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This article summarises the historical development of positive behavioural support. The main features of this approach are described, and the evidence for its effectiveness outlined. Despite clear empirical support for its use, relatively few people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour appear to have access to this form of therapeutic intervention. Reasons for this are discussed, along with recommendations for future development.

Recent years have seen a growing recognition amongst technology companies that customer support is an important part of their business. The author spoke to a number of operators and customers of help desks of online services, to see how their services are being improved and how the customers are responding. The example of STN International is given as a case study.

Explores how developments in the ground‐breaking field of narrative family therapy might be applied to organizational change efforts. After an introductory discussion of some of narrative therapy’s key orientations and practices (e.g. postmodern notions of language and power, influence mapping, problem externalization, unique outcomes, audiencing), an extended example is given where a narrative approach was used to effect change in a health‐care organization. The case is used to generate a series of research questions and directions.

Reviews previous studies of the universal approach to mental health promotion, and disease prevention programmes or interventions in schools. Over 8,000 publications were identified initially and 425 studies obtained for further review. The inclusion criteria were met by 17 (mostly US) studies investigating 16 interventions. Positive evidence of effectiveness was obtained for programmes that adopted a whole‐school approach, were implemented continuously for more than a year, and were aimed at the promotion of mental health as opposed to the prevention of mental illness. Provides evidence that universal school mental health promotion programmes can be effective and suggests that long‐term interventions promoting the positive mental health of all pupils and involving changes to the school climate are likely to be more successful than brief class‐based mental illness prevention programmes.

The purpose of this study was to utilise a lived experience (LE) informed/co-designed approach to explore the service-user experience of using the reasons for use package (RFUP) within a youth residential rehabilitation mental health setting.

LE researchers (those who have lived through mental illness or distress), Master of social work students, a community of mental health service manager, community of mental health researchers, dual diagnosis service researchers and university-based researchers collaborated on the project. The study used an exploratory, qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews to invite young people's experiences of the resource. The research team conducted a collaborative thematic analysis drawing on the range of perspectives.

Through five interviews with young people, key themes identified included: client factors and extra-therapeutic events, relationship factors, technique/model factors/delivery and outcomes/things noticed.

The RFUP was a useful clinical tool with the young people in this pilot as it improved awareness of reasons for drug use and impact on mental health, service user to staff relationship, quality of the resource, mode of delivery and participant self-knowledge.

Young people valued the supportive role that the RFUP played in facilitating positive relationships with their workers.

IN order to be able to discriminate with certainty between butter and such margarine as is sold in England, it is necessary to carry out two or three elaborate and delicate chemical processes. But there has always been a craving by the public for some simple method of determining the genuineness of butter by means of which the necessary trouble could be dispensed with. It has been suggested that such easy detection would be possible if all margarine bought and sold in England were to be manufactured with some distinctive colouring added—light‐blue, for instance—or were to contain a small amount of phenolphthalein, so that the addition of a drop of a solution of caustic potash to a suspected sample would cause it to become pink if it were margarine, while nothing would occur if it were genuine butter. These methods, which have been put forward seriously, will be found on consideration to be unnecessary, and, indeed, absurd.

Construct Creation (CC) is a methodological problem occurring when a research process, instead of measuring an extant construct in the participant’s mind, creates the construct. The purpose of this paper is to argue that CC derives from problems around ecologically invalid research and attitudinal responses developed on the spot, both resulting from self-generated validity.

A between-subjects design was used to explore whether the personification prime (PP), a component of brand personality (BP) methodology, influenced the CC of BP for rocks. Analysis of qualitative data on how participants made their BP ratings in the absence of a PP was also completed.

Findings revealed that a methodology can enable CC in the participant’s mind, despite the construct being ecologically invalid prior to them participating in the study. Analysis also revealed that participants will use varied, and sometimes elaborate, strategies to enable CC and provide researchers with the answers to their questions.

Previous research has drawn attention to CC as a problem but the implications of prior research have so far been “sidestepped”. Consequently, this paper demonstrates CC and why it is a problem, while rebutting some arguments made in prior research for sidestepping CC.

CC is a potentially serious methodological problem that can result in invalid findings informing or misdirecting theory used by practitioners. As such, this paper proposes methods to ameliorate CC and improve ecological validity of future research.

This study will contribute to methodological literature by refocusing attention to the currently neglected problem of CC and by proposing a model of CC by participants.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of a training intervention designed to develop and encourage the use of coaching skills in a small arts-based organisation and assess the factors that appear to have influenced this impact.

The programme, its effects and factors that influenced its impact were assessed through ongoing feedback and evaluation and through information gathered in a focus group and in one-to-one interviews with participants at the conclusion of the programme.

The programme had individual and organisational benefits, including improved skills in communication and problem-solving and a better understanding of a range of problems affecting the organisation. Factors enabling these benefits included participation of senior managers in the programme and coaching practice that focused on real workplace issues. Factors limiting these benefits included a lack of a clear statement about the purpose of the programme.

This relates to a programme within a single organisation, and the findings may not be generalisable.

Through training individuals in coaching skills, it is possible to improve the skills needed for cooperative working and joint problem-solving. A corporate training programme in coaching skills can surface a range of organisational problems and enable progress to be made in tackling them.

There is little empirical research evaluating the impact of training in coaching skills. This paper identifies how such training can develop leadership skills and indicates practical factors that may enhance or limit the impact of the training.

An analysis of the relevant literature has demonstrated that many similarities exist between Pioneers (women working or hoping to work in male‐dominated occupations) and Traditionals (women working in or hoping to work in female‐dominated occupations). Clearly background, personality, motivation and attitudes alone are relatively poor predictors of preference for entry into traditionally male occupations. Therefore the typical Pioneer, which earlier research has attempted to identify, does not exist. The ways in which women's personal characteristics influence occupational choice and work entry should be placed within a wider context to include the external, structural and situational factors which inhibit and facilitate women's entry into male‐dominated occupations. A more qualitative approach is needed rather than the standard questionnaire methods.

Although none of the new music reference books of the past year totally replaces the old stand‐bys, some significant works did appear, especially in the areas of contemporary music, opera, and classical music discography.