The age range at diagnosis, complexity of the condition, and sensitive nature of the issues involved in a diagnosis of Turner syndrome (TS), present specific challenges for health professionals in sharing information. Little is known about the perceived information needs of girls with TS and their parents. A flexible qualitative design, guided by the principles of symbolic interactionism was employed in this exploratory study. This design enabled meanings girls and their parents attached to TS, how they interpreted, shared and valued information to be uncovered. A purposive sample of 15 families with daughters aged 9 to 16 years were recruited from a tertiary paediatric endocrinology clinic. Girls and parents participated in a total of 27 recorded semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using the framework approach and the constant comparative method. Analysis revealed how girls and their parents interpreted and used information within the context of their everyday experiences of living with TS. Three activities were described by families: gathering and receiving, making sense of, and using and sharing information. Throughout these activities, themes of uncertainty, normalising and identity were present. A series of tensions described by the girls and their parents illustrated diverse approaches to the management of information. Meanings assigned to TS by girls and their parents influenced when, what and how information was shared with others. Despite a wealth of information, the girls and their parents described unfulfilled information needs. The interviews were dominated by discussion of the social implications of the condition and more specifically to social functioning, puberty and infertility. Parents were the primary source of information. These findings provide a basis for developing evidence based approaches to information sharing.

Education and Youth Services Ltd. (E.Y.S.) is a private training organisation in the United Kingdom which aims to engage challenging, disengaged young people into further education, training, or the open labour market. The employees on the frontline of this battle are the tutors. The purpose of this study was to explore the current support system of E.Y.S., as well as the tutors’ real needs, experiences, problems, and perceptions regarding a support system, in order to enable E.Y.S. to support their employees more effectively. The objectives for this study were: --To conceptualise tutorship and support systems in a work situation, from a theoretical frame of reference. --To determine the nature of the current support system available to the tutors in E.Y.S. --To investigate the needs and perceptions of tutors regarding the current support system and requirements for an effective support system. --To make recommendations regarding a more effective support system for the tutors of E.Y.S., based on the results of the investigation. The researcher used a qualitative research approach within an applied research strategy. Data were collected by using focus group interviews. This approach lent itself well to exploring the perceptions, needs, and struggles of the tutors of E.Y.S. and provided the researcher with a pattern of data, to explore the overall needs of the tutors, to enable the researcher to have a holistic view of the phenomena, and to explore how best to meet the needs of the individual tutors and of the organisation as a whole. The most important empirical results and conclusions that the researcher was able to make, based on the empirical study, can be summarised as follows: --- E.Y.S. has a unique and flexible, learner-focused culture. It offers an alternative learning style and experiences outside of the formal learning structure. This unique approach is successful, as already mentioned, but it does place a tremendous amount of stress on the tutors, and they constantly deal with the learners’ learning problems, social and personal problems, and daily copes with, and manages, potential violence towards them. --- The responses from the tutors indicated that the current support system is not sufficient, does not meet their needs, and is almost non-existent. They requested a company structure which will enable them to have sufficient supervision, advice, goal setting, and guidelines to perform their jobs more efficiently. --- The tutors reported feeling under-qualified to do their jobs effectively. They felt vulnerable and near burn-out. / Dissertation (MSD (EAP))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Social Work and Criminology / Unrestricted

