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The purpose of this paper is to outline a clinical framework developed for autistic women. INVEST (Identify Needs, Validate, Educate, Strengthen and Thrive) is a strengths-based neurodiversity therapeutic approach. Autistic individuals are treated with respect and are believed to have the capacity to make meaningful changes in their lives.

The author’s clinical experiences working as an individual, couple and family therapist specializing in girls and women with autism inform this paper. The innovative therapeutic approach will be described including reasons for seeking therapy, the theoretical underpinnings and case examples that bring each component of INVEST to life.

Women with autism are very responsive to a therapeutic process that validates their experiences. Helping individuals and their support systems learn more about autism and their unique profile can enhance understanding and self-acceptance. Strategies to increase emotional awareness and reduce victimization are emphasized. Understanding sensory triggers and executive functioning challenges enable individuals to make useful adaptations. Building skills and setting parameters on time and energy help to stave off autistic burnout.

The impact of the INVEST model goes beyond the therapist’s office and can be applied to multiple settings. All professionals have the opportunity to treat autistic women with respect, validation and an assumption of competence.

Clinical program are scarce for individuals with autism, especially women. The INVEST model is the beginning of a discussion of what can help autistic women thrive.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the attempts by one youth homelessness service to implement the conceptual ideas of the psychologically informed environment (PIE) into a practical and beneficial service for very challenging young people who have been homeless, are leaving care or have left custody.

The approach of the paper is descriptive, outlining the thinking behind a PIE with young people and the operationalising of this understanding in the day-to-day practice of the service.

Although homelessness and housing support staff are not therapists, the nature of the work entails a need for understanding and sensitivity, and the activities of the service are designed to create positive opportunities and relationships. Reflective practice, supervision and evaluation are then essential tools in developing a “learning organisation”, where the collective dynamics at an organisational level support the psychological work of the PIE.

The implications for homelessness work that can be drawn from the outcome of this project is to better understand how the PIE linked to the concept of a learning organisation can provide a truly robust framework for providing a service that can evolve harmoniously, tying in disparate funding streams to offer very challenging young people an outstanding service that addresses their homelessness and its underlying causes.

The practical implications shown are the psychological skills that can be developed in housing workers; the limits of those skills and how they are complemented by partnership work with other voluntary sector organisations and mainstream health providers; how the ideas of the learning organisation can naturally underpin the work of the PIE.

The combination of the concept of the learning organisation, reflective practice and the PIE provides a highly original and truly robust framework for providing housing workers with the psychological tools to make a transformative difference in the lives of especially vulnerable young homeless people.

In light of the recent 1MDB Scandal in Singapore, this research paper aims to examine the deterrent effect of Singapore’s sanctions against money laundering within financial institutions.

Case laws and legislations are examined as are relevant reports by regulators.

Singapore’s anti-money laundering (AML) regimes may not act as an effective deterrent against money laundering activities within financial institutions. This is due to the overreliance on the theory of deterrence-based thinking, the lack of an “enforcement pyramid” and economic factors which influence regulators to be lenient towards financial institutions.

There are limited data available in relation to regulators in Singapore and the prevalence of money laundering activities within Singapore’s financial institution. Any discussions within this article is based on the impressionistic observations of this author, which may not reflect the true state of affairs in Singapore.

Those who are interested in examining the relationship between money laundering and the deterrent effect of sanctions against financial institutions will have an interest in this topic.

The value of the paper is to demonstrate that Singapore’s AML regimes may not act as an effective deterrence against money laundering activities within financial institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of agri-biotech to play a role in meeting the world’s food, feed, fiber and fuel needs. Using case studies, policy developments in the key Asian countries of China, India and Japan are also scrutinized to determine the extent to which they enable or obstruct biotech’s potential.

The authors first examine some key challenges facing the agriculture and agri-food sector and the potential role biotech can play in addressing them. These challenges include feeding the world’s growing population, improving nutrition worldwide, dealing with allergen risks, reducing nutrient and chemical loading in watersheds, addressing water scarcity issues, and reducing waste in the food system. The authors then turn their attention to the agri-biotech systems in three Asian giants, including China’s centralized governance approach, India’s central-local policy and regulations, and Japan’s pragmatic and evidence-based regulatory framework.

