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This study aims to describe the COVID-19 risk mitigation strategies implemented in California prisons and the impact of these policies on the mental health of incarcerated women.

The authors conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with ten women who were over the age of 50 and/or had a chronic illness and had been incarcerated in California prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors also interviewed ten health-care providers working in California jails or prisons during the pandemic. Interviews were analyzed using a grounded theory coding framework and triangulated with fieldnotes from ethnographic observations of medical and legal advocacy efforts during the pandemic.

Participants described being locked in their cells for 23 hours per day or more, often for days, weeks or even months at a time in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19. For many participants, these lockdowns and the resulting isolation from loved ones both inside and outside of the prison were detrimental to both their physical and mental health. Participants reported that access to mental health care for those in the general population was limited prior to the pandemic, and that COVID-19 risk mitigation strategies, including the cessation of group programs and shift to cell-front mental health services, created further barriers.

There has been little qualitative research on the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on incarcerated populations. This paper provides insight into the mental health effects of both the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 risk mitigation strategies for the structurally vulnerable older women incarcerated in California prisons.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical overview of compassionate release policies in the USA and describe how these policies have been used during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors then describe how these programs have been shaped by COVID-19 and could be reimagined to address the structural conditions that make prisons potentially life limiting for older adults and those with chronic illness.

This paper is primarily descriptive, offering an overview of the history of compassionate release policies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors augmented this description by surveying state Departments of Corrections about their utilization of compassionate release during 2019 and 2020. The findings from this survey were combined with data collected via Freedom of Information Act Requests sent to state Departments of Corrections about the same topic.

The findings demonstrate that while the US federal prison system saw a multifold increase in the number of individuals released under compassionate release policies in 2020 compared to 2019, most US states had modest change, with many states maintaining the same number, or even fewer, releases in 2020 compared with 2019.

This paper provides both new data and new insight into compassionate release utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic and offers new possibilities for how compassionate release might be considered in the future.

I contend that traditional ways of conceptualizing the “disclosure dilemma” are limited due to a lack of attention to the more subtle ways teachers’ personal experiences and understandings help shape their practices. The decision to “dis-close” personal opinions on a controversial issue is, perhaps, less important than the exploration of what those personal opinions are and the degree of influence on pedagogy regardless of the decision to make those opinions public. In this way, disclosure can be understood as simply a willingness to be transparent about positionality with regard to the content being taught. As context for this conversation, I offer discussion of my experiences as an elementary social studies teacher educator in which I strived to engage such transparency as both method and content. In the end, I offer reflections about what is difficult, yet critically important about engaging in this work.

The purpose of this paper, a qualitative study, is to explore service users’ experiences of attending clinical psychology within a public community adult mental health service.

Six individuals who had completed at least 16 sessions of psychotherapy participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were transcribed and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

The results showed the following overarching domains: the relationship and its impacts, structure and focus, and participant factors – timing/readiness. The importance of the use of language was also identified. Participants appeared to value a sense of humanity within the relationship. Interestingly, the personal impact of therapy as perceived by the participants was not focussed on symptom reduction, but on broader changes. The results are discussed in relation to the relevant literature.

Suggested principles for practice include maintaining attentiveness to relational factors, to client factors such as readiness for change and to the use of structure and flexibility. The use of recovery focussed and alliance measures are recommended.

For clinical psychologists providing psychotherapy within the public system, there are valuable lessons we can learn from asking the service users directly about their experiences, in terms of focussing on the human element of the relationship, and striking a balance between professionalism and humanity.

Describes the personal skills which will be needed to generate a 21st‐century mindset. Business, economics and society are changing at an extraordinary speed. To succeed, all of us ‐ including our leaders and managers ‐ need to learn faster, think smarter and break free of confining assumptions and old attitudes. Presents an American’s opinion on how to change our perceptions of and cope with new economic realities.

CASPE Research and Brighton Health Authority have been working together to test a series of approaches to quality assurance in healthcare. In this paper, they give an account of the results of the quality assurance techniques used; discuss the key requirements for successful quality assurance in the NHS environment; and consider the need for systematic evaluation of quality assurance programmes.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings of an electronic survey to determine the extent of use of social software programs.

The study was conducted to discover the extent to which students use social software programs, namely Facebook, MySpace, Instant Messaging and Second Life, and to determine their level of desire for having a librarian or library presence within those settings. A web survey was developed and distributed using convenience sampling. The survey was distributed to students at two college campuses located in the state of Colorado in the USA.

The majority of respondents use social software programs, but are apathetic about using these programs for library questions or research.

This research has several limitations to its findings: limited response rate, ambiguous phrasing of survey questions and geographic limitations all affect the results.

Owing to constraints on librarian time and resources, involvement in social software programs should be evaluated on a case‐by‐case basis.

Social software programs are discussed in library literature, but few research projects have been undertaken to determine patron expectations for librarian involvement.