Health: Conference Contributions
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Item Open Access Agency support for at-risk families: service provision, challenges and effective elements for intervention.(Informa UK Limited, 2023) Whitcombe-Dobbs, Sarah; Ahuriri-Driscoll, Annabel; Tarren-Sweeney, MichaelThere is an urgent need to locate effective interventions for parents involved with child protection services (CPS), Oranga Tamariki in Aotearoa New Zealand. This article describes a qualitative research study that sought to understand: (1) the nature of service provision to families; (2) workers’ perceptions of challenges and effective treatment components in delivering intervention; and (3) effective practices for working with Māori. Participants were staff members working within NGOs, providing interventions to families with ongoing Oranga Tamariki involvement. Data comprised responses to semi-structured interviews (n = 9), interpreted using thematic analysis. Findings highlighted that all participants worked within family homes to deliver intervention, and drew on Te Whare Tapa Whā. Challenges included ongoing child maltreatment concerns and participants’ sense of responsibility for keeping children safe whilst being unable to do so adequately within their non-mandated roles. Perceived effective elements were: strong relationships, transparency, and having courageous conversations when needed. For indigenous clients, self-determination and the effects of colonisation were of prime importance. Themes highlighted responsive practice, with a pragmatic understanding that family priorities may not always align with professional views. This is consistent with international findings regarding challenges in delivering parenting interventions and identifies potential essential components for effective practice. HIGHLIGHTS . Practitioners’ perceptions of essential elements to effective practice included: strong relationships, honesty, reciprocity, and directness regarding child protection concerns. . Effective practices seen to be particular to working with Māori families were trusting, reciprocal relationships and ensuring self determination and autonomy. . Ethical tensions and a sense of complicity and helplessness at times were described, with ongoing child protection concerns evidentItem Open Access Doing mental health research differently: Young women's aesthetic encounters with anxiety(2024) Tudor, Raewyn; Barraclough, Shanee; Spišák SIn the field of mental health and wellbeing, art making is more well known as a therapeutic practice, where it is conceptualised as an aesthetic tool for exploring indefinable and unspoken experiences. Recently, art making methods have emerged as inclusive and participatory approaches in mental health research. Methods such as drawing, poetry inquiry, collage, photography have been shown to be useful in research concerning sensitive topics such as anxiety, allowing participants to express their thoughts, opinions and experiences on difficult issues, while remaining relatively distant from those issues. In this paper we discuss an arts-based research project utilizing zine-making as a method to explore young women’s lived experiences of anxiety. A zine is a handmade (DIY), small circulation, and self-published and distributed, magazine, first emerging within science fiction(1930s), punk (1970s) and feminist (1990s) cultural mo(ve)ments. Drawing on feminist new materialist theory, which understands knowledge-creation through research as an event enabling new understandings and experience to emerge, we consider how the participatory processes offered by zine-making afforded opportunities to explore new/different knowledge of anxiety. Importantly, we discuss the way in which the young women created their own collaborative methodology for transforming anxiety beyond its preconceived limits. These are vital considerations in mental health research where we are interested in how new knowledge can alleviate human suffering. As we will discuss, with/in the aesthetic, materialist-discursive encounters of art making, the young women were able to disrupt the reductive gendered identities assigned to them as ‘anxious persons’ and affirm alternate practices of being together and living well in the world.Item Open Access Experiences of distress during social work placements: New graduate perspectives(2024) Tudor, Raewyn; Hay , Kathryn; Chilvers , Dominc; Yeung , PollyItem Open Access Listening to the Voices of Rangatahi: Sexual Health Promotion in the Digital Age.(2023) CLELLAND, Tracy ; O'Reagan , Abagail; Gilson , Fabian; Clark , AdrianItem Open Access Current Practice of M.Coun Student Counsellors(2018) Miller JItem Open Access Sharing SF gems I have gathered while working with students(2019) Miller JItem Open Access An Interprofessional Education Session for 60 Participants: Discharge planning and Documentation.(2018) Ormond T; Nijhof E; Cook K; Tillard G; Dillon C; Dean J; O'Leary MItem Open Access A Sisyphean task: in the endless challenges of working with multi-risk families, what works?(2018) Whitcombe-Dobbs S; Tarren-Sweeney, MichaelItem Open Access “My emotional reservoir isn’t filling as fast”. Teachers’ exhaustion 18 months post-earthquake.