Local Support Organizations Research Articles

The use of self-directed learning among immigrants to access online educational resources

This paper presents a phenomenological study focusing on understanding the experiences of how well-educated immigrants use their self-directed learning (SDL) capacity to access online educational resources to regain economic status. Our framework assumes that highly educated immigrants face accreditation and language barriers. To counteract this situation, immigrants use their self-directed learning capacity to look for and access online learning resources to acquire education including language skills. Using a phenomenology qualitative approach, three immigrants were interviewed to understand how they used their self-directed learning to access educational resources, The finding suggests that immigrants in a host country face challenges such as accreditation and language barriers, which become some of the trigger elements that foster their SDL approach to look for online educational resources. Specific examples of the use of SDL were found during the analysis. Practitioners, government and local support organisations can use the results to provide immigrants access to online educational resources.

Lessons learned from the impact of Covid-19 on the work of disability support organisations that support employers of social care personal assistants in England.

Social care Personal Assistants (PAs) are directly employed by individuals to assist with activities of daily living such as help or support with personal care, shopping, household tasks and community participation. This option is encouraged by UK public funding. In England, disabled people's support organisations initially offered assistance with such arrangements, although numbers doing this have declined. The Covid-19 pandemic provided the opportunity to ask those remaining organisations providing support for PA employers about their activities during this time and the questions being posed to them by PA employers. This paper reports data from 15 interviews undertaken March-July 2021 with disability support organisation representatives. We identified one overarching theme 'Working to prevent and challenge marginalisation of PA employers', with three related subthemes: (1) Advocating for the voice of a forgotten group; (2) Needing to be proactive and (3) Adapting to new tasks and ways of working. Participant accounts focused on representing the needs of disabled people to the authorities and providing concise, timely and accurate information to PA employers, particularly around the use of public funds during Covid-19. Remote working amplified the digital-divide, resulting in these organisations working hard to ensure PA employers received important information about their support options. Befriending services and Covid-hubs were established by some organisations to reduce isolation and risks of poor mental health amongst PA employers. Many of the challenges facing PA employers existed pre-pandemic but were perceived to have been heightened during it, reflecting the value of and need for the work of these local support organisations. Our findings suggest areas where effective contingency planning drawn from closer collaboration between disability support organisations and central and local government might usefully be focussed. The potential for specific services or organisations to be commissioned to provide such support is discussed.

Microfinancing in Pakistan: A Case Study of Local Support Organizations in Northern Areas

Pakistan is one of the developing countries, where the majority of the population resides in rural areas with a high poverty rate. Microfinance in rural areas is considered an effective tool not only making the people financially strong but at the same time improving their standard of living. The current research investigates the impact of local NGOs on rural life in the northern areas of Pakistan.in this regard, a parametric approach, Structural equation Modelling (SME) was applied to analyze the impact of microfinance projects on welfare using a case of four microfinance NGOs. The data was collected from 566 respondents using a pre-designed questionnaire. The results show the welfare of the people increased in terms of income, consumption, empowerment, employment. The findings imply that the loan size should be increased so that the respondents’ would be able to save and acquire more assets. In addition, Ngo microfinance organizations initiate programs such as education and health awareness along with training on entrepreneurial skills before granting loans so that the microfinance loan can be utilized efficiently.

신남방지역 디지털경제 협력방안 (The Digital Economy in ASEAN and India: Policy Implications for Korea)

신남방지역 디지털경제 협력방안 (The Digital Economy in ASEAN and India: Policy Implications for Korea)

The Mediating Role of Group Lending Between Poverty and Microfinance

Microfinance has become the main tool of poverty alleviation in the 21st century. The microfinance program in different countries has different lending approaches. The most common in the world is group lending and individual lending. Each lending procedure has its own merits and demerits. The present research is about the evaluation of the mediating role of group lending between microfinance and poverty. In this regard, the study was carried out in district Chitral. The data was collected from two local support organizations using a structured questionnaire. For the purpose of analysis structural equation modeling was used and Smart PLS was used as an analysis tool. The finding of the results shows that the group leaders have a positive role in mediating the relationship between microfinance and poverty and in reducing the moral hazards and proper utilization of funds.

