With the aging of our population and the higher risk of chronic illness and disability with age, more and more family members may be faced with the experience of having a relative transition into a long-term care (LTC) home. This reality necessitates greater understanding of family care partner needs to ensure wellness throughout their caring career. Using participatory action research, notions of wellness were explored for family partners in care with relatives residing in LTC homes. Using two LTC homes from a privately owned company called Specialty Care, ten family members were interviewed, followed by one focus group at each of the two LTC homes. Three major themes were revealed, each with several sub themes: (1) understanding wellness amidst challenges to keep a sense of wellness in life; (2) self-appraisal: becoming aware of personal beliefs and perceptions that influence wellness; and (3) assessing LTC homes and their influence on the experience of wellness. We not only revealed more about wellness and how it is experienced in the caring context, we also discovered leisure’s role in maintaining wellness and how embedded leisure’s influence is on the various aspects of wellness that family partners in care experience. Relationship-centred care is a framework we used to guide this study. It highlights the importance of family member needs, along with the needs of the residents and staff. With our enhanced understanding of family care partner needs, recommendations were made to the Specialty Care communities so they can work together to ensure optimal wellness is maintained for all parties, including family partners in care.

Bakgrund: Demens är ett sjukdomstillstånd som innebär en bestående nedsättning av kognitiva funktioner. Därför behöver personer med demenssjukdom och närstående stöd för att klara vardagen bättre. Syfte: Syftet var att tillsammans med en personalgrupp vid en dagsjukvårdsenhet utarbeta ett underlag för en kommande utvärdering av ett projekt vars syfte var att ge stöd i relationen mellan personer med demenssjukdom och deras närstående. Metod: Studien genomfördes med deltagarbaserad aktionsforskning med en fokusgruppsintervju och en enskild intervju. Deltagarna var en personalgrupp på en dagsjukvårdsenhet. Resultat: Dagsjukvårdsenheten önskade stödja relationen mellan personer med demenssjukdom och deras närstående. Stödet planeras genomföras vid fem tillfällen under fem veckor. Dessa fem tillfällen har olika teman som handlar om hur paren kan hantera vardagen på ett annat sätt. Genom dessa tillfällen har dagsjukvårdsenheten som mål att exempelvis underlätta vardagen för paren. Diskussion: Ett av de centrala fynden var att personer med demenssjukdom och deras närstående behöver både individuellt och gemensamt stöd i relationen. Ett annat fynd var att personalguppen är av den åsikten att vardagen kan underlättas om paren får ta del av andras erfarenheter. En samordnad stödform mellan kommun och landsting kan underlätta för att kunna ge bästa stöd till personer med demenssjukdom tillsammans med närstående. / Background: Dementia is a disease which involves a permanent reduction of cognitive functions. Therefore people with dementia and their relatives need support to cope with problems in the daily life. Aim: The aim was to work with personnel at a day care unit to prepare a basis for a future evaluation of a project which purpose was to provide support in the relationship between people with dementia and their relatives. Method: The study was conducted as participatory action research with a focus group interview and an individual interview. Participants were personnel at the day care unit. Results: The day care unit wished to support the relationship between people with dementia and their relatives. The support was planned to be done at five occasions during five weeks. These five occasions have different themes which are about how the couples could handle the everyday life in a different way. Through these occasions the day care unit has as a goal for example to simplify everyday life for the couples. Discussion: One of the key findings was that people with dementia and their relatives need, both individually and jointly, support in the relationship. Another finding was that the personnel group is of the opinion that life can be facilitated if the couples may take part of other’s experiences. A coordinated assistance between municipalities and county councils can help to provide the best support for people with dementia together with their relatives.

This thesis examines maternal decision-making regarding prenatal care and childbirth in the rural, north-central Andes in the province of Carhuaz. Semi-structured interviews (n=30) and participatory action research workshops (n=7) were conducted with local women to elucidate how they conceptualize, experience, and negotiate the shifting landscape of prenatal care and childbirth practices and providers. Semi-structured interviews with obstetricians, midwives, and social workers (n=9) were also conducted to compare perspectives and identify disconnects in knowledge and practices existing between these two groups in order to facilitate an open conversation on how to jointly improve the maternal experience and reduce maternal mortality and morbidity in rural Peru, where these risks are significantly higher than in urbanized, coastal areas. In the face of changing practices and the influx of biomedical ideologies, women are faced with competing and conflicting bodies of knowledge as well as varying concrete and symbolic values and consequences of their decisions, which they must navigate and evaluate in a dynamic environment. Issues of ethnic and gender discrimination and financial and social coercion arose as prominent forces structuring risks and constraining maternal agency. However, women also found ways to both resist and accommodate these challenges, demonstrating the intricate and on-going negotiations that occur throughout gestation and the maternal experience. The results of this investigation illustrate the various and nuanced ways in which macro-level maternal health policies are manifesting on the local level and impacting the lived realities of rural, Andean women.

