scholarly journals (Re)sourcing the Character and Resilience Manifesto: Suppressions and Slippages of (Re)presentation and Selective Affectivities

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 416-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Burman

This article offers a critical discursive reading of the 2014 Character and Resilience Manifesto (hereafter the Manifesto), focusing on the sources and legitimation strategies supporting its claims. As an All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility document, the Manifesto traces both old and new discursive tropes framing policy strategy on education and social care, extending into current political agendas around mental health and well-being and even child safeguarding and securitisation. While the Manifesto’s supposed evidence-based claims draw extensively on a specifically commissioned literature review undertaken by Gutman and Schoon, problems are identified with how this is represented in the Manifesto, including significant omissions and slippages within Gutman and Schoon’s text and between this and the Manifesto. Analysis highlights exaggerations of the claims made in Gutman and Schoon’s review in the Manifesto while important conceptual clarifications (between resilience and coping and the non-generalisability of resilience) are overlooked. Commentators’ cautions over the evaluation and comparability of current programmes also fail to appear. Beyond such asymmetries, a common narrative identified across both texts reformulates emotions away from their ‘soft’, culturally feminised, associations to become ‘hard and tough’, and abstracted from relationship and (sociopolitical) context. Clearly, such gendering of emotions can be situated in relation to wider discourses of feminisation, alongside others de-emphasising classed and racialised inequalities. Overall, the Manifesto performs its own rhetoric, manifesting its own buoyancy to resist critical engagement and further the contemporary moral doctrine of inciting voluntarist optimistic subjects, devoid of attention to class, gender or racialised inequalities.

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Bouras ◽  
Silvia Davey ◽  
Tracey Power ◽  
Jonathan Rolfe ◽  
Tom Craig ◽  
...  

Maudsley International was set up to help improve people's mental health and well-being around the world. A variety of programmes have been developed by Maudsley International over the past 10 years, for planning and implementing services; building capacity; and training and evaluation to support organisations and individuals, professionals and managers to train and develop health and social care provisions. Maudsley International's model is based on collaboration, sharing expertise and cultural understanding with international partners.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 104-110
Author(s):  
Z. Budayova ◽  
L. Ludvigh Cintulova

The research study analyses the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and identifies changes in the life satisfaction of seniors in social services facilities. The research sample consisted of 79 seniors in social services facilities, the sample consisted of ten participants, data collection took place in the period from November 2020 to April 2021, where the method of qualitative research was used in empirical research, through semi-structured interviews to determine the impact of Covid-19 on We collected the data collected by open coding and pointed to those dimensions of the lives of seniors that were most marked by pandemic measures against the spread of Covid-19.


2022 ◽  
pp. 219-227
Author(s):  
Gillala Rekha

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world closed all the educational institutions to control the spread of disease, which is creating a direct impact on students, educators, and institutions. The purpose of this study was to analyze the perception of academic stress experienced by students during current online education and coping strategies using emotional intelligence adopted by them. The study aims to conduct a timely assessment of the effects of stress due to COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of college students. The authors conducted interview surveys with 227 students at a private university in India to understand the effects of online education during pandemic on their mental health and well-being. The data were analyzed through quantitative and qualitative methods. Of the 227 students, 71% indicated anxiety and stress due to ongoing pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Panshuo Shen ◽  
Paul Slater

The level of stress among academics in higher education institutions has significantly increased over the past decade. Mental health and well-being of academics can be affected once they are exposed to stressful work conditions and use negative coping strategies. This study was set against the backdrop of the pandemic disease, COVID-19, which has challenged the daily work of academics and risen to the various new stressors. This study aims to investigate the current status of occupational stress, coping styles, mental health and emotional well-being of university academics during the COVID-19 outbreak in Northern Ireland, and examine the effect of stress and coping strategies on mental health and emotional well-being. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted using a sample size of 87 academic staff working in a university in Northern Ireland. SPSS version 25 was used to analyse the collected data. The results showed academics experienced moderate stress levels, and distraction behaviours were the most common form of coping mechanism. Academics were in the moderate status of mental health and poor emotional well-being. Occupational stress has a significant effect on mental health and emotional well-being. Positive reframing and acceptance coping styles have an impact on emotional well-being. This study contributes to the understanding of occupational stress, coping strategies, mental health and emotional well-being of academics in higher education in Northern Ireland. The findings can help to develop reliable methods to inform policy on health and well-being for university academics, which in turn lead to increased productivity at work.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 399-430
Author(s):  
Jemaima Tiatia-Seath ◽  
Trish Tupou ◽  
Ian Fookes

Author(s):  
Khatia Antia ◽  
Johannes Boucsein ◽  
Andreas Deckert ◽  
Peter Dambach ◽  
Justina Račaitė ◽  
...  

