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Peer and professional support are important for women in prison to help them tackle a range of issues including self-harm. To date, research has not explored in any depth how women experience peer support provided in prison to help them manage their self-harm including peer support provided through the Listeners Scheme. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This was a case study in one women’s prison employing mixed, qualitative methods. These included a questionnaire distributed to women and staff, a focus group with prison listeners, semi-structured interviews with women who self-harmed and semi-structured interviews with prison staff, together with a series of observations in the prison site.

While women in prison welcomed both professional and peer support their support preferences were influenced by how serious women considered their self-harm to be and the degree to which they regarded their relationships with staff as trusting and/or supportive. The therapeutic community (TC) that operated in the prison facilitated different relationships between women who self-harmed in prison and staff, than have hitherto been reported in the research literature. These relationships described by women and staff as “more open” allowed women to seek staff support when managing their self-harm behaviours. Women sought peer support from listeners in addition to staff support particularly at times when staff were unavailable for example at evenings and weekends.

The case study design was conducted in one women’s prison which operated a TC. The principles of the TC that operated in the prison are supported by the wider literature on TCs as conducive to good mental health. Findings are thus relevant for establishments with TCs .

Women opted for support from staff for helping them to manage their severe self-harm, over and above the peer support available through the prison Listener Scheme. This finding contrasts with previous research that suggests women trying to manage their self-harm in prison prioritise support from their peers because staff are often found to harbour unhelpful attitudes to women’s self-harm that makes seeking support difficult.

Without exception, research on the contribution of the Prison Listener Scheme as a form of peer support for those who self-harm in custody has focussed on men in prison. Women’s experience of custody is shaped by their experiences of hegemonic masculinity that also mediate through women’s roles as mothers and caregivers. Women’s self-harm is similarly influenced by these gendered experiences. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Listener Scheme as a form of peer-to-peer support for women contributes to women managing their self-harm in a female prison.

The paper used a case study design with a mixed-methods approach using a quantitative questionnaire with prison staff (n = 65) and women in custody who had self-harmed (n = 30). Qualitative methods included a focus group with Prison Listeners (n10) and semi-structured interviews with women who self-harm (n10) and prison staff (n10). Four days were also spent observing the prison environment.

Findings suggest that women seek support from other women as peer Listeners for three main reasons; their previous difficult experiences with men, a displacement of the mother role and their attachment needs in custody. Research suggests that women often have significant addictions and mental health concerns and are more likely than their male counterparts to engage in self-harm (Prison Reform Trust, 2017). In addition, women’s self-harm acts as a coping method for “intrapersonal issues” which documents self-harm as a result of frustration and lack of control in custody as opposed to “interpersonal issues” which documents self-harm as a result of relationship difficulties with partners (Walker et al., 2017). This paper suggests that peer support schemes internationally should be tailored to providing support for these types of gendered experience to support women who self-harm in custody. This has implications for the training and support of Listeners in women’s prisons.

This exploratory research was conducted in one female prison and while can be considered to test proof of concept is limited in its generalisability.

This paper suggests that Listeners providing peer-to-peer support for women in custody who self-harm may encounter triggers for this behaviour based on women’s experiences including; how women relate to men; women’s experience of the way custody displaces their role as mothers and women’s need for safe attachments in custody. These gendered experiences have implications for the training and development of peer support schemes in women’s prisons, such as the Listener scheme. Further research is needed to compare the gendered types of support Prison Listeners provide depending on whether they are in male or female prisons.

This study examined the contribution of adult social work in integrated teams in the UK.

The study design was realist, evaluation research using a mixed methods approach. Data collection methods included interviews and focus groups. Types of social work activities were extracted from older adults' case records and used to calculate costs of care. The presence or absence of indicators of care quality was recorded using the same sample of case records. Data were collected from three primary care teams in which social work was integrated. They were compared with data from three social-work-only teams in the same districts. Narrative data was analysed thematically. Inferential and descriptive statistics were used to compare costs and care quality.

When social work was embedded or attached to a primary care team, costs of care delivery were lower than in their social-work-only team and more indicators of good quality care outcomes were recorded. Results suggest that embedding social work in integrated primary care teams contributes to cost-effective, quality care for older people if certain conditions for integration are met.

This is the first study to triangulate three data sources to quantify the social work contribution to integrated primary health care teams for older adults.

