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The purpose of this paper is to report on findings from an evaluative research study which looked at a timed intervention model of practice comprising of up to 24 weeks of intensive meetings with adult service users set up by one local authority in England, to prevent and delay the need for care and support. A particular focus of this paper is on adults who hoard.

The study employed a mixed-methods design, consisting of interviews with service users (n=13), social workers (n=3), social work managers (n=2) and stakeholders from external services and agencies (n=6). It included a costing analysis of staff time and an analysis of goals of service users and “satisfaction with life” self-report questionnaires (n=20), completed at pre- and post-intervention stages.

There was evidence that social workers used strengths, relationship-based and outcome-based focused approaches in their work. The techniques used by social workers to engage, achieve change and assess effectiveness with service users varied. These techniques included the use of photographs to enable the service user to map and assess their own progress over time, encouraging hoarders to declutter and reclaim their living space. The service users valued the time the social workers spent with them and the way that they were treated with sensitivity and respect.

The study focused on one local authority in England; there was no comparison group. This, and the small sample size, means that statistical generalisations cannot be made and only limited conclusions can be drawn from the quantitative data.

The paper provides insights into the work undertaken by social workers with adults who hoard. It contributes to the body of knowledge on effective social work interventions with adults who hoard.

A substantial number of students read significantly below grade level, and students with disabilities perform far below their non-disabled peers. Reading achievement data indicate that many students with and at-risk for reading disabilities require more intensive reading interventions. This chapter utilizes the theoretical model of the Simple View of Reading to describe the benefit of early reading instruction, targeting both word reading and word meaning. In addition, evidence is presented supporting the use of word meaning instruction to improve accurate and efficient word reading for students who have failed to respond to explicit decoding instruction.

There is mixed evidence regarding the efficacy of low-intensity integrated care interventions in reducing the use of emergency services and costs of care. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of a low-intensity intervention formulated for older adults and delivered in an urban medical center serving low-income individuals.

The intervention included an initial evaluation of stress, psychiatric symptomatology and health habits; potential referrals for lifestyle management and psychiatric treatment; and training for physicians about the impact of lifestyle change in older adults. Participants included older adults (at or above 50 years of age) seen as outpatients in an urban medical center serving a low-income community (n=945). Participants were entered into the intervention at any point during this two-year period. Mixed models analyses examined all visits for all enrolled individuals over a two-year period, comparing visits before the individual received the initial intervention evaluation to those received after this evaluation. Outcomes included total health care costs incurred, average cost per visit, and emergency department (ED) usage within the facility.

The intervention was associated with reduced likelihood of emergency department use and reduced costs per visit following the intervention. These effects were seen across all participants.

Limitations of the study include the lack of control group.

This program is easy to disseminate and could improve the quality of care and costs.

This study is among the few available to document a decrease in medical costs, as well as decreased ED utilization following a low-intensity integrated care intervention.

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a scientific method for modelling human behavior, successfully applied in the context of Autism. Recording and sharing measurable data (on subjects’ performance) between caregivers guarantees consistency of learning programs and allows monitoring the learning enhancements. Data are usually recorded on paper, which requires considerable effort and is subject to error. The purpose of this paper is to describe a portable application developed to support ABA tutors in their work with autistic subjects. It allows gathering data from ABA sessions, giving tutors rapid access to information, also in graphical formats.

The tool was designed via participatory design. Various ABA team members were involved, in order to make the application respond perfectly to their needs. The approach aims to ensure maximum usability, while minimizing errors and ambient interference.

The use of mobile devices (i.e. tablets or smartphones) allows mobility and ease of interaction, enabling efficient data collection and processing. Data plotting allows one to easily interpret gathered data.

The proposed application, free open source software, can be a valuable aid for supporting the ABA intervention and favor the inclusion of children with autism.

Available software to assist tutors during therapy sessions is often proprietary, and research prototypes are not freely available, so paper forms are still widespread. Besides, without attention to usability requirements, assisting tools would be comparable in efficiency with data insertion on paper. Our software was specifically designed following ABA principles and favors efficient data entry allowing natural interaction with touch screen interfaces: drag and drop, taps and gestures. Furthermore, it is shared in the public domain.

In response to the urgent national need to implement evidence-based literacy supports for adolescent struggling readers (ASRs), this chapter provides a framework for addressing reading comprehension instruction. Schools face significant challenges in the education of ASRs including how to address the achievement gap that emerges between proficient readers and a variety of poor reader subgroups predicted by the Simple View of Reading. The authors present current research in the components of reading comprehension (e.g., text structures, vocabulary, prior knowledge, cognitive strategies, and motivation) and explicit pedagogical practices associated with improving outcomes for ASRs, including a school-wide framework called the Content Literacy Continuum. Two specific interventions with supporting research are presented as model practices to improve outcomes for ASRs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and review the range and quality of international epidemiological and observational studies reporting impacts of psychiatric disorders on labour force activity. This information is needed to explore the relative priority of different diagnostic groups for more intensive forms of vocational rehabilitation.

