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“An Examination of the Death and Dying of Companion Animals” explores the human-animal relationship as enacted in the home by becoming interspecies families. In particular, these relationships are considered when companion animals are dying and in need of special care and attention. This work provides historical and cultural context for how humans attend to animals in death and dying through the history of pet keeping and a complex literature review to explore the intersections of death and dying and religion, and human-animal studies. Specifically, models for companion animal end-of-life care replicate those services for humans by providing palliative care and a myriad of other treatments to attend to the suffering of aging and terminal pets. In addition to examining the creation of companion animal hospice and how it has quickly grown since the early 2000s, this work also confronts questions of euthanasia as a burdensome decision-making process. The decision to euthanize a loved one is fraught with ambiguity, uncertainty, and, at times, guilt. These experiences are idiosyncratic and by creating a discourse and popular platform through which to share these instances of death and dying, this project contributes to the newly established death positivity movement in drawing attention to caring for dead bodies in the home. This project ends by exploring after-death-care for companion animals. Burial and cremation are still, for the most part, how human families dispose of companion animal bodies. In addition to these more traditional forms of disposition, companion humans are also starting to preserve their companion animal bodies through taxidermy and freeze-drying. Though still considered grotesque by many companion humans, companion animal body preservation is just one example of new and reimagined mourning rituals. It is through these rituals and the recognition of this particular grief that the human-animal relationship in the home is seen in a new, complicated, ambiguous and intimate light. / Religion

Although the death of a child client is among the worst work-related events that a child welfare worker can experience, the phenomenon is tremendously understudied concerning how the event impacts the staff involved and how, or if, their employing agencies supported any mental health needs that may have arisen after the death. This study investigates what types of mental health/emotional support was made available to Northeastern Ontario child welfare workers following the death of a child client, and how effective that support was in helping the worker cope with any difficulties related to the death. This study was guided by principles of Constructivist Grounded Theory and semi-structured qualitative telephone interviews were conducted with five (5) participants. My analysis found that the death of a child client can negatively impact both the mental wellbeing of involved workers as well as the organizational climate of an agency. My analysis also found that workers may delay the emotions associated with the grieving process to effectively focus on the administrative requirements resulting from the child’s death, potentially to their detriment. The different ways child welfare organizations supported staff through these events included individual and group psychological debriefings, grief counselling, and providing information regarding additional support options. Only three of the five workers engaged in the strategies provided to them by their agency, and of those three, only one found the services to be helpful with managing emotional difficulties related to the child’s death. What remained true among all five participants was that they each had very personalized ideas as to what they felt would have best helped them through this difficult event. I conclude that based on related literature and the findings of this study, child welfare organizations are recommended to invest in a thorough and embedded agency framework of trauma-management that addresses policy and procedure development as well as support coordination at the pre-trauma, immediate trauma, and post-trauma levels. Additionally, trauma-management should not be a singular standardized response and should be tailored to the individualized needs of each worker. Agencies should be well-versed in delivering different strategies of trauma-management and letting the worker lead in determining what type of support they are looking for and when would be best to receive it. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

Yes / People in the Global North often have a problem talking about — and processing — the inevitability of death. This can be because death and care of the dying has been professionalised, with encounters of death within our families and communities no longer being ‘normal and routine’ (Kellehear 2005). Young people are particularly excluded from these conversations, with implications for future mental health and wellbeing (Ainsley-Green 2017). Working in Wolverhampton and Bradford, the Dying 2 Talk (D2T) project aimed to build young people’s future resilience around this challenging topic. We recruited over 20 young people as project ambassadors to co-produce resources that would encourage talk about death, dying and bereavement. The resources were used as the basis of ‘Festivals of the Dead’ which were taken to schools to engage wider audiences of young people (aged 11 +). The project aimed to use alternative ‘ways in’ to open discussion, beginning with archaeology, and ultimately using gaming, dance, creative writing and other creative outputs to facilitate discussion, encourage compassionate relationships and build resilience. The resources succeeded in engaging young people from ages 11–19 years, facilitating a comfortable and supportive environment for these vital conversations. Project evaluations and observations revealed that the Festivals, and the activities co-created by the young ambassadors helped to facilitate spontaneous conversations about death, dying and bereavement amongst young people by providing a comfortable and supportive environment. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/V008609/1), building on a pilot project funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund at the University of Bradford. / The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/V008609/1), building on a pilot project funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund at the University of Bradford.