(2018) O'Toole VMFor 150,000 Christchurch school students, the 12.51 pm earthquake of 22 February 2011 shattered their normal lunch time activities and thrust their teachers into the role of emergency first responders. Whether helping students (children) escape immediate danger, or identifying and managing the best strategies for keeping children safe, including provision of extended caregiving when parents were unable to return to school to retrieve their children, teachers had to manage their own fears and trauma reactions in order to appear calm and prevent further distress for the children in their care. Only then did teachers return to their families. Eighteen months later, twenty teachers from across Christchurch, were interviewed. At 12.51pm, the teachers were essentially first responders. Using their usual methods for presenting a calm and professional image, the teachers’ emotion regulation (ER) strategies for managing their immediate fears were similar to those of professional first responders, with similar potential for subsequent burnout and negative emotional effects. Teachers’ higher emotional exhaustion and burnout 18 months later, were associated with school relocation. Lower burnout was associated with more emotional awareness, ER and perceived support. Consistent with international research, teachers’ use of cognitive reappraisal (re-thinking a situation) was an effective ER strategy, but this may not prevent teachers’ emotional resources from eventually becoming depleted. Teachers fulfill an important role in supporting children’s psychosocial adjustment following a natural disaster. However, as also acknowledged in international research, we need to also focus on supporting the teachers themselves.Item Open Access Cricket batting placement distribution analyzed by bowling line and length(2014) Genet R; Petersen CFielder positioning is a key task undertaken by cricket captains, and contributes greatly to a team’s success, as bowling maiden overs has been shown to be more important in the later stages of an international tournament (Petersen et al., 2008). We analysed the performance analysis data of hit ball distribution on the cricket playing field at the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy Tournament to determine the particular distribution resulting from specific bowling delivery classifications. Each bowling delivery was assigned one pitch position from a matrix of 18 possible width (line) and length combinations, based on the first bounce location. Hit deliveries were allocated into one of ten regions on the field, based on the directional angle the ball travelled after being hit. Each of these regions corresponds to a specific cricket fielding position. Furthermore, each delivery was further classified by several variables that influence its resultant position, including the handedness of both the bowler and batsmen, the bowlers type classification (fast, medium, off spin, leg spin), and the side of the wicket the bowler delivered from (over or around-the-wicket).Item Open Access School-wide strategies for reducing stress and promoting healthy learning environments(2017) Liberty KResearch has shown that childhood experiences shape adult lives and that experiencing adverse events during childhood can have lifelong consequences (Felitti et al. 1998). The more adverse experiences reported, the higher the risk of negative health outcomes including depression, alcoholism, obesity, cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, suicide and early death (Felliti, 2009). Adverse experiences may also produce trauma: “Trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being” (Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services, 2014). Events are considered traumatic if they are associated with a high risk of causing mental disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Risk factors for the onset of PTSD in children who have experienced traumatic events consistently include female gender, minority ethnicity and low socioeconomic status (SES), parent mental health problems, pre-existing mental health problems as well as the type, intensity, duration and the number of traumatic events (Alisic et al., 2014; Contractor, Layne, Steinberg, Ostrowski, Ford & Elhai, 2013; Shaw, Espinel & Schultz, 2012). PTSD in children, and PTSD resulting from in-utero exposure to traumatic stress are associated with subsequent developmental delays, poorer physical health, comorbid mental health problems, suicide ideation and substance abuse, as well as increased school absences, poor learning, memory and achievement, and impaired relationships with parents, siblings, peers and teachers (Breslau, 2009; Chu & Lieberman, 2010; Delamater & Applegate, 1995; Fairbank & Fairbank, 2009; Laplante, Brunet, Schmitz, Ciampi, & King, 2008; Scheeringa, 2014). Children who have post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), but do not meet formal diagnostic criteria for PTSD, are also at risk of these outcomes (Pynoos, et al.,1993; Shaw, Espinel & Schultz, 2012).Item Open Access A challenge to the idea of an authentic version of a Game Based Approach(School of Sport and Physical Education, University of Canterbury, 2016) Aguiar BC; Light RL; Bruce JA; North CDespite the significant body of research that consistently confirms the effectiveness of Game Based Approaches (GBA) such as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) and Game Sense, their uptake by physical education teachers across the globe seems to remain limited (Light & Curry, 2014). Since the first publication on TGfU (Bunker & Thorpe, 1982) a number of similar approaches have emerged leading to the use of broader more inclusive term of Game Based Approaches (GBAs) that is used through this study. Within the growing literature on GBAs questions have been asked about fidelity and what it, and what isn’t, a GBA (see, Jarret, 2011) that we suggest have been encouraged by the push for a models based to physical education teaching (Kirk, 2013) and contrast with Bunker and Thorpe’s (1982) original ideas on TGfU and the idea of a framework for the Game Sense approach (Light, 2013). This article questions the need for fidelity and to say whether or not an approach is authentic.Item Open Access The experiences of families participating in group Teen Triple P post-earthquakes: A qualitative study(University of Canterbury. School of Educational Studies and Leadership, 2016) Burley, J.; France, K.G.; O'Toole, V.M.Item Open Access The effects of an in-service course to develop early childhood teachers' skill in positive behaviour strategies(University of Canterbury. School of Health Sciences, 2015) Tyler-Merrick, G.; Phillips, JoannaEarly childhood teachers report that children’s disruptive behaviour is one of the major challenges they face as teachers. The aim of this study was to identify the current behaviour management strategies used by seven teachers at a preschool and to examine the effects of training these teachers in the effective use of positive teaching strategies to increase appropriate behaviour and decrease disruptive behaviour in three and a half to five year old children. A variety of methodologies were employed including direct observation, the use of a rating scale and reflective teacher questionnaires. The results indicate that the teachers’ initial understanding of strategies such as contingent praise and attention were limited and that they would benefit from an in-service training programme focused on teaching positive behavioural strategies. After training, all teachers increased their use of descriptive praise and they increased their contingent responses following child requests. This increase in teacher behaviour was accompanied by an increase in child appropriate behaviour and a decrease in child disruptive behaviour. These results raise a number of important implications for teachers. These implications will be discussed and audience involvement at this time is actively encouraged.Item Open Access Investing in public health: barriers and possible solutions(University of Canterbury. School of Health Sciences, 2015) Richardson, A.Possible ways to address these barriers to investment in public health include: •Advocating for equal economic assessment of public health interventions (the bar should not be set higher for public health compared with other health interventions; public health interventions should not have to be cost saving but cost-effective) •Refuting the belief that prevention invariably costs more (compression of morbidity) •Highlighting the potential for investment now to provide greater returns later •Personalising the benefits of public health interventions (potential for social marketing) •Addressing non-evidence-based drivers of funding and policy (including the influence of interest groups). Enhancing communication between researchers and policy-makers.Item Open Access Self-Perception & Cortisol Estimates of Communication Apprehension by AWS & AWNS During Various Speaking Activities(University of Canterbury. School of Health Sciences, 2015) Diehl, J.; Robb, M.; Ormond, T.The relationship between a physiological measure of anxiety (i.e., cortisol) and perceptual judgments of communication apprehension were evaluated across four different speaking situations in AWS and AWNS groups. Significant group differences were found in selfperceived anxiety levels in speaking situations; however no such differences were apparent for the cortisol measures.Item Open Access Physical activity and healthcare: Capturing the potential or creating the problem(University of Canterbury. School of Sport &Physical Education, 2015) Culpan, I.Physical education, sport and everyday living, no matter in which cultural context, has at its centrality physical activity. The concept of movement, whether one understands it as a social construct or originating from an innate ability, is central to 21st Century living. Indeed contemporary understandings of physical activity acknowledge that one of its important functions is in the maintenance of health and the development of healthy lifestyles. However this acknowledgement has become far too simplistic, evidenced by the popular and proliferated media and corporate messages and programmes constructed and designed to facilitate individual and collective health – most of which is focused on claiming to address and solve the ‘obesity and physical inactivity crisis’ with young people. Resulting from this particular health focus, which has as its central message ‘ energy in and energy out balance’, is the degradation of the educative and social value of physical activity and physical education, particularly in schools. Instead of promoting a holistic view and capturing the educative and social value of physical activity and physical education justifications for such programmes are more and more reliant on rationalising physical activity and physical