Models Of Good Practice Research Articles

Citizen Science in Ireland

Ireland has a rich history of public engagement with science and the growing number of national citizen science initiatives is in keeping with developments seen in other European countries. This paper explores several aspects of citizen science in Ireland, in order to assess its development and to better understand potential opportunities for the field. An introduction to the roots of citizen science in Ireland’s past, from the first methodical observations of natural phenomena carried out at monastic settlements up to present day projects monitoring environmental change and biodiversity, is presented along with an overview of the current national citizen science projects running in the country. This cataloging of contemporary citizen science will be compared to the awareness of citizen science in the Irish education system at primary, post-primary, and university level. These measures of progress will be considered in the changing context of international citizen science funding and available support, such as the European Citizen Science Association and the EU-Citizen.Science platform. Citizen science in Ireland is at a critical point. If citizen science is embraced as a truly social and participatory innovation, Ireland has the chance to not only dramatically improve its citizen science output, but to also become a model of best practice for countries at similar stages of citizen science development.

Public health and clinical approach to proactive management of frailty in multidimensional arena.

Demographic changes have forced communities and people themselves to reshape ageing concepts and approaches and try to develop actions towards active and healthy ageing. In this context, the European Commission launched different private-public partnerships to develop new solutions and answers on questions related to this topic. The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, including topic related action groups as well reference sites committed towards a common action to facilitate active and healthy ageing, has contributed key elements for interventions, scaled up best practices and evaluated impact of their action to drive innovation across many regions in Europe over the past years. This paper describes action taken by A3 action group in the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. This paper gives an overview of how the partnership combined the view on frailty coming from public health as well as the clinical management. Within different European regions, to tackle frailty, EIPonAHA partners have conceptualized functional decline and frailty, making use of good practice models working well on community programs. The A3 Group of EIPonAHA has worked alongside a process of innovation, targeting all ageing citizens with the clear goal of involving communities in the preventive approach. Engagement needs of older people with a focus on functionally rather than disease management as primary objective is considered as an overarching concept, also embracing adherence, compliance, empowerment, health literacy, shared decision-making, and activation. Furthermore, training of staff working with ageing people across all sectors needs to be implemented and evaluated in future studies.

Pharmacy Education in Emerging Health Care Systems

Fundamental global shifts in the professional scope of pharmacy practice have altered the pharmacists’ role from “drug-centered” to “patient-centered”. This shift has important implications for how pharmacy education is provided around the world, and has necessitated a significant increase in clinical training (CT). Canada and the United States have both added emphasis on CT in their pharmacy education programs, and their CT models have become a global model of good practice for educating future pharmacists. I want to answer important implementation-related questions: How have new pharmacists’ clinical training policies been implemented in the UAE? What are the major challenges, barriers to effective implementation? I will examine the UAE as a case study of policy borrowing, and will draw on the concept of decoupling, which examines the implementation and gap between policy and practice. I will use a case study approach to understand the power relations between the main actors influencing CT in the UAE.

The Reality of Youth Unemployment and Unsuitable Development Models in the Global South: Evidence from Morocco

This article draws on the existing literature to critically analyse the issue of youth unemployment in Morocco. The author argues that youth unemployment policy has to be understood in the context of neoliberalism and its austerity policies, as youth unemployment can never be overcome while the state keeps decreasing public expenditure and privatising public resources. And more importantly, it is the World Bank and other international development agencies that design and control models of development, establishing rankings, metrics, norms, and best practices of development in Morocco. They look at the Global South through their eyes rather than through local eyes. These models, unsuitable for the realities of the Global South, have always resulted in a distorted development model, due to the failure to take into consideration the conditions of the Global South's societies, cultures, and history.

