Veteran families with complex needs: a qualitative study of the veterans’ support system

Background Families with complex needs face significant challenges accessing and navigating health and social services. For veteran families, these challenges are exacerbated by interactions between military and civilian systems of care, and the density of the veterans’ non-profit sector. This qualitative study was designed to gather rich, detailed information on complex needs in veteran families; and explore service providers’ and families’ experiences of accessing and navigating the veterans’ support system. Methods The study comprised participant background questionnaires (n = 34), focus groups with frontline service providers (n = 18), and one-on-one interviews with veteran families (n = 16) in Australia. The semi-structured focus groups and interviews were designed to gather rich, detailed information on four study topics: (i) health and wellbeing needs in veteran families; (ii) service-access barriers and facilitators; (iii) unmet needs and gaps in service provision; and (iv) practical solutions for improving service delivery. The study recruited participants who could best address the focus on veteran families with complex needs. The questionnaire data was used to describe relevant characteristics of the participant sample. The focus groups and interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and a reflexive thematic analysis was conducted to identify patterns of shared meaning in the qualitative data. Results Both service providers and families found the veterans’ support system difficult to access and navigate. System fragmentation was perceived to impede care coordination, and delay access to holistic care for veteran families with complex needs. The medico-legal aspects of compensation and rehabilitation processes were perceived to harm veteran identity, and undermine health and wellbeing outcomes. Recovery-oriented practice was viewed as a way to promote veteran independence and self-management. Participants expressed a strong preference for family-centred care that was informed by an understanding of military lifestyle and culture. Conclusion The health and wellbeing needs of veteran families intensify during the transition from full-time military service to civilian environments, and service- or reintegration-related difficulties may emerge (or persist) for a significant period of time thereafter. Veteran families with complex needs are unduly burdened by care coordination demands. There is a pressing need for high-quality implementation studies that evaluate initiatives for integrating fragmented systems of care.

Editorial Introduction - GROUP 2022 Second Wave

For over a quarter century, GROUP has offered a premier yet intimate and welcoming venue for agenda-setting, diverse research. Although the traditional focus of the conference is on supporting group work, it has expanded to include research from computer-supported cooperative work, sociotechnical studies, practice-centered computing, human-computer interaction, computersupported collaborative learning, participatory technology design, and other related areas. The work presented in this issue embodies that interdisciplinary ethos. Papers in this issue cover a wide range topics, from human-AI collaboration, to collaboration in virtual reality, to perceptions of privacy and security, to the myriad impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The application domains are similarly wide ranging, from health data, to civic engagement, to educational settings, to government provision of social services. Similar to the 2021 issue, this issue also continues the tradition of design fiction at GROUP. This issue of PACM:HCI brings you papers from the planned 2022 ACMConference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP 2022). Typically, the GROUP conference occurs every two years. However, research developments do not necessarily follow conference deadline cycles. Thus, the GROUP conference offers authors the opportunity to submit to multiple waves. The first wave of papers for this conference were published in July 2021 in Volume 5 of PACM:HCI, and papers from this current issue were first submitted in May 2021. Both of these sets of papers published as part of the planned GROUP 2022 conference were authored and reviewed during the COVID-19 pandemic. These papers represent commendable volumes of hard work and resilience, not just from the authors, but also from the reviewers, the program committee, and the conference organizers. Additionally, the pandemic forced a major change to the conference at which these papers will be presented.

