In this research, I examine the mediating role of transit and the mobility needs and experience of individuals who are homeless in the suburban community of Surrey, BC. I have used Harvey’s (2005) conception of social spatial sorting as a means of understanding the suburbanization of poverty and Galtung’s structural violence (1969) as a means of understanding the experience of homeless transit access. I employed a multiple case study, using semi-structured interviews, with residents and staff of three homeless shelters, located in three distinct neighbourhoods in Surrey. A cross-case analysis of the interview data was undertaken, to draw conclusions and recommendations for policy development and research concerning the transit needs of people who are homeless. To provide a policy context, a review of existing transit access programs available for people who are homeless and/or low-income is presented demonstrating the range of criteria and best practices. Four dimensions of transit access were identified by residents and staff: physical, temporal, social and financial (Kenyon et al., 2003). Residents had the most constrained agency (Coe & Jordhus-Lier et al., 2010) in relation to the physical and temporal dimensions, so that these dimensions became the most problematic in this suburban context. The importance of considering and understanding the geographic context of shelters and potential impacts on mobility and social inclusion for shelter residents, exiting from homelessness, are demonstrated. / Graduate

This study examines the female immigrants' experiences regarding participation in cricket in their homeland and Sweden. It contains two sections: the first part aims to assess the perceived opportunities, barriers, and challenges of playing cricket in the participants’ homeland and Sweden, and the second part focuses on the impact of playing cricket on their lives, particularly social inclusion in their new societies. Bourdieu’s theory of practices, Putnam's social capital theory, and Self-Determination theory are used as analytical tools to explore the participant's sports involvement in their homeland and host country, how playing cricket in Sweden helps them to accumulate social capital, and their psychological need regarding motivating them to engage in cricket, respectively. This study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with seven (07) female immigrants, aged 20-40 years, who play cricket in Sweden. The findings indicate that females with an immigrant background had experiences playing sports in their homeland, but socio-cultural, religious, and gender-related challenges and limited opportunities hindered continuity in their later lives. However, after migrating to Sweden, they rediscovered themselves to engage in cricket in a supportive environment where they faced some challenges mainly related to facilities and getting more female members as cricket is not a native sport of Sweden. They also mentioned that they do not gain any financial assistance for playing cricket in Sweden. It is evident from the study that participants have no language barriers in their team as everybody speaks English. However, participants appreciate the facilities they get from the club, such as practice matches, coaching and resources, and funding from SCF for the female development camp and Premiere League. Despite the lack of financial assistance for playing, participants are motivated to invest money, effort, and time for the positive outcome of cricket, including physical fitness, mental well-being, personal growth, social connection, and a sense of belonging.

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Background: There is a burgeoning population of older adults globally and there is an increasing urgency in the policy literature to understand the health issues facing this population. A social exclusion lens provides an opportunity to understand health inequity and disadvantage among vulnerable populations. There is limited research examining how social exclusion plays out for older women, particularly in the rural context. This study examines the social exclusion experiences of Canadian, rural, older women and highlights policy implications for global health practitioners. Methods: Guided by the principles of interpretive description, this qualitative study included eight participants who identified as women, 65 years or older, spoke English, and who lived alone in private households in rural communities of Durham Region, Ontario. Concurrent data collection and analysis was conducted using an inductive approach. One-to-one, semi-structured interviews were completed. Findings: Six themes illuminate the exclusion experiences of rural, older women and they include: “Expectations of ageing in rural communities”; “Navigating the tensions of belonging within the social fabric”; “Singlehood isolation”; “Driving independence”; “Health infrastructure and changing personal health”; “Affording ageing”. Implications & Contributions: The study adds a Canadian, rural perspective to the global conceptual literature on social exclusion. It illuminates the unique ways in which female gender and rural context influence social exclusion experiences. Implications for global health policy include: recognizing health as a key category of exclusion and the need to address health equity, adopt a gender-specific and life-course approach to address social exclusion, foster a sense of belonging and peer connection, utilize unconventional channels for engagement, implement social support schemes and health programming which considers non-traditional families or single status as norm for family composition, and support affordable access to health-promoting programs and services. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This study examines how older (senior) women, living in rural communities in Durham Region, Ontario experience social exclusion, and aims to help inform global health policies for older adults. Social exclusion is a way of understanding how processes interact to impact on someone’s ability to participate fully in their life Six themes were identified and add to the global evidence on social exclusion. This Canadian study shows the unique ways in which female gender and the rural context influence on social exclusion experiences. Global health policy implications include: health is a key category of exclusion and addressing health equity is important, adopt a gender-specific approach that considers what happens over a lifetime that contributes to women’s exclusion, foster a sense of belonging and peer connection, use unconventional channels of engagement, and implement social support schemes and health programming which considers non-traditional families or single status as norm for family composition.