This thesis explores tentative hypotheses relating to four conceptually related factors of potential importance in young people's lives; factors which it argues are little acknowledged in the mainstream British literature of psychology and psychiatry. These factors are: 1) young people's 'Relationship with Reality' ( - this is a new concept proposed by this thesis - ) which is characterised by the content, intention and effect of an individual's accumulated cognitive and behavioural traits and to what extent these traits invest in real-life or distort or avoid it. 2) young people's sense of having an 'Occupational Identity'. 3) young people's experience of Careers Education and Careers Guidance. 4) young people's experience of being 'mentored'. The thesis explores whether these factors are self-reported as potentially important in the lives of some young people, and whether such self-reports differ significantly between individuals. A cross-sectional, retrospective comparative study of 18 to 22 year olds is presented, in which non-randomly sampled participants were assigned to three groups according to their apparent levels of measurable achievement (academic, professional and extra-curricular}: High-Achievement, Moderate-Achievement, and Under-Achievement (Imprisonment). As part of an initial exploration, 50 HAs and 18 UAs were each interviewed for two hours; a 75 minute self-completion questionnaire was then administered to a new set of participants: 68 UA individuals (Imprisoned Young Offenders), 75 MA individuals (Undergraduates), 94 HA individuals (Undergraduates). The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and also the Short Imaginal Processes Inventory (a well-established measure of daydreaming) were administered among 50 UAs and 50 HAs to gauge the possible overlap of these established scales with the proposed concept of a 'Relationship with Reality' personality dimension and its component factors. Only moderately low correlations were found. It is acknowledged that adequate levels of validity and reliability are difficult to achieve when investigating the self-report of sensitive and complex issues, and that generalisations cannot be made from a non-random sample. With these caveats, the findings support the concept of a Relationship with Reality personality dimension, and suggest that all 4 factors studied in this thesis may be amenable to scientific research, are conceptually related, and were self-reported as potentially important in at least a substantial minority of the participants' lives. The thesis is inspired by and is integrated into a body of existing literature that includes psychoanalytic, humanistic, cognitive and behaviourist perspectives on 'forensic', 'normal', and in particular 'high-achievement' psychology and psychiatry from Britain and the United States.

Background: Child and adolescent mental health is an important public health issue within the UK. Providing support to young people, to help them cope with everyday life, is a key aspect of the school nurse’s role. Yet there is a paucity of published research within the UK and internationally about how this support is provided. Methodology: Using a narrative inquiry approach, presented as a performative text, this study set out to address the following research question, ‘How do school nurses provide support to young people?’ Stories were gathered from eleven school nurses to explore their experiences of providing support to young people using purposive sampling. The stories were analysed using an adapted version of the interpretivist-interactionist model (Savin-Baden, 2004). Poetic re-presentations were used to tell the stories of individual school nurses; an approach seen to be a novel in school nursing research. Using Soja’s (1996) spatiality theory as a framework the stories were analysed collectively, to explore different spaces used when providing support to young people. Findings: This study extends school nursing current literature about what it means to provide support. The importance of regular support and building trusting relationships is identified. Yet challenges exist in terms of the amount of emotional investment required by the nurses, as well as a lack of workforce capacity and organisational demands. It provides an original contribution to the body of school nursing knowledge by using an approach new in school nursing research, and distinguishing different and new spaces in which they perform to provide support to young people. Recommendations: Further research is necessary to gather stories from young people themselves. Additional support and training is recommended to enhance school nurses’ knowledge and skills in providing support. Findings should be conveyed to commissioners to provide insight into the school nurses’ role.

This diploma paper is dealing with causes, development and solutions of high unemployment rate among young people in Spain, which belongs to the highest in Europe. Spanish labour market is put in context with macroeconomic data which are compared with European Union. Main purpose is to find out causes of high unemployment rate of young people, who are a threatened group on the labour market and thus experienced the biggest impact of economic depression. Based on the undertaken analysis, one of the main causes, beside the economic depression, is also rigid labour legislation which leads to dual labour market. Other significant factors are also education and immigration. Structural reforms conducted on the labour market in the years 2010 and 2012 are valuated, despite certain fractional less successful measures, as positive.

