dunkin’ Donuts is a global retailer of coffee and bakery products. The company is 99 per cent franchised and has used the franchising system as a route to market entry and expansion worldwide. The original historic roots of the company are in the USA and despite wide international expansion since the 1970s, the US market continues to serve as a testing ground for innovations prior to international roll‐out. Based on observation and key informant interviews with core members of the management team during a visit to Richmond Project in 1994, the case explores the initial phase of the introduction of a central production facility as an innovative route to pre‐eminence in one test market. Strategic and operational issues are discussed, highlighting the differences and efficiency gains of the central production facility cum satellite store approach compared to the traditional stand‐alone on‐site production approach. Implications for future developments are discussed.