Thesis advisor: Hans de Wit / This study looks at how services for mental health, a growing crisis on college campuses worldwide, are being provided and promoted to international students, a portion of the student body that faces additional mental health challenges, in Japan, a country where the culture historically stigmatizes mental health. Using the theories of comprehensive internationalization and cross-cultural adjustment to guide a series of semi-structured interviews, data was collected from international office members, counseling office members, and professors of higher education from five Japanese universities and compiled into five case studies which were then categorically and comparatively analyzed. The study found international offices provided a variety of services and activities aimed at easing cross-cultural adjustment but could improve collaboration with counseling offices. Counseling offices were found to be lacking specialized services and promotion to international students. Furthermore, although perceptions of mental health are improving, advocacy was found to be near non-existent. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Domestic violence is an endemic problem in Namibia and may be the most underreported form of violence against women and men, girls and boys residing in the country [Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS), 2014:295]. Domestic violence, takes many forms, including physical aggression (hitting, kicking, biting, shoving, restraining, slapping, or throwing objects) as well as threats, rape, other forms of sexual and emotional abuse, controlling or domineering behaviours, intimidation, stalking, and passive or covert abuse (e.g., neglect or economic deprivation). Victims of rape and gender-based violence (GBV), however appear to face significant challenges in accessing healthcare support services. It is against this background that this study was conducted. The main goal of this study is to explore and describe the challenges faced by survivors of rape in the Khomas region of Namibia in accessing health and support services. The study utilised a qualitative research approach, which was applied research, as it focused on problems faced in the practice of identifying and seeking to address the challenges faced by rape survivors in the process of trying to heal from the trauma of rape. The phenomenological design was deemed appropriate for this study since it dealt with some sensitive issues regarding personal experiences of violence and reaction to it. The study was therefore exploratory and descriptive in nature an unstructured one-onone interviews were used to collect data. Findings from the study showed that rape survivors in the Khomas region of Namibia face many challenges in accessing healthcare support services which relate to the problems that they face as a result of the rape, as well as to the nature of support that they get from healthcare centres, the police, the community as well as their socioeconomic circumstances. Close collaboration is required between relevant stakeholders such as healthcare workers, police, communities, the legal justice system and policy makers. This will assist in the development of more effective policies and the building systems and institutions that are more effective in offering support to survivors of rape. It is therefore recommended that service delivery to support survivors of rape be improved in such a way that it becomes more accessible and survivor friendly. / Mini Dissertation (MSW (Healthcare))--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Social Work and Criminology / MSW (Healthcare) / Unrestricted

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Education in fulfilment of the requirement for the Doctor of Education Degree in the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies at the University of Zululand, 2018. / The vision of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) is about increasing enrolments and marketing Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges as viable institutions. The first college entrants often have hurdles that can challenge qualification completion, placing them at high risk of dropping out. The focus of the study was to determine the level of contribution student support services may have on the academic success of first college entrants. The study was carried out in two public TVET Colleges, purposely selected. Data were collected from a sample of 172 respondents of which 100 were first-year students, 20 entry-level lecturers, 20 Campus Management Team members, 2 Student Support Service Managers, 10 Student Liaison Officers, 10 SSS-SACs, and 10 Career Development Officers, purposively and randomly selected. Thirty two participants were purposively selected from SSS unit personnel for qualitative data collection. The study used questionnaires and structured interviews as data collection instruments. Validity was warranted through the judgement of experts in the SSS unit, CMT and lecturing staff, and made possible by allowing them to have access to the instruments of data collections. Reliability was determined by ensuring that an audit trail was done, and it was made available to all participants. Post-positivism paradigm was employed as the study utilised mixed methodology which incorporate both quantitative and qualitative approaches in one study. The findings of this study revealed that, students with learning challenges are not adequately supported to better cope with the college lifestyle. It was also discovered that, opportunities provided by the campuses for academic support were not enough to support the first college entrants. Findings revealed that (100 %) respondents agreed that opportunities provided by the campus for academic support were not enough to support the first college entrants. It was evident from the findings that (62, 2 %) percent respondents disagreed that a major share of SSS budget was allocated for academic support programmes. Equality of opportunity and outcomes is constrained by inadequate funding to address under preparedness (conceptual, knowledge, academic literacy and numeracy) for higher education programmes of especially indigent students. The findings revealed that over eighty percent respondents disagreed that they were satisfied with technological facilities. Furthermore, a majority of participants interviewed remain resolute that the existing infrastructure does not allow effective rendering of support services to students. The study concluded with a recommendation of an initial student integration model, which supports Tinto’s (1993) model of student integration. Adding to that, this study recommended that further research be conducted on academic support focusing primarily on private TVET colleges for comparison purposes, as the present study focus was mainly on public TVET colleges. The study is significant in the sense that its’ findings would provide insight into the TVET college governance councils, management at all levels, SSS managers, SSS units at campus level and policy makers to understand the role of a SSS unit, and the positive impact it may have on students’ academic success.

