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The purpose of this paper – the second of three – is to report the findings from a service user needs assessment in those who have contact with a local homelessness service in the North-West of England.

Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire that included a section exploring Adverse Childhood Experiences. Aggregated data from a total of 100 completed questionnaires were analysed to understand the nature and scope of those accessing the Homelessness and Vulnerable Adults Service (HVAS).

Homeless people accessing HVAS face a number of challenges, which reflect their upbringing and chaotic and complex lifestyles. Reports of multiple disadvantage, social isolation, physical and mental health problems were common among the cohort.

This was a small cohort study, and the authors accept that this may potentially limit the scope of the findings. Themes identified are, however, reflected in wider research and official data collection sources. Future research may seek to widen the data collection methods to offer a more representative cohort.

The provision of co-ordinated multi-agency support is essential to tackle health inequalities experienced by those who are homeless.

The complex issues often experienced by those who are homeless can further compound the impact of social exclusion on health and well-being. The reduction of statutory support and increased emphasis on self-reliance can further impact those people on the margins of society.

This study identifies how multiple deprivations and social isolation impacts upon health and well-being, further compounding a person’s ability and willingness to engage with services. It raises the question of the systems failure to respond effectively.

Peer support work is increasingly becoming part of the delivery of health and social care services. However, in an Irish context, there is a paucity of research in this area. This study aims to investigate the experiences of peers and other key stakeholders across four sectors in Ireland.

Qualitative interviews (N = 35) were conducted with key respondents in mental health, substance use, migrant health and homelessness sectors. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and reported using an ecological framework.

Peer work is a slowly emerging area of practice, although mental health is further ahead in this journey. Findings suggest that peers are important additions to service delivery but also have various support and development needs. Organisations can encourage and support peers into employment through enacting human resource policy and practices, effective supervision, management and maintaining a positive working culture. Helping other professionals to understand the peer role and how it can function within the wider team is highlighted. National policy and governance structures can also support the emergence of the peer role, which exists in a highly complex arena.

Peers can play a meaningful role in supporting service users in four sectors of health and social care in Ireland. Structures and processes to help embed these roles into systems are encouraged across micro, meso and macro levels. Implications and limitations are discussed for moving forward with peer work.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to include these four areas of practice simultaneously.

The purpose of this study is to examine the advancement of cultural transformation over time demands certain alterations in human perceptions. It also aims to examine the 21st century’s many radical changes in India, the constant legal battles to decriminalize homosexuality, and challenges to the rigid dichotomy between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Besides, it influences popular culture among the masses, which has turned out to create a more visible space for the lesbian community. In India, lesbian literature begins synchronously under the shades of women’s writing and feminism that wires new hopes for their identity.

This paper examines a primary text as Indian writer Abha Dawesar’s Babyji (2005). There comes the iconic work of Abha Dawesar’s Babyji (2005), which creates a turning point by introducing the life, inner conflict and turbulence of a teenage girl. In addition, a textual analysis of this novel brings forth an analysis of attributes such as sexuality, gender and the interplay of caste and class that meld lesbian childhood and adolescence. This paper also examines how a lesbian girl adapts to and negotiates her maturation amidst vivid social scenarios and cultural conditioning.

A few studies (Hidalgo, et al., 2013; Bem, 1989; Pyne, 2016) show many children have reached or crossed their teenage life without accurate or affirmative knowledge of sexuality and gender. Parents, teachers and even other intellectuals of the adult world fail to transfer their knowledge effectively to children. Definitely, the relevance of sex education is paramount, but more important is what implementation tactics should be used for the same cause. The point is that sex education should not be condensed into a certain gender or perpetuate parochial discrimination. It needs to adapt an age-appropriate curriculum for the cognitive and emotional development of the individuals. Considering these factors, understanding comprehensive sex education is what is most likely to find sustainable remedies for this matter. Gerald writes about a socialization process and gays and lesbians hiding their identity from family and society; a fear of rejection; there is a social gap in peer and family spheres. These fears prevent lesbian or gay young persons from fully developing their identities (1999). Rao and Mason tested a model derived from minority stress theory in which the perceived impact of Section 377 increases depressive symptoms of sexual minorities by increasing concealment stress, leading to a diminished sense of belonging. Because of their minority status, they are more vulnerable to and have a higher prevalence of mental illness than heterosexual individuals (2018).

