Paper One: Developing positive relationships between schools and families has become an increasing priority within education in order to best support children and young people’s learning and development. Despite an increasing focus on seeking the parental ‘voice’, the views and experiences of school staff, parents and children appear to have limited prominence within the literature. This paper presents a piece of illuminative Community Psychology research that explored home-school relationships from the perspectives of school staff, parents and children from four Primary schools in a local community. A mixed-methods approach to data collection involved twenty-eight staff and sixty-four parent questionnaires, a focus group with eight children, and semi-structured research interviews with six staff and five parents. The importance of effective communication to encourage home and school to ‘work together’ is highlighted along with the need to provide support tailored to local needs focused around developing parental knowledge and skills to support children’s learning. The findings offer valuable insights into the views and experiences of parents, school staff and children around the current communication and engagement practices of schools in a local community. There are also implications for educational practice, including within Educational Psychology, in developing more effective home-school relationships in the future. Paper Two: With an increasing focus on supporting parental involvement within education, the development of effective ‘partnerships’ between schools and families is widening. Despite the wealth of information and advice around engaging parents in education (DfE, 2011), there appears limited training and ongoing support for school staff on how to foster and maintain these positive interactions and how to tackle ‘real life’ issues faced within home-school relationships. This research explored the role of a Community Educational Psychologist working with school staff to develop and maintain positive home-school relationships. Through support and facilitation from a Trainee Community Educational Psychologist, a series of education and supervision sessions were developed with a group of school staff to increase knowledge and confidence around the applications of psychology within education and the influential factors in home-school interactions. A model of reflection was introduced through the supervision sessions to assist the creation of a sustainable support network for staff within school concerning their work with families. The findings highlighted a ‘need to’ and ‘desire for’ developing school staff knowledge and confidence and the significant impacts of the education/supervision sessions in achieving this. Factors enabling and preventing progress through these sessions were noted along with the value of ‘sharing’ within supervision. The necessity of continued practice in order to embed supervision into teaching practice was acknowledged, and the positive impact of a Community Educational Psychologist facilitating these groups was found. Implications for educational practice, including within Educational Psychology, in supporting school staff with home-school relationships are discussed.

The American Cancer Society estimates nearly 1.5 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Existing on cancer and its effects on family communication indicate there are few things that have the potential to shake a family to its core like a serious illness (Anderson & Geist Martin, 2003; Gotcher, 1993; Northouse, 2005; Sherman & Simonton, 2001). Communication is one of the most important elements in determining and influencing families' emotions, patients' quality of life, patient care, family relationships and caregiver stress (Beach, 2001). The mother-daughter dyad represents one of the most significant relationships to analyze with respect to the impact cancer has within the family since mothers are typically the primary role models for their daughters (Miller, 1995). Using interviews with mother/daughter dyads, this study seeks to examine changes in communication between mothers and daughters following the mother's cancer diagnosis. The mother-daughter dyad is of most interest in this study for several reasons, most notably that this relationship is the “first dyadic relationship a female child has” (Bishop, 1992, p. 58); additionally, mothers are typically the primary role models for their daughters (Miller, 1995). This study aims to shed light on the relational changes that occur following a cancer diagnosis.

This work is focused on marketing communication in the pharmaceutical industry. The theoretical part contains a description of the pharmaceutical market, a brief analysis of the marketing mix with a detailed focus on the individual instruments of promotion (personal selling, advertising, direct marketing, public relations and sales support). It also contains partial laws, regulations, standards which are used in marketing communication. The practical part contains an analysis of marketing communication practices of selected pharmaceutical manufacturer with a focus on medicine or drug Motilium. Following analysis and comparison of different tools of communication mix together with value of the costs of activities, as well as proposed ways to improve marketing communication process and recommendation.

Text in English / Teenage pregnancy remains a major social, economic and health challenge in South Africa. The consequences of unplanned teenage pregnancies are devastating. The current study explored the impact of teenage pregnancy on disadvantaged adolescents in Mpumalanga. Fourteen adolescent girls were selected, using the purposive sampling technique. The objectives were to explore the experiences of adolescence, as well as their knowledge of various methods of preventing teenage pregnancy, and how they cope with the pregnancy. The study further explored programmes that are available to assist with teenage pregnancies in the community. Data was collected using in-depth one on one interviews to allow the researcher a platform to ask open-response questions. The data was thematically analysed by carefully categorising and expanding significant themes that emerged from the participant’s responses. The study revealed that lack of knowledge about sex and contraceptives, unhealthy coping strategies, lack of support from parents and peer pressure are all effects of teenage pregnancy and the reasons for participating in unprotected sexual activities. Recommendations for overcoming these challenges were provided to the community, schools and government organisations as guidelines in the establishment of youth programmes. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)