Yes / The initiation of end of life care in an acute stroke context should be focused on those patients and families with greatest need. This requires clinicians to synthesise information on prognosis, patterns (trajectories) of dying and patient and family preferences. Within acute stroke, prognostic models are available to identify risks of dying, but variability in dying trajectories makes it difficult for clinicians to know when to commence palliative interventions. This study aims to investigate clinicians’ use of different types of evidence in decisions to initiate end of life care within trajectories typical of the acute stroke population. Methods/design This two-phase, mixed methods study comprises investigation of dying trajectories in acute stroke (Phase 1), and the use of clinical scenarios to investigate clinical decision-making in the initiation of palliative care (Phase 2). It will be conducted in four acute stroke services in North Wales and North West England. Patient and public involvement is integral to this research, with service users involved at each stage. Discussion This study will be the first to examine whether patterns of dying reported in other diagnostic groups are transferable to acute stroke care. The strengths and limitations of the study will be considered. This research will produce comprehensive understanding of the nature of clinical decision-making around end of life care in an acute stroke context, which in turn will inform the development of interventions to further build staff knowledge, skills and confidence in this challenging aspect of acute stroke care.

Yes

Yes / The Dying to Talk project in Bradford, UK aimed to build resilience in young people around the topic of death, dying and bereavement. Starting conversations early in life could buttress people’s future wellbeing when faced with bereavement and indeed their own mortality. Research indicates that a key feature in young people’s experience of bereavement is ‘powerlessness’ (Ribbens McCarthy, 2007). Drawing on the principles of co-production, young people led the development of the project aimed at encouraging young people to talk about death, using archaeology as a facilitator to those conversations. The partnership between the University of Bradford, the voluntary sector and the young people proved to be a positive and empowering one. It laid the foundations for future collaboration and developed a framework for engaging young people in talking about death, building their resilience for dealing with death and dying in the future – a step towards building a ‘compassionate city’ for young people (Kellehear, 2012) / University of Bradford, Higher Education Innovation Fund; AHRC

The theses deal with the last period of the person´s life and the possibilities of the care focused on the spiritual, psychic, physical and social aspect of the issue. It offers possibilities of ethical way how to cope with this life´s stage having the help of social workers, family and also the dying person. The practical part compares opinions of the hospice workers with the views of the workers from old people´s homes with respect to this issue. It also points at the demnad of the work and some of its difficulties.