Over 29 years into the epidemic, fighting HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS (Acquired, Immune, Deficiency, Syndrome) continues to be a global concern. School-based computer-assisted HIV/AIDS interventions can provide innovative ways of preventing HIV among young people from diverse backgrounds in Africa. However, questions of technological, social and organisational readiness cannot be overlooked. This is because of: (1) being health interventions implemented in educational centres; (2) limited technological facilities and skills; (3) the prevailing norms that associate young people's sex education with sex experimentation. Despite these concerns, there are significantly few studies evaluating school-based computer-assisted HIV/AIDS interventions in developing countries. In addition, the commonly used health promotion theories have limited application in HIV prevention. These theories tend to lack sufficient attention to contextual mediators that influence implementation and impacts of HIV interventions.This research addresses some of these gaps by evaluating the implementation and the impacts of a computer-assisted HIV/AIDS intervention, known as the World Starts With Me (WSWM), which is implemented in schools in Uganda. To overcome some of the criticisms voiced above, this research employed mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct three investigations. Investigation 1 is a quantitative controlled before-after intervention study that assessed the level of significance of the impacts of the WSWM intervention on in-school young people. Investigation 2 is a qualitative cross-case analysis study that explored in-depth why the WSWM intervention implementation was completed in one school but abandoned in another. Investigation 3 is a qualitative study that assessed in-depth the impacts and the computer-mediated benefits of the WSWM intervention on out-of-school young people. Overall, this research involved 584 quantitative questionnaires answered by 292 participants, 53 interviewees and 2 focus group discussions comprising of 50 participants.Findings indicate that: (1) the intervention significantly improved the in-school young people's HIV/AIDS knowledge, attitudes self-efficacy, sex abstinence and fidelity, but had no significant impact on condom use. (2) Implementation factors include technological facilities, perceived usefulness, confidence and skills, cultural-religious compatibility, management support, match with routine workflow, and institutional climate, all of which were more favourable in the school that completed the intervention than in the school that abandoned it. (3) The intervention had positive impacts on the out-of-school young people's sexual behaviours, HIV/AIDS knowledge and perception of vulnerability, attitudes and self-efficacy. (4) Contextual mediators such as familial mediators, relationship characteristics, peer influence, gender-biased social norms, economic constraints and religious beliefs influence young people's uptake of HIV preventive measures. (5) Computer-mediated benefits of the intervention include privacy and confidentiality of the otherwise sensitive information, unlimited geographical accessibility, source of the otherwise denied sexuality and HIV/AIDS information, and interactivity and social support.

Vulnerable consumers are likely to fall victim to negative marketplace outcomes due to the secondary effects of marketing practices. In particular, credit card targeting directed towards young people elicits ethical criticisms because of the perceived vulnerability of the target segment, the targeting efforts that are deemed more predatory than informative, and the stigmatising protectionist policies that limit the youths’ financial freedom. Vulnerable consumers are often overlooked in marketing considerations, leaving it to the public policy to intervene. This thesis aims to show that vulnerability is a marketing problem as much as it is a public policy issue, by highlighting the social effects of unethical marketing directed towards vulnerable consumers. The study depicts how young people, supposedly representing the most educated segment of the population, come to experience vulnerability due to credit card misuse and indebtedness. In addition, the study introduces a new concept and measure of susceptibility to credit card misuse and indebtedness (SCCMI) to investigate the extent to which youths are influenced by credit card temptations, which affect their likelihood to experience negative credit card outcomes. This study examines youth vulnerability and susceptibility to credit card misuse and indebtedness in a cross-country context, as the issue of vulnerability and power imbalance is arguably more pressing in the international market. The sampling involves young (18-25 years) credit card users in Singapore, Malaysia and the UK. These countries represent different degrees of credit card issuance and consumer protection regulations, which affect the youths’ credit card attitude and behaviour. The first study utilises qualitative methodology to examine youth vulnerability to credit card misuse. Baker et al.’s (2005) situational framework of actual consumer vulnerability helps to identify relevant themes pertained to the youths’ experience of credit card misuse and indebtedness. The qualitative study also serves as an exploratory phase to the subsequent quantitative study. The qualitative results enhance the conceptualisation and measurement scale development of SCCMI measure. The study then tested the validity, reliability and parsimony of the SCCMI measure and its proposed antecedent and consequent factors across the Malaysian, Singaporean and UK country samples. Vulnerability and susceptibility assessments in this study yield theoretical, methodological and practical implications. Vulnerability analysis draws upon the internal characteristics and external conditions that both facilitate and impede such vulnerability. Meanwhile, assessment of susceptibility provides an analytical tool to foresee and pre-empt future vulnerability. This study offers methodological contributions in its use of mixed methods, as a qualitative inquiry aids in understanding vulnerability while quantitative inquiry focuses on foreseeing potential vulnerability. A cross-country study analysis is valuable as it sheds light on the differences and similarities of consumer vulnerability and susceptibility across developing and developed countries. The study inform marketers that there are negative social consequences arising from unethical targeting practices, which leads to distrust and scepticism over credit card marketing directed towards youths. However, the youths’ experience of vulnerability also varies across individuals, which indicate that protectionist policies that shield the entire youth population from credit card exposure are not always necessary. Both credit card marketers and policy makers have the capacities to redress and pre-empt vulnerability without sacrificing the youths’ financial welfare and rights to harness the benefits that credit cards have to offer.