No / Public discourse in Britain sees teenage motherhood as a pernicious social problem where mothers, their children and society generally will all suffer. Fathers are seen as feckless. This is reflected in New Labour's teenage pregnancy strategy, which understands teenage parents as victims of ignorance, mis-information, and low expectations. But a review of the research evidence finds that the age at which pregnancy occurs has little effect on social outcomes. Many teenage mothers describe how motherhood makes them feel stronger, and marks a change for the better. Many fathers seek to remain connected with their children. For both, parenting seems to provide an impetus to take up education, training and employment. Teenage parenting may be more of an opportunity than a catastrophe, and often makes sense in the life worlds inhabited by young mothers. The paper ends by asking how we can explain this yawning gulf between the experience of teenage parenting and policy, and concludes that this largely rests on assumptions of rational choice, in turn creating a `rationality mistake'.

No / Dementia has been a latecomer to the field of service user involvement. Although there are now beginning to be welcome signs of improvement in the inclusion of the service-user voice, at present those with milder cognitive impairment, those who are still living at home, and those who come from white, professional s are over-represented. The BSc/MSc Dementia Studies programmes at the University of Bradford recruit part-time students who are already employed in the field of dementia care. The majority of students work in long-term or intermediate care, with smaller sub-groups working in the community, in acute care and on general hospital wards. The client groups with dementia they encounter in these settings are diverse, and tend to have different needs and perspectives from those articulated by mainstream service user groups. For this reason we have been seeking to develop an inclusive approach to service user involvement in the degree programmes we run, in order to ensure that the whole range of experiences of dementia is covered. Over the last five years this has involved developing an outreach programme in order to involve people with dementia in the environments where they spend their time, rather than restricting service user involvement to on-site activities at the University. This presentation showcases one such project which involved members of the course team working with clients attending a resource centre for older people with dementia to develop a series of short film clips (Bay Tree Voices) which were then embedded into the course learning materials in order to model alternative approaches to communication. The presentation includes formal and informal evaluations of these film-based teaching resources from service users, students and care staff.

Yes / Purpose – This research paper aims to examine the mental health needs of young adults and to discuss how well these are met from the vantage‐point of the patients. Young adulthood is identified as an epidemiological risk for developing mental health problems and so the care provided during these developmental years is investigated to assess efficacy and experience. Design/methodology/approach – After interviewing 35 young adults, it was found most people are aware of the genesis to their problems and have strong views about the level of support and types of treatments offered. Findings – Like other writings, this research finds that many of the needs presented by young adults are unique to this transitional phase in life and administratively determined age structures on which current mental health care is configured do not adequately meet these needs. Research limitations/implications – The small sample size (35) and the geographical region covered means caution should be exercised in drawing any generalisations. Further research on outcomes after the mid‐20s by reflecting on service experience during the 18‐25 transformational years would be a useful area for exploration. Practical implications – This paper makes some powerful recommendations on why service provision must meet service user needs and how the recent equality legislation may provide impetus to this. All of this needs to start with examining the age boundaries on which mental healthcare is designed.

The thesis "Development of Czech social inclusion policies" looks at what factors influenced the development of social inclusion policy, focusing primarily on socially excluded Roma since 1989. In the period after 1989 Czech public and social policy was under influence of many factor including both external ones, resulting from the efforts of the Czech Republic to join the European Union, or later from the membership itself, as well as internal ones, arising from the need to ensure the functioning of the system in a rapidly changing socio-economic conditions. When mapping the development of the policy attention is paid particular to the impacts of the process of European integration and institutional changes that are reflected in the implementation of social inclusion policies. Furthermore, the text seeks to uncover the causes and effects of changes in development of examined policy. Those identifying factors that may be considered essential for the development of Czech social inclusion policies, went from thematic analysis of interviews with experts. Data obtained from respondents are then often supplemented by more detailed information from literature and public policy documents. Changes in the Czech social inclusion policies since 1989 are explained also using theories of Europeanization and the...