El uso de las artes para la difusión de la salud, la paz y el bienestar comunitario en la Kenia rural

This article tells the empirical story of women from seven villages of Kwale, the most southeastern county in the Coast Province of Kenya that borders with Tanzania –Lunga Lunga, Godo, Perani, Umoja, Maasailand, Mpakani and Jirani– as they searched for community health, equity, gender equality and peace on their own terms. This article shows that creative health initiatives can be successfully used as mechanisms for peace building. Since 2010, the Nikumbuke-Health by All Means (N-HbAM) projects from the University of Madison-Wisconsin in the United States, have trained 57 health promoters and 32 female actors on disease prevention and health promotion that have outreached approximately 120,000 inhabitants around the county enhancing unity in diversity, and breaking down the walls of ethnic hostilities and prejudice. Because of its low cost and high effectivity, the United Nations awarded N-HbAM2 the 2013 Public Service Award as a model of best practice in gender, community development and sustainable wellbeing

Level I FW in a Simulated Environment: A Blueprint on How to Use Simucase™

Simulation education is a sought-out teaching modality in allied healthcare education to bridge the classroom and the clinic. In addition to developing healthcare student professionals’ skills, attitudes and key competencies, simulation can also be used to address the national fieldwork shortage, as well as site capacity issues related to the current pandemic. Although the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) has recently indicated that simulation is an acceptable method to deliver Level I fieldwork, there are limited resources available. This paper will provide a pedagogical blueprint for incorporating computer-based simulation and case-based learning principles using the Simucase™ platform for a one-week, Level I fieldwork experience. A model of best practice for a Level I fieldwork experience will be shared, to include a framework with learning objectives, example syllabus, student assessment, and debriefing rubric. This model aligns with the Occupational Therapy Education Research Agenda, which challenges the profession to expand faculty development, provide resources on instructional methods and identify signature pedagogies in occupational therapy fieldwork education.

Setting Up a Cognitive Training Service for Egyptian Older Adults.

With greying of nations, dementia becomes a public health priority. The rising dementia prevalence escalates both health care expenses and burden, placing the entire healthcare system and caregivers under huge stress. Cognition-oriented interventions have been shown to enhance the overall cognitive performance among healthy and cognitively impaired older adults. This article is assumed to be a steppingstone for the introduction and establishment of cognition- oriented interventions in Egypt. In addition, it aims to offer provisional guidance for health care providers in Arab speaking countries in a stepwise approach in order to establish cognition-oriented intervention services and help them to evaluate and monitor their efficacy. Aconsortium of Egyptian and Greek specialists developed a protocol for the operations of the Ain Shams Cognitive Training Lab and the provision of cognition-oriented interventions. This protocol is based on a previous successful protocol that has been implemented in Greece for more than 10 years and is co-designed to fit the needs of older adults in Arabic speaking countries. The types of services offered, their objectives, recruitment of participants, delivery of interventions, measurement of outcomes and privacy policy are all outlined in the policy. Establishing the appropriate framework in which cognitive training strategies can be adapted and implemented in Arabic population, constitutes an inevitable achievement in healthy ageing and can be also assumed as a dementia prevention strategy. Moreover, setting up the first cognitive laboratory in Egypt older adults, can be a model of good practice across the Arabic countries.

Digital Transformation and the Legal Profession: How Corporate Legal Departments Should Digitally Transform to Create New Forms of Value

