English West Midlands Research Articles

Representation in the UK MS Register: A Comparison of Nationwide Ethnicity and Register Data

BackgroundThe United Kingdom MS Register (UKMSR) collects longitudinal data on people with Multiple Sclerosis (pwMS) from clinical sources and as Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) via a web portal. People from non-white ethnicities are often poorly represented in research and clinical trials; the UKMSR aims to be representative of people with MS (pwMS) across the UK. AimTo compare ethnic representation in the UKMSR to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). MethodEthnicity data was taken from the UKMSR as a ‘snapshot’ in 2024. Comparative data from ONS in England and Wales was gathered. Due to low numbers in the UKMSR of some ethnicities and areas, participants were grouped into ‘White’ and ‘All Other Ethnicities’. Using Chi-Sq tests, we compared ethnicities across ten regions of ONS 2021 Census data. ResultsTen regions were compared (nine in England, Wales as one). Analysis of both web-reported (n = 18648) and clinical (n = 5456) ethnicity found UKMSR diversity to be significantly lower than national statistics (p < .05), with the exception of the clinical Register in Wales (numbers were insufficient to test) and clinical Register in the English West Midlands. The clinical Register was more representative in 7/10 regions than the web Register. DiscussionThe clinical Register, via NHS hospital sites reaches a more diverse audience than the patient-reported web Register; further work is needed in reaching a broader audience of pwMS, as well as harmonising discrepancies between the clinical and web Register populations.

Perceptions and attitudes of black Sub-Saharan African migrants from war-torn zones towards accessing health services in the English West Midlands region, UK

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of black Sub-Saharan African (BSSA) migrants from war-torn zones in accessing health services in the West Midlands region of the UK. This may help to inform on factors influencing the uptake of health services for new migrant communities. Design/methodology/approach This study explored the experiences of BSSA migrants from war-torn zones in accessing health services in the West Midlands using an explorative qualitative approach. Ten focus groups made up of seven participants each were followed up with three in-depth one-to-one interviews from each focus group using a conversational approach where research participants were encouraged to direct and shape the discussion in accordance with their own experiences, views and particular concerns (Kvale, 1996) as opposed to responding to a pre-determined agenda. Findings Following transcription, coding and analysis of the focus group discussions and follow-up interviews, this study found that perceptions and attitudes of BSSA communities in accessing health services included difficulties in navigating the health system, intrusive and embarrassing questions from clinicians, stigmatisation through offering an HIV test, culturally unfriendly counselling support, unconfidently services and episodes of trauma flashbacks. Originality/value The experiences of BSSA migrants who sought health services in the West Midlands in the UK demonstrated important implications for future practice and informed service delivery. There is a need to consider cultural education for both BSSA migrants and health professionals to enhance understanding and trust between the groups. Basic professional training for health professionals should also encompass the needs of the growing ethnic populations in the UK.

The impact of the pandemic on widening participation students: the teaching professionals’ perspective

A number of studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately adverse effect on the education of those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. However, less is known about the pandemic's impact on the educational ambitions of the same young people and their prospects for progressing to higher-level study. Although those engaged in widening access have continued to provide support to these students, the circumstantial evidence suggests that the lockdowns and school closures associated with the pandemic may have further widened the participation gap between young people from more affluent backgrounds and their less advantaged peers. Now schools have reopened and things have return to normal, there is a need to understand the progression challenges those from widening participation backgrounds face. This study seeks to do this by drawing on the insights of 14 teaching professionals from a selection of schools and colleges in the English West Midlands with catchment areas that draw heavily on disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Conducted in spring 2021, the semistructured interviews with these teachers presented an opportunity to reflect on the impact of more than 12 months of educational disruption and to consider what is now needed to widen university access.

Interpreting the mental health and wellbeing agenda in adult community learning

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to engage critically with debates surrounding the mental health and wellbeing agenda for adult community learning (ACL), with particular consideration of creative arts provision. It draws on a qualitative research project involving five creative arts ACL groups in the English West Midlands and two mental health participatory arts organisations based in London. Of the ACL groups, one was targeted for mental health recovery, two were targeted for wellbeing, and two were mainstream. Fieldwork involved participant observation, interviews and group discussions with attendees, and interviews with volunteers, ACL and art therapy practitioners, ACL project organisers, and managers working in the organisations taking part in the research and other adult learning settings. The article outlines key critical debates. It then interrogates three related themes, drawing on a range of evidence from the study: (1.) the discourse of confidence and self-esteem; (2.) interactions between educational and mental health and wellbeing-related goals and outcomes; and (3) the role of creative arts subjects in the mental health and wellbeing agenda for ACL. Implications for policy and practice are set out in conclusion, including consideration of ACL curricula and pedagogical approaches in the area of mental health and wellbeing.