The study institution is a non-profit organization with a model developed from the continuous implementation of needs assessments of the families of adolescent parents in Puerto Rico, with the purpose of increasing their social inclusion potential. Addressing social exclusion and stigmatization of adolescent parents is vital because it generates a dual benefit for social interactions and growth. The social inclusion concept used and further elaborated for adolescent mothers is described by researchers as the level of access to engaging with institutions and societal relationships. This program evaluation was developed to understand the outcomes and effectiveness of the organization's social inclusion interventions. There is a gap in knowledge for comprehensive and family-centered adolescent parent's programs related to their potential for social inclusion. Guided by complex systems theory, the key research questions were designed to assess the potential gains in social inclusion characteristics for the organization's participants. The study utilized organizational, administrative data and used a pre- and post-test design with a comparison group. McNemar test findings indicated statistically significant increase for the intervention group regarding their social inclusion (p < .001); while Wilcoxon test findings indicated statistically significant gain in nurturing family environments (p = .006) and socio-economic positions (p < .001). Further research is recommended to assess the life-course protective factors' characteristics and the social inclusion pathways. The positive social change includes further understanding of social inclusion for adolescent mothers and its related ecological perspectives.

The main purpose of this thesis is introducing and proposing perceived accessibility as an important and so far overseen complement to conventional, objective accessibility in sustainable transport. Perceived accessibility is defined as the possibilities and ease of engaging in preferred activities using different transport modes. Implications for sustainable transport planning along with possible social outcomes related to perceived accessibility are also discussed.   The thesis comprises two empirical studies. In Study I a psychometric measure (PAC) that captures perceived accessibility was developed and validated in three different datasets by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. All data was collected in Karlstad, Sweden in 2013 and 2014 with a total of 750 participants (bus travelers). Perceived accessibility is suggested as a complement to objective accessibility by contributing with the traveler perspective.  Study II aimed at examining determinants of perceived accessibility focusing on service quality aspects, feelings of safety, age, and trip frequency. Study II used the same data as Study I in a conditional process model to look at the relations between perceived accessibility and its proposed determinants. Service quality and feelings of safety were found important predictors of perceived accessibility, and safety also explains part of the effect of quality on perceived accessibility. These relationships were not dependent on trip frequency (as in how often one travels by public transport). Age also predicted perceived accessibility, and a follow-up cluster analysis showed that elderly and people in their thirties experience significantly lower perceived accessibility than other age groups. / Denna licentiatuppsats behandlar upplevd tillgänglighet, det vill säga resenärsperspektivet på tillgänglighet, som ett viktigt komplement till konventionell (objektiv) tillgänglighet inom hållbart resande. Uppsatsen introducerar upplevd tillgänglighet och dess nytta och plats i forskningen samt implikationer för planering och utvärdering av hållbara transporter. Vidare behandlas påverkansfaktorer för upplevd tillgänglighet samt relaterade individuella utfall som subjektivt välbefinnande och social exkludering/inkludering utifrån teori och empiri.   Uppsatsen innefattar två empiriska studier. Studie I utvecklar och testar ett psykometriskt mätinstrument för upplevd tillgänglighet med data från tre enkät-tillfällen (n= 750) i Karlstad. Dataset 1 analyserades med explorativ faktoranalys för att få fram ett instrument som fångar upplevd tillgänglighet (PAC) och validerades därefter i två dataset. Studie II avsåg att undersöka vad som bidrar till upplevd tillgänglighet med fokus på kvalitetsattribut i resan (service quality), resenärens upplevda trygghet, samt ålder och resvana. Samma data som i studie I användes i en conditional process model för att undersöka sambanden, samt i en klusteranalys för att ytterligare undersöka skillnader i resultatet mellan olika grupper av resenärer. Resultatet visar att upplevd tillgänglighet kan ha betydelse som komplement till befintliga mätningar och utvärderingar av tillgänglighet genom att bidra med resenärsperspektivet. Ett antal påverkansfaktorer för upplevd tillgänglighet kan konstateras, däribland kvalitet samt resenärens upplevda känsla av trygghet. Betydelsen av kvalitet för tillgänglighet är densamma oavsett hur ofta man reser, däremot upplever de som reser ofta en signifikant högre tillgänglighet än de som reser sällan. Äldre resenärer och resenärer i 30-årsåldern påvisar signifikant lägre upplevd tillgänglighet. / This thesis proposes perceived accessibility as a complement to conventional accessibility in sustainable transport planning and evaluation. Perceived accessibility is defined as the possibilities and ease of engaging in preferred activities using different transport modes and captures the traveller experience and perspective of accessibility. The thesis introduces an instrument for measuring perceived accessibility (PAC) along with determinants for perceived accessibility, such as feelings of safety, age, and perceived quality. Related social outcomes such as social inclusion and subjective well-being are discussed, along with possible implications for transport planning and suggestions for future research.