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1 – 10 of 34Niall Turner, Tara Nesbitt, Felicity Fanning and Mary Clarke
This paper aims to investigate the feasibility of conducting research on a two-pronged vocational intervention for people with first episode psychosis. The paper also aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the feasibility of conducting research on a two-pronged vocational intervention for people with first episode psychosis. The paper also aims to empirically examine the impact of a two-pronged vocational intervention for people with first episode psychosis by determining what effect, if any, introducing a two-pronged vocational intervention to an early intervention for psychosis service (EIPS) has on vocational outcomes using a prospective follow-up design. The approach consisted of supported employment (individual placement and support, IPS) for participants without a productive role and a job retention programme for those employed or studying.
Design/methodology/approach
Between 2010 and 2013, a supported employment specialist joined an EIPS where occupational therapy was available to all attenders. The appropriate intervention was determined by the occupational therapist on the team. Participants were interviewed at baseline and one follow-up. Ethical approval was attained. The Individual Placement and Support Fidelity Scale was used to ensure the quality of IPS implementation.
Findings
In total, 39 (20 men, 19 women) consented; 21 (54 per cent) of these participants were unoccupied; 18 (46 per cent) had a productive role; 87 per cent (n = 34) were followed up. The mean length of follow-up was 18 months. At follow-up, 50 per cent (n = 10) of unoccupied participants had attained a productive role, and 17 of the 18 participants had retained their productive role. Overall, participants were found to have spent an average of 62 per cent of the follow-up period in a productive role.
Research limitations/implications
Rates of vocational recovery among people affected by psychosis may be enhanced by a two-pronged approach that allows for the persons individual work circumstances to be taken into account.
Originality/value
This study highlights the impact of a two-progroned vocational intervention for people with first episode psychosis in Ireland. It is the first study of its kind to be published in the Republic of Ireland and the first world-wide to include a job retention element in its design.
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Lawrence Angus, Wendy Sutherland-Smith and Ilana Snyder
Because access to new technologies is unequally distributed, there has been considerable discussion in Australia and elsewhere about the growing gap, the “digital divide,” between…
Abstract
Because access to new technologies is unequally distributed, there has been considerable discussion in Australia and elsewhere about the growing gap, the “digital divide,” between the information-rich and information-poor (Bolt & Crawford, 2000; Castells, 2001; Companie, 2001; Gordon, 2001; Haywood, 1998; Negroponte, 1996; Nixon, 2001). Most schools have incorporated computers and Internet access into classrooms, partly in response to concerns about the gap between technology “haves” and “have nots” (Facer et al., 2001). Such concerns have led to high-profile information technology policy initiatives in the USA (Lentz, 2000; US Department of Commerce, 1999), U.K. (Selwyn, 2000), Australia (Foster, 2000) and other nations. Many families have invested in computer systems at home in order to provide their children with access to the growing body of information available through technology. Similarly, in an attempt to “redress the balance between the information rich and poor” by providing “equal access to the World Wide Web” (Virtual Communities, 2002), the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Virtual Communities (a computer/software distributor) and Primus (an Internet provider) in late 1999 formed an alliance to offer relatively inexpensive computer and Internet access to union members in order to make “technology affordable for all Australians” (Virtual Communities, 2002).
How is information experienced in creating and sharing content? Is it merely a concrete object? A more abstract idea? This chapter explores how teens experienced information while…
Abstract
How is information experienced in creating and sharing content? Is it merely a concrete object? A more abstract idea? This chapter explores how teens experienced information while creating and sharing content in digital communities. Teens engaged in different forms of content creation but had similar experiences of information that included: participation, inspiration, collaboration, process, and artifact. The findings in this chapter are part of a larger whole that defined the information practices of teens, suggesting how information is experienced is a component of information practices and should be understood as such. The information experiences described here emerged through a grounded theory study of teen content creators. The analysis of the data was informed by constructionism, and the emergent theory was informed by practice theory.
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This study seeks to examine, from the viewpoint of 12 adult fiction readers who are members of book clubs, how they go about selecting fiction books to borrow from the public…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to examine, from the viewpoint of 12 adult fiction readers who are members of book clubs, how they go about selecting fiction books to borrow from the public library.
Design/methodology/approach
Each participant took part in an individual, semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interview. Using Williamson's Ecological Model of Information Seeking and Use as the conceptual framework, the study examined the role that fiction readers' “internal environments” and “external contexts” played in their book choices.
Findings
The selection of fiction books at the public library occurred, to a large extent, outside it. Fiction books were selected as part of everyday life information seeking, influenced by study participants' personal characteristics and circumstances as well as sources from their everyday lives, which typically included family, friends, book club and the mass media. While the public library was the main means by which study participants obtained their fiction books, it was not the first source to which they turned for ideas on what to read.
Originality/value
The study moves from a preoccupation of readers' actions at the public library to examine, more holistically, how everyday life information sources influence their choices of fiction books at the public library. It highlights the purposive and serendipitous dimensions of book selections and also underscores the importance of recognizing trust as a determining factor in book selection.
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Aubrey R. Fowler and Clifford A. Lipscomb
Much of the research into the development of home within the business literature has looked at home as a setting or a construct instead of as a process. Additionally, extant…
Abstract
Purpose
Much of the research into the development of home within the business literature has looked at home as a setting or a construct instead of as a process. Additionally, extant research has explored the process of homebuilding within the context of homeownership, often defining home in terms of a place that is owned by the individual living in it. However, nearly 30 percent of all housing units in which people live are rented spaces that are owned by others not living there. The purpose of this paper is to examine homebuilding as a process that can and often does occur in properties that the individual does not own.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a phenomenological approach, in‐depth interviews with renters lead to the development of a conceptual model of how renters build a sense of “home.”
Findings
The paper finds that though ownership does play a part in some individuals' sense of home, apartment dwellers often are able to build a “home” within an apartment context.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations of the research include the small sample size; however, the process resulting from a small size may be used to develop hypotheses for future quantitative research.
Practical implications
The process outlined here may provide apartment communities and managers with insight into how they may retain tenants.
Originality/value
This paper focuses on an understanding of home that removes the notion of ownership from its definition, providing insight into how consumers build a sense of home in places they may not be able to physically alter.
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IT is too early to examine what the change of Government may portend for libraries sustained attract malign attention from any party. We are aware enough, however, that a time of…
Abstract
IT is too early to examine what the change of Government may portend for libraries sustained attract malign attention from any party. We are aware enough, however, that a time of financial stringency lies ahead for every public activity. In book production, the restrictions on imports may worsen a position which is bad enough as it is. There may not be a sinister intention in the gesture of cutting the salaries of Cabinet Ministers by a sum which for several of them represents about £25 or about a half crown a week on such salaries as librarians earn. We hope there is not. Although all good Britons will make necessary sacrifices; but they want to be sure that they are necessary and not, as usually is the case, merely attacks on public servants. We are told that there will be no Geddes axe this time, but experience shows that the politician can always find a way of reversing a statement in what he imagines to be the public interest. Fortunately those likely to be affected are better organized than they were in the early twenties.