Palaeoenvironmental history of the Middle Pleistocene deposits at Gilson, Warwickshire, England: part of the High Speed Two railway route alignment

ABSTRACTThe investigation of a hillside at Gilson (Lat. 52.510341, Long. ‐1.718313), southwest of Coleshill, Warwickshire (within the High Speed Two railway ‘Delta Junction’ compound), England, has yielded evidence of sedimentation during a temperate stage. The site's stratigraphy starts with the aggregation of cold‐climate sand and gravels deposited during the Anglian Stage within the proto‐Tame and proto‐Blythe palaeovalleys. A warm‐climate period is recorded by the infill of organic material representing the second half of the Hoxnian interglacial Stage. Picea, Abies and Pinus dominate vegetation within a swamp‐like environment, before a Pinus forest develops in the upper part of the organic sequence. The following cold‐climate period saw incision and aggregation of the surrounding region throughout much of the Wolstonian and Devensian Stages, where much of the overlying silt, sand and gravel were reworked under intense periglacial conditions. Presented here is a geophysical examination of the shallow basin by ground‐penetrating radar undertaken to understand the spatial distribution and stratigraphical history of the basin. The deposits at Gilson provide a valuable stratigraphic marker in the glacial sequence of the English West Midlands and are correlated to similar deposits at neighbouring Quinton and Nechells. At these regional sites organic accumulation occurred for most of the temperate stage, infilling lake basins. These sequences indicate an environment dominated by pollen of Abies, Quercus, Ulmus and Corylus woodland vegetation. These assemblages differ markedly from those typically found in the last interglacial and confirm correlation to the Middle Pleistocene Hoxnian interglacial Stage (c. MIS 11c).

'Its many workers and subscribers feel that their services can still be of benefit': Hospital Leagues of Friends in the English West Midlands, c. 1948-1998.

Leagues of Friends are charities that provide 'personal service to patients' and 'supply hospitals with equipment not likely to come from the budgeting of authorities'. Hundreds continue to exist, and many trace their origins to before the NHS's foundation in 1948. Despite the rich and growing historiographies of voluntarism and the NHS, Leagues have received little attention. This article uses case studies of Leagues in the English West Midlands to show how 'friendship' symbolised the relationship between local NHS institutions and the communities they served. The cases show that voluntarism in British healthcare has not always been based around activism and consumerism, two areas that recent scholarship has rightly highlighted, especially from the 1960s. This allows historians to interrogate the regional and local differences within, ostensibly, a highly centralised national health system.

Further education and mental health during the pandemic: the moral impasse of meritocracy

ABSTRACT Since 2010, government policy in England has positioned further education almost exclusively as employment-orientated training for school leavers whilst also imposing severe budget cuts. During this period, values-based pedagogies that foreground social justice for students, many of whom come from low-income households, have been undermined. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there is evidence that the mental health and well-being of further education students has suffered but little is known about the pandemic’s effects on teachers.This paper presents analysis of primary research data drawn from interviews with a small sample of further education teachers and managers in the English West Midlands about their mental health and well-being during the pandemic. The paper frames the research data by acknowledging that both mental health nursing and further education teaching are currently riven by contradictions with an epistemological basis anchored in meritocratic and neoliberal policy. Using Lefebvrian theory, our analysis suggests that for further education staff, the pandemic has sharpened the tensions experienced in an already precarious professional role. Key findings were that the further education funding regime drove a ‘business as usual’ management attitude during the pandemic, and an intensification of work and the erosion of pedagogical practice negatively affected staff’s mental health.

Exploring the Challenges Faced by Health Care Professionals Working with People Living with Dementia Amid COVID-19 Pandemic in the English West Midlands Region

Exploring the Challenges Faced by Health Care Professionals Working with People Living with Dementia Amid COVID-19 Pandemic in the English West Midlands Region

Timing and dynamics of Late Wolstonian Substage 'Moreton Stadial' (MIS 6) glaciation in the English West Midlands, UK.

