Search results

Delivering integrated treatment for dually diagnosed clients requires an effective whole team response, supported by good quality partnership working. This paper describes an approach to improving the delivery of these principles: the development and support of dual diagnosis link workers deployed in teams and wards across Avon and Wiltshire Partnership Mental Health (NHS) Trust.

The paper describes the role of link workers, provides examples of developmental practice, strategies to support the role, identifies barriers encountered and suggests solutions to address these.

The link worker model is raising awareness of good practice within teams and promoting improved partnership working. Solutions are being identified for the barriers that have been encountered.

This paper describes how a dual diagnosis link worker approach can be introduced and identifies mechanisms to support link workers in their role. It also outlines a framework to support implementation of key principles for working with people with a dual diagnosis.

Social prescribing is a model of integrated care, in which primary healthcare staff can link patients to the social care sector. However, social prescribing can occur in different forms. To better understand the concept of social prescribing, this literature review examines the role of the link workers, activities and target groups.

A literature review was conducted. Studies before May 2020 were considered. In total, 1,700 studies were identified using the databases Pubmed, PsycInfo, Cinahl, Web of Science and Cochrane Library. After eligibility checks, 16 studies were included in the final analysis.

A few studies warned of a deeper engagement of the link worker due to service dependency, but most studies encouraged an active and supportive role of the link worker. Participants engaged in social, physical and counseling activities. The majority of studies emphasized the importance of linking group activities with personal preferences and identity needs. The main target groups were composed of individuals with psychosocial needs, but some studies also included patients with physical or mental illnesses.

Social prescribing is widely advocated as an innovative model of integrated care. However, few studies have looked into the complex system of social prescribing. This study analyzes the linking processes, activities and target groups in extant social prescribing programs.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the link between worker loyalty and expected rewards, with special attention to reward desirability.

Using employee-employer matched data collected from over 10,880 employees in nearly 670 workplaces in six culturally and economically diverse former socialist countries, the authors investigate the link between worker loyalty and expected rewards, taking into account reward desirability. Worker loyalty is measured using a composite of four variables related to participant’s commitment to staying at his/her organization. The authors employ both OLS and fractional logit regression analysis, clustering at the firm level, and restricting the pooled sample to include only those participants who responded to all questions used in this analysis. In the basic model, the authors include expected rewards, with an extensive set of worker and workplace controls; in the extended model, the authors add reward desirability and the corresponding interaction variables.

Using pooled data, the authors find that loyalty is positively correlated with expected rewards, and most strongly linked to the intrinsic reward chance to accomplish something worthwhile. When reward desirability is taken into account, consequences of unmet expectations emerge, and the relative importance of respectful and friendly co-workers diminishes. Neither generational nor life-cycle differences in loyalty are evident.

Due to financial constraints, country samples included in the pooled data are not nationally representative; nor are workplace samples representative. Personal contacts of local project coordinators and the snowballing technique used to expand the number of participating workplaces, as well as the requirement that participants be able to read the survey instrument, may contribute to selection bias. As such, the findings should be viewed as taking a preliminary or exploratory step toward developing a more global perspective of factors influencing worker loyalty and performance until longitudinal and nationally representative data become available.

The findings indicate a positive link between loyalty and expected rewards, and when reward desirability is included, the loyalty consequences associated with unmet expectations. While rewards identified as highly desired (bonus, job security, friendly co-workers) are positively linked to loyalty, the strongest link is associated with chance to accomplish something worthwhile. Promoting worker loyalty is linked to offering programs to develop more skills and more job autonomy among those employees who desire it, as well as meeting expectations related to promotion.

Unlike existing studies, the authors pool data from multiple countries and control for a wide variety of worker and workplace characteristics in the analysis of the loyalty-reward structure link.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if the service worker's display of smiles in the service encounter has an effect on customer satisfaction.

An experimental design was used in which participants (N=220) were randomly allocated to one of four service encounters. Two variables were manipulated; the service worker with whom the participant interacted had either a neutral facial expression or a smiling facial expression, and the service worker was either male or female.

The smiling service worker produced a higher level of customer satisfaction than the neutral service worker, regardless of the sex of the service worker (and the sex of the participant). In addition, the results indicate that this outcome involved both emotional contagion and affect infusion.

This paper extends the service literature's discourse on the impact of the service worker's smile behavior on customer satisfaction by including intermediate variables such as appraisals, emotions, and the attitude toward the service worker.

This paper contributes to the development of the knowledge management and human resource management literatures through developing the linkages between them. Increasingly it is being acknowledged that the success of knowledge management initiatives is fundamentally predicated on having workers who are prepared to share their knowledge. It is suggested that HRM concepts and frameworks could be utilized to improve our understanding of what shapes the willingness (or reluctance) of workers to share their knowledge. Specifically the paper considers how the motivation of workers to share their knowledge may be shaped by their level of organizational commitment. Guest and Conway’s model of the psychological contract is modified to link commitment with knowledge‐sharing attitudes and behaviours. Finally, it is suggested that, if commitment is linked to knowledge‐sharing attitudes, then the apparently low commitment levels reported by a number of surveys may mean this represents a key problem for knowledge management initiatives.

Primary mental health workers have been based in West Lothian schools since 2003 to act as links between the community and hospital‐based services. The research programme this paper describes aimed to examine how this model worked and its impact for children and their families.

This paper reports on interviews with secondary school staff, the link workers and comparative post‐holders. The research study was qualitative and the research question was “What is the perceived impact of Mental Health Link Workers in West Lothian schools?”.

The paper finds that Primary mental health workers felt that their main contribution was building capacity in the community to support children with mental health problems, and identified four strands to this: space, relationships, skills and containment. Two described direct access for children and their families as the main gain. Secondary school staff considered that the greatest impact was for children at the onset of mental illness, and their own knowledge and skills.

Primary mental health work in the community is fairly new in Scotland. This study suggested that it speeded up and improved access to services for children in need of mental health assessments and services. It was based on temporary contracts and short‐term funding. Sustainability within schools may only take place when the work becomes well resourced.

The paper is a detailed look at the views of Primary Mental Health Workers based in schools and school staff.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a small-scale evaluation of the Department of Health “Homeless Hospital Discharge Fund” (HHDF) in England.

The paper is based on a mixed-method approach comprising 52 telephone interviews with project staff, 48 responses from an online survey with staff, outcomes data collected by projects, 30 semi-structured interviews with patients and nine in-depth telephone interviews with staff and commissioners.

Overall the 52 pilots funded under the “HHDF” provided positive health and accommodation outcomes for homeless people admitted and discharged from hospital. In contrast to previous studies patients described not feeling judged during their stay, however the admission process was a more mixed experience due to communication breakdown by hospital staff. Integrating housing and clinical staff in the hospital discharge projects produced better outcomes for patients and the availability of accommodation as part of the model allowed improved and more stable housing outcomes. We recommend integrated commissioning takes place for future funding of any hospital discharge projects.

The study was small in scale and carried out before some of the projects had become fully established. The data were self-reported and the quality and completeness varied between projects.

This is one of the few examples of hospital discharge outcomes for homeless people across a number of different localities and project models which examine the role of both health and housing professionals in the process.