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This paper provides a methodological review of a piece of qualitative policy research formulating recommendations for the commissioning and delivery of offender alcohol interventions, for application both within the English region for which it was commissioned, and more widely. It begins by providing some background information on why and how the research was initiated. It then provides a detailed summary of the methods utilised. These were characterised by sustained engagement with diverse stakeholders and the iterative identification of both findings and recommendations. The authors will conclude with a discussion of the validity and possible application of the method adopted to policy research and service development in the field of dual diagnosis and complex needs, particularly in circumstances where impasse at the levels of policy and local strategy is matched with unmet need within a target population.

Based on the premise that computers have now become cultural and cognitive artifacts with which and not from which learners interact on a daily basis, this chapter focuses on best practices in preparing and engaging digital natives to become tomorrow’s leaders of a global knowledge economy that is increasingly dependent on electronic modes of communications. Using a study based on online tools in a writing course taught at the University of Victoria (Canada), we take a qualitative interpretative stance to explain the opportunities and challenges of learning and teaching in such environments. We comment on such aspects as the need to properly address learner’s functional skills (or lack off), the various tools that can be used to engage and motivate learners, and the need to go beyond methods based on delivery in order to better focus on the development of multiliteracies, in particular critical literacy and functional literacy. Our argument, grounded in cognitive and sociocultural theories of learning, favors an interdisciplinary approach while focusing on disciplines that are typically housed in the humanities, in particular second language academic programs. Our discussions and conclusions move from these case studies to a more general reflection on the extent to which electronic environments are reshaping higher education.

How do researchers capture children's and adolescents’ cultures and peer interactions? Ethnography, as argued by several sociologists including Corsaro (1996), is indeed a valuable method for understanding everyday life. However, what about issues that are sensitive? What about issues that are salient in the lives of children and adolescents, yet are not talked about in settings generally accessible to researchers such as schools, youth groups, community centers, and extracurricular programs? Family issues such as divorce, for example, might be highly salient in a child's life, yet not talked about during school lunch in front of an adult researcher. Children talk with their friends and peers about divorce, share stories and experiences with divorce, and interpret the meanings of divorce in groups.

Team performance frequently is not reached because of motivation losses. The individual identified motivation best fits in team contexts. However, management control systems research has mainly focused on the external motivation. This chapter analyses how identified motivation and team performance can be enhanced through the interactive use of management control systems and the team identity.

An experimental study is conducted among 144 postgraduate students. We manipulate the interactive use of management control systems and the team identity. We controlled its effects on team members’ motivation and performance.

The results show an indirect effect of the interactive control systems on team performance via team members’ identified motivation. Furthermore, the effect of team identity on team performance is also mediated by the identified motivation.

Managers can increase employees’ motivation by using the control information interactively. Controls focused on socialisation processes and shared values best fit with collaborative environments.

The results provide empirical support for the recent calls about the effect of interactive control systems at individual levels. Despite the considerable attention to the relation between the design of management control systems and team performance, this chapter provides empirical evidence of the positive relation between the style of use of management control systems and individual behaviour in team-based settings.

In transnational families worldwide, different family members have varying degrees of mobility, as well as different physical and emotional experiences with relatives and places throughout their lives. For this reason, in recent decades, increasing attention has been placed upon the experiences of migrants' descendants growing up across borders.

Based on data from a multi-sited ethnography and a survey, this chapter explores the experiences of children growing up in Chinese transnational families split between Zhejiang province and their parents' immigration countries, located mainly in Europe. First, it introduces the migration context and methods, presenting the profiles and basic information of the 77 Chinese migrants' descendants who participated in a ‘Roots-seeking Journey’ summer camp held in their family area of origin in China, in 2018. Second, it explores their heterogeneous early childhood paths and conditions, paying particular attention to mobility, care strategies, intergenerational relations and transnational ties. Finally, this chapter introduces the concept of fluid childhoods, and reflects on the key role of care-related mobility and communication technologies in shaping their early life paths and experiences as well as further transnational engagement.

South Wales Police Mental Health (MH) Triage service was initiated to meet the Welsh Government MH priority of early intervention to prevent MH crisis. Community Psychiatric Nurses, based in the control-room, provide advice to police and control room staff on the management of MH-related incidents. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the first 12 months of operation (January-December 2019).

Service evaluation of the first 12 months of operation (January–December 2019). Data were analysed in relation to: MH incidents; repeat callers; Section (S)136 use/assessment outcomes. Police, health staff and triage service users were interviewed and surveyed to capture their opinions of the service.

Policing areas with high engagement in triage saw reductions in S136 use and estimated opportunity costs saving. Triage was considered a valuable service that promoted cross agency collaborations. De-escalation in cases of mental distress was considered a strength. Access to follow-on services was identified as a challenge.

Triage enables a multi-agency response in the management of MH-related incidents. Improving trust between services, with skilled health professionals supporting police decision-making in real time.

There is a gap in the research on the impact of police-related MH triage models beyond the use of S136. This project evaluated the quality of the service, its design and the relationship between health, police and partner agencies during the triage process. Multi-agency assessment of follow-up is needed to measure the long-term impact on services and users.

To examine the exercise experiences of women with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in order to highlight the complex relationship between mental illness and physical activity, as it intersects with other identities and social locations (e.g., gender and sexuality) as well as other mental health conditions (e.g., eating disorders and exercise addiction).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 women who self-identify as having OCD. A thematic analysis was conducted to understand the role of physical activity in the participants’ lives.

The participants experience holistic benefits from being physically active. At the same time, however, their symptoms of OCD and related disorders (e.g., eating disorders) make it challenging to be physically active in meaningful and healthy ways.

Public health messages promoting exercise as a form of therapy must take into account the complex relationship between physical activity and mental illness. Additional research and programing is also needed in order to help women with mental health issues be physically active in safe and enjoyable ways.

Home-based work results in a specific spatiotemporal arrangement: one location serves as both the family home and the workplace. This mode of work shapes the everyday family life and at the same time has to be adjusted to suit the divergent needs of all family members involved, especially if children live in the same household. So far, research on home-based work has predominantly examined home-based workers’ and adults’ perspectives. Therefore, this chapter puts children’s perspectives at the centre of the inquiry and recognises the wider web of family relations and home by focussing on the spatiotemporal coordination of everyday family life.

This chapter examines how children conceptualise parental home-based work in relation to their everyday family life and home, and how they participate in family practices in the context of home-based work.

The contribution is based on original empirical data that were collected during fieldwork with 11 families in Austria. It builds on observations of daily routines in these families, photointerviews and guided tours through the home with kindergarten and primary school-aged children as well as qualitative interviews with home-based workers living in these households.

From children’s perspectives, the findings show various independences between paid work and family life when work and home coincide. The in-depth analysis of these everyday situations emphasises how children actively modify and shape everyday family life and home in the context of parental home-based work arrangements. Family practices are constantly done and in so doing turn temporarily both the house and the workspace into a home.

When observing the work of Brazilian Sociology and Anthropology, it is apparent that the study of childhood, particularly concerning play and toys, has received little attention. A quick evaluation in this area shows that few existing works appear in the fields of Psychology and Education, the first mostly concerned with the psychology of development and the latter with the question of learning.¹