Glaciation during the late Middle Pleistocene is widely recognized across continental northwest Europe, but its extent and palaeoenvironmental significance in the British Isles are disputed. Although glaciogenic sediments at Wolston, Warwickshire, in the English West Midlands, have been used to define the stratotype of the Wolstonian Stage, their age has been variably assigned between marine isotope stages (MIS) 12 and 6. Here we present sedimentological and stratigraphical observations from five sites across the English West Midlands whose chronology is constrained by new luminescence ages from glaciofluvial sediments, supplemented by cosmogenic 36Cl exposure dating of erratic boulders. The ages suggest that between 199 ± 5 and 147 ± 2.5 ka the British Ice Sheet advanced into the English West Midlands as far south as Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire. This advance is assigned to the Moreton Stadial of the Late Wolstonian Substage. Dating of the glaciation to this substage allows correlation of the Moreton Stadial glacial deposits in the English West Midlands with those of the Drenthe Stadial during the Late Saalian Substage across continental northwest Europe.

Borderline: Reading Mark 7.24–30 as a white woman

ABSTRACT This article considers how to read the Bible attentive to whiteness, building on the approach proposed in David Holgate and Rachel Starr, SCM Studyguide to Biblical Hermeneutics 2nd edition (2019). Using Mark 7.24–30 as a case study, it asks how white readers might be open to confrontation and transformation in their encounters with the text. It considers how white readers need to both disassociate with the dominant character of Jesus and hear the challenge presented to Jesus by the Syrophoenician woman. It asks how Jesus’ racial slur still whistles through the English West Midlands, a region marked by racism. It engages with Silvia Regina de Lima Silva's reading of the text from her experience as an African Brazilian woman (En territorio de frontera: una lectura de Marcos 7, 24–30, 2001). In dialogue with de Lima Silva, it offers some suggestions for how white readers might read the biblical text in ways that reveal and challenge white supremacy and that contribute to the work of healing and solidarity.

Challenges in combatting female genital mutilation: narratives of black Sub-Saharan African (BSSA) women in the English west Midlands region

Purpose It is believed that more than 120 million women have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) and more than 2 million young girls are at risk of undergoing FGM. FGM is practiced in different parts of the world. With globalisation and the increased movement of people across the globe, FGM is now a global problem. While ending FGM remains a priority, the approaches and strategies being used have generated contested views across the social divide. The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges in combatting FGM as experienced by Black Sub-Saharan African (BSSA) women in Diaspora. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study used a phenomenological approach. Narratives were collected from 40 BSSA women from 20 Sub-Saharan African countries living in the English West Midlands region. A thematic approach underpinned by the four phases of data analysis in the Silences Framework were used to analyse the data. Findings The research study found that stigmatisation of survivors, utilisation of graphic images in FGM awareness, exclusion of practising communities’ gatekeepers in FGM interventions, conflation of religion and FGM practice and obsession with securing a conviction were obstacles in combating FGM. Diaspora community-driven studies exploring FGM and contested notions in addressing it from women perspectives are scarce. Originality/value This study pulls together the experiences of BSSA women and their perspectives on contested notions in combating FGM in the UK. The debate asserts the growing need to consider gender sensitive radical interventions, which involves educating perpetrators and gatekeepers among FGM practising communities.

Exploring the Impact of Animal Involvement in the Learning Experiences of Learners Mainly With Autism in the English West Midlands Region: A Qualitative Study

Learners with autism are affected by different challenges during learning. There is a growing focus on education to facilitate learners to become more self-resilient by involving animals in learning spaces. This qualitative study explored the impact of animal involvement on the learning experiences of learners with autism. Twenty diaries, 32 questionnaires, and 40 guided narratives and pictorial voices were used to collect data. The study found that learners demonstrated improved communication, imagination, empathy, motivation, calculation skills, responsibility, and well-being while interacting with animals. The study concluded that involving animals in the learning spaces has significant positive impact on learners.