“‘It ain’t have no sort of family life for us here’”: Community and its Discontents in Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners

<div>Sam Seldon's The Lonely Londoners depicts an emergent collectivity of black immigrants who lead literally and metaphorically subterranean lives in 1950s Britain. Against the backdrop of a city undergoing an ambivalent transition from colonial metropole to postmodern cosmopolis, Seldon's "boys" remain largely inscrutable to and estranged from not only white Londoners but also one another. Critics have associate a depoliticized preoccupation with the everyday and eschewal of critical consciousness in Seldon’s work with widely critiqued features of Anglophone modernism. The present analysis suggests several reasons why political collectivity remains elusive to Seldon's black male immigrant characters. Specifically, they face discriminatory access to the labor market and social services, loci of possible solidarity with working-class white Londoners where formal political resistance might be coordinated. These systemic pressures combined with an atmospheric racism cause many of the boys to internalize the racialist, individualist, consumerist, and heterosexist attitudes and behaviors of the dominant white culture, which they adopt as survival strategies, in effect undermining black group identity and cohesion. If a note of optimism is to be sounded amid the many challenges to inter- and intraracial community the novel presents, it is in the potential undoing of black cultural nationalism that cultural theorist Paul Gilroy sees as a crucial step in the making of an egalitarian, convivial postcolonial world. The novel contests the homogenizing impulses of essentialist identity politics by portraying the heterodox, sometimes paradoxical, affinities that emerge between characters and communities.</div>

“‘It ain’t have no sort of family life for us here’”: Community and its Discontents in Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners

<div>Sam Seldon's The Lonely Londoners depicts an emergent collectivity of black immigrants who lead literally and metaphorically subterranean lives in 1950s Britain. Against the backdrop of a city undergoing an ambivalent transition from colonial metropole to postmodern cosmopolis, Seldon's "boys" remain largely inscrutable to and estranged from not only white Londoners but also one another. Critics have associate a depoliticized preoccupation with the everyday and eschewal of critical consciousness in Seldon’s work with widely critiqued features of Anglophone modernism. The present analysis suggests several reasons why political collectivity remains elusive to Seldon's black male immigrant characters. Specifically, they face discriminatory access to the labor market and social services, loci of possible solidarity with working-class white Londoners where formal political resistance might be coordinated. These systemic pressures combined with an atmospheric racism cause many of the boys to internalize the racialist, individualist, consumerist, and heterosexist attitudes and behaviors of the dominant white culture, which they adopt as survival strategies, in effect undermining black group identity and cohesion. If a note of optimism is to be sounded amid the many challenges to inter- and intraracial community the novel presents, it is in the potential undoing of black cultural nationalism that cultural theorist Paul Gilroy sees as a crucial step in the making of an egalitarian, convivial postcolonial world. The novel contests the homogenizing impulses of essentialist identity politics by portraying the heterodox, sometimes paradoxical, affinities that emerge between characters and communities.</div>

Gerontological aspects of improving the quality of medical and social assistance to older displaced persons in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine

Исследование посвящено вопросам организации медицинского и социального обслуживания переселенцев пожилого возраста на уровне первичной медико-санитарной помощи (ПМСП) на Украине, определению основных задач и особенностей организации и предоставления им паллиативной и хосписной помощи (ПХП) в условиях пандемии COVID-19. По результатам социологического исследования с использованием методов опроса, экспертных оценок были проанализированы социально-психологические характеристики переселенцев пожилого возраста, особенностей их социальной адаптации, финансирования и медико-социального обслуживания. Были определены пути улучшения организации амбулаторной помощи переселенцам старшего возраста на уровне ПМСП, включающие структурную модернизацию и оптимизацию организационного обеспечения. Внедрение доступных и экономически обоснованных подходов позволяет усилить взаимодействие специалистов учреждений здравоохранения и социальной защиты, оптимизировать соблюдение стандартов и принципов медицинской помощи. В рамках организации ПХП базовыми являются европейские подходы формирования стратегии непрерывности предоставления паллиативной помощи в условиях пандемии COVID-19. Внедрение предлагаемых подходов в организации медицинской и социальной помощи на уровне амбулаторий ПМСП и обеспечение доступной ПХП являются актуальными для переселенцев пожилого возраста, находящихся в группе повышенного риска при пандемии COVID-19. This work aimed to study the organization of medical-social services for the elderly internally displaced persons at the level of primary medico-sanitary aid (PMSA) in Ukraine, assessment of the main tasks and specifics of organization and provision of palliative and hospice care (PHC) under COVID-19 conditions. As a result of the sociological investigation, using the questionnaire methods and experts’ evaluations, we have analyzed the socio-psychological characteristics of the elderly internally displaced persons, the specifics of their social adaptation, financing and medico-social servicing at the level PMSA, including structural modernization and optimization of organizational provision. The introduction of an affordable and economically viable system allows for the interaction of specialists from health care and social protection institutions, and optimizes compliance with the standards and principles of medical care. Within the framework of the PНC, we use the European approaches of formation of the strategy of palliative care expansion under COVID-19 pandemic. One of the main tasks is the provision of constant PHC. Introduction of the organization-structural system of the medical-social care at the PMSA level and provision of accessible and highly qualitative constant PHC are actual for the elderly displaced people, who are in the group of high risk COVID-19 death group.