Due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, enhancements in technology, as well as shifts in the macroeconomic and socioeconomic dynamics of globalization, Digital Transformation (DT) has become an enterprise-wide imperative for most multinational companies (MNCs). As such, legal departments are being challenged to embrace enterprise DT and start their own department’s DT journeys. Despite these trends, there is little scholarship and research about how MNC legal departments attempt to meet the DT challenge: What are GCs doing to support enterprise level DT, and how are they digitally transforming their own departments? And importantly, is what they are doing effective and value-accretive? How should they approach their DT journeys?Based on interviews of 23 General Counsels and Chief Digital Officers of S&P 500 MNCs along with the authors’ professional experience, we investigate in-house legal departments’ response and approach to DT and recommend a new model approach. Standard depictions of MNC legal departments suggest that they are viewed as cost centers. And much of the literature focuses on how GCs can add value by improving efficiency and lowering cost. The literature also appears to assume law firms provide more creative, strategic, value-additive advice than in-house legal departments. Contrary to such depictions, we contend that DT can enable legal departments to add value that external providers cannot, and that goes far beyond efficiency generation, cost reduction, and increased speed-to-market. We identify a Legal DT Maturity Framework that maps corporate legal departments’ DT trajectory into three common phases. We argue that the current three-phased approach to DT that many GCs utilize generates some added value but does not enable the full potential of DT to be harnessed. Drawing upon lessons from our interviewees’ experiences and our own, we articulate a best-practices model for how legal departments should approach DT to generate new forms of value and shift from being a cost center to a revenue generator and value creator. Our model demonstrates that the GC, as internal to the MNC, has an advantage (as compared to external providers) in understanding the MNC’s strategic priorities and risk preferences and, therefore, is better at identifying the right and best opportunities to leverage and exploit to the MNC’s advantage.In addition to filling some of the gaps in the literature, this article provides a vision that has broad applicability beyond the MNC legal department context and can be used as a model for law firms and other legal services providers to harness DT in their own contexts, so as to stay at pace with—and better serve—clients with the never-ending DT challenges emerging on their horizons.

THE IMPACT OF ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAINING PROGRAM ON ENTREPRENEURIAL INNOVATIVENESS: A CASE STUDY AMONG START-UP ENTREPRENEURS IN PITCHBORNEO

This study presents an examination of the impact of the Pitchborneo training program as an entrepreneurial program focused on entrepreneurial innovativeness for idea generation, development and presentation (the pitch) among start-up entrepreneurs in Sabah, Malaysia. Pitchborneo is a unique entrepreneurial training program which is also a disbursement vehicle of government grant worth RM200,000 annually since 2011. In this study, the objectives are: (i) to determine the level of effectiveness of the Pitchborneo training program based on content, delivery, mentoring and coaching, and training needs fulfilment; (ii) to determine the level of entrepreneurial innovativeness in terms of idea generation, development and presentation; (iii) to compare entrepreneurial innovativeness of the start-up entrepreneurs based on their demographics (age, gender, highest academic qualification, length of business experience); and (iv) to determine the impact of the Pitchborneo training program on the entrepreneurial innovativeness of the start-up entrepreneurs. This descriptive and quantitative study used online survey to gather information from 200 respondents who were randomly selected from past participants of Pitchborneo program. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses using IBM SPSS 23.0 determines the level of training effectiveness and innovativeness in idea generation, development and presentation, as well as to test the research hypotheses. Findings showed that respondents perceived highly of the Pitchborneo training program in terms of content, delivery, coaching and mentoring, and fulfilment of training needs. It was also found that entrepreneurial innovativeness was high and not differentiated by demographics. The Pitchborneo training program impacted significantly on entrepreneurial innovativeness. For future research, it is recommended to focus on pitching competencies among the entrepreneurs. This study concludes the effectiveness of Pitchborneo and its potential as a model of best practice and benchmarking to other organizations offering entrepreneurship education.

Applying Risk-Sharing to Mitigate Economic Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a severe socio-economic impact with significant losses of GDP and high unemployment rates. As a result, governments worldwide are attempting to mitigate these impacts through government intervention. One major method of alleviating the socio-economic impact has been to reschedule or defer loan and mortgage payments to ease the burden off borrowers and mitigate a massive wave of defaults. In other words, the governments are attempting to impose a degree of risk-sharing in the economy.This paper debates the advantages of risk-sharing practices in the financial system in times of economic crisis, and argue that this should instead become the norm in the financial system and not only in times of economic downturns or pandemics. This paper further highlights that, although the principle of risk-sharing is enshrined in Islamic finance, many Islamic loans and mortgages do not reflect risk-sharing in practice. Instead, only a few genuine examples exist that actually do apply risk-sharing. These examples should be taken as best-practice models substituting the pervasive risk-transfer model that in times of crisis burdens the borrower in specific, andthe entire society through government interference in general.