Late Middle Pleistocene temperate and associated events in lowland England

This article examines the interpretation and implications of certain conifer-dominated pollen assemblages recorded in lowland England, at sites glaciated during the Middle Pleistocene Wolstonian Stage. Such assemblages indicate the absence of severely cold-climate during a predominantly cold period and the presence of northern temperate boreal-type forest. The unambiguous stratigraphical position of the sequences provides evidence of climatic change during the late Middle Pleistocene.Nine sequences are considered, six in the English West Midlands, and three in eastern England. Evidence for temperate climate, and at some, subsequent cold-climate (periglacial) conditions is present within deposits pre-dating Wolstonian-age glacial deposits. In the Midlands, Wolston Formation glacial sediments overlie deposits of a pre-existing river system, the Baginton Formation. The latter accumulated during the transition from boreal to subarctic conditions. Evidence is based on sequences at Mathon, Waverley Wood, Brandon, Brooksby, Witham-on-the-Hill, High Lodge and Barnham. Since the Wolstonian glaciation occurred during the Late Wolstonian Substage (= Late Saalian, Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 6), the Baginton Formation must span the MIS 7/6 boundary.Reinterpretation of the sequences indicates that the temperate continental climate interval, termed here the Waverley Wood temperate event, potentially represents the latter part of MIS 7 (Substages 7a-c, or 7e). This correlation is supported by comparison with sites on the near Continent. The implications of these conclusions are presented.

Supporting police community support officers to become effective school link officers: key stakeholder perceptions of a pilot professional development programme

This article presents the findings of a pilot professional development programme designed to support police community support officers (PCSOs) to become effective school link officers (SLOs) within urban secondary schools in the English West Midlands. Findings are presented via perceptions of key stakeholders: SLOs themselves; school-based mentors supporting the work of SLOs; and the West Midlands Police officer coordinating aspects of the project. The agreed professional development model comprised a two-day induction programme; school-based mentoring and coaching; and SLOs’ reflections via a small-scale action research project. Findings reveal the complexities of community policing in contemporary urban secondary school contexts and the challenges of enhancing the professional status of the SLO. Although PCSOs have been working as SLOs for several years, preparation for this role has been inadequate and the issue has generally been overlooked in the literature. The pivotal role of effective school-based mentorship, opportunities for reflection and gaining national professional recognition via the action research project emerge as particularly positive features of the professional development model. With the ultimate aim of safeguarding young people, recommendations are also made to further develop the model to enhance SLOs’ professional learning and effectiveness and to maximise inter-professional working.

20 years of local ecological public health: the experience of Sandwell in the English West Midlands

A long-term picture of the economy and living conditions of Sandwell, an area of England's industrial Midlands, is presented to explore how these underpin and influence its ‘health economy’. Sandwell's experience illustrates how public health actors have to tackle industrial and other factors which shape human health. The paper explores how the ecological public health perspective has helped inform the modern public health task in an area such as Sandwell. Some lessons are offered, including: the need to understand the specific economic legacy of a local area (in Sandwell, principally one of polluting and then declining manufacturing industries); the continuing story of infection control; the complexity of tackling poor diet; and the importance of the built environment and town planning. Faced by such challenges, local public health action represents, in effect, an attempt to transcend unecological public health. This can be exciting, innovative and ultimately successful; but it also means being prepared to face daunting and politically charged obstacles and superior national or international forces over which local public health practitioners conventionally have little leverage. The paper argues that, in such unequal power circumstances, public health practitioners have to draw on the creativity within the local population and build a facilitative alliance of formal and informal pro-public health actors. Despite the confounding odds and ever-present stretched resources, the Sandwell experience gives grounds for optimism, being a story of constant creativity and effective local alliances.

Carboniferous araneomorph spiders reinterpreted as long-bodied harvestmen

Archaeometa nephilina Pocock, 1911 from the Late Carboniferous (Bashkirian/Moscovian: Duckmantian, c.315 Ma) Coal Measures of Coseley in the English West Midlands was originally interpreted as an araneomorph spider (Arachnida: Araneae). It is, in fact, a harvestman (Arachnida: Opiliones), albeit one with an unusual, long-bodied morphology. Another Coseley fossil, Arachnometa tuberculata Petrunkevitch, 1949, was also interpreted as an araneomorph spider, but it is not well preserved, and is regarded as Opiliones incertae sedis. Interestingly, the Archaeometa Pocock, 1911 body plan, here also revealed through computed microtomography (µCT), has morphological parallels with some modern laniatorid harvestmen in the family Assammidae. However, the Coal Measures fossils do not preserve unequivocal laniatorid apomorphies, and so are referred to an uncertain position within Phalangida (transferred herein from Araneae). The Archaeometa specimens are further examples of Carboniferous Opiliones, which were originally misidentified, and contribute to a picture of an increasingly diverse Coal Measures harvestman fauna.http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:E7951158-75F3-46AF-87FB-AE10AD50D94E