Each nation has evolved its own system of governance based on the different challenges facing the society, the recognized potential of different biotech interventions, and citizens’ collective perceptions regarding both the potential and the risks that biotech innovations embody. Systems that are less evidence-based appear to be more discretionary and therefore are less predictable in their outcomes. This increases risks to prospective exporting firms and importing firms, driving up system costs and effectively serving as barriers to entry and to trade. It also dampens and distorts entrepreneurial and innovation incentives.

From the review and observations the authors then discuss ways and means of establishing priorities through a risk assessment framework in which key risks are enumerated and assessed in terms of their likelihoods and their conceivable consequences. Such an approach would allow challenges to be met with a degree of foresight and adaptability.

The sometimes disjointed, sometimes strategic use of biotech regulations have fragmented markets and created fiefdoms which undermine the potential of novel technologies to address the challenges facing society.

For illustrative purposes, the authors touch on land and water governance, regulatory and institutional bottlenecks and reforms and the potential for agri-biotech to play an elevated role if vested interests and obstructions can be overcome.

This study draws on research and literature from several disciplines. It also includes discussions relating to bureaucratic and administrative behavior which erodes the extent to which markets can be contested. This results in balkanized markets and non-cooperative behavior that undermines and distorts incentives for entrepreneurial effort and innovation. That such behavior takes place in markets and disciplines that are fundamental to assuring food security, nutrition and health, as well as good governance of scarce water and land resources is of considerable concern.

This article, based on a presentation given at the First National Personality Disorder Congress, provides a brief descriptive overview of the occupation‐based intervention group programme, the Journey day service, with contributions from a former group member, Rachel, of her experience of participating in and completing the programme.

Youth and young adults with emotional and/or behavioral difficulties (EBD) face particularly difficult challenges in their efforts to fit into adult roles and functions. The purpose of this chapter is to assist providers, educators, and administrators from the mental health, education, child welfare, justice/corrections, and adult service system sectors understand (a) a practice for improving the progress and outcomes for young people in transition, and (b) how this practice model is implemented in communities to impact the lives of youth in transition to adulthood. This is accomplished in two major parts in this chapter. The first part provides an overview of the Transition to Independence Process (TIP) model, a description of its status as an evidence-supported practice, and tools and strategies that support its implementation in communities and regions across North America. The TIP model is further illustrated through a description of how it is applied with a young person. The second part of the chapter provides an overview of implementation science, a description of how its strategies and tools can guide the implementation of an intervention or model; and an illustration of a large-scale TIP implementation initiative with collaboratives of agencies and schools. This chapter concludes with implications regarding the importance of having effective transition-to-adulthood models; and ensuring the implementation and sustainability of these to improve the progress and outcomes of youth and young adults with EBD.

Effective community-based suicide prevention strategies require culturally relevant contextually driven approaches, validated by community members. Existing literature, funding agencies, and polices do not adequately address the differences in community vs non-community definitions and approaches to suicide prevention. These differences and the process must be articulated to fully understand the complexities of effective American Indian community-based suicide prevention strategies. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study uses a qualitative methodology to understand the process and meaning of an American Indian reservation's community-based approach to suicide prevention.

Seven recommendations emerge. These include: expand the understanding of suicide; plan activities and outreach early; uphold cultural values; build administrative and community capacity; prepare and respond to community needs and situations; anticipate challenges and develop solutions; and recognize the spiritual aspects of the endeavor.

This study provides new insight about the process in which American Indian communities define, develop and implement suicide prevention strategies that are culturally relevant and community driven. The process and recommendations may be useful for institutions, funding agencies, policy makers, and tribal leaders, and community-based prevention partners.