This thesis is an institutional ethnography (IE) examining the social organization of Community Care Access Centre School Health Support Services (CCAC SHSS) for children with diabetes in Ontario schools. More specifically, it explicates the social relations embedded in, and coordinating the work organization of mothering (parenting) and nursing in the school setting. The inquiry begins in my personal experience as a mother of a child with diabetes starting kindergarten, and the troubles I encountered in getting the care and attention needed to keep my child safe at school. Starting from experience, a place outside of theory and institutionalized categories and discourse, I set out on a journey to discover the social organization that coordinates my experience, and to seek answers to my query: how are school health supports put together in such a way that I, as a parent, am left feeling worried about my child’s safety when she is at school, have had to fight to secure the much needed ‘diabetes care’, and even then, am often called upon to provide voluntary supplementary healthcare work to ensure her safety at school? I have structured this thesis into two main parts. The first part provides the set-up for this thesis. First, I orient readers to this distinctive way of doing an IE, directing their attention to how I used the core IE concepts in this research and calling upon them to read the remainder of the thesis taking up this distinctive theoretical and conceptual lens. Indeed, what we know and how we know it has much to do with how knowledge is socially organized. Then, I go on to examine the different ways of knowing about ‘diabetes care’, how these distinctive ways of knowing create a disjuncture for me as a parent and how this disjuncture is used to establish the research standpoint to begin and direct the explication. The last chapter in this part situates health supports for children with diabetes within the services provided by public-funded home care. I sketch three decades of the history of reform and organizational restructuring of home care in Ontario, in particular, the introduction of privatizing relations into the local practices of community nursing and the creation of CCACs. These relations of privatization reorganized the home care sector, the workforce, and the relation between the ‘state’ and its citizens. What went on before sets the groundwork for what can happen next, and it is under this context and conditions in which my inquiry is set. The second part consists of four academic journal manuscripts. They are the descriptive analysis for this IE. These four chapters describe what I have learned and discovered in doing this research, and three of them in particular provide an empirical analysis showing how school health supports for children with diabetes are put together such that the troubles I experienced came into being. These four chapters are conventionally referred to as research ‘findings’ in traditional qualitative research methodology. Each of these chapters speaks to a particular way of knowing about ‘diabetes care’. One focuses on parents’ experiential ways of knowing based on the actualities of their daily and nightly everyday world to show the amount of work and knowledge required to care for and to keep their children with diabetes alive; while the other three underscore the CCACs’ institutional ways of knowing about ‘diabetes care’ in the school setting. I show how these objectified ways of knowing derived from institutional texts (Standardized CCAC Medial Orders, information technology software and the Diabetes Checklist for Independence) are used to determine a child’s eligibility to receive health supports at school. These objectified textual forms of knowing are removed from the actualities of people’s real life circumstances, and differ significantly with how and what parents know is needed for their children with diabetes to stay well and safe at school. It is precisely this form of text-mediated social coordination that leaves parents feeling worried and draws them in to doing voluntary healthcare work at school, without which the child’s safety and the continuity of care is not possible. Tracing the institutional relations organizing how health support services for children with diabetes actually happen in the classroom, I show the kind of work expected of parents, and demonstrate that the CCAC SHSS policy and practices only ‘work’ as they should with the incorporation of parents’ ‘unauthorized’ knowledge and their ongoing voluntary complementary healthcare work. While it is in parents’ interests to ensure their children’s safety and well-being at school, there are differences between parents in how, and if, they can deliver their knowledge and resources. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Diabetes is a chronic health condition that requires individuals with diabetes or their families to maintain a daily well-coordinated and intensive diabetes self-care routine. Lapses in this complex daily regimen can have devastating immediate and long-term consequences. How children’s diabetes, that is children’s health and well-being, are cared for at school is of concern for parents. The inquiry begins in my personal experience as a mother of a child with diabetes starting kindergarten, and the troubles I encountered in getting the care needed to keep my child safe at school. Starting from experience, this thesis examines how the institutional context and routine practices of diabetes care in school affects the care children actually receive. Despite legislation that requires accommodations for students with disabilities, what I found in this study is that parental involvement (which is inequitably available) is essential to ensure diabetes care is adequate for children in schools.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was (a) to determine which student support service resources should be included in an Online Wellness Resource Center (OWRC) available within an online course and (b) to create a paper-based schematic for such a prototype. To address these research questions, a needs assessment was conducted to determine whether learners perceived a need for access to wellness resources. Finding that they did express this need, the assessment then identified the specific wellness resources to include in the OWRC. A schematic was then created for OWRC development, incorporating the results of the needs assessment. The specific contribution of this study is its ability to provide a model that other institutions can follow to establish their own OWRC / Ph. D.