Applying Risk-Sharing to Mitigate Economic Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract—The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a severe socio-economic impact with significant losses of GDP and high unemployment rates. As a result, governments worldwide are attempting to mitigate these impacts through government intervention. One major method of alleviating the socio-economic impact has been to reschedule or defer loan and mortgage payments to ease the burden off borrowers and mitigate a massive wave of defaults. In other words, the governments are attempting to impose a degree of risk-sharing in the economy. This paper debates the advantages of risk-sharing practices in the financial system in times of economic crisis, and argue that this should instead become the norm in the financial system and not only in times of economic downturns or pandemics. This paper further highlights that, although the principle of risk-sharing is enshrined in Islamic finance, many Islamic loans and mortgages do not reflect risk-sharing in practice. Instead, only a few genuine examples exist that actually do apply risk-sharing. These examples should be taken as best-practice models substituting the pervasive risk-transfer model that in times of crisis burdens the borrower in specific, and the entire society through government interference in general.

Context matters: Problematizing the policy‐practice interface in the enactment of gender equality action plans in universities

AbstractThis study argues for recognition of the constitutive role of context in shaping the dynamics of the policy‐practice interface in the field of gender equality in universities. Using a comparative and reflective case‐study approach, we draw on our experiences, as action‐researchers, of developing and implementing Gender Equality Action Plans (GEAPs) in four universities in four different European countries and we explore the role of national and local context in the mediation and translation of the GEAP model. Drawing on the concepts of gendered organizations, dialogic organizational change, and policy mobilities, we argue for the need to be critical of approaches to gender equality in higher education (HE) that presume policy measures and good practice models transfer unproblematically to different HE organizations in different international contexts; instead, we draw attention to the contingent ways in which uneven gender relations articulate and manifest in different contexts, shaping possibilities for, and obstacles to, gender equality intervention. Thus, we argue that context plays a crucial constitutive role in the interpretation, enactment, and impact of gender equality policy in HE.

Models of Palliative Care Delivery for Individuals with Cystic Fibrosis: Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Evidence-Informed Consensus Guidelines.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) affects more than 70,000 individuals and their families worldwide. Although outcomes for individuals with CF continue to improve, it remains a life-limiting condition with no cure. Individuals with CF manage extensive symptom and treatment burdens and face complex medical decisions throughout the illness course. Although palliative care has been shown to reduce suffering by alleviating illness-related burdens for people with serious illness and their families, little is known regarding the components and structure of various delivery models of palliative care needed to improve outcomes for people affected by CF. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) assembled an expert panel of clinicians, researchers, individuals with CF, and family caregivers, to develop consensus recommendations for models of best practices for palliative care in CF. Eleven statements were developed based on a systematic literature review and expert opinion, and address primary palliative care, specialty palliative care, and screening for palliative needs. These recommendations are intended to comprehensively address palliative care needs and improve quality of life for individuals with CF at all stages of illness and development, and their caregivers.

The school psychology in Germany, an european model of best practices

The school psychology in Germany, an european model of best practices

Factors that contribute to corporate volunteering: Articulating theory with the practice of companies

Corporate Volunteering (CV) has grown in recent years, looming largely on the agenda of many companies and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) both internationally and in Uruguay. The objective of this article is to identify the organizational factors that contribute to the management and development of CV and to analyze the articulation between, on the one hand, the theory underpinning the guides published by organizations that promote CV, and on the other, the practices of Uruguayan companies, in order to determine the relevance of the latter as inspiring models of good practice for other companies. To this end, on the one hand, an exhaustive review of CV and CSR guides from Europe and America was carried out, and then a sample of ten guides was selected for thus study; and on the other, a comparative analysis was carried out of four case studies of Uruguay-based companies: Pronto!, Carle & Andrioli, Telefónica, and Sabre. The methodological design entailed a mixed approach for the analysis of the companies and exploration of secondary information sources, with documentary analysis for the CV guides dimension. Among the main organizational factors identified are: the development of strategic CV, the support of leadership and management, CV integrating and promoting the organizational culture of the company, the promotion of volunteer participation, adequate implementation of internal and external communication, inclusion of other stakeholders, and synergy between CV and CSR.

