Liaison Work Research Articles

Schools Forum at Convention Draws 400

Schools Forum at Convention Draws 400

Collection development for new librarians

There are many challenges facing new librarians in the academic environment, including collection development. This article analyzes the topic of collection development and how it relates to new professionals in the field of librarianship. The article contains a literature review of papers discussing the collection development curriculum in library and information science programs, expected skills required of collection development offices, and library training programs for new librarians. The article also provides practical advise by recent graduates and their collection development experiences. Topics of discussion include acclimation to a new environment, collection development policies and procedures, liaison work, resource selection, and time management.

Collection development for new librarians: Advice from the trenches

There are many challenges facing new librarians in the academic environment, including collection development. This article analyzes the topic of collection development and how it relates to new professionals in the field of librarianship. The article contains a literature review of papers discussing the collection development curriculum in library and information science programs, expected skills required of collection development offices, and library training programs for new librarians. The article also provides practical advise by recent graduates and their collection development experiences. Topics of discussion include acclimation to a new environment, collection development policies and procedures, liaison work, resource selection, and time management.

Have We Underestimated the Effects of Sodium Excess on the Health of the Public?

Americans consume a diet with a salt content up to 10 times that recommended for optimal health. This excess intake results in high rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart failure, and kidney disease that do not occur in cultures with lower sodium intakes. Although the effects of excess sodium on population health have been demonstrated across study designs, proposals to reduce sodium content in commercially available foods continue to be met with opposition despite findings that reducing the content of salt in many foods does not reduce palatability. Development of a public health policy is supported by recommendations for dietary sodium reduction from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization. Nursing will play an essential role in this policy initiative by using strategies at the public health level including surveillance, educational programs, liaison work with the food industry, and evaluation of programs and outcomes.

DC: 0–3 in pediatric liaison work with early eating behavior disorders

AbstractThis article highlights the use of the DC: 0–3 (Diagnostic Classification, Zero‐to‐Three, 1994) with respect to the special conditions of a hospital pediatric liaison service. The DC: 0–3 system itself has had a positive influence on the structure and quality of diagnostic assessment and the setup of treatment plans in this setting. We describe our experiences with DC: 0–3 in a special group of referred infants with severe eating behavior problems that involved approximately 80% of all liaison referrals and 60% of all outpatient referrals to our pediatric hospital. Most referrals involved requests for weaning infants from long term nasogastric‐(NG) and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy‐(PEG) tubes. Four clinical vignettes demonstrate the practical use of DC: 0–3 and its multiple axes in clinical situations. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.

Drug misuse by patients in an inner-city hospital.

To identify the prevalence of drug misuse (illicit, over-the-counter and prescribed) by patients at Bristol Royal Infirmary, an inner-city teaching hospital, and the problems encountered by ward staff in the management of these patients. A prevalence survey was conducted in the A&E department of the hospital using an adapted version of the two-item conjoint screening test (TICS), a validated screening tool devised by Brown et al (1997). A qualitative survey of ward managers was used to identify the problems presented by drug misusers on the ward, and to gather suggestions for the role of a specialist substance misuse liaison worker. An 11 per cent prevalence of drug misuse was found among 64 patients attending the A&E department. In the survey of 18 ward managers, ten (55.5 per cent) wards admitted a minimum of one drug misuser each week and 15 wards (83 per cent) described negative behaviours among this patient group which had an effect on the management of the ward. Consideration should be given to routine screening for the presence of drug misuse among patients. Introduction of a specialist drug misuse liaison worker and guidelines for the management of this patient group would help to reduce the significant problems experienced by staff.

A review of research on the structure, process and outcome of liaison mental health services.

Liaison mental health services (LMHS) developed originally to address the mental health needs of people with physical illnesses in general hospitals and more recently to work also with people with mental health problems presenting at non-mental health services. The purpose of the present paper was to review empirical research on the structure, process and outcome of liaison mental health services using systematic review methods. Following a comprehensive search strategy, the authors reviewed 48 papers published between 1975 and 2001. There is an extensive international literature on LMHS, much of which describes the structure and process of liaison work. Studies evaluating the outcomes of liaison mental health services are fewer, and handicapped by methodological flaws, some of which are serious enough to cast doubts on the reported results. Professionals and clients value LMHS. LMHS based in accident and emergency (A & E) departments appear to ease the burden of general A & E staff, help clients access mental health services and reduce re-admission rates of people with mental health problems. There is little evidence supporting one model of configuring LMHS over another.

A Social Skills Group for Children: The Importance of Liaison Work with Parents and Teachers

A Social Skills Group for Children: The Importance of Liaison Work with Parents and Teachers

A social skills group for children: the importance of liaison work with parents and teachers

An NHS Trust set up groups to teach social skills to children and adolescents using a cognitive behavioural framework. One group of seven children (five boys and two girls) is described. Parents were invited to a parallel parents' group. Each group lasted for 90 minutes and ran weekly for 6 weeks. Extensive liaison with parents and teachers took place before, during and after the group. Analysis of pre- and post-group questionnaires sent to parents and teachers indicated improved social functioning, outside the group, for most of the children. Parents valued the dialogue with professionals and often felt supported by them for the first time. Therapists' contact with teachers ensured full knowledge of children's behaviour and the transfer of skills to schools. Cognitive behavioural techniques with children under-going group work require intensive liaison to facilitate generalization of skills learnt.