Background: This thesis reflects upon a heuristic study of a Storytelling Programme which took place in a KS3 Pupil Referral Unit. Previous experiences in the field, as a community storyteller, revealed the power of stories to calm and engage young people. In my community work I had seen that storytelling particularly engaged those considered ‘hard to reach.’ This research was designed to explore the storytelling process further with the aim of understanding more about the impact of the process and to understand the key components as identified by the young people themselves. Methodology: A heuristic research methodology was adopted within this study. The Storytelling Programme was delivered to twelve young people at a Pupil Referral Unit in the North West of England. Five of these participants were interviewed along with their teacher, and their reflections were integrated with my own to create a crystallized understanding of the storytelling process, whilst also remaining true to the unique experiences of each participant. Findings: Heuristic analysis of the Storytelling Programme revealed that young participants developed new personal narratives that reflected new ways of being and thinking. Change was demonstrated by the young people expressing a more positive sense of self. A striking finding, echoed by all participants, was the significance of the relationship in facilitating the therapeutic change process. Discussion: Whilst some of the changes could be linked to particular stories, the participants could not articulate whether their increased sense of well-being came from the stories or more generally from the programme or my ‘way of being’ (Rogers, 1980). It appears that stories and the therapeutic relationship intertwine within the storytelling process to create opportunities for therapeutic change. The findings of this study suggest that story is a particularly useful indirect medium to engage ‘hard to reach’ young people who have disorganised attachment styles. Storytelling offers the opportunity to place the intersubjective relationship as central, fostering an implicitly nurturing and co-regulating dyad that can offer reparation as well as the opportunities for catharsis and the development of emotional literacy through the processing of the story material. Conclusion: It appears that storytelling intertwines the interpersonal relationship with the stories to create a process which is both interpersonal and intrapersonal. The storytelling process appears to facilitate dyadic co-regulation, which may be an essential first step in the therapeutic change process. Once in a state of calm the young people could connect to the story stimuli and develop new ways of being and thinking. Whilst stories appear to promote changes at both the relational and semantic level, the findings from this study suggest that the implicit relational changes had primacy in facilitating significant therapeutic change.

The main objectiv of the thesis was to analyze commercial communication of ČSOB with own clients with focus on young people and then to recommend improvements of communications with this segment. As a background for recommandation was used questionnaire among students.