Police forces as learning organisations: learning through apprenticeships

PurposeThe challenge for policing in England and Wales is to evolve how it recruits and educates a workforce able to cope with the demands of contemporary policing. This paper will examine how forces, who aspire to become learning organisations, have embraced the transition from police training to higher and degree apprenticeships and work-integrated learning. This paper will also benefit practitioners, leaders, provider staff, police staff, policy makers, all who have an interest in police education and the transitions currently being implemented. It also seeks to contribute to the conversation about the transition of policing to a graduate profession and looks to add value, to inform practice, raise standards and enhance policing practice in general.Design/methodology/approachCase study and draws on the experience of the collaboration of four universities to develop a national offer to meet the requirements of the Police Education Qualification Framework (PEQF) and how this has been further co-created in partnership with three forces. The data are drawn from first-hand experience of working with university and force colleagues over 18 months, including meeting records, documentation that has been produced and scrutinised by the College of Policing and the four universities through shared, multi-university and force quality assurance and validation processes. This data have been considered against the conceptual framework developed by Senge and others to support an analysis of how the collaborative development activity undertaken has contributed to police forces moving towards becoming learning organisations.FindingsThe findings from the analysis of the forces' engagement with the process of change show that the collaborative development work undertaken is ongoing and does indeed contribute to forces becoming learning organisations. The forces do see the associated benefits, and this may in turn lead to better-trained police officers and more effective force organisations. In addition, the model of collaboration and co-creation that has been adopted can provide a model of good practice for other forces and other universities to follow and from which to learn.Social implicationsAn aim of this paper is to encourage the development of police forces for become learning organisations. The implied benefits of this are various but primarily the greatest benefit is aimed at wider society. A more educated, informed and professionally competent police officer, who in turn is part of a learning organisation, will only serve to improve operational policing, community justice and community cohesion.Originality/valueThis paper examines a transition in policing which presents only once in a lifetime. The transition to a degree entry profession is critical to the evolution of policing in England and Wales. The work of the Police Education Consortium (PEC) and the three forces is a new initiative and covers ground not explored previously. This paper offers a conceptual frame to examine these lessons learned from the development of this initiative and partnership, with a view to share that learning across higher education, policing, criminal justice and those involved in degree level apprenticeships. It promotes the view that work-integrated learning, the workplace and higher education can coexist comfortably and engender the development of police forces as learning organisations.

Strengthening the clinical laboratory workforce in Cambodia: a case study of a mixed-method in-service training program to improve laboratory quality management system oversight

BackgroundLaboratory diagnostic testing service delivery and compliance with international standards for laboratory quality are directly influenced by laboratory workforce competency. Many hospital laboratories in constrained resource settings such as Cambodia struggle to cope with the training needs of laboratory professionals in an environment of competing healthcare development priorities. Resource-limited countries need an adaptable and effective approach to provide laboratory professionals with job-specific quality oversight training to ensure the accuracy, timeliness, and reliability of diagnostic services.Case presentationHere, we describe the results of an in-service training and mentoring program conducted with the Cambodia Ministry of Health at 12 tertiary-level hospital laboratories to drive improvements in laboratory quality management systems toward ISO 15189 accreditation, which demonstrated significant progress between baseline and outcome audits in a concurrent study. This case study describes the program, and evaluates how the four primary activities, including actionable gap assessments and planning, centralized and in situ training curriculum, in-person mentoring, and remote tele-mentoring via video communication technologies, contributed towards quality improvement in the participating laboratories. We evaluated participant responses to Likert scale and free response questions from program and training evaluation surveys, and we used thematic analysis to develop a model of best practices within the program’s four primary activities to inform future training approaches. Of these activities, participants agreed most highly that in-person visits and planning based on gap assessments contributed to their learning and ability to improve laboratory operations. Tele-mentoring was rated lowest by participants, who were critical of excessive group dialogue and distraction during web-conferencing; however, feedback suggests both in-person and remote mentoring contribute to continuing education, accountability to action, and peer collaboration and problem solving to improve workforce efforts toward improved quality management systems.ConclusionsWe recommend here a package of in-service training activities for laboratory quality management system improvement initiatives in resource constrained settings that includes needs-based curricula and personalized action plans for participants; interactive and on-site training workshops; and in-person mentoring, complemented with well managed and regular tele-mentoring that focuses on knowledge retention, accountability to goals, and collaborative problem solving. Our model presents an adaptable approach to human resource development for quality improvement in medical laboratories.