Labour migration is a challenge for the globalised world due to its long-term effects such as the formation of transnational families. These families, where family members of migrant workers are “left-behind”, are becoming a common phenomenon in many low- and middle-income countries. Our systematic literature review investigated the effects of international parental labour migration on the mental health and well-being of left-behind children. Following the PRISMA guidelines, we performed searches in PubMed, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Google Scholar, resulting in 30 finally included studies. We found that mental health and well-being outcomes of left-behind children differed across and sometimes even within regions. However, only studies conducted in the Americas and South Asia observed purely negative effects. Overall, left-behind children show abnormal Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire scores and report higher levels of depression and loneliness than children who do not live in transnational families. Evidence from the studies suggests that gender of the migrant parent, culture and other transnational family characteristics contribute to the well-being and mental health of left-behind children. Further research utilising longitudinal data is needed to better understand the complex and lasting effects on left-behind children.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lene E. Søvold ◽  
John A. Naslund ◽  
Antonis A. Kousoulis ◽  
Shekhar Saxena ◽  
M. Walid Qoronfleh ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on health systems in most countries, and in particular, on the mental health and well-being of health workers on the frontlines of pandemic response efforts. The purpose of this article is to provide an evidence-based overview of the adverse mental health impacts on healthcare workers during times of crisis and other challenging working conditions and to highlight the importance of prioritizing and protecting the mental health and well-being of the healthcare workforce, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we provide a broad overview of the elevated risk of stress, burnout, moral injury, depression, trauma, and other mental health challenges among healthcare workers. Second, we consider how public health emergencies exacerbate these concerns, as reflected in emerging research on the negative mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers. Further, we consider potential approaches for overcoming these threats to mental health by exploring the value of practicing self-care strategies, and implementing evidence based interventions and organizational measures to help protect and support the mental health and well-being of the healthcare workforce. Lastly, we highlight systemic changes to empower healthcare workers and protect their mental health and well-being in the long run, and propose policy recommendations to guide healthcare leaders and health systems in this endeavor. This paper acknowledges the stressors, burdens, and psychological needs of the healthcare workforce across health systems and disciplines, and calls for renewed efforts to mitigate these challenges among those working on the frontlines during public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime G. Dörner Alvarez ◽  
Janette Graetz Simmonds

As collaborators from different nationalities, genders, cultural backgrounds, occupations and age cohorts, in this article we present an account of our art-based research during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project employed art practice as a way to deal with the noxious effects of isolation on our mental health and well-being during the many prolonged lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia. With reference to Warren Lett’s concept of companioning, in our ongoing companioning dialogue through poetry and paintings, together with a final song, we explore our psychological struggles. This contribution can be read in several ways: as an example of our research into art practice, as an artistic companioning dialogue between two writers and friends trying to make sense of and survive isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and finally, as an offer, an invitation to explore art as a cathartic and coping process in a companioning process, which we have termed companioning autoethnography.


10.28945/3948 ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 109-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel AB Marais ◽  
Rebecca Shankland ◽  
Pascale Haag ◽  
Robin Fiault ◽  
Bridget Juniper

Aim/Purpose: The present work focuses on French PhD students’ well-being: an understudied working population thus far, which impedes the development of evidence-based policies on this issue in France.The focus of this work is the well-being of French PhD students, on which almost nothing has been published thus far, impeding any evidence-based policy on this issue to be carried out in France. Background: Research studies from several countries have shown that carrying out a PhD can be a difficult experience resulting in high attrition rates with significant financial and human costs. Methodology: The two studies presented in this article focus on biology PhD students from University Lyon 1, a very large French university (~40,000 students). A first study aimed at measuring the mental health and well-being of PhD students using generalist and PhD-specific tools. In a second study, we carried out and assessed a positive psychology intervention (PPI) aimed at improving PhD students’ well-being. Contribution: Our work is one of the first characterizations of French PhD students’ mental health and well-being. As with other recent studies conducted in Western coun-tries, we found a high level of mental distress among PhD students. Our work also underlines the importance of taking many dimensions of the PhD (not only supervisor behaviour) in order to understand PhD student well-being. Cultural specificities are highlighted and can help inform the design of interventions adapted to each situation. The PPI showed pre-to-post positive changes on PhD students’ well-being. Further research is needed on a larger sample size in order to detect more subtle effects. However, these results are promising in terms of interventions that help reduce PhD student distress. Findings: Study 1 involved 136 participants and showed that a large fraction of the PhD students experiences abnormal levels of stress, depression, and anxiety. We found that career training and prospects, research experience, and the impact of carrying out a thesis on health and private life have more impact on PhD students’ mental health than the supervisors’ behaviour. French PhD students’ well-being is specifically affected by career uncertainty, perceived lack of progress in the PhD, and perceived lack of competence compared to UK PhD students well-being, which suggests cultural differences about the PhD experi-ence in France compared to other countries. In study 2, the scores of the test and control groups (N = 10 and N = 13, respectively) showed a clear effect of the intervention on reducing anxiety. Impact on Society: The high levels of mental health issues and reduced well-being in French PhD students reported in this study underline the importance of developing interventions in this field. Improving the supervisor-student relationship is one possibility but is not the only one. Interventions aimed at learning how to cope with the research experience and with the uncertainty with career pathways, and a good balance between PhD work and personal life present other promising possibilities


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