Babyji has created a discourse to perpetuate normativity and gives importance to the mental health of the excluded lesbian group. It opens a door to studying teenage groups’ issues and their challenges to understanding social and mental issues regarding their identity. A study on this untouched area is required to highlight their issues and mental health problems. This research is an initiative step to create and provide a platform to raise awareness in society.

This paper aims to investigate research activity on barriers for minority and underserved groups to access and use mental health services.

Using Scopus, relevant articles published from 1993 to 2022 were collected. The final list included 122 articles.

Research hotspots included cultural and ethnic barriers, obstacles encountered by LGBTQ+ individuals, challenges faced by refugees and immigrants, limited access in rural areas and barriers affecting special populations. The top 10 cited articles focused on language barriers, cultural stigma, gender-specific challenges and systemic obstacles. New research avenues included the role of technology in overcoming barriers to access mental health services.

Policymakers and practitioners can use this knowledge to develop targeted interventions, enhance cultural competence, reduce stigma, improve rural access and provide LGBTQ+-affirming care, ultimately promoting equitable mental health care.

This research underscores the importance of addressing mental health service barriers for equity and social justice. Neglecting these disparities can worsen mental health, increase health-care costs, reduce productivity and lead to higher social welfare expenses, perpetuating disadvantages.

This paper's uniqueness lies in its comprehensive analysis of barriers and facilitators to mental health service utilization among minority and underserved groups. It serves as a basis for developing evidence-based strategies to improve service accessibility and enhance the well-being of marginalized communities.

The main objective of this paper is to analyze works of literature on SRI sukuk to highlight the potential for these kinds of instruments in financing more sustainable financial systems (SFSs). The analysis mainly accentuates a dearth of knowledge on the various challenges and opportunities in the realm of SRI.

This paper pioneers the bibliometric and systematic literature review of the development of the SRI sukuk from 2016 (the first available year in the field) to and 2021.

The study findings highlighted several pertinent SRI issues: the lack of standardization due to the different interpretations of Shariah and green, the lack of retail investors, which inevitably produce a lack of liquidity in the secondary market, thus limiting their growth, its funding allocation’ close resemblance to green financing, and the role of Malaysia and Indonesia as global sustainable financial hubs to stimulate the development of Shariah-compliant sustainable instruments and contribute to the international debate about the building of a global standardized framework related to sustainable investments.

The integration of the environmental principles of a green bond with the Shariah-compliant financial structure of a sukuk, the SRI sukuk, represents a vital crossroad in both sustainable and Islamic finance. Social-impact sukuk and green sukuk is an undervalued instrument that could play an important role in financing a more sustainable economic and financial system, including Islamic investing. This kind of instruments, which is based on a “pay for success” principle in the conventional layout, perfectly fit with the profit-and-lost sharing’s (PLS's) ethicality, the sustainability principles of Islamic finance and the religious principles of Islamic law.

This study explored the influence of Dervin’s sensemaking methodology (SMM).

Citation context analysis was used to identify the most influential SMM concepts in 948 articles citing 34 SMM-related studies by Dervin that were published between 1983 and 2017. Moreover, the bibliometric method and content analysis were incorporated to examine the disciplines and research topics influenced by the SMM-related studies and the role of cited content in SMM-related studies.

The influence of SMM is concentrated in information behavior research in the field of library and information science (LIS). The 1992 book chapter From the mind’s eye of the user was most frequently cited, followed by the first SMM study from 1983; 14 of the 18 content categories were relevant to SMM. “Sensemaking,” at the core of SMM, was the most influential cited concept, primarily cited from the 1983 SMM-related study. Although the SMM was developed as a research method, it has not been primarily applied to design research methods in other studies.

This study explored the interdisciplinary influence of Dervin’s SMM from several aspects and demonstrated the complex information dynamics between SMM-related works and citing articles.

Preventative health services are keen to identify how to engage men and increase their participation, thus improving health, well-being and life expectancy over time. Prior research has shown general gender norms are a key reason for men’s avoidance of these services, yet there is little investigation of specific gender norms. Furthermore, masculinity has not been examined as a factor associated with customer vulnerability. This paper aims to identify the relationship between gender norm segments for men, likely customer vulnerability over time and subjective health and well-being.

Adult males (n = 13,891) from an Australian longitudinal men’s health study were classified using latent class analysis. Conditional growth mixture modelling was conducted at three timepoints.

Three masculinity segments were identified based on masculine norm conformity: traditional self-reliant, traditional bravado and modern status. All segments had likely customer experience of vulnerability. Over time, the likely experience was temporary for the modern status segment but prolonged for the traditional self-reliant and traditional bravado segments. The traditional self-reliant segment had low subjective health and low overall well-being over time.