The authors provide an overview of the current literature. A systematic review of papers measuring labour force variables and psychiatric disorders across a range of countries is conducted. These results are compared to OECD background unemployment rates during the same period. The results for each diagnostic category included are aggregated and compared to the other diagnostic categories.

The proportions of people employed decreased with the more severe disorder categories, indicating that severe psychiatric illnesses are contributing to employment struggles for people with these illnesses, across countries.

This review is exploratory and shows that there is little consistency in reporting of labour force variables. Future research should endeavour to utilise internationally agreed definitions of labour force activity.

This conclusion is relevant to matching community residents with psychiatric disorders to the more intensive and costly forms of vocational rehabilitation.

To our knowledge, no previous review has examined diagnostic categories of psychiatric disorders by labour force activity internationally while taking into account background unemployment. This review found an employment gradient related to severity of diagnostic category that will be of interest to clinicians and policy makers.

This paper aims to determine whether a single session of a motivational interview (MI) reduces smoking relapse amongst people released from smoke-free prisons.

This study sought to recruit 824 ex-smokers from 2 smoke-free prisons in the Northern Territory, Australia. Participants were randomised to receive either one session (45–60 min) face-to-face MI intervention 4–6 weeks prior to release or usual care (UC) without smoking advice. The primary outcome was continuous smoking abstinence verified by exhaled carbon monoxide test (<5 ppm) at three months post-release. Secondary outcomes included seven-day point-prevalence, time to the first cigarette and the daily number of cigarettes smoked after release.

From April 2017 to March 2018, a total of 557 participants were randomised to receive the MI (n = 266) or UC (n = 291), with 75% and 77% being followed up, respectively. There was no significant between-group difference in continuous abstinence (MI 8.6% vs UC 7.4%, risk ratio = 1.16, 95%CI 0.67∼2.03). Of all participants, 66.9% relapsed on the day of release and 90.2% relapsed within three months. On average, participants in the MI group smoked one less cigarette daily than those in the UC within the three months after release (p < 0.01).

A single-session of MI is insufficient to reduce relapse after release from a smoke-free prison. However, prison release remains an appealing time window to build on the public health benefit of smoke-free prisons. Further research is needed to develop both pre- and post-release interventions that provide continuity of care for relapse prevention.

This study is the first Australian randomised controlled trial to evaluate a pre-release MI intervention on smoking relapse prevention amongst people released from smoke-free prisons.

The purpose of the present chapter is to provide an overview of issues facing families of children and youths with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). We argue that although much is written about families of individuals with disabilities, comparatively little is known about families with children in this category. We suggest that the diversity of family contribution to the individual's EBD makes studying families of this population as a unitary group quite difficult. Despite the difficulty in adequately capturing families of individuals with EBD as a single unit, we describe what is known about (a) parental satisfaction with services for children with EBD, (b) issues affecting parental and family involvement in special education programming and decision-making, (c) the impact of a child with EBD upon siblings, and (d) interventions for EBD that involve families. We conclude by pointing to areas of need for additional research and noting that while educators are in a unique position to assist families of children with EBD, they are restrained by lack of adequate training, competing policy agenda, and constraints on the resources necessary to add this responsibility to the role of classroom teachers.

Educating students with disabilities in the same classrooms and instructional environments as their natural neighbors and peers (i.e., inclusion) is a promise of significant substance and value for many special educators. When federal legislation mandated that students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate education in least restrictive environments, at least in principle, the schoolhouse doors were opened for all students. In this chapter, we provide a brief historical review of efforts to educate students with disabilities in inclusive environments and provide direction for what we believe are important practices for creating high-quality inclusive learning environments.

The UK public has been fairly resistant to health promotion messages encouraging reduced fat intake as a component of the strategy to help achieve the targets for cardiovascular disease risk reduction identified in The Health of the Nation and extended in Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation. This project is designed to test the hypothesis that a more positive message to eat more (low fat) starchy foods would be better received and achieve the desired dietary goals. Newcastle families, in enumeration districts in the middle three quintiles of the Townsend Deprivation Index who do not meet current dietary targets for fat and starch, are being recruited to one of three interventions designed to encourage and enable them to choose diets richer in starchy foods. Dietary outcomes are being measured at three and six months after the interventions. We are investigating the process of change through use of questionnaires and in‐depth interviews with both “achievers” and “non‐achievers”.