Agri-biotech multinational enterprises (MNEs) are persisting to push genetically modified plant varieties (GMV) worldwide including emerging countries as a technological solution for sustainable development. However, in emerging countries, the structure and effectiveness of regulation and compliance measures to ensure human and environmental safety are much less developed. There are three types of concerns: the economic risks faced by farmers while using existing low-yielding conventional seed varieties, in the face of inadequate institutional mechanisms and safety nets, the long-term environmental risks, and finally, risks posed by other possible externalities. In an attempt to provide some insight on the aforementioned debate, this chapter focuses on a commercially successful GMV—namely genetically modified cotton, also referred to as Bt cotton. The literature on adoption of Bt cotton is first examined, and its findings are confronted with the reality of the introduction and diffusion of Bt cotton in India to derive inferences on how MNE and emerging countries’ governments can manage coexistence. Our findings indicate that in order to be successful, MNEs have to establish the sociopolitical legitimacy of GMV through investment in outreach with regulatory authorities, government departments dealing with the environmental and bio safety, farmer groups, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). MNEs also have to keep in mind that pricing and high technology fee can become an impediment for the legitimization of technology. Finally, MNEs can partner with NGOs to educate and accompany farmers to maximize their livelihood, while preserving the ecological sustainability of their farm lands.

Building a bioeconomy requires efficient technology transfer and global linkages to exploit finite intellectual property exclusivity periods. Using a resource‐based view lens, this paper aims to assess the priorities, capabilities, and competitiveness of the emerging bioeconomy in India.

A triangulated design was used that involved interviews, case studies and a survey of 61 India biotechnology industry participants.

Two high priority capabilities were identified as being critical to fostering a competitive bioeconomy – access to talent and access to funding. Participants also identified the critical role of government in building and coordinating infrastructure, enabling critical capabilities, and accelerating bi‐directional technology and capital flows. This study reinforces the resource‐based view strategy framework regarding the importance of local context for biotechnology research.

Implications include the need for public‐private sector collaboration to strengthen industry infrastructure and enable biotechnology start‐ups, partnering between academia and government to accelerate technology transfer, and importance of seeking international investment and alliances early in a company's lifecycle to ensure sustainability.

These India‐centric lessons may be valuable in advancing knowledge for building successful biotechnology clusters, particularly for emerging market countries.

The label “Personality Disorder” continues to divide opinion. Challenges to the terminology of personality disorder led by people with lived experience and supported by critical practitioners and academics are tempered by acknowledgement of certain positive social consequences of obtaining a diagnosis. This study aims to engage service users and staff in a process of inquiry to better understand the complexities of views on the terminology of Personality Disorder.

This study set out to qualitatively explore the views of a range of people with lived, occupational and dual lived experience/occupational expertise, relating to the diagnostic label of Personality Disorder, via participatory and critical group debate. The World Café approach is an innovative methodology for participatory inquiry into subjective views suited to exploring the contested subject matter.

This study identified contrasting opinions towards the label of Personality Disorder and provides insight into the concerns described for both keeping and losing the label. Although many felt the words “personality” and “disorder” are not in themselves helpful, certain positive views were also revealed. Perspectives towards the label were influenced by the way in which diagnosis was explained and understood by patients and practitioners, alongside the extent to which service provision and evidence-based interventions were offered.

The findings have the potential to contribute to the ongoing critical debate regarding the value of the Personality Disorder construct in the provision of care and support. Specific emphasis upon the relational framing of care provision offers a means to ameliorate some of the negative impacts of terminology. Perspectives are influenced in the way the label is understood, hence, attention is required to enhance these processes in clinical practice. There is much more study required to overcome stigmatisation, prejudice, and lack of knowledge and understanding. Further research identifying means for challenging stigma and the factors contributing to positive clinical interactions are required.

This study brings together a wide range of views and experiences of mental health professionals, individuals lived experiences and those who align to both lived and occupational expertise. A safe space was provided via the uniquely co-produced World Café research event to bring together discussion and debates from mixed perspectives makes this a novel study. The focus being on perspectives towards contested language, labelling and social impact adds to scholarship in this field.