Practitioners can tailor services to gender norm segments, enabling self-reliant men to provide expertise and use the “Status” norm to reach all masculinity segments.

The study of customer vulnerability in a group usually considered privileged identifies differential temporal experiences based on gender norms. The study confirms customer vulnerability is temporal in nature; customer vulnerability changes over time from likely to actual for self-reliant men.

Previous literature on sustainable supply chain management has largely adopted an instrumental view of stakeholder management and has focused on understanding the effect of powerful stakeholders who have a more decisive influence on an organization's supply chain decisions. Social enterprises have emerged as organizations that often aim to create impact by integrating marginalized stakeholders into their operations and supply chains. This study examines the trade-offs that social enterprises experience due to their moral stance toward stakeholder engagement, evidenced in their commitment to serving marginalized stakeholders, as well as the responses adopted to these trade-offs.

The study follows a theory elaboration approach through a multiple case study design. The authors draw on insights from stakeholder theory and use the empirical insights to expand current constructs and relationships in a novel empirical context. Based on an in-depth analysis of primary and secondary qualitative data on ten social enterprises, the authors examine how these organizations integrate marginalized stakeholders into various roles in their operations.

When integrating marginalized customers, suppliers and employees, social enterprises face affordability, reliability and efficiency trade-offs. Each trade-off represents conflicts between the organization's needs and the needs of marginalized stakeholders. In response to these trade-offs, social enterprises choose to internalize the costs through slack creation or vertical integration or externalize the costs to stakeholders. The ability to externalize is contingent on the growth orientation of the organization and the presence of like-minded B2B (Business-to-Business) customers. These responses reflect whether organizations accept the trade-offs at the expense of one or more stakeholders or if they avoid the trade-offs and find mutually beneficial solutions.

Building on the empirical insights, the authors elaborate on stakeholder theory with a focus on the integration of marginalized stakeholders by emphasizing a moral justification for stakeholder engagement, identifying the nature of the underlying trade-offs which can arise when various stakeholder needs are in conflict and examining the contingencies affecting organizational responses to these trade-offs.

The purpose of this study is to examine the buyers’ preferences influencing the purchase of privately developed affordable housing in Kolkata and to determine whether unsold houses result from misalignment with these preferences.

The literature review and user-opinion survey identified 119 independent variables that indicate buyers’ preferences. A questionnaire survey of 383 households in affordable housing units from 32 housing complexes in Kolkata recorded buyers’ preferences and satisfaction against the independent variables grouped under five levels of characteristics. The product weights of variables derived from the rank sum method and percentage satisfaction give the Utility Score. Multivariate regression and univariate linear regressions were conducted to determine the significance of each Level of characteristics and each variable, identifying the significant variables that would affect the sale of affordable houses.

The multivariate regression analysis has indicated that 68.56% of the variation in the percentage of unsold houses was explained by the five utility scores, which affirms that misalignment with buyers’ preferences significantly affects the sale of privately developed affordable houses. Furthermore, building and neighbourhood-level utility show the highest significance as predictors, while city-level and miscellaneous utility have moderate significance, but housing complex-level utility lacks statistical significance.

This study addresses a research gap in privately developed affordable housing in Kolkata, enhancing understanding of buyer preferences in this segment.

Skilled migrant (SM) women play a key role in developed countries especially in healthcare and education in easing staffing shortages and migrate expecting to gain qualification-matched employment (QME). The aim of this review is to assess whether SM women gain the anticipated QME, equitably compared to their skilled counterparts and to examine why and how they do so.

I conducted a systematic literature review to derive empirical studies to assess if, why and how SM women achieve QME (1) using SM women-only samples and comparative samples including SM women, and (2) examining whether they gain QME directly on or soon after migration or indirectly over time through undertaking alternative, contingent paths.

Only a minority of SM women achieve the anticipated QME directly soon after migration and less often than their skilled counterparts. Explaining the mechanism for achieving QME, other women, especially due to having young families, indirectly undertake alternative, lower-level contingent paths enabling them to ascend later to QME.

The SM literature gains new knowledge from revealing how SM women can gain positions post-migration comparable to their pre-migration qualifications through undertaking the alternative, contingent paths of steppingstone jobs and academic study, especially as part of agreed familial strategies. This review results in a theoretical mechanism (mediation by a developmental contingency path) to provide an alternative mechanism by which SM women achieve QME.