Transforming old industrial regions: Constructing collaboration within the Black Country, England

During recent decades capitalist forces have altered the geography of economic production and intensified the de-industrialisation of old industrial regions (OIRs). Various regional development prescriptions have followed including place-based concepts centred upon the stronger involvement of local and regional actors. Yet in promoting a shift beyond overly centralist responses, important questions remain about local institutional capacity, especially within OIRs given frequent attention to institutional paralysis and fragmentation. Although more fruitful evolutionary perspectives can be identified, ground level outcomes remain uncertain. This paper focuses on the Black Country OIRs within the English West Midlands where a transformational vision resulted from sub-regional joint working during the 2000s. Whilst acknowledging important external drivers, not least state support for new spaces of governance, a constructivist perspective is presented to more fully understand why a transformative collaborative approach emerged. Particular attention is given to the role of Black Country advocates in creating dilemmas, questioning traditions and challenging existing beliefs. Place-based development approaches therefore do emerge in a latent sense but must be actively constructed. Even then, substantial limitations exist stemming from continuing institutional influences.

Food, gender and Irishness- how Irish women in Coventry make home

This paper focuses on the spaces and social relations of food consumption in order to examine how Irish migrants to Coventry, a city in the English West Midlands, form a sense of identity. On the basis of in depth interviews with first generation migrants, it is argued that food consumption practices are linked to Irish identity in three ways. First, migrants in Coventry were often part of extended family networks that exchanged foods between Britain and Ireland. Second, knowledge about foods and-cooking was gained by many of the interviewees in Ireland, making them familiar and comfortable with specific local foods. Last, and related to this, certain foodstuffs were sought out by interviewees because they were Irish and remembered from 'home'. Specific gender relations pervaded food consumption practices and it was found that women, through their involvement in food purchase and preparation, were key actors in constructing an often ambiguous sense of Irishness in Britain.

Culture clash: mentoring student Literacy educators in a marketised and instrumentalist further education policyscape

At the centre of the study on which this article is based, there is a sense of cultural collision. While from a global perspective, Literacy education has an exciting and radical pedigree, the teaching of Literacy in England has been harnessed to an explicitly instrumentalist policy agenda since the introduction of the Adult Literacy Core Curriculum in 2001. This paper sets out to explore the impact of this policyscape on a specific area: the mentoring of Literacy student teachers. The study draws on a qualitative data set from a series of interviews with Literacy mentors from different FE colleges in the English West Midlands. The study found that Literacy mentors are able to promote the holistic approaches that are fundamental to established Literacy pedagogy but that institutional and cultural factors can militate against this in decisive ways. The paper concludes that whilst Literacy mentors have a significant role to play in the education of new Literacy teachers, the motivations and values associated with Literacy mentoring seem to jar in many cases with the marketised cultures in which they operate.

The career development of recently qualified British South Asian women teachers: “Everybody’s the same. I don’t feel my ethnicity is an issue at all.”

This article reports on the final year of a four year research project into the influences on British South Asian women’s choice of teaching as a career and on their subsequent career development. The research cohort was interviewed during their initial teacher training year on a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education) course in the English West Midlands, followed by subsequent interviews in the first and third years of their careers as teachers. Findings from the first phase of the research – into the reasons for selecting teaching as a career and issues faced during training – were previously published, subsequent findings are captured in this article. Our research suggests that British South Asian women teachers at the start of their careers face, and largely cope with, broadly similar opportunities and challenges to other beginning teachers. Despite some particular tensions created by their work, family and community lives these teachers successfully established themselves as well respected individuals, fully capable of skilfully balancing their professional and personal commitments. Respondents did not report any particularly significant issues relating to their ethnic, cultural or religious affiliations, in contrast to the findings of a number of previous studies.