Consultation–liaison work in paediatric care

Consultation–liaison (C–L) work in paediatric care has hitherto been a neglected area, both scientifically and empirically. This symposium is centred on the question: “What does child and adolescent psychiatry have to offer paediatrics?”. Obstacles to good C–L may be linguistic confusion, theoretical shortcomings and different basic assumptions on the interaction between mind and body. A holistic view of illness with a psychosomatic continuum is advocated. Prerequisites necessary for conducting successful C–L is outlined. This includes sufficient resources, mutual respect and understanding, and a collaborative mode of organizing C–L work.

Community mental health care: Documenting the role of the nurse

In Australia, the process of deinstitutionalisation has resulted in the closure or downsizing of many large stand-alone psychiatric hospitals. The aim of modern community mental health care is to provide treatment and rehabilitation for people, who have a mental illness, in their local community. This aim is supported by the Australian National Mental Health Strategy that outlines the importance of health professionals, carers, and consumers working together to obtain the best therapeutic outcomes.This study was undertaken to obtain information regarding the current role of the community mental health nurse (CMHN). All community mental health nurses working in the Adult Program at the Directorate of Mental Health Services, Fremantle Hospital and Health Service in Western Australia participated in the study. The study was completed in November 2000. The results showed that the CMHNs’ role focused on six main areas. These areas included the day-to-day management of clients, working with carers and their families; crisis work for both existing and first time contacts; as well as liaison and advocacy work.The finding of this study demonstrate CMHN’s work most often with acutely ill and psychotic patients and their families. Therefore, CMHN’s play a pivotal role in promoting and sustaining the philosophy of community mental health care. In addition, the liaison work within the community completed by CMHN’s is vital to address the mental health needs of the community and to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness. The documented findings of this study provide challenges for the further expansion of the CMHN’s role and the development of best practice initiatives in community mental health care.

A Subject-Oriented Approach to Gifts Management and Donor Relations

ABSTRACT Gift books can be an important part of collection development. They can replace or add relatively rare or out-of-print titles, fill in missing volumes of a serial, and augment stagnant or reduced budgets. The important issue is to try to receive titles that are needed or that are relevant to the library users, which can be much more difficult than traditional acquisition methods. The increased duties of the reference librarians at Texas A&M University, including liaison work and collection development, have opened a door for donations still wider: the academic faculty and departments. This paper provides an overview of recent trends in gifts via a review of citations, then describes how departmental restructuring and a new building at Texas A&M influenced the Gifts Unit, the new role the subject-specialist reference librarians have within this unit, and the benefits of the librarians' new liaison/collection development duties. Finally, general guidelines for processing gifts of serials and monographs are developed to assist those new to this role.

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy in paediatric liaison: a diagnostic and therapeutic tool

Paediatric liaison work requires an appreciation of the interweaving of the different factors involved when a child has physical symptoms. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is usually viewed simply as a potential treatment option. This paper argues that its use is both therapeutic and diagnostic and that it should be valued for this breadth of contribution. The therapeutic process is conducted in a way that can promote an understanding of the child and their context and thus enhance the ability 9 to meet the child's needs by all involved in their care. This can be achieved without sacrificing the degree of privacy that the psychotherapist/patient relationship requires. Material is presented from the psychotherapy of a child who had an hereditary condition which moved unexpectedly into a terminal 2 phase after psychotherapy was started. Examples are given to illustrate the importance of the understanding gained from therapy and how, through an integrative process, it was used to assist the overall 4 care. The material also describes the potential diagnostic use of information from psychotherapy when this is formulated by consideration of conscious and unconscious mechanisms alongside mental state phenomenology. This has implications for the relationships between disciplines and for their training requirements.

Effective palliative care for minority ethnic groups: the role of a liaison worker.

As the issue of equality of access to health-care services becomes more important, there is increasing concern that specialist palliative care services in the UK are under-used by minority ethnic groups (Haroon-Iqbal et al, 1995; Karim et al, 2000). Research into the provision of such services for black and minority ethnic communities identified a number of factors that contribute to a perceived low take-up of services (Hill and Penso, 1995). A strategy to promote ethnic and racial sensitivity in palliative care service delivery, and policies to improve access to, and take-up of, services was recommended. This article presents the important elements relating to equal access to specialist palliative care and the provision of culturally sensitive services, and examines the role of the Macmillan Ethnic Minorities Liaison Officer in the Bradford community palliative care team.