Precollege programs, such as Talent Search (TS), are widely used to increase college readiness skills, particularly among underrepresented students in higher education. The college examined in this study had implemented the TS program, but little empirical evidence existed about the efficacy of the program. The purpose of this ex-post facto quantitative study was to evaluate the effect that the local TS program has had on college readiness and success as measured by incoming freshmen placement exam scores and students' first-year grade point average (FYGPA). The theoretical framework for the study was Conley's 4 dimensions of college readiness designed to help students succeed beyond high school. The research questions explored the differences in the 2010, 2011, and 2012 Computer Adaptive Placement Assessment and Support System (COMPASS) reading and writing placement scores and FYGPA for TS program participants and non-TS participants. The balanced sample included all 120 local college students who had finished their freshman year. Independent sample t tests were conducted and no significant differences were found in FYGPA or COMPASS reading and writing scores based on program participation. To provide guidance to the local site administrators, the extant literature on precollege interventions and holistic approaches provided best practice recommendations for a white paper that included additional services not currently offered by the local TS program. Positive social change is supported through assuring appropriate precollege support that may lead to increased academic success for students, hence increasing the number of college graduates among this group.

The main focus of this study was on making recommendations towards the refinement of REds that should increase its effectiveness in supporting educators affected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic towards coping resiliently with the challenges of the pandemic. The educators are affected by_ learners, colleagues, family members who are HIV positive or dying from AIDS-related illnesses, or teaching orphans and vulnerable learners made by HIV/AIDS pandemic. To achieve this aim, I followed a pm-experimental pre-test-post-test design. Within this design, I used qualitative methods of data collection, to comment on how successful REds was in encouraging participant resilience and to comment on how REds could be refined. Ten affected educators volunteered to take part in this study, being three males and seven females. Their ages ranged from 35-56 and they were all primary school educators. All the participants came from one school in the Eastern Free State province (Thabo Mofutsanyana district). REds was implemented in Thabo Mofutsanyana district because this is where I live and work and the school is accessible to me. The participants were all esothospeaking and adhered to Sesotho culture. They all taught AIDS orphans and vulnerable children. My findings from this study documented that participants seem to have benefitted from their participation in REds. In general the participants reported more resilient management of the challenges brought in by the HIV/AIDS disaster and although this cannot be finally linked to their participation in REds, participants in general they made such a link. REds need to be refined witl1 regard to content, language and activities that will do more to encourage assertiveness. / M.Ed., North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010

The main focus of this study was on making recommendations towards the refinement of REds that should increase its effectiveness in supporting educators affected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic towards coping resiliently with the challenges of the pandemic. The educators are affected by_ learners, colleagues, family members who are HIV positive or dying from AIDS-related illnesses, or teaching orphans and vulnerable learners made by HIV/AIDS pandemic. To achieve this aim, I followed a pm-experimental pre-test-post-test design. Within this design, I used qualitative methods of data collection, to comment on how successful REds was in encouraging participant resilience and to comment on how REds could be refined. Ten affected educators volunteered to take part in this study, being three males and seven females. Their ages ranged from 35-56 and they were all primary school educators. All the participants came from one school in the Eastern Free State province (Thabo Mofutsanyana district). REds was implemented in Thabo Mofutsanyana district because this is where I live and work and the school is accessible to me. The participants were all esothospeaking and adhered to Sesotho culture. They all taught AIDS orphans and vulnerable children. My findings from this study documented that participants seem to have benefitted from their participation in REds. In general the participants reported more resilient management of the challenges brought in by the HIV/AIDS disaster and although this cannot be finally linked to their participation in REds, participants in general they made such a link. REds need to be refined witl1 regard to content, language and activities that will do more to encourage assertiveness. / M.Ed., North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010

Published Article / The medical biological and ecosystemic models are two paradigms which are currently making a huge impact on education support services on an international level. The medical biological model has been dominating the way in which multidisciplinary support has been delivered within 20th-century special education. However, with the advent of inclusive education, the ecosystemic model has initially been pushed to the fore as the preferred metatheory of support services. This article specifically interrogates these two conflicting paradigms in education support services within the South African schooling and higher education bands, as well as Bronfenbrenner's integration of these models with regard to the bio-ecological model. Finally, this article proposes the bio-ecosystemic framework according to which the training of multidisciplinary education support services staff should proceed in order to ensure a sound and less conflicting theoretical framework.