education as having a primary purpose of obesity reduction. This paper argues that given this focus, young people are at risk of being denied learning opportunities which may result in impoverished physical activity and physical education understandings and experiences. More specifically this presentation will: • Highlight how some simplistic health messages, particularly around addressing obesity concerns, maybe counter-productive to the overall health and physical education learning of our young people. • Stress the need to capture the health benefits of physical activity and physical education in a more holistic and critical manner. • Suggest a series of recommendations that may strengthen the health physical activity nexus.Item Open Access Sport and the political economy: Considerations for enhancing the human condition(University of Canterbury. School of Sport &Physical Education, 2015) Culpan, I.Sport needs a balanced and inter-disciplinary approach between sport’s educative, social and scientific value and the political economy. This paper argues that the possible meanings of sport for the individual and contemporary society, at whatever level, needs to be conceptualised predominately from a human development perspective. This is sports major purpose - enhancing the human condition, if healthy active living is a desired outcome. Inherent in this purpose is the imperative for the State to manage the constraints of scientific functionalism of commercialisation, the commodification of sport and the objectification of the athlete. Contemporary sport is confronted by potentially deviant and destructive forces when scientism dominates sport discourse. The emphasis on winning, the reduction of sport to physical performance and the quest for extrinsic rewards for the athlete and the political economy shakes and fractures the foundations of sport being a “valued human practice”. The State needs to manage this, embrace and articulate a more educative and socio-cultural function of sport that integrates a holism based on enhancing the human condition. The philosophy of neo Olympism provides a possible systematic way forward. This presentation will provide a contemporary and conceptual framework upon which sport, at all levels can build upon the philosophy of Olympism. It will do this by: • critically examining dominant thinking around sport and the State’s role; • arguing for the educative, social, scientific and moral base of sport to be inculcated into school physical education and sports based programmes • highlighting the need for Olympism to be more broadly promoted as a way of life to active healthy living through balanced development of the person, celebrating the joy in effort; promoting the educative value of role modelling and the observance of an integrated set of universal ethics.Item Open Access New Zealand's socio-critical physical education curriculum: Three unique pedagogical developments(University of Canterbury. School of Sport &Physical Education, 2013) Culpan, I.; Bruce, J.Physical education (PE) in New Zealand/Aotearoa (NZ) has recently undergone some seismic conceptual shifts. This came from the introduction of a socio-critical orientated Health and Physical Education curriculum in 1999.This curriculum required PE teachers to re-think programmes to: - Promote learning of new skills associated in, through and about physical activity and sport and - Enhance, extend, inform and critique the deliberate use of play, exercise, sport and physical activity. The new socio-critical curriculum fostered a 21stC view of learning that promoted students (5 year olds to 18 years) being active, virtuous and critical consumers of the movement culture. The socio-critical orientation for PE necessitated PE teachers to examine alternative visions to what it might mean to be physically educated and to seek alternative pedagogical understandings and practices to acknowledge the emergent strong socio-ecological perspective. Emerging from this has been the implementation of a number of overseas social constructivist PE pedagogical models. Recent developments, unique to NZ, have seen the development of culturally responsive pedagogical models that seek to address the NZ Curriculum’s socio-critical intent – these are; 1. Te Ao Kori – a cultural contextualisation of a Maori celebration of life through movement. Recent research indicates the uptake of this model is happening but concern exists that many non-Maori teachers show reluctance because of its strong cultural orientation. 2. Olympism Education – where the life principles of Olympism are fostered, practised and critiqued to promote a virtuous critical consumer of active lifestyles 3. A Critical Analysis Process Model that seeks to redress the theory/practice nexus across the movement culture. The developers of this model report on its usefulness and practicality particularly at the senior school level. While the intent of this socio-critical curriculum is yet to achieve its potential a small group of NZ scholars are beginning to move into a ‘post’ conceptualisation of PE and further develop programmes to suit 21stC learners – this is a challenge. The development of the three pedagogical models and futurist considerations will be showcasedItem Open Access Teaching safety in OE by using fatality case-studies(University of Canterbury. School of Sport &Physical Education, 2015) North, C.