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The global labor market has been upended and a new landscape has emerged. New models for ensuring the value and relevance of post-secondary education are needed. Learners need better understanding of the value and relevancy which the education provides and more immediate return on the educational investment. Education providers must ensure the relevance of the credentials. Employers require transparency into skills an individual possesses based on the credentials they hold. New models are needed to guide an understanding of credentials so that all have equitable pathways to opportunity. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objectives.

The authors in this paper discuss how Western Governors University implemented a Unified Credential Framework (UCF) for ensuring credentials are relevant, verified, transparent and portable. The UCF is predicated on the use of skills as an underlying foundation.

Using a structured theory for understanding skills and micro-credentials creates more transparency into what post-secondary credentials represent, and the value they hold for individuals, employers and education providers.

This paper represents a use case where the proposed solution is still emergent. Additional research is warranted as longitudinal data become available on student outcomes and impacts.

This paper presents a model that any organization can implement for clearer line of sight into the value and relevance of post-secondary credentials.

Secure Children’s Homes are safe environments where many of the most troubled children in British society are resident. These children are from either a criminal background or referred for protection of themselves and others from harm. There is often a history of drug use and diagnoses of mental health problems before admission. The purpose of this paper is to examine one Secure Children’s Home to determine the level of drug use prior to admission compared to surveys of children not in this environment and to examine the veracity of the mental health diagnoses.

This paper is a retrospective examination of case notes for admissions from 2014 to 2015.

The study found much higher levels of drug use than in the general population at similar age and a wide diagnosis of mental health problems prior to admission.

Levels of harm from traumatic childhood events need to be recognised by referrers as maybe leading to attachment disorders and not mental health problems. More research is needed into the outcomes form Secure Children’s Homes in the long term.

The children in these homes do have as anticipated much higher levels of drug use than in the general population and high levels of mental health diagnoses which are not always borne out during their admission to the children’s home.

This is an examination of a special population of young people indicating high levels of drug use and mental health problems.

Assessment of psychiatric disorders in people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disabilities (ID) is challenging. The purpose of this paper is to explore the diagnostic decision making and strategies employed in the assessment of a young man with ASD and ID who eventually got the additional diagnosis of schizophrenia.

To describe and explore a process not easily converted into quantitative measures, it was chosen to perform a case study of a single case.

The combined knowledge of ASD, ID and psychiatric disorder was important in the current assessment. General assessment tools were of some value, but their results had to be interpreted with care. The same was true of a more ASD/ID-specific tool. Using multiple informers may strengthen data from such tools in this population, but does not make it interchangeable with self-report. The case presented demonstrates the possibility of negative symptoms and functional decline overshadowing positive psychotic symptoms in people with ASD/ID, as well as the expression of ASD changing with a functional decline.

The present study adds to the few previous reports on identification of psychosis in this population, and in addition, may assist clinicians in making more accurate psychiatric assessments of people with ASD/ID.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

Previous research provides evidence of a negative effect of body mass on women's economic outcomes. We extend this research by using a much older sample of individuals from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and by using a body mass measure that is lagged by 15 years instead of the traditional 7 years. One of the main contributions of this paper is a replication of previous research findings given our differing samples and measures. We compare OLS estimates with sibling fixed effects estimates and find that obesity is associated with an 18% reduction in women's wages, a 25% reduction in women's family income, and a 16% reduction in women's probability of marriage. These effects are robust – they persist much longer than previously understood and they persist across the life course, affecting older women as well as younger women.

This study aims to explore the shift in social and cultural values in the wake of ongoing change; specifically, the degree of embeddedness of these values among farm-based entrepreneurs. The authors examine how this value-change-embeddedness continuum can further the development of theories in the field of social entrepreneurship.

The authors use an exploratory and a descriptive approach when interviewing eight farmers and members of their respective households. The sample encompasses almost all the providers of farm-based tourism in this particular area of rural Norway. The empirical materials form the basis for selecting our theoretical approach, one of which is a structural life-mode analysis.

The findings show that the social value of self-reliance, when taken to extremes, can hinder the growth of deeper commercial cooperation between farmers. This constitutes a challenge to efficiency and effectiveness on a larger scale, given a need for both independence and interdependence together with flexible entrepreneurial network cooperation in social entrepreneurship. The findings also indicate that social entrepreneurship does not necessarily have to include a cognitive shift in values and roles for the exclusion of a productive entrepreneurial identity.