Towards culturally inclusive mental health: learning from focus groups with those with refugee and asylum seeker status in Plymouth

Purpose Pre- and post-immigration trauma and stress make refugees a particularly vulnerable group in terms of mental health and well-being. The purpose of this paper is to describe a listening project undertaken in Plymouth, UK, which sought the views of 17 service users (n=12) and staff (n=5) from four local support organisations, for people with refugee and asylum seeker status and those with diverse cultural backgrounds. Aims of the project were to expand Western-centric understandings regarding beneficial support and the promotion of good mental health and well-being in this population. Design/methodology/approach Responses were subjected to thematic analysis, co-conducted with a service user. Participants were asked about their personal understandings of mental health and well-being and what supports or hinders well-being. Findings The findings enabled the development of a model incorporating 10 threads which support and 9 holes that can hinder well-being. Research limitations/implications The relatively small numbers of participants compared with the numbers of asylum seekers and refugees in Plymouth may not be fully representative of the general population in Plymouth and the UK. Originality/value Despite increasing cultural diversity within the UK population, available mental health services exist mainly as developed from a Western psychological model of mental distress and treatment. This research provides services with a more informed understanding of mental health for asylum seekers and refugees. As such it is of value towards future service design in Plymouth and the UK. Findings also contributed to a successful funding bid to set up a peer-led support project in the city.

Improving access to a multi-component intervention for caregivers and people with dementia.

Due to the increasing social and economic costs of dementia, there are urgent calls to develop accessible and sustainable care for people with dementia and their caregivers. Multi-component non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) appear effective in improving or maintaining daily functioning and well-being, but are typically labour-intensive for health care professionals, thus hindering access. The current study aimed to explore the feasibility and acceptability of a novel approach to widen access to NPI by involving caregivers to present part of the intervention and with staff from local support organizations instructed to train the caregivers. Trainers and caregivers were shown to comply with training instructions and the direct intervention costs were low. Feedback from trainers and caregivers was positive and well-being ratings from people with dementia and caregivers remained stable over time and caregivers' sense of competence improved. The findings suggest that involving caregivers and trained non-professionals to provide the intervention is feasible and acceptable and could be a cost-effective solution to improve access to care.

Are cleaner production innovations the solution for small mining operations in poor regions? The case of Padua in Brazil

Abstract Mining in Santo Antonio de Padua, a city located in the underdeveloped northeast area of the Rio de Janeiro state, in Brazil, is currently the most important economic activity in the region. Unfortunately, companies lag behind technologically and use rudimentary production methods, which cause serious environmental problems, social implications and poor competitiveness. In order to seek sustainable solutions for the Padua mining region, local support organizations have created initiatives to develop endogenous cleaner production innovations to enhance the industry's sustainability performance. During this process, some barriers for mining companies to adopt these developed technologies have emerged. This research draws on the cleaner production, sustainability and innovation literature and uses a qualitative research with multiple sources of evidence to understand the dynamics behind the Padua mining region. More specifically, this research explores how initiatives to improve the sustainability performance led by local support organizations took place, analyzes their outcomes (i.e., cleaner production innovations), and identifies some of the barriers to technology adoption. This paper offers three key research contributions. First, we claim that cleaner production approaches alone cannot create sustainable mining regions in emerging and developing countries, but they are definitively a step in the right direction since they provide the base for expanding the scope towards sustainability. Second, we argue that technology cannot be understood as the panacea for sustainability because it will never represent the complete solution for companies' sustainability problems. Third, we claim that companies can face a “managerial trap” if they pursue enhanced sustainability performance solely through the adoption of cleaner production innovations.