The aim of this study was to explore the experiences and outcomes for adults with complex needs over time, within and between two teams that delivered integrated care across different Councils' services. The teams' approach to integration included two key features: a “case lead” way of working and the team itself operating as a single point of access (SPA) for residents in given neighbourhoods with high deprivation.

The study was designed as evaluation research located in the realist tradition. Two teams acted as a case study to provide an in-depth understanding of how the case lead approach and SPA delivered the craft and graft of integrated working in the teams. Mixed methods of data collection included residents' ratings of their quality of life on five domains in an outcome measure over a six-month period. Residents and staff working in the teams also participated in semi-structured interviews to explore their respective experiences and receiving and delivering integrated care. The costs of care delivery incurred by residents were calculated based on their demands on public services in the year leading up to the teams' intervention and the projected costs for one year following this.

The relationship between team context, case leads' inputs and residents' outcomes was mediated through the managerial style in the integrated teams which enabled case leads to be creative and do things differently with residents. Case leads worked holistically to prevent residents being in crisis as well as giving practical help such as sorting debts and finances and supporting access to volunteering or further education. Residents rated their quality of life as significantly improved over a six-month period and significant savings in costs as result of the teams' support were projected.

The study used a multi-evaluation realistic evaluation methodology to explore the relationship between team context, case leads' inputs and residents' outcomes in terms that integrated services across different District and County Council Departments.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the pattern of self-harm (SH) and proven prison rule-breaking (PRB) behaviour in prisoners receiving treatment for personality disorders (PDs) within a high security prison.

A comparative quantitative case study design supported the understanding of the frequency and pattern of SH and PRB behaviour across two stages of a PD treatment programme for 74 male prisoners. Data obtained from the prison’s records were analysed using dependent t-tests, χ² test of independence and time-frequency analyses.

Inferential statistics showed that the frequency of SH and PRB behaviour statistically increased across two phases of the PD treatment programme; however, the method of SH or type of PRB behaviour engaged in did not change. Mapping the frequencies of incidents using a time-frequency analysis shows the patterns of both behaviours to be erratic, peaking in the latter phase of treatment, yet the frequency of incidents tended to decline over time.

This is the first study to explore SH and PRB behaviours in men across two phases of a PD treatment programme. This study highlights the need for continued psychological support alongside the PD treatment programme with a focus on supporting men in treatment to effectively manage their SH and PRB behaviour.

This study aims to explore how cultural beliefs and traditions are integral to understanding indigenous mental health conditions (MHCs) and traditional healing (TH). However, Nigerian cultural beliefs about MHCs and TH are under-researched.

This study adopted a qualitative design using critical realist and social constructionist perspectives to explore Nigerian mental health-care practitioners (MHCPs) and lay participants’ (LPs) views regarding MHCs and TH. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select 53 participants (MHCPs = 26; LPs = 27; male = 32; female = 21) in four Nigerian cities (Ado-Ekiti, Enugu, Jos and Zaria). Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed through thematic analyses.

The data sets revealed three overarching themes, namely, existing cultural beliefs about MHCs as spiritual curse; description of TH as the first treatment modality for MHCs; and perceived stigma associated with MHCs and help-seeking behaviours.

A study on Nigerian cultural beliefs and TH contributes meaningfully to mental health systems. Future research and policy initiatives could explore ways of optimising TH practices and community awareness programmes to increase access to mental health care in Nigeria.

In recent years, police leadership integrity and standards have been positioned as central to the professionalisation agenda of the police service England and Wales (College of Policing, 2015). The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges for developing innovative, more people-oriented approaches to leadership in a command environment like the police.

A case study approach in one UK police constabulary was adopted. In all, 38 semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior police officers from chief constable to inspector rank. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed.

Police officers drew on managerial and command discourses in their understandings of leadership. Perceptions of the situation, particularly in terms of perceived risk and visibility, influenced leadership practices in the constabulary.

Current research and policy places emphasis on “what works” in police leadership; the meanings of leadership to police officers is overshadowed by a focus on effectiveness. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, this research captures police leaders’ understandings of themselves and their leadership. The findings reveal that, at a time when police leadership needs to become more innovative and people focussed, the pressures and complexities of contemporary policing mean that police officers retreat to leadership that is command-based and driven by the primacy of business needs.