Celebrating Black History Month with the RCN NW Multicultural Group

From Allyship to Action: Building an Inclusive, Anti-Racist Future for Nursing

22 Oct 2026, 10:00 - 16:00
6 Mount Street, , Manchester, M2 5NS

Free

Book onto our celebration for Black History Month.

Join us for a full day at the Friend's Meeting House in Manchester to celebrate Black History Month!

North west members are invite to join us in celebration alongside the RCN President, who is making a special trip to Manchester to join us for part of the day.  This year we will be exploring the theme: From Allyship to Action: Building an Inclusive, Anti-Racist Future for Nursing.

The event, organised by the member-led North West Multicultural Group, will hear from speakers including:

Estephanie Dunn: Non-Executive Director of the Caribbean and African Health Network (CAHN)

Estephanie will discuss exceptionalism and how intentional and unintentional actions can negatively impact equity, inclusion and belonging in healthcare. Her session will encourage reflection on bias, challenge inequitable practices, and promote more inclusive workplaces for all.

Temitope Babajide: General Practice Nurse

Creator of both the General Practice Nurse Starter Manual and a separate nursing-themed colouring book, will share her inspiring journey in primary care. Her session will recognise and celebrate the historic and ongoing contributions of Black nurses, while showcasing the achievements, leadership and influence of Black nursing professionals in the North West and beyond.

Patricia Hughes: Associate Director RCN : Nursing Practice Nursing

Patricia will focus on equality, leadership and career progression, encouraging greater representation of Black nurses in senior and decision-making roles.

Bejoy Sebastian: RCN President

The President, will discuss the importance of allyship and the role nursing professionals play in creating anti-racist, inclusive workplaces. He will recognise and celebrate the significant contributions of Black nurses to the NHS and wider health and social care sector. The session will explore how inclusive leadership, workforce equality standards and fair career progression can help create a culture of belonging. Attendees will be encouraged to take practical action to challenge discrimination, support equality and inspire the next generation of nursing leaders.

Anandi Ramamurthy: Professor of Media and Culture, Sheffield Hallam University; Principal Investigator, Nursing Narratives: Racism and the Pandemic; Co-Editor, Anti-Racist Nursing and Midwifery: A Resource for Students, Practitioners and Activists.

The Anti-Racist Nursing and Midwifery book, the Nursing Narratives research project, and the film 'Exposed'.

There will also be a panel discussion and a poetry workshop and 'Allyship in Action' challenge workshop in the afternoon. 

Book now to avoid missing out. This event will take place in person and is open to all North West members. A sandwich lunch is provided. 

For further information regarding the aims and objectives of the NW Multicultural Group, please visit our webpage. 

Olanike Babalola

Olanike.Babalola AT reps.rcn.org.uk

‘Prevention Demonstrator’ - GM Live Well

England’s First Prevention Demonstrator: Opportunities for Greater Manchester and its VCFSE sector

Greater Manchester has been chosen as England’s first Prevention Demonstrator, an initiative announced in the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan earlier this year. It marks a step toward transforming public services with a more ‘preventative’ approach.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) was named as the first prevention demonstrator in the UK Government’s 10 Year Plan for Health in July. It will take a community-led preventative approach to the provision of public services which means fixing the foundations of a person’s life – such as housing, and access to education and employment opportunities – as a means of preventing ill health from social and economic detriment and improving lives, as well as reducing pressure on acute and crisis services.

The Prevention Demonstrator will be building on the Live Well Model of service delivery, which brings together services such as health, employment support and debt advice at a neighbourhood level working with the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector, providing a blueprint for the rest of the country.

Warren Heppolette has been appointed to lead this work, seconded from NHS Greater Manchester where he was Chief Officer for Strategy, Innovation and Population Health. Warren has been closely involved in the GMVCFSE Leadership Group’s Commissioning and Investment sub-group which aims to improving standards and practices for the benefit of the VCFSE sector.

Continued ...

Lucy North, Communications and Policy Officer. Published: December 5, 2025

⍚

'Sustainability' and 'sufficiency' (as per the previous post) are words of the moment. Policymakers want change to have a permanent quality, which ironically means individuals within a population benefitting from initiatives like this have a mindset that makes them flexible to future changes and challenges.

As Camilla Cavendish notes in 'Andy Burnham will need to play a new card now', Manchester's prevention demonstrator has echoes of David Cameron's Big Society and the Troubled Families project. There are two other words that can work for individuals and populations: impetus and momentum. Within this through Hodges' model we can equip people and communities for lifelong learning. We can also highlight, as Prof. Kevin Fong did at RCN Congress 2026 in his marvellous keynote - that resilience is found between people, not within individuals.
 

