Search results

It is difficult to replicate evidence-informed models of psychosocial and assertive care interventions in non-research settings, and means to determine workforce capability for psychosocial therapies have not been readily available. The purpose of this paper is to describe and provide a rationale for the Therapy Capability Framework (TCF) which aims to enhance access to, and quality of, evidence-informed practice for consumers of mental health services (MHSs) by strengthening workforce capabilities and leadership for psychosocial therapies.

Guided by literature regarding the inadequacies and inconsistencies of evidence-informed practice provided by publicly-funded MHSs, this descriptive paper details the TCF and its application to enhance leadership and provision of evidence-informed psychosocial therapies within multi-disciplinary teams.

The TCF affords both individual and strategic workforce development opportunities. Applying the TCF as a service-wide workforce strategy may assist publicly-funded mental health leaders, and other speciality health services, establish a culture that values leadership, efficiency, and evidence-informed practice.

This paper introduces the TCF as an innovation to assist publicly-funded mental health leaders to transform standard case management roles to provide more evidence-informed psychosocial therapies. This may have clinical and cost-effective outcomes for public MHSs, the consumers, carers, and family members.

The purpose of this paper is to report research findings on the perspectives of overseas trained psychiatrists (OTPs) on the “The Overseas Trained Specialist Up-Skilling Programme” (OTSUP), initiated in Queensland, Australia to assist OTP's to prepare for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrist (RANZCP) Fellowship examination. Ascertaining and utilisation of OTP's views about the programme will enable improvements to be made to the programme and better implementation.

An exploratory qualitative design was utilised for the study in order to provide insights on the quality and effectiveness of the OTSUP.

Centred around two main themes. The first theme included participant's knowledge about the up-skilling programme with its subthemes of “finding out about the programme”; “perceived aims of the programme”; and “educational events supporting the programme”. The second theme revolved around participants’ perceived benefits of the up-skilling programme with its four subthemes such as, first, individualised support, second, the opportunity to improve practical and communication skills through OTSUP educational events, third, access to peer support and fourth, provision of specific information on the RANZCP examination process.

Limitations as this was a qualitative study, the findings can only be applicable to a similar context. Nevertheless, the findings do provide support for an educational initiative that assisted the OTS to better prepare for the RANZCP examination. To gain further insight into challenges faced by OTS with successfully passing the examination in less frequent attempts, programmes such as the OTSUP need to be improved and sustained.

The findings provide valuable insight into how OTPs view the up-skilling programme. Moreover, the findings pave the way forward in how the programme can be improved in the future to assist OTPs prepare for the RANZCP examination.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the practice of casting celebrity performers in London West End theatres. The paper uses the literature on celebrity to explore the impact that casting a celebrity has on the London theatre audience.

The pervasiveness of celebrity culture forms the background and starting point for this research. In the first phase, theatre managers, directors and producers were interviewed to explore their views on the practice of celebrity casting. In the second phase, an audience survey was conducted. The approach taken is exploratory and is intended to illuminate the conditions under which a successful celebrity-focused strategy can be constructed.

A distinction between fame and celebrity was drawn by both theatre professionals and audiences, with celebrity status being seen as something that is created by media exposure and being in the public eye. This is in contrast to fame, which is earned by being famous for something, or some achievement. Theatre audiences are more likely to be attracted by celebrities who have theatrical expertise and not by someone known simply through film, television or the all-pervasive gossip columns. Celebrities with a background in theatre and film were seen to strongly draw audiences to the theatre, as opposed to those with a background in reality TV shows, search-for-a-star shows or for being half of a famous couple.

The paper is focused on the theatre and makes an original contribution to the current discussion of the power wielded by celebrities. It is the first empirical research on this aspect of the theatre business. Its contribution lies in understanding audience members’ interpretation and understanding of celebrity to ascertain the extent to which they perceive celebrities as credible to perform theatre. This is based on a differentiation between their mediated fame and expertise. It is helpful and useful information for producers when deciding whether or not to cast a celebrity and to which audiences that the celebrity might appeal.

‘FOG in Channel: Continent isolated!’ Those were once the headlines in a national newspaper which thus succinctly, although with unintentional irony, expressed the British sense of complacency. Making allowance for an element of exaggeration, the incident contained enough truth to make its point. The new alignments of industry and commerce which are now taking place mean that this country cannot afford to retain even a vestige of such an attitude.

This study aims to probe into the effect of tourists’ novelty-seeking on situation involvement and satisfaction for the Yanshuei Fireworks Festival in Taiwan.