Therapeutic relationships were explored using participatory action research in recreation therapy at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (SHSC). The 22 recreation therapists at SHSC comprised the research team and were actively involved throughout the research process; they determined the research questions, the research process, and engaged in data collection and data analysis. This study explored how recreation therapists understood their therapeutic relationships, how different waves of influences were negotiated and philosophies of care that emerged in their therapeutic relationships. At first glance, therapeutic relationships were understood as meaningful connections and shared experiences that developed over time between a recreation therapist and individual receiving care. Later on, therapeutic relationships emerged as a complex process with welcoming, continuing and closing phases. Positive therapeutic relationships were defined by qualities such as caring, trust, respect, and non-judgment for everyone involved. Therapeutic relationships were also influenced by the organizational context, unit specific cultures, family, and staff members and recreation therapists continually negotiated the expectations, power and boundaries of these influences within their therapeutic relationships. The recreation therapists also discussed the different roles, they and the individuals receiving care could engage in during their therapeutic relationships ranging from the traditional, contemporary or controversial. Findings revealed that recreation therapists’ practices were predominantly influenced by person-centered care philosophies, although the biomedical model and relationship-centred care philosophies were also apparent. The practice of being in the moment emerged as a means of enhancing therapeutic relationships, whereas self-reflective practice assisted the recreation therapists to negotiate different waves of influence on their therapeutic relationships.

Thesis (M.A. (Research Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Thesis (M.A. (Research Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

This thesis is based on Project Artemis, a critical, girl-centred participatory action research (PAR) project designed as part of an evaluation of Artemis Place, an alternative education program serving “at-risk” girls in Victoria, BC. Nine Artemis Place students between the ages of 15 and 18 worked alongside me as co-researchers to investigate how Artemis Place has affected their lives. Our research also explored girl co-researchers' schooling experiences more broadly and the structural inequities they experience across the multiple contexts of their lives. Our process was rooted in a critical, participatory, collaborative framework, which aimed to investigate, problematize, and address (through social action) the complex forces shaping girls' experiences of marginalization. We used arts-based methods such as photovoice, graffiti walls, journaling and participatory video to cycle through the iterative phases of PAR: exploration/data collection, critical reflection/analysis, and action. We produced a documentary film as our primary research dissemination tool. In this thesis, I undertake my own analysis of our collective research to do a deep reading of girls' resistances to “at-risk” constructions of girlhood, in order to understand their negotiations of the complex forces shaping their daily realities. I complicate the concept of resistance using a hybridized feminist-poststructural (Davies, 2000) and desire-based (Tuck, 2010) framework to explore the ways girls' resistances are produced through flows of desire – creative and productive force – that disrupt, exceed, (re)configure, and/or (re)code “girl” and “risk.” I argue that tracing the “desire flows” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) and reconfigurations produced in/through our critical research process, is an important, political move toward sustaining alternative figurations of girlhood. As such, this thesis contributes promising, ethical/affirmative/political possibilities for understanding the complexities of girls' lives and for engaging alongside them in feminist research, praxis, and activism for social justice. / Graduate

With the aging of our population and the higher risk of chronic illness and disability with age, more and more family members may be faced with the experience of having a relative transition into a long-term care (LTC) home. This reality necessitates greater understanding of family care partner needs to ensure wellness throughout their caring career. Using participatory action research, notions of wellness were explored for family partners in care with relatives residing in LTC homes. Using two LTC homes from a privately owned company called Specialty Care, ten family members were interviewed, followed by one focus group at each of the two LTC homes. Three major themes were revealed, each with several sub themes: (1) understanding wellness amidst challenges to keep a sense of wellness in life; (2) self-appraisal: becoming aware of personal beliefs and perceptions that influence wellness; and (3) assessing LTC homes and their influence on the experience of wellness. We not only revealed more about wellness and how it is experienced in the caring context, we also discovered leisure’s role in maintaining wellness and how embedded leisure’s influence is on the various aspects of wellness that family partners in care experience. Relationship-centred care is a framework we used to guide this study. It highlights the importance of family member needs, along with the needs of the residents and staff. With our enhanced understanding of family care partner needs, recommendations were made to the Specialty Care communities so they can work together to ensure optimal wellness is maintained for all parties, including family partners in care.

[Truncated abstract] Conservative, incremental and modest approaches to redressing gendered workplace cultures have had limited success in challenging the demographic profile of densely masculinist workplaces. In this thesis I draw on a study of women in police work to argue that combating highly institutionalised, entrenched masculinist practices calls for more than modesty. Indeed the study shows that ambitious, even contentious, recommendations for new procedures can play an important role when the goal is tangible change in cultures where there is an excess of men. In conclusion I posit the need for some bold risk-taking, alongside incremental tactics, if the aim is to change the habits and practices of masculinist organisations . . . This dissertation maps that interventionist process across a four-year period. In assessing the role played by the feminist methodology I analyse what people can learn to see and say about organisational practices, how they participate in or seek to undermine various forms of teamwork, as well as how individual team members display their new understandings and behaviours. I conclude that the techniques for supporting women in authoritarian, densely masculinist workplaces should include some bold and highly visible ‘critical acts’, based on commitment from the top coupled to strongly motivated and highly informed teamwork.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Psychology, 2007. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-160).