A Scoping Review of the Maternal Role at Older Age; Perceptions and Occupations

Motherhood is a meaningful life role among adult women. Occupations within the maternal role of younger mothers have been well documented, but less is known regarding the maternal-role at older age. This review aimed to describe the occupations, activities, and perceptions that older women ascribe to their maternal role. In the future, this information may promote health and wellbeing of older women. A systematic search of peer reviewed articles, that included healthy, community-dwelling mothers, 60 years of age or older, was conducted. Maternal-role occupations and perceptions of older mothers were identified and classified according to the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework (OTPF). Fourteen articles, representing 3102 older mothers, were included. The identified occupations and activities within the maternal role were from two categories: Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) (such as assistance with daily chores) and social participation (such as sharing holiday rituals). Three themes reflecting maternal-role perceptions were identified: providing support; relationship with children; and motherhood as a never-ending role. Maternal occupations were identified in only a few articles and from only two categories, IADL and social participation. These findings together with the perception that motherhood is a ‘never-ending’ role suggests that further research is needed to better characterize the maternal role of older women from an occupational perspective.

A Review on Transition from Face-to-Face to Online Learning During COVID-19 Pandemic

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, Online-learning has become a necessary feature in all educational establishments such as schools, colleges and universities. The educations sector in India is deeply affected by this. To fight back the disruption and damage, educational institutes across the country embraced the digital mode of education as a solution to fill the void left by classroom teaching. Online education is conducted in two ways. The first is through the use of recorded classes, which, when opened out to public, are referred to as Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs). The second one is via live online classes conducted as webinars, or zoom sessions. This review has identified five important strategies that could be incorporated into a best practice framework for online education.1) As e-learning becomes the "new normal", the authorities have been taking steps to make digitisation of education accessible and affordable for all. 2) Training in educational technologies and their effective use should be available to faculty and students who need it.3)The Indian education system has to transit to online learning without creating a digital divide, the Centre and state governments must raise the spending on education.

Contributing to indigenous social work practice in Africa: A look at the cultural conceptualisations of social problems in Ghana

This paper aims to contribute to the indigenisation discourse by illustrating how dominant discourses and cultural practices explain and perpetuate social problems. We argue that focussing on the fundamental issue of a cultural conceptualisation of social problems will contribute positively to the development of the indigenous social work practice framework. As social work education forms an important foundation for how future social work practices will be performed, we interviewed 15 social work practicum students in Ghana about the cultural underpinnings of social problems. Themes developed from the interview data suggest that culture plays a key role in conceptualising social problems in Ghana. Although not often, culture tends to underpin and perpetuate social problems, such as streetism, child marriage and child neglect. Social work practice within the indigenous framework should aim at addressing the negative impacts of the cultural undertones of social problems. Social work practitioners should increase advocacy and knowledge sharing on the cultural explanations of social problems and collaborate with community leaders to change cultural values and norms that have negative ripple effects on children, young people and women.

Standards of Practice for Occupational Therapy

This document defines minimum standards for the practice of occupational therapy. According to the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process (4th ed.; OTPF–4), occupational therapy is defined as the therapeutic use of everyday life occupations with persons, groups, or populations (i.e., the client) for the purpose of enhancing or enabling participation. . . . Occupational therapy services are provided for habilitation, rehabilitation, and promotion of health and wellness for clients with disability- and non–disability-related needs. These services include acquisition and preservation of occupational identity for clients who have or are at risk for developing an illness, injury, disease, disorder, condition, impairment, disability, activity limitation, or participation restriction. (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2020c, p. 1)

Examining the Theoretical Relationship between Constructs in the Person-Centred Practice Framework: A Structural Equation Model

Research relating to person-centred practice continues to expand and currently there is a dearth of statistical evidence that tests the validity of an accepted model for person-centred practice. The Person-centred Practice Framework is a midrange theory that is used globally, across a range of diverse settings. The aim of this study was to statistically examine the relationships within the Person-centred Practice Framework. A cross sectional survey design using a standardized tool was used to assess a purposive sample (n = 1283, 31.8%) of multi-disciplinary health professionals across Ireland. Survey construct scores were included in a structural model to examine the theoretical model of person-centred practice. The results were drawn from a multi-disciplinary sample, and represented a broad range of clinical settings. The model explains 60.5% of the total variance. Factor loadings on the second order latent construct, along with fit statistics, confirm the acceptability of the measurement model. Statistically significant factor loadings were also acceptable. A positive, statistically significant relationship was observed between components of the Person-centred Practice Framework confirming it’s theoretical propositions. The study provides statistical evidence to support the Person-centred Practice Framework, with a multidisciplinary sample. The findings help confirm the effectiveness of the Person-Centred Practice Index for-Staff as an instrument that is theoretically aligned to an internationally recognised model for person-centred practice.

Academic Integrity and Audiobooks

Audiobooks offer increased accessibility and new ways of engaging with scholarly texts. Although the development of academic audiobooks is in a relatively early stage, one significant issue that is yet to receive appropriate attention is the presentation of referenced materials in audio form. Presently, this is approached on a case-by-case basis with no centralized industry standards, and so protocols are either set by individual publishers or negotiated between rights-holders and narrators. Narrators usually adopt one of four options for dealing with notes or other referencing tools: complete omission; addition of audio effects to differentiate the reading of references from the primary narrative; reading the reference notes at the end of a chapter or the book; or including with the audiobook files an optional PDF download with reference details. These options give consideration to aesthetic issues, but it is uncertain whether they do justice to questions of academic integrity. The purpose of this article is to encourage scholarly dialogue and a conversation between the audio publishing industry and academia on this issue, and to begin working towards a ‘best practice’ framework that satisfies questions of both aesthetic experience and academic integrity.

