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Seclusion is the supervised containment of a patient, away from others, when immediately necessary to manage safety on a psychiatric inpatient ward. When seclusion is necessary, it should be used for the shortest time possible, with a regular multidisciplinary review of the patient’s mental and physical health, medication and risk guiding decisions around continuation or ending of this restrictive measure. However, many medical and nursing staff can be anxious about taking part in such reviews. Simulation has been used in many areas of medicine to help people to develop competence and confidence, in a safe setting where their own needs can be paramount. This paper aims to describe the use of a blended learning approach, including simulation, to build confidence and competence amongst healthcare professionals in the safe review of seclusion.

A multidisciplinary group, including input from individuals with lived experience of use of seclusion, put together a one-day training course, which included group debate exploring the relationship between seclusion and the Human Rights Act, guided discussion of videos exploring some aspects of practice and a half-day of simulation where multidisciplinary teams could act as the team reviewing a patient who had been secluded.

This paper found that the course’s blended learning approach helped participants to feel more confident in their understanding of several aspects of seclusion, including what their team discussions should include before and after seeing a patient and in knowing when to end a period of seclusion.

While simulation is slowly becoming a more familiar component of the undergraduate and postgraduate education offer in psychiatry, the authors are unaware of any evaluation of a dedicated simulation-based training course around reviews of seclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to explore four women principals’ experiences with power in the course of their daily leadership. The data used in this exploration was collected through in‐depth interviews, conducted from a phenomenological perspective, during the second and third years of a three‐year study on the leadership experiences of the four principals. The thematic findings which emerged from this data included empowerment, positive power, traditional power and negative power, and are discussed in relation to three lenses of power: dominance or “power over”, facilitation or “power through”, and as energy and competence or “power with”. The four principals’ experiences were remarkable in that they were extensively engaged in interpreting, experiencing and using power as “power through” and “power with” rather than as “power over”. The findings from this research serve as examples of ways in which power is enacted by women leaders within traditional organizational settings, and the potential of their actions to positively transform school organizations and the experiences of those who work within them.