This study investigated 302 tourists participating in the Fireworks Festival and constructed causal relations among variables by structural equation modeling.

The results suggested that when tourists’ novelty-seeking in fireworks festival is stronger, their situation involvement in the activity will be immediately enhanced. When fireworks festival participants’ situation involvement is higher, their satisfaction is also higher. Situation involvement has a complete mediating effect between novelty-seeking and satisfaction.

Because the fireworks festival only lasts for 48 hours, and the subjects must be tourists who have just experienced fireworks, it can only adopt convenience sampling instead of random sampling. However, to avoid homogeneity, in each group, this study only selected one person for the questionnaire survey.

First, they should enhance the designed activities to create novelty; for instance, design the instruction and practice of the manufacturing of fireworks. By explanation, they enhance tourists’ learning about the display of fireworks and folk religion to satisfy participants with different degrees of novelty-seeking. Second, they can enhance the construction of situations for playfulness. For instance, upon the condition of security, the units can allow tourists to arrange fireworks independently or by group to have more fun. In addition, every year, they can display fireworks according to the Chinese Zodiac symbols to satisfy tourists’ desire of novelty-seeking and enhance their satisfaction.

From the perspective of theoretical development, this study explores and validates the mediating effects of tourists’ situation involvement in festivals between novelty-seeking and satisfaction to fill the gap of previous research.

Within the past few years, responsible educators, librarians, parents, counselors, social workers, therapists, and religious groups of all sexual persuasions and lifestyles have recognized the need for readily available reading material for lesbian and gay youth. Unfortunately, this material is often buried, because it is embedded in larger works. To meet this need, I have compiled and annotated 100 of the best works for young homosexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. I have also included a few of the best works currently available on heterosexuality as a much needed source of knowledge for all young adults whether they are gay or straight, whether they remain childless or eventually become parents.

This chapter presents a spiritual or wisdom-based approach to development, its rationale, conceptualization, methods and examples of applications. The politics of being proposes that societies explicitly make the fulfillment (‘being’) of all its members – humans and non-humans – their main goal, which should guide the development and implementation of public policies. It stands in opposition to the current development paradigm focused on economic growth or ‘having’, and rooted in a set of modern western values – individualism, materialism, reductionism, anthropocentrism, etc. By nourishing our relational nature, the politics of being can address the root causes of the meta crisis the world is facing, reconciling human flourishing with sustainability and supporting the cultural evolution that is needed. It proposes a dialogue between wisdom and science, the two main areas of knowledge, to guide its design and implementation. It conceptualizes ‘being’ as the actualization of our truest ‘being’ and our highest ‘being’. This means that societies should provide the right conditions for their human members to express themselves and fulfil their healthy aspirations, as well as to develop human virtues and qualities. Wisdom traditions and spiritual teachings offer relevant insights into the nature of human fulfilment and the process of spiritual evolution that can be applied to societies. They emphasize the cultivation of spiritual values and qualities such as love, peace, happiness, life, mindfulness, mystery and the understanding of interconnectedness. In recent decades, these qualities have become areas of scientific research and been at the core of social change and development initiatives. Together they can serve as the foundations of the politics of being and allow to identify actionable public policy agendas in many sectors mainly based on existing examples.

The persistence of occupational segregation by sex, as a primary characteristic of the UK labour market, has exposed the failure of anti‐discrimination legislation to achieve its purpose. The absence of significant organisational change in the past decade has fuelled the growth of “positive action programmes” as an alternative voluntary method for promoting equal opportunities.

It is generally accepted that repeat visitation represents an attractive, cost-effective market segment for most destinations. Given such importance, an analytical model is proposed and tested. Our model prescribes a direct, causal relationship between pull motivations, travel satisfaction, intention of repeat visit, and repeat-visit behavior. Two hundred and two survey questionnaires are collected using a systematic sampling technique. Factor Analysis is employed to reduce 14 motivational attributes to five factors. The results of the logistic regression analysis reveal that the factor ‘local food and beverages’ and tourists’ overall satisfaction level are insignificant predictors of repeat visitation. However, the rest of the variables such as climate, attractions, and facilities are significant. Implications of the results for both researchers and practitioners are discussed.

ALTHOUGH the lowering cloud of increased charges for stamps and fewer collections and deliveries of mail faces the Post Office it will still, according to Mr. Jackson, general secretary of the Union of Post Office Workers, suffer a deficit of £130 million by 1973. The context in which he made his remarks to the union delegates, assembled at a conference in Bournemouth, is of special interest to this journal's readers.