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Existing histories of the free kindergarten movement in South Australia scantily acknowledge the key role of Lucy Spence Morice in helping to found the Kindergarten Union (KUSA) in 1905 and subsequently guiding the organisation through financially troubled times, internal conflict with respect to the independence of the Training College (Adelaide KTC) from Education Department control, changes of directorship, and in accordance with its original mission. This article seeks to restore Lucy Spence Morice to a place in South Australian annals alongside that of her distinguished aunt Catherine Helen Spence: teacher, journalist, author, Unitarian Church preacher, philanthropist, political and social reformer, self‐styled ‘new woman’ of the late nineteenth century, and to niece Lucy a dear friend, mentor and inspirational role model. In the light of fresh evidence contained in the papers of Mrs Marjorie Caw (an early KTC graduate), and informed by the work of Caine, Lewis, Ryan, and Goodman and Harrop most especially, it re‐assesses Mrs Morice’s contribution to kindergarten reform from a feminist revisionist historical perspective. I utilise biographical methods and network analysis in order to point up the genesis of Lucy’s zeal for the cause of kindergarten education; also to argue that her informal but expansive social ties, plus her links to professional women and other activists in the fields of child health, welfare and education were central to her work for the Kindergarten Union.

The purpose of this paper is to report findings from an exploratory study of New York's Children First Networks (CFNs); to examine what is known about the CFNs thus far, drawing on new empirical research, as well as document review and analysis of secondary sources.

Organizational learning theory guided this qualitative study. As such, in‐depth interviews conducted with central office staff, network leadership teams, cluster leaders, and principals focused on the flow and management of information within the networks; the ways in which stakeholders developed shared meanings; how collective intelligence was built and transmitted; and organizational responses to the early experience of the CFNs.

Findings highlight the tools and processes the NYC Department of Education (DOE) has put into place to operationalize the CFNs. Respondents identified as critical the replacement of supervisory leadership from the district with customization of services provided by the network teams to promote principal‐led reforms. Increased efficiency was noted by interviewees, but a number of challenges in the reform’s implementation also surfaced that point to the limitations of the CFNs as a capacity‐building mechanism.

As an exploratory study, this research is intended to inform larger‐scale, mixed‐methods investigations of school networks, especially those implementing reforms aimed at improving teaching and learning in schools. Research is needed into the resource exchanges between individuals and groups in networks, what differentiates high‐performing from lower‐performing networks, and how data are used to inform the evolution of network structures and practices.

This study is the first peer‐reviewed article on the evolution of New York City's Children First Networks.

This study compares and contrasts the clients of two domiciliary care services delivered to elderly people in Darlington, Durham, UK, in terms of their living circumstances, dependency levels and the service inputs they receive. The two services are the Home Help Service managed by the local authority social services department and a Home Care Service managed by the Darlington Health Authority which offers an alternative to long‐stay hospital care for elderly people. The study examined only a sample of the most dependent home help clients and all of the home care clients. The instruments used to measure dependency were found to be limited in their ability to detect crucial differences in the two client groups and suggestions are made about how these might be improved. The main distinguishing characteristics of the Home Care Service clients were that they were, on average, younger and frailer than the home help clients and were far more likely to need help with toiletting, dressing, getting in/out of bed, walkng and making hot drinks. In contrast the main predictor of Home Help Service membership was living alone. It was concluded that although some home help clients were as incapacitated as home care ones, the latter scheme was far more consistently targetted on very frail, and often ill, people.

The purpose of this case study is to illustrate how Dianne Savastano, founder and CEO of Healthassist, Inc., a US-based health-care advocacy firm, successfully led her clients and team through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. To gather the data for this case study, the authors interviewed the protagonists, the members of her team and two clients. The authors read Healthassist Newsletters and the firm’s documents; and in fact, they included one Newsletter and several documents in the Exhibits of the case study. The authors conducted a literature review for articles in newspapers and journals about the newly developing field of “health-care advocacy,” a field which Savastano helped to create.

The authors illustrate how Savastano, using the five practices of exemplary leadership by Kouzes and Posner, in The Leadership Challenge, led her team through the pandemic of 2020. This is a story of a woman leader, using traits such as warmth, empathy, analysis and decisiveness, keeps her small business afloat when so many other firms collapsed in 2020.

The authors conducted seven interviews and literature searches on the topics of health-care advocacy; women leaders; leading through a crisis; and COVID-19.

The case study illustrates how a woman founder and CEO can lead her firm through a crisis.

This is an example of how a woman leader managed through the 2020 pandemic.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the development of a recovery-oriented training programme for mental health care-givers. It also considers the effectiveness of using participatory research methods that promote involvement of people with diverse expertise to co-produce this programme. It presents a rationale for developing recovery-oriented training, which employs blended learning, comprising face-to-face and e-learning.

A small advisory group consisting of professionals, experts-by-experience (service users) and -by-caring (care-givers) and an academic developed a blended learning programme about the recovery approach for mental health carer-givers. This paper details the participatory approach supported by an action research cycle that contributed to the design of the programme, and the specific impact of experiential knowledge on its development.

Reflections on the advisory group process are described that led to the co-production of the course. This leads to consideration of the value of using this research approach to develop a carer-focused programme. The content of the recovery-oriented training programme is presented which adopts blended learning. This leads to discussion of potential of this format to improve carers’ access to training.

It is proposed that this recovery-oriented course, building on a previous study, has the potential to positively influence outcomes for the training programme participants (the care-givers) and the person they support. It is suggested that blended learning may in part overcome some of the barriers carers experience to accessing and participating in traditional interventions. Reflections on the process of co-production underline the value of participatory research in designing this recovery-oriented course for carers.

This paper aims to provide critical insight into the impact of locally embedded, community business-related approaches internationally to health and social care on users’ outcomes, in particular exploring their effectiveness in delivering outcomes for users.

The study used a robust systematic review methodology. It carefully identifies relevant studies that have been conducted on the impact of community business-related approaches, rigorously evaluates how well these studies have been carried out and combines the results from these studies to address that particular topic.

Health and social care-related community businesses deliver on a range of health and well-being outcomes and impacts positively on local residents’ satisfaction with their community/local area. Existing research into community businesses uses mostly qualitative methods, but a few studies have also used quantitative survey and mixed methods and demonstrate the challenges of conducting methodologically rigorous real-world research within local community settings.

The review was limited to papers published in English language and may have missed relevant studies published in other languages which could have influenced the overall findings. Only one reviewer screened the titles and abstracts of the identified papers. Having multiple reviewers would have strengthened the validity of the screening process.

Community businesses offer a positive contribution to health and well-being, and highlight the significance of engaging local communities in promoting health, reducing health inequalities and addressing the wider determinants of health. This paper provides a baseline of evidence about community business’ broad impacts on health and well-being to help inform new and emerging evidence