A busca por um estilo de vida saudável é crescente sendo desafiante para a indústria alimentícia atender às demandas atuais de mercado. A idade do consumidor é variável importante frente às expectativas dos indivíduos. Pois os jovens em geral são saudáveis, estão em fase de descobertas, mudanças e em formação de opinião, enquanto os idosos possuem preferências consolidadas e geralmente apresentam restrições alimentares. Neste contexto, para produtos cárneos, o reduzido teor de gordura e a mastigabilidade são características atrativas. Para o desenvolvimento de produtos cárneos diferenciados são práticas usuais as combinações de ingredientes não cárneos passíveis de substituir a gordura, ou ainda a redução de ácidos graxos saturados por meio da utilização de óleos vegetais para substituir a gordura suína. Contudo, raros são os estudos que abordam simultaneamente a redução e a substituição de gordura avaliando a influência destas modificações na percepção sensorial de consumidores com diferentes idades. Assim, o presente estudo tem por objetivo principal viabilizar a obtenção de emulsionados com alta redução de gordura animal e aceitabilidade sensorial, utilizando ingredientes não cárneos (alginato, guar e soro de leite) associados à gordura vegetal; além de comparar os perfis sensoriais obtidos por jovens, adultos e idosos treinados. Nas formulações a gordura foi reduzida em 66% e o máximo de substituição foi de 100% do toucinho. Sendo as formulações: CA e CV os tratamentos controles contendo respectivamente 24% de gordura animal (A) e gordura vegetal (V) na massa; RGA (reduzida gordura animal) e RGV (reduzida gordura vegetal) com teor reduzido para 12% de gordura na massa; enquanto RGAH (reduzida gordura animal com hidrocolóides) e RGVH (reduzida gordura vegetal com hidrocolóides) possuem 12% de gordura e foram adicionados de soro de leite (1,2%), alginato (0,25%) e goma guar (0,05%). A substituição da gordura animal por vegetal modificou a qualidade do produto principalmente quanto à textura (elasticidade e mastigabilidade). A redução de gordura diminuiu o potencial oxidativo e o teor de ácidos graxos saturados, minimizou as perdas na cocção e apresentou a maior aceitação sensorial. Os resultados dos consumidores demonstrou que nenhum dos tratamentos foi estatisticamente (p>0,05) preferido, entretanto 64% dos consumidores preferiram os produtos com teor reduzido de gordura. Os consumidores com mais idade não conseguiram diferenciar as amostras. Entre os grupos treinados, os perfis sensoriais obtidos foram diferentes, porém os grupos treinados destacaram que a redução da gordura animal proporcionou a obtenção de produtos com características mais similares aos tradicionais quando comparados aos substituídos por gordura vegetal. Conclui-se que o novo produto deve possuir apelo à saudabilidade, ressaltando seu teor de gordura e suas características diferenciadas quanto à maciez e mastigação. Esta pesquisa aponta um caminho promissor para pesquisas envolvendo a utilização de fontes lipídicas diferenciadas associadas aos hidrocolóides em produtos cárneos. Além disso, ele estudo reforça a importância da seleção de grupos de provadores para testes sensoriais dependendo do público alvo do produto a ser desenvolvido. Destaca-se ainda a necessidade de aprimoramento das análises sensoriais descritivas, sendo os mapas de referências, utilizados neste trabalho, uma ferramenta simples que auxilia os provadores na obtenção de resultados. / The search for a healthy lifestyle, it have been a challenge for the food industry meet the demands of current market. The consumer age is an important variable to obtain the expectations of individuals. Young people in general are healthy, and they are in opinion formation, while the elderly have consolidated preferences and often should have dietary restrictions. In this context, for the low-fat meat products and chewiness are attractive features. For the development of meat products differentiated, are common to combine nonmeat ingredients that can substitute the fat, or the reduction of composition saturated by the use of vegetable oils to replace pork fat. However, few are the studies that consider both requirements: the reduction and replacement of fat assessing the influence of these changes in sensory perception of consumers of different ages. Thus, the present has the main objective to facilitate obtaining emulsified with high fat reduction and sensory acceptability, using nonmeat ingredients, associated with vegetable fat, in addition to compare the sensory profiles obtained by youth, adults and seniors trained. Three processes were performed at different time periods from the standardization of the raw material. In the formulations fat was reduced by 66% and the maximum was 100% replacement of fat. Being formulations: CA and CV treatments controls containing respectively 24% animal fat (A) and vegetable fat (V) the mass; RGA (reduced animal fat) and RGV (reduced vegetable fat) with content reduced to 12% fat mass, while RGAH (reduced animal fat with hydrocolloids), and RGVH (reduced fat with vegetable hydrocolloids) have 12% fat and added whey (1.2%), sodium alginate (0.25%) and guar gum (0.05%). The replacement of animal fat to vegetable modified product quality especially in regard to texture (elasticity and chewiness). The reduction of fat decreased the oxidative potential and of saturated fatty acids, downplayed cooking loss and had the highest sensory acceptance. The results demonstrate the consumer 110 that no treatment was considered preferred, though 64% of consumers prefer products with reduced fat content. Older consumers could not differentiate the samples. Among the groups trained sensory profiles obtained were different, the trained groups emphasized that the reduction in animal fat afforded to obtain products with characteristics similar to those when compared to traditional replaced by vegetable fat (RGV and RGVH). We conclude that the new product should have appeal to healthiness, highlighting its fat content and its distinctive characteristics as the softness and chewing. This result shows promising areas for future research involving the use of different lipid sources associated with hydrocolloids in meat products associated with different lipid sources. This study reinforces the importance of the selection of groups of assessors depending on the target audience of the product to be developed. Another important point is the need for improvement of sensory descriptive analysis, with the maps of references used in this work a simple tool that helps testers in getting results.