Daz Greenop

Participation in child protection: A small-scale qualitative study

This small-scale qualitative study explores how children participate in their own child protection/child in need planning within a statutory setting in England. Their experience of participation and the impact that voicing their wishes and feelings had on outcomes are highlighted and discussed against a background of conflicting discourses of statutory safeguarding and empowering participation, barriers to engagement and hearing the child’s voice.

Adults with cystic fibrosis – responding to a new ageing population

Worldwide, the life expectancy of adults with cystic fibrosis has increased substantially over the last two decades and cystic fibrosis can no longer be regarded as a paediatric condition. Adults with cystic fibrosis are becoming a new ageing population and are working, having families of their own and are likely to retire due to old age rather than ill health. Despite this progress, little is known about how people with cystic fibrosis are experiencing ageing with this long-term condition and how prepared they are for older age. This paper highlights the implications that ageing with cystic fibrosis may have for specialist health services and in particular the individual with cystic fibrosis, as well as providing pointers for future research.

Self‐care and cystic fibrosis: a review of research with adults

The issue of self-care is becoming increasingly central to both policy and practice in health and social care in the community. It is imperative therefore that research in this important area is drawn together and presented coherently so as to ensure that change can be informed by evidence and implemented sensitively. As cystic fibrosis (CF) has until recently been regarded as a paediatric condition, there is relatively little research that focuses on the self-care of adults. Although not entirely uncritical of traditional biomedicine, these studies focus on individual patient deficits and are directed primarily at facilitating their compliance. After discussing some important methodological, evidential and theoretical limitations of this research, other recent CF literature will be considered that suggests the possibility of developing a social model for self-care research. The proposed model is more pluralistic and less prescriptive than its predecessors and the resulting types of self-care indicate that both old and new, mainstream and marginal discourses should co-exist. Indeed, recognising the legitimacy of distinct varieties of self-care not only guards against unwarranted moralising and pathologising but may also enable self-care support to be negotiated and tailored more appropriately.

Rightly Dividing the Word: Research beyond the Limits of Ethical Approval

This article is a personal reflection on some of the ethical issues experienced before, during and after undertaking qualitative research in the UK National Health Service (NHS).

Self-care at the margins of healthcare: ‘Malingering’ and ‘self-neglecting’ cystic fibrosis patients

This article focuses on two small groups of adult cystic fibrosis patients (from a larger sample) who, for very different reasons, do not self-care. These two distinct counter-narratives may be located at the extreme margins of a continuum of responses to the demands of body and society. They are described and contrasted here as controlled and chaotic and are dominated by ‘supportive’ and ‘unsupportive’ voices respectively. The patient’s own voice, by way of contrast, is often silent or silenced by these dominant others. Despite the loss of self that becomes evident in these narratives, limited sites of resistance remain as both sets of participants sought to disrupt, parody and subvert expectations to self-care with stories of ‘malingering’ and ‘self-neglect’. Finally, some practical suggestions are provided for social workers to engage patients whom might otherwise be regarded as ‘difficult’.

Monkey’s health service: an evaluation of the implementation of resources designed to support the learning of primary school-aged children in England about healthy lifestyles and NHS services

The National Health Service Institute for Innovation and Improvement was established to help the NHS to improve healthcare by rapidly developing and disseminating knowledge and evidence about new ways of working. One example is the Emergency and Urgent Care Pathway for Children and Young People which focused on providing high quality and safe healthcare for children and young people requiring urgent or emergency treatment for the most common illnesses and injuries. Monkey’s Guide to Healthy Living and NHS Services was developed to increase awareness of acute health services in primary school-aged children. This free resource was posted to every primary school in England. A process and impact evaluation was undertaken to explore how the resource was being utilized during 2013–2014. A small number of in-depth case studies were developed involving classroom-based observations and teacher interviews along with a much larger online survey which was emailed to all primary schools in England. On the whole, the resource was viewed as useful, engaging, and informative; with children, teachers, and other professionals particularly valuing the monkey puppet, video clips, and teacher resources. The National Evaluation highlighted that most respondents integrated the materials into the curriculum, used them as a one-off lesson, or developed their own innovative and strategic approaches to make the best use of the resources; almost two-thirds of schools who responded to the survey felt the resources led to pupils knowing about the available NHS services and healthy lifestyles; over half felt pupils were now more informed about the most appropriate services to use.