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Transitioning is an inevitable part of being in secure settings, yet little research exists focussing on the experiences of individuals and what interventions might help them to achieve optimal transitions. This seems surprising as the very people who find themselves in secure settings often have attachment difficulties, maladaptive coping strategies and complex mental health needs, which are the factors considered most likely to disadvantage individuals when transitioning. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This study used a repeated design to explore the effectiveness of a person-centred intervention with 18 transitioning individuals in a medium-secure hospital. Three self-report questionnaires were used to capture data relating to anxiety, coping strategies and how individuals feel about the transition pre- and post-intervention. Whole data sets were achieved in 16 cases.

Following the transition intervention, individuals felt more at ease with the transition ahead of them, their use of adaptive coping strategies had significantly increased and their trait anxiety had significantly lowered.

This study revealed that using a person-centred intervention with transitioning individuals was helpful. However, the study was not able to capture the impact of this intervention over time.

This study highlights the importance of attending to how individuals experience the transition, alongside offering interventions designed to help them adjust and cope to achieve optimal transitions.

Very little is known about what interventions might help individuals achieve a successful transition. Therefore, the findings offer new and significant contributions to this under-researched area.

Little is known about the personal and professional experiences of staff when working virtually and from home during the COVID-19 pandemic in a medium secure environment. This study aims to overcome this issue.

The current study used a qualitative design to specifically explore the following areas with nine multi-disciplinary staff using a semi-structured group discussion: how their everyday working practice had changed during the pandemic, the perceived impact of these changes on themselves as professionals, as well as identifying strengths and limitations associated with any new ways of working.

A thematic analysis was conducted producing four main themes: emotional overload and confusion; technological problems; accessibility and emotional connectivity; adapting and making good. Data suggested that staff could experience feelings of guilt, loneliness and a sense of under-performing when working from home and virtually. Problems with technology in terms of resources and connectivity were also evident although unexpected advantages of virtual consultations included supporting gatekeeping and admissions assessments, allowing external stakeholders to better attend inpatient care and treatment planning meetings alongside improved family relations for patients.

While this study has added to the existing knowledge base, it does have limitations that should be acknowledged when reading and drawing conclusions from the paper. First, a small sample was used and so the findings likely have poor generalizability outside of secure settings. Second, the small sample could mean that the current findings may not be representative of the views and experiences of the wider staff group employed within the service. Finally, the lead researcher who subsequently analyzed the data was employed within the service and may well have imposed their own biases on the data; however, this was potentially overcome by having a second rater review the emerging themes.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it radical and innovative ways of working, and it is now important to consider lessons learned to further develop and support such new ways of working: one important area for further consideration is improved oversight of the psychological impact of home working on health-care professionals. It is, therefore, recommended that worker well-being be explored more regularly by line managers and clinical supervisors and sufficient safeguards introduced to reduce or remove any adversity identified. Of note, these safeguards/strategies should be both psychological and practical in nature. If elements of virtual working are set to continue post-pandemic, for example in the case of long distance admission assessments and/or to support external stakeholders attending patient meetings, then time and effort needs to be spent on improving access to resources, connectivity and the advancing of available technological equipment to support this working practice. This could be achieved via improved information technology relations to support technical troubleshooting and to provide much needed ongoing support. Enhanced training for staff in IT skills to better use equipment and approved platforms is also recommended. The acknowledged gains that emerged as a result of patients having access to iPads and tablets during the COVID-19 pandemic now needs to be extended and explored further to consider all of the other significant contributions greater access to these technologies could afford to patients’ recovery post-pandemic in secure environments.

The experiences of staff working virtually, and from home, through a pandemic in secure services are relatively unknown. This paper, therefore, aims to contribute to the limited evidence base.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the current forensic mental health inpatient population within a medium secure unit is more or less complex (i.e. clinical and risk presentations) than former years using the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale (HoNOS) secure. Additionally, the use of the HoNOS secure as a service-wide measure is discussed in terms of its usefulness. Clinical implications and recommendations are offered for the continued use of the HoNOS secure in services more widely.

A retrospective case review of completed HoNOS secure assessments for 130 patients over three time intervals 2012, 2015 and 2018 was used. A multivariate analysis was performed on the data using SPSS version 25.

The findings revealed that contrary to clinical opinion, inpatients’ clinical and risk presentations had not changed significantly overtime.

The study shows the benefits of using the HoNOS secure at a service-wide level to explore and understand similarities and differences in inpatient admissions over time. It also highlights the usefulness of the HoNOS secure for considering different ward characteristics and the needs of patients residing in these environments.

Although much research exists surrounding the individual use of the HoNOS secure in relation to outcomes, there is limited research focusing on use of the HoNOS secure at the service level. The paper therefore provides evidence of the utility and value of the HoNOS secure as a service-level outcome measure.

Much to the relief of everyone, the general election has come and gone and with it the boring television drivel; the result a foregone conclusion. The Labour/Trade Union movement with a severe beating, the worst for half a century, a disaster they have certainly been asking for. Taking a line from the backwoods wisdom of Abraham Lincoln — “You can't fool all the people all the time!” Now, all that most people desire is not to live easy — life is never that and by the nature of things, it cannot be — but to have a reasonably settled, peaceful existence, to work out what they would consider to be their destiny; to be spared the attentions of the planners, the plotters, provocateurs, down to the wilful spoilers and wreckers. They have a right to expect Government protection. We cannot help recalling the memory of a brilliant Saturday, but one of the darkest days of the War, when the earth beneath our feet trembled at the destructive might of fleets of massive bombers overhead, the small silvery Messerschmits weaving above them. Believing all to be lost, we heaped curses on successive Governments which had wrangled over rearmament, especially the “Butter before Guns” brigade, who at the word conscription almost had apoplexy, and left its people exposed to destruction. Now, as then, the question is “Have they learned anything?” With all the countless millions Government costs, its people have the right to claim something for their money, not the least of which is the right to industrial and domestic peace.

This study aimed to look at parents' perceptions of a number of different toy prototypes that represented physical impairments and predictors of these perceptions.

A correlational survey design was used. Parents of children aged 4–10 years who identified their child as having a disability (n = 160) and not as having a disability (n = 166) took part. They rated a number of prototypes for likelihood that their child would enjoy playing with them and completed measures of their responses toward children with disabilities and of their own and their child's direct contact with people with disabilities.

It was found that, among parents of children who did not declare that their child had a disability, the more open the parents were toward disability, the more contact the children had with other children with disabilities and the more likely they were to consider that their child would like to play with a toy prototype representing a physical impairment. This pattern of results was not found among parents who identified their child as having a disability, where instead positive friendship intentions of parents mediated this association.

These findings have implications for theories informing the positive benefits of disability representation.

These findings indicate different paths through which parents might be moved to purchase toys that represent physical impairments for their children.

These findings suggest that representative toys might be associated with an open dialogue around the topic of disability.

This is the first study of the responses of parents to toys that represent physical impairments known to the authors.