Older People’s Perceptions of what is Needed to Experience Dignity and Well-being at Residential Care Facilities

Dignity and well-being are central values in care of older people living in residential care facilities. In addition, care of older people living in residential care facilities should be person-centred. Dignity and well-being can according to the person-centred practice framework be interpreted as person-centred outcomes. Despite this older people living in residential care facilities have described that they not fully experience dignity and well-being and improvements are needed. To improve care it is important to know what to target. The aim of this qualitative study was therefore to describe residents’ perceptions and experiences of what is needed to live with dignity and a sense of well-being. Interviews were carried out with older people living at residential care facilities (n=20). Inductive content analysis was used to analyse data and one overarching theme and three categories emerged. The result revealed the importance of, and that staff and the care environment supported, to manage daily life by oneself, to be shown respect and to belong to a social context. For older people to experience the person-centred outcomes dignity and well-being managers at residential care facilities need to develop and support the staff prerequisites related to knowledge, skills and attitudes and to improve the care environment. According to the person-centred practice framework, the staff prerequisites and the care environment must be taken into account to achieve the person-centred outcomes dignity and well-being.

Investigating the Teaching Practice Framework in the Departments of Primary Education in Greece: A Sociological Approach

The aim of this research is to analyze and compare the Teaching Practice (TP) in the Departments of Primary Education (DPE) in Greece, in terms of objectives, structure and evaluation. The data for this research was drawn from the Study Guides of nine Departments that we examined in Greece, and they were analyzed using the technique of document analysis. The analysis utilized B. Bernstein’s theoretical framework. The analysis of the data revealed that the TP framework is differentiated across the Departments in terms of time demarcation and student evaluation. These differentiations illustrate the differences in the Departments’ philosophy and organization. Nevertheless, the chief aim of all the Departments is to familiarize future teachers with their duties and responsibilities, an aim which is achieved through the gradual introduction of the trainees into the school field.

Community events and the adoption of social media

<p>The technological capabilities and popularity of social media applications such Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are rapidly increasing with technological advances. More individuals are using these applications to communicate with friends and family, share photos, and to post reviews of products and services. Social media use is also important within business environments to enhance marketing and communication processes. Organisations need to adopt these applications to remain relevant within the rapidly growing social media landscape. Despite their importance for local populations, community events in general, and their use of social media, have received little academic attention. Community events play a key role towards fostering local identity and culture, supporting the local well-being and the economy, and promoting social interactions. Through adopting social media, community events can reach a wider audience to increase event attendance, communicate with event organizers and volunteers, and conduct research to better understand their event attendees. This thesis applies the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) adoption theories of Rogers’ (1995) Adoption and Diffusion of Innovation Theory, and Davis’ (1986) Technology Acceptance Model to the context of community events to understand social media use. Community events exhibit characteristics that differentiate their managerial and organisational processes from many businesses where ICT adoption theories have been applied. Two research objectives are explored: 1) Assessing the level of ‘best practice’ use of social media by community event organisers, 2) Determining the influence of the ICT adoption variables on social media use by community events. Through exploratory interviews with event experts, a definition of ‘community events’ was established, and additional factors that may influence community events use of social media were identified. Data to address the research objectives was collected from two sources. First, 114 community event organisers within New Zealand completed an online-survey to understand ICT adoption characteristics that support their social media use. Second, a social media best practice framework was developed to validate social application use rather than relying on organisers ‘self-appraisal’ of use. Using the framework, a systematic analysis of the events’ Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages was conducted. The ICT adoption characteristics by respondents were correlated with their social media best practice results through linear regression. A positive relationship was shown between adoption variables and social media use. The findings aligned with existing ICT adoption research. The results showed events that exhibit the ICT adoption variables more positively presented a higher best practice score of social media. However, despite the positive relationship exhibited, community event respondents, overall, had only low to satisfactory use of social media. The best practice social media use was influenced by the difference between community events and competitive businesses. For example, community events often have limited resources due to their reliance on donations, grants and volunteer support. Structured business processes and strategy are not formalised due to their non-profitable or non-competitive motives. In addition, the timing of community event delivery affect staff availability and task completion. This influenced challenges towards successfully adopting and using social media to support community events. This thesis identifies the importance of validating applications use when applying ICT adoption theories to research. The social media best practice framework developed provides preliminary measures to understand social media usage which could be applied to different business environments. Further understanding of community event’s resource availability, staffing and recruitment processes and timing will enable a greater understanding of factors that can influence adoption of systems in less traditional contexts. Findings and recommendations provided within this thesis will support community events use of social media. This ensures community events are relevant and obtain the benefits of being present within the growing social media environment.</p>

Book Review: Fundamentals of Person-Centred Healthcare Practice

When the right team comes together, the results are magical! This is exactly what happened when the authors of Fundamentals of Person-Centred Healthcare Practice united to write this book. Each contributing author interposes theoretical and practice expertise, all adding to the value and wisdom this work has to offer. The book sets out to guide us towards a shared understanding and a common language for person-centredness. The lens of the Person-centred Practice Framework offers an insight into its application in a number of areas of health and social care practice, while reminding us that all persons are ever changing. We are invited to remain open to change and to challenge ourselves and our beliefs as we embark on a journey into person-centred healthcare practice. As that journey begins, we are directed to explore various concepts, from what it means to be a person to the values of person-centredness, knowing self and flourishing as humans. Being person-centred requires a commitment to communicating clearly, navigating systems, appreciating contexts and engaging while being sympathetically present. The delineation of concepts in this book prepares us to explore chapters covering person-centredness in settings such as rehabilitation, long-term care, mental health and maternity services. The book is a call to action guided by approaches to learning and development that include active and reflective learning and critical thinking, alongside the strategies needed to create person-centred learning cultures.