A 24-hour online youth emotional support: Opportunities and challenges

A 24-hour online youth emotional support: Opportunities and challenges

Efectele jocului educațional asupra dezvoltării cognitive și non-cognitive la elevii cu nevoi speciale din școlile incluziv

The aim of this study, “The effects of the game on the cognitive and non-cognitive development in students with special educational needs in inclusive schools” is to present a model of good practice that will favour the inclusion of the students with special educational needs. Starting from this aim, the following assumptions are formulated: 1) The students with special educational needs in inclusive classes who will participate in the training through games will achieve significantly better results in the recovery process than those who will not participate in the training through game, 2) The students with special educational needs in inclusive classes who will participate in the computer-based training will have significantly better results in the recovery process compared to the students who will participate in the training through classic game. The non-parametric test "Mann-Whitney" for independent samples shows that there are statistically significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in the post-test phase (p <.05) for most development areas tested: communication and vocabulary, reading, writing, grammar, spatial orientation, temporal orientation, cognitive behaviour, image memory, pre-numbering, addition, subtraction, behaviour. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups (p>.05) in the following areas of development: motor development, body schema, graphics rendering, color, shape, numerical memory, numbering. The non-parametric test for Mann-Whitney independent samples shows that there are no significant differences between the classic game and computer games (p>.05), both of them bringing benefits in the recovery process of the students with special educational needs. An explanation might be the permanent presence of the computer in children's lives, which makes them lose interest in this method.

“That is Care That you Just can't fake!”: Identifying Best Practices for the Care of Vietnam Veterans at End of Life

ContextWe reviewed the Veterans Health Administration Bereaved Family Survey's open-ended responses to understand end-of-life (EOL) care best practices for Vietnam and pre-Vietnam Veterans. ObjectivesTo identify 1) recommendations for improved EOL care enhancements for older Veterans, 2) a model of best practices in EOL care for Veterans, and 3) any relevant differences in best practices between Vietnam and prior war eras. MethodsWe examined five years of Bereaved Family Survey data (n = 2784), collected between 2013 and 2017, from bereaved family members of Veterans focusing on 2 open-ended questions: 1) Is there anything else you would like to share about the Veteran's care during his last month of life? 2) Is there anything else you would like to share about how the care could have been improved for the Veteran? Applied thematic analysis identified successes and challenges in the experience of the bereaved of Vietnam and pre-Vietnam era Veterans. ResultsRegardless of war era and death venue, a patient-centered approach to EOL care with readily available staff who could 1) provide ongoing support, comfort, honor, and validation; 2) routinely adjust to the patient's changing needs; 3) and provide clear, honest, timely, compassionate communication was important to the bereaved. Consideration of the uniqueness of Vietnam Veterans is beneficial. ConclusionsPatient-centered EOL care should include assigning a point of contact that follows the patient, educates the family on expectations, ensures the patient's changing needs are met, ensures the family has appropriate support, and communicates updates to the family throughout the patient's care continuum.