Social interactions in long-term care

Современное общество становится все более сложным, меняются не только технологии, но и его социально-возрастная структура. Человечество впервые столкнулось с ситуацией, когда пожилых больше, чем молодежи, и оказалось к этому не готово. Возникает новая задача - согласование взаимодействий и интересов множества субъектов социального взаимодействия в интересах пожилых. Традиционных управленческих воздействий государства становится недостаточно, постепенно складываются механизмы самоорганизации общества и автономности граждан. Новой проблемой стало не только быстрое старение общества, но и увеличение числа пожилых, требующих постоянного ухода в последние годы жизни. Уже сложившиеся «закрытые институты» - дома престарелых - сегодня все менее популярны у населения. В статье предложен обзор российского законодательства о долговременном уходе за пожилыми, а также анализ успехов и барьеров взаимодействия в организации ухода государства, коммерческих и некоммерческих учреждений в Санкт-Петербурге - городе пожилого населения и развитого социального обслуживания пожилых. Поэтому мы вправе сделать вывод, что социальное обслуживание в Петербурге может рассматриваться как перспективная модель развития долговременного ухода за пожилыми. Цель статьи - анализ особенности взаимодействий различных субъектов складывающейся в Петербурге системы долговременного ухода за пожилыми. Нас интересуют ситуации, когда имеющихся правовых норм/регулирования/вмешательства во взаимодействия достаточно, чтобы задачи ухода решались, а участники не страдали, и наоборот - когда имеющихся регулятивов недостаточно и либо задачи не решаются, либо потерпевшей стороной оказывается пожилой человек или его семья. Modern society is becoming more and more complex, not only technologies are changing, but also its socio-age structure. For the first time, mankind found itself in a situation where there are more elderly people than young people, and it turned out to be not ready for this. A new task arises - the coordination of interactions and interests of many subjects of social interaction in the interests of the elderly. The traditional administrative influences of the state are becoming insufficient; mechanisms of self-organization of society and the autonomy of citizens are gradually taking shape. A new problem has become not only the rapid aging of society, but also an increase in the number of elderly people requiring constant care in the last years of their lives, since the already existing «closed institutions». Nursing homes are less popular today. The article provides an overview of Russian legislation on long-term care for the elderly, as well as an analysis of the successes and barriers to interaction in organizing care for the state, commercial and non-profit institutions in St. Petersburg. Petersburg is a city of the elderly population and developed social services for the elderly. Therefore, we have the right to conclude that social services in St. Petersburg can be viewed as a promising model for the development of long-term care for the elderly. The purpose of the article is to analyze the peculiarities of interactions between various subjects of the system of long-term care for the elderly that is emerging in St. Petersburg. We are interested in situations when the existing legal norms/regulation/interference in interactions are sufficient for the tasks of care to be solved, and the participants did not suffer. And vice versa, when the existing regulations are insufficient, and either the tasks are not being solved, or the injured party is an elderly person or his family.