Knowledge sharing and development of creative fashion designers' careers: the role of intermediary organisations

The study of fashion designers in Montreal allows us to examine the support they can get for their career as a model for creative careers, as well as the management support that can be given to creative careers and industries to reduce risk in their activity. As part of a research on the fashion cluster in Montreal, we investigated the role of intermediary organisations in the support and risk reduction for professional trajectories of designers. To achieve a good understanding of skills deployed by the creators/designers in their fashion design trajectory, our research examines the most important management and financial supports for the determinant moments in these creative careers. The paper highlights the role of connexions and interactions, as well as the role of the local support organisations and professional associations.

Creative Careers and Territorial Development: The Role of Networks and Relational Proximity in Fashion Design

Geater Montreal is the third largest city in North America for the garment industry in terms of labour force, after Los Angeles and New York. The industry has however changed partly into a service industry, centered on fashion design, with a focus on international competitiveness but also the role of fashion in Montreal's economic and territorial development. Our article analyzes careers in the fashion design sector, sheds light on the evolution of creative sectors, and shows how these sectors could be better supported to favor local development, as neighborhoods and space design appear important in these creative sectors. We situate our analysis in the theoretical context of career theories, and analyze key moments in careers and the role of intermediate organizations and government programs in supporting these careers. Our paper makes a contribution to our knowledge of career paths in the fashion industry, but also to the role of relational proximity in supporting these careers, and thus local development. It highlights the importance of personal connections, the milieu in which the individual works and functions, the creativity of the individual, as well as the role of the local support organizations and professional associations, including agencies of the provincial government.

Local Support Organisations: An Exit Strategy for Rural Development NGOs

Rural development NGOs are often trapped into indefinite support for the grassroots organisations they help to create. This article explores an exit strategy whereby such NGOs help to establish multi‐tier apex organisations of, rather than for, the people, that are able to replace them. This enables them to move on to other communities or to address their resource constraints as donor funding becomes tighter. Drawing on fieldwork, it argues that a gradual withdrawal and building on community social capital are more likely to lead to the success of such a strategy.

Infantilizing Autism.

When members of the public envision the disability of autism, they most likely envision a child, rather than an adult. In this empirically based essay, three authors, one of whom is an autistic self-advocate, analyzed the role played by parents, charitable organizations, the popular media, and the news industry in infantilizing autism. Parents portrayed the face of autism to be that of a child 95% of the time on the homepages of regional and local support organizations. Nine of the top 12 autism charitable organizations restricted descriptions of autism to child-referential discourse. Characters depicted as autistic were children in 90% of fictional books and 68% of narrative films and television programs. The news industry featured autistic children four times as often as they featured autistic adults in contemporary news articles. The cyclical interaction between parent-driven autism societies, autism fundraising charities, popular media, and contemporary news silences adult self-advocates by denying their very existence. Society's overwhelming proclivity for depicting autism as a disability of childhood poses a formidable barrier to the dignity and well-being of autistic people of all ages.

Community Response to Climatic Hazards in Northern Pakistan

Chitral is a landlocked and mountainous region of northern Pakistan located in the Hindu Kush mountains, with a total population of around 400,000 in 50,000 households. The inhabitants of Chitral face a variety of problems associated with climatic hazards throughout the year, such as heavy snowfall in winter, flash floods in summer, glacial outbursts, soil erosion, landslides, occasional earthquakes, and subsequent outbreaks of disease. In such a fragile environment, the collective action of local communities through grassroots institutions—Village and Women's Organizations (V/WOs) and the second generation of these institutions, Local Support Organizations (LSOs)—has been instrumental in effectively tackling these problems. LSOs play the role of a laboratory for engagement by civil society and developing institutional mechanisms to address development challenges, including natural hazards and disasters in the area.

After the diagnosis

PREVIEWWhen the words “Alzheimer's disease” are first used regarding a patient with increasing memory and judgment problems, the person involved and his or her family members usually leave the office with sinking hearts. However, Dr Ham believes that using the term is important, because it gives structure to management and can be the impetus to seek information about the disease and learn about local support organizations. Clarifying the diagnosis is but the first of many ways that primary care physicians can assist families in deciding about home care, intensity of treatment, and long-term placement.