Developing a child and adolescent mental health service for children with learning disabilities

Aims and MethodWe discuss the development of a service for children with learning disabilities within a child and adolescent mental health team using the Health Advisory Service Together We Stand tier system. The paper also includes an audit of the service 8 months after it was started.ResultsWe present a model of service that has proved successful to date. We give details from the audit of the service, its aims, funding, referral numbers, sources, types and criteria.Clinical ImplicationsThe audit suggests that the aims of the service are being achieved but given the fact that the numbers of new referrals significantly outweigh the discharge rate, it is concluded that a greater emphasis is placed on liaison, consultation and joint working with other agencies.

La partera profesional: Articulating identity and cultural space for a new kind of midwife in Mexico

This article documents the emergence of a new kind of midwife in Mexico, the thoroughly postmodern portera profesional. It traces the transnational conjunctures that facilitated her creation, illustrates aspects of her philosophy and praxis, and probes her ongoing articulations of identity. These women, who are of diverse sociocultural backgrounds, initially sought training from American direct‐entry midwives in the independent out‐of‐hospital midwifery model; now, they are adapting that model to the situation in Mexico. Through their own practices, through intensive liaison work with traditional midwives, and through organizing national midwifery conferences and meetings, they are creating midwifery as both incipient profession and nascent social movement. Some of them operate outside the medical system while others are carving a niche within it. The mere existence of these self‐consciously activist midwives constitutes a critique of monological Mexican medicine and its high cesarean rates; however, these women face a long struggle to define their identities, legalize their practices, and generate a sustainable space within the emergent Mexican technocracy. To their intense dismay, this struggle must take place within the context of the escalating disappearance of the traditional midwives whom they seek to support. The tension they feel between their desire to preserve traditional midwifery and their desire to create professional midwifery is a recurrent theme. These goals alternately complement and conflict with one another, yet both are central to the partera profesional's ongoing efforts at identity articulation.

Integration of a psychoanalytic liaison department at a public hospital.

A general overview of liaison-psychoanalysis in a general hospital is presented. The team's trajectory is revisited, as generating a presence in the inpatient units: a demand which changes from a purely psychiatric, scarcely operative level to an acknowledgment of subjectivity. Generally, this appears disruptively in medical proceedings. Two case histories are presented: (i) 'the tenant' and (ii) 'the nail-polishing file'. With regard to the first case history, the transference in its double aspect, with the patient as well as with the unit's staff, is examined. The analyst's intervention seeks to untangle the impasse, which prevents the physicians from helping the patient. With regard to the second case history, in which the de-mystification aspects of liaison work are shown, the horror that the so-called 'mental illness' can produce in the medical institution is explored. The aim of narrating this experience is to preserve a psy-space in the hospital where the overwhelming technological developments menace with its disappearance.

The child is still ill — How are the parents?

SUMMARY This paper is based on the Winnicott Lecture given to paediatricians at their Annual Conference in 1999. The theme and arguments put forward are familiar to those engaged in liaison work. The close emotional links and mutual influences between child and parents are stressed, with particular emphasis on the child who develops physical symptoms and is therefore brought to the attention of physicians. Because many of these children fail to improve with the prescriptions of general practitioners and paediatricians, the need to investigate each parent's emotional investment in the situation is underlined. Throughout the paper, Winnicott's theories and his special interest in the child's perspective are repeatedly mentioned.

Relationships Between Parents and Schools: A case study

The complexity of the relationships between parents and teachers rests not only on the ambiguity of their shared interests but in the way in which official policies affect them. This study, based on qualitative ethnographic research, explores teacher's, headteacher's and home/school liaison worker's experience of and attitudes towards the relationship between schools and parents. The research focuses on the differences between the desire to have closer and mutually supportive relationships and the various impediments, both psychological and the result of government policies. Only by understanding how deeply relationships are affected by the different barriers can the latter be overcome.

Community development through partnership: promoting health in an urban indigenous community in New Zealand

Indigenous people who have been dispossessed of their lands and resources bear a disproportionate burden of health problems. Programmes aimed at improving their health status must operate within the context of colonisation history and the contemporary cultural renaissance whereby indigenous populations are asserting their rights to self-determination. Community development strategies incorporating empowerment as both means and end are consistent with the aspirations of the renaissance and reflect the principles of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. This paper describes a formative and process evaluation of a community development partnership for health promotion between a health group and an urban Maori community in New Zealand. Key issues encountered related to trust, prioritisation of health, and appropriate research paradigms. Most significant among these was trust, or more specifically, distrust among Maori engendered by historical and contemporaneous experiences of contact with Europeans. Ultimately, the partnership achieved what it set out to do when the Maori partners took over the running of their own health groups and health programme. Building upon a detailed literature review and data from the evaluation, the paper offers a list of recommended procedures for the development of partnerships, applicable to health and other domains. Recommendations encompass preparatory steps, the formation of a partnership committee, programme planning and development, and the appointment of a community-based liaison worker. A conclusion of the research and premise underpinning the recommendations is that devolution of power is a key aspect of organisational process underlying successful partnerships involving professional groups and indigenous people.