THE BENEFITS OF DIGITALISATION ON THE GROWTH OF INDIAN SOCIAL SECTORS AND THE ECONOMY (IN THE PRESENT PANDEMIC CONTEXT)

Digitalisation is the use of modern digital tools in the nation, In Indian history there was no significant growth of digital tools during independence moment, but later on there is more scope for the usage of digital tools for the study, like study of archaeological sources, Historical tourism pictures, by the help of the ASI (Archaeological survey in India). India has good flora and fauna in the world, India can generate revenue by expanding its digital implementation in all the tourism centres in India, some of the most visited tourist places by Indians and the foreigners, were The Taj-Mahal, Agra, the gate way of India, The Red fort, Mecca Masjid, some temples like Tirupathi, shabirimala etc, these cities are well aware digitalisation, e-payments, advertisement, online booking availability and the availability of internet has made these Indian cities to invest more in digitalisation to make benefit of the customers and to make profit in their business. More over some the Indian recent schemes like “Digital India, Make in India” can try to implement in Tourism and development of tourism GDP / income. So Indian government can try to announce the benefits for the tourist guides, and create lakhs of employment in India, due to pandemic the tourist visitors has decreased and lakhs of tourists lost their lively income, it became unemployed for many months. So India has to face lot of challenges in the pandemic time and try to increase the tourism income of the nation, sources involves online transactions, social or business and economic transactions in electronic or online mode in the state or country, as it provides benefits for the consumers, producers or citizens by saving time, availability in lower cost and reduces the cost of transportation to purchase any products in the sovereign country like India, like education, hotel services, banking insurance, social services like DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) and commerce sectors. KEY WORDS: Social sectors, use of Digital technology in tourism, Covid-19, E-governance and the Indian Economy.

need for alternative solutions when caring for patients with language barriers

Barriers to quality communication increase the risk for misunderstanding, negatively impact the thoroughness of health investigations, and can lead to delayed diagnoses and increased readmissions. In addition, language barriers disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations; thus, a lack of appropriate interpretation services promotes health disparities and increases the vulnerability of the underserved minority populations. According to the Act Respecting Health Services and Social Services of Quebec, health organizations need to take into account the distinctive linguistic and sociocultural characteristics of each region and, “foster […] access to health services and social services through adapted means of communication for persons with functional limitations”. A language barrier is a form of functional limitation that patients face when accessing healthcare services. Despite a clear policy, the current use of professional interpretation services is limited in our healthcare facilities, thus increasing obstacles in accessing healthcare services for patients with language barriers. It is thought that by identifying how language barriers present in our healthcare system and by highlighting the tools available to mitigate their consequences, healthcare workers, including medical students, may be better placed to serve the non-French and non-English speaking community. A group of medical students from the Universities of Montreal and McGill who are part of MedComm researched the problematic, most specifically in Montreal, in the hopes of emphasizing the need for alternative solutions to the current state of affairs in regard to offering optimal care to patients with language barriers.

Pandemics and Social Work

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 confronted health and also social services globally with unprecedented challenges. These amounted to a combination of increased demands for support to individuals and families whose physical and mental health and economic security were threatened by the rapid spread of the virus and the imposed limitations to direct contacts with service users. This constituted a situation for which there was no immediate historical parallel but from which important lessons for better preparedness for future global disasters and pandemics can be drawn. There existed no specific introductions to or textbooks on social work responses to pandemics and the nearest usable references concerned social work involvement in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and in the aftermath of natural disasters. Frontline social workers were at first forced to improvise ways of establishing and maintaining contacts with service users partly through electronic means and partly by taking personal risks. This is reflected in an initial delay in the production of comprehensive theoretical reflections on the practice implications of the new situation. Practitioners resorted to pragmatism, which became manifest in numerous episodic practice accounts and brief statements in social work journals which nevertheless contain important messages for new practice developments. Notably, the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) opened an online exchange and advice platform for social workers globally and also hosted a series of webinars. Nevertheless, books with collections of contributions from various practice fields and geographical areas soon began to appear. In view of the interdisciplinary nature of social work responses required in the pandemic the use of publications from a wider range of academic disciplines and related professions was indicated for this review.