PhDENV / Department of Ecology and Resource Management / Some industries such as textiles, ceramics, paper and printing are known to use significant amounts of dye to colour their products and during the colouring process, certain quantities of dyes are absorbed by the products, and some of them end up in wastewater. Depending on their application, some synthetic dyes are designed to be chemically or biologically resistant and their presence in the environment can cause severe environmental problems because of their colour impartation to water bodies. Therefore, proper treatment is required to remove these pollutants from wastewater before discharge into the environment. In this thesis, the potential of dye removal from wastewater by calcined magnesite, halloysite nanoclay and calcined magnesite - halloysite nanoclay composite was evaluated. To this end, the study was subdivided to four segments. The first segment of the study focused on evaluating the efficiency of using calcined magnesite to remove Methylene Blue (MB), Direct Red 81 (DR81), Methyl Orange (MO) and Crystal Violet (CV) dyes from aqueous systems using a batch study. To achieve that, several operational factors like residence time, adsorbent dosage, dye concentration and temperature were appraised. The adsorbent was subjected to different kinds of physicochemical characterization to determine the various characteristics that would assist in the dye uptake process. Characterization results showed that the adsorbent material was highly crystalline with magnesite, periclase, dolomite, and quartz as some of the crystalline phases. The batch study proved that calcined magnesite is effective in the treatment of dye contaminated water and moreover it performed well in terms of colour removal, though exceptional results were recorded for CV removal with complete decolourisation occurring in first few minutes of contact. In terms of experimental adsorption capacity, the performance of calcined magnesite was in the order CV (14.99 mg/g) > DR81 (12.56 mg/g) > MO (0.64 mg/g) > MB (0.39 mg/g). Mechanisms of adsorption where explained by fitting the experimental data into adsorption isotherms, kinetics, and thermodynamic parameters. Neither, the Langmuir, nor the Freundlich nor the Dubinin Radushkevich, nor the Temkin model could perfectly describe the adsorption of the four dyes onto calcined magnesite, however adsorption kinetics obeyed the pseudo second order model, implying that, the dye removal process was primarily a chemical process. In accordance with the results of this study, it can be concluded that calcined magnesite can be used effectively for the removal of dyes in aqueous solution and thus can be applied to treat wastewater containing dyes. The second segment of the study focused on the removal of MB, DR81, MO and CV dyes by halloysite nanoclay. Physicochemical characterisation revealed that the nanoclay has a surface area of 42 m²/g and its ABSTRACT iv morphology is predominated by tubular structures, which exhibit some hollow rod like structures. Various important parameters namely contact time, initial concentration of dyes, dosage, solution temperature and solution pH were optimized to achieve maximum adsorption capacity and it was observed that the effect of initial pH and temperature of the aqueous solution was neglibible on removal of the four dyes. The experimental adsorption capacities towards 40 mg/L of MB, DR81, MO and CV dyes were 17.51, 14.11, 0.38, and 4.75 mg/g respectively. The results indicate that natural halloysite nanoclay is an efficient material for the removal of the selected dyes. Due to its low cost and non-toxicity, halloysite nanoclay can be considered a good replacement option of other high cost materials used to treat coloured wastewater especially in developing countries like South Africa. Having observed the performance of calcined magnesite and halloysite nanoclay individually in the removal of selected dyes, a third study was designed with the aim of preparing a nanocomposite adsorbent from the aforementioned adsorbent materials and then evaluating the synergistic influence of the mechanochemical modification by a ball miller on the removal of MB, DR81, MO and CV dyes. Physicochemical characterization was carried out to get an insight of pre- and -post adsorption characteristics of the nanocomposite material and results showed major changes which could be an indication of dye uptake by the nanocomposite material. According to the results, the nanocomposite material outcompeted its component individual constituent materials i.e (calcined magnesite and halloysite nanoclay material) in the removal of DR81, which in turn was the highest removal efficiency observed for the whole batch adsorption study recording a maximum adsorption capacity and percentage removal of 19.89 mg/g and 99.40% respectively. Experimental results fitted the Langmuir and pseudo-second order models perfectly hence demonstrating that adsorption took place on a homogenous adsorbent layer via chemisorption. In overall, the results suggested that the nanocomposite is a suitable adsorbent for decolourising industrial wastewater. Based on the overall performance of the adsorbents in removing the four dyes, it was observed that the nanocomposite material had a high affinity for DR81 dye hence it was chosen as the model dye for further application in column studies. The effect of flow rate, bed height and initial dye concentration on the removal of DR81 was investigated. Maximum bed capacity and equilibrium dye uptake were determined and break through curves were plotted. Percentage dye removal increased with decrease in flow rate and increase in bed height. The maximum capacity of column was found to be about 51.73 mg DR81 per gram of the nanocomposite adsorbent for a flow rate of 3 mL/min, initial concentration of 10 mg/L and 4 cm bed height. Data from column studies was fitted to the Thomas model and Adams-Bohart models. The comparison of the R2 values obtained from both models showed a better fit for the nanocomposite material than the individual halloysite nanoclay and calcined magnesite materials. The study revealed the applicability of calcined magnesite- halloysite nanoclay composite in fixed bed column for the removal of DR81 dye from aqueous solution. v The reuse of an adsorbent is essential in order to make the adsorption process economic and environmentally friendly. To recover the adsorbate and renew the adsorbent for further use, a chemical method of regeneration was applied by using 0.1 M NaOH as the desorbent. Regeneration with 0.1 M NaOH proved very efficient for some dyes and less efficient for others depending on the adsorbent material used at the time. The general observation was that the adsorption capacity of the adsorbent materials decreased with successive adsorption – desorption cycles. Furthermore, regeneration with NaOH, favoured the acidic dyes (DR81 and MO) more than the basic dyes (MB and CV) possibly due to electrostatic interactions between oppositely charged molecules allowing for reversible reactions to take place. The three tested adsorbents namely calcined magnesite, halloysite nanoclay and their nanocomposite thereof were applied for the treatment of real wastewater effluent from a printing and ink industry. The adsorbents performed very well in terms of colour removal as recommended by the South African standards of wastewater discharge, However, in terms of pH, calcined magnesite and the nanocomposite produced a highly alkaline solution hence wastewater neutralisation by an acid is recommended before discharge. These findings show that the two natural clay-based materials (calcined magnesite and halloysite nanoclay) and their nanocomposite thereof have a great potential for application in dye wastewater remediation since the materials used in the process are inexpensive, abundant and require minimal modifications. / NRF