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This paper aims to conduct a qualitative needs assessment to explore the effectiveness of Houston’s refugee resettlement efforts in the areas of employment, health care and education.

Using referral sampling, the authors identified refugee community leaders and staff members at the five refugee resettlement agencies in Houston. The authors conducted 29 qualitative interviews with these contacts from February–August 2017.

Recently resettled refugees may struggle to find and maintain employment in Houston due to difficulty accessing public transportation. Refugees seeking medical care in Houston often have difficulty navigating the complexities of the health-care system and communicating with their physicians due to language barriers. Finally, refugee children may have trouble adapting to Houston public schools, sometimes because they have limited experience with formal education. This study provided insights into the challenges Houston refugees face during resettlement and these barriers can be mitigated with policies designed specifically to address them.

The authors recommend decreasing public transportation fees for refugees, supporting programs that donate used vehicles to refugees, expanding access to English as a Second Language classes for refugee children and adults and giving refugees designated time to learn English upon arrival.

Houston welcomes more resettled refugees than any other American city. However, few studies have explored the barriers refugees face during the resettlement process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the various ways users of synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) managed the dangers associated with the consumption of this substance.

This paper is based on a parent study of the use and market of synthetic cathinones (also known as “bath salts”) in New York City, Houston, Galveston and New Orleans. Focus groups were conducted in all four cities with a total of 20 individuals who identified as users of SCs. Grounded theory was used to analyse focus group transcripts.

Participants were aware of drug-related risks and implemented strategies to reduce harm to health. Protective measures fell into two broad categories: marketing and consumption. They noted the instability of SC products and consumer manipulation through packaging. Harm reduction (HR) strategies included: carefully selecting SC sources; sticking to one brand; handling their own SC; managing amount of K2 consumed in one sitting; controlling the pace.

Given the small amount of data on user experience with SCs and its risk to health, it is important to learn from users themselves how they create methods to keep themselves safe. This is one of the first studies recording HR practices of SC users and can contribute to intervention programs and organisations serving substance users.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review dominant conceptions of and approaches to quality in higher education. It suggests an alternative approach with potential to shift the focus of quality activities from accountability and control to improvement.

The applicability and limits of quality concepts and models are critically reviewed against key systems concepts of purpose, boundaries and environments. The limited transferability and utility of such models and the tensions between control and improvement are discussed.

The language and tools of industry‐born quality models are an imperfect fit to higher education. Authentic quality improvement is more likely to result from approaches to systemic intervention that encourage exploration of questions of purpose and of the meaning of improvement in context than from the imposition of definitions and methodologies from elsewhere.

Evidence to support the utility of systems approaches in higher education is limited. Research into their use is needed.

Systemic approaches are complex but likely to be beneficial.

The paper takes a systemic perspective on quality likely to be of value in encouraging debate and different interventions for improvement.