By focusing on value changes in social entrepreneurship, this paper addresses a significant gap in the entrepreneurship literature relating to the process of value creation. By using the structural life-mode analysis, this study identifies the underlying value changes that are fundamental to entrepreneurial processes, allowing that process to unfold and take hold to the betterment of affected farm-based communities.

US citizens who attend international medical schools (US IMGs) are more likely to be of Hispanic, Black American, or Asian descent compared to US medical students. As physicians, US IMGs contribute diversity to the health-care workforce; their experiences and perspectives have improved the health outcomes for populations typically underserved. To become a competent medical professional is a challenging experience, especially for IMGs who may have entered medical school with less than optimal academic histories. During this journey, some students develop academic and clinical deficiencies. Addressing these deficits through remediation interventions are critical to the student’s performance as a physician. This study measured the resiliency, self-efficacy, and self-compassion of IMGs who completed remediation while in medical school. Results indicate older students experienced failure more often and were found to have significantly higher levels of self-compassion compared to younger students. Males were assigned significantly more remedial interventions compared to the female participants. Finally, strong positive correlations suggested that the more remediation interventions students were provided, the more likely they were satisfied with their overall remediation experience. These findings indicate that by varying support strategies and encouraging student’s orientation to resiliency, self-efficacy, and self-compassion may assist them in overcoming their deficits.

The purpose of this study is to systematically review how positive mental health literacy has been conceptualised and measured over the last 20 years. Positive mental health recognises the benefits of feeling good and functioning effectively. Developing clarity around conceptualisation and knowledge (or literacy) of what constitutes positive mental health is an area of continued development, and an important step in measuring the impact of mental health promotion.

A systematic review of literature was performed to investigate how positive mental health literacy has been conceptualised and measured over the last 20 years. Databases searched included EDS, Scopus, ERIC, PsycINFO, CINAHL and SocIndex with fulltext. Search terms relating to positive mental health were combined with proximity operators within four words denoting knowledge, competence or literacy.

A total of 464 records were assessed on title level, with six articles included for final review. The final studies included three measures assessing participants’ knowledge of positive mental health, some of which included more distal themes such as awareness of coping strategies and emotional awareness. One measure, the Mental Health Promoting Knowledge – 10, stood out as the most fitting measure of positive mental health literacy.

Our review approaches an under reported area of study, highlighting an area in need for further development with a few limitations. When building the search strategy, care was taken to line it up with literacy around positive mental health and its synonyms. The word “mental health” without positive specification was omitted in the final search strategy, increasing the risk of it also omitting potential articles of interest.

Our findings therefore highlight a knowledge gap in relation to conceptualisations and measures of positive mental health literacy, unfolding an area for further development. A more harmonised understanding of what is meant by positive mental health is an important step towards clarifying the concept and facilitating future study of the topic. Measures of positive mental health literacy could be an important indicator for mental health promotion.

New ways of measuring positive mental health literacy can be a useful way to establish benefits of mental health promotion, taking a salutogenic approach to mental health.

These findings expose an apparent knowledge gap in relation to conceptualisations and measures of positive mental health literacy, highlighting an area in need for further development. Measures of positive mental health literacy could be an important indicator for mental health promotion.

The purpose of the paper is to review autism identification across different ethnic groups. Diagnosis of autism may be missed or delayed in certain ethnic groups, leading to such groups being underserved relative to their needs. This can result in members of such groups being effectively denied essential avenues of support that can substantially improve the quality of life of autistic persons as well as those whom care for them.

A literature search for articles reporting autism identification across ethnic groups was undertaken. Data are compared, with a special focus on possible explanations for any inter-group variation.

Autism identification appears to be generally lower in minority ethnic groups relative to the majority population. Individuals presenting with autism from minority groups appear to have more severe forms of the condition.

There are a multitude of potential explanations for inter-ethnicity variation in autism identification, including health care-related factors, broader environmental influences, cultural factors and possible biological differences. Implications for clinical practice and public health include a need to look at means of ensuring equitable access to relevant autism diagnostic and support services across ethnic groups. Further work is required to better understand the belief systems that operate within specific ethnic groups, how this may potentially impact upon autism identification and measures to address the concerns of such groups.