See also: Presentation - Prevention, Health and Good Growth: Realising Our Prevention Ambitions

Philip Britteon, Alfariany Fatimah, Stephanie Gillibrand, Yiu-Shing Lau, Laura Anselmi, Paul Wilson, Matt Sutton, Alex J. Turner, (2024) The impact of devolution on local health systems: Evidence from Greater Manchester, England, Social Science & Medicine, Volume 348, 116801,
ISSN 0277-9536, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116801.

My source: Camilla Cavendish, Opinion: Andy Burnham will need to play a new card now, FTWeekend, 20-21 June, 2024. p.12.

Previously: 'prevention' : 'big society' : 'troubled families' : 'social prescribing'

ii Rare Disease Day 2026

 

myAware - Urgent Rare Disease Day Appeal 2026

Cystinosis

Mersey Gateway Bridge

Yuki Kihara: Darwin in Paradise Camp - The Whitworth, Manchester

3 October 2025 – 1 March 2026

'A visually stunning exhibition centring Indigenous, queer worlds by Japanese-Sāmoan artist Yuki Kihara.

The Whitworth is proud to present Yuki Kihara’s acclaimed installation Paradise Camp (2022), first presented at the Aotearoa New Zealand Pavilion in the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, and a new video work, Darwin Drag (2025).

Kihara delves into art histories and archives to unpick the effects of colonialism on the peoples and ecologies of the Pacific. Her visually compelling projects centre and empower the Fa’afafine and Fa’atama in Sāmoa, traditional yet marginalised third gender communities to which the artist belongs. In this exhibition, Kihara focuses on two celebrated Western figures – French modernist artist Paul Gauguin and evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) – who each shaped Western understandings of the Pacific.

Paradise Camp responds to famous paintings of Tahiti and its people by French modernist artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). Through archival research, Kihara links Gauguin’s paintings to colonial photographs taken in Sāmoa. Described by Kihara as an act of 'upcycling', she recreates Gauguin’s compositions in a series of 12 resplendent high definition photographs, shot on location in Upolu Island. Collaborating with Fa’afafine models and production crew, Kihara repurposes these cultural artefacts to speak to, and from, queer Indigenous worlds in a profound gesture of reclamation.'

My source:

Josh Lustig. Yuki Kihara, Gallery, FT Magazine, November 22, 2025, #1152. pp.12-13.

Exhibition: Manchester (and online) “Our Lives, Our Privacy” c/o ICO

This a.m. I heard on BBC R4 Today 07.41.30... news (and interesting discussion) -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0029rg4

- of an exhibition in Manchester that may be of interest, if you're local, but it is also accessible online:

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2025/04/come-and-visit-manchester-s-latest-exhibition-our-lives-our-privacy-to-celebrate-the-ico-s-40th-anniversary/

Our Lives, Our Privacy

'A digital exhibition featuring 40 items that tells the tale of how privacy has been at the centre of some of the biggest events and milestones we remember over the past four decades was launched last Autumn, but now a physical exhibition has come to Manchester. 

From 2 April to 30 June, we will be displaying the exhibition at Manchester Central Library in the first-floor exhibition space. Members of the public are welcome to pop in and see the items that have shaped our lives and our privacy.  

 

The ‘Our Lives, Our Privacy’ exhibition highlights poignant events in history including the launch of social media, the News of the World phone hacking scandal and the Covid 19 pandemic to name a few. It also looks at technological advancements like smart devices and raising questions about the future, including how accurate the episodes of ‘Black Mirror’ really are.'

==== Previously:

Jones, P. (1996) Humans, Information, and Science, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 24(3),591-598.
https://www.academia.edu/3555654/Humans_information_and_science

Jones, P. (1996) An overarching theory of health communication? Health Informatics Journal,2,1,28-34.

Jones, P. (2004) Viewpoint: Can informatics and holistic multidisciplinary care be harmonised? British Journal of Healthcare Computing & Information Management, 21, 6, 17-18.

Fryer, Jon. “Information Literacies – Learning, to Thrive in a Digital Age” IRMS Bulletin 230 (2022): 16-21.

As listed in the bibliography in this blog's sidebar.

I visited Manchester Central Library about two weeks ago, it is quite a building and full of public, cultural, and local information resources. Must do likewise in Liverpool.

Looking back 28th May 1997 & f/w

28th May 1997 - the afternoon I met Brian Hodges' at MMU

28th May 1997 - the afternoon I met Brian Hodges' at MMU, to discuss his eponymous model and a possible website - now archived:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140619200624/http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/index.htm

Previously: 'Janus' :: 'Brian E. Hodges RIP'

AI in the Creative Industries: An Interdisciplinary Conference [One week left!]

[reposting as there's just over one week left to submit abstracts for our summer conference on AI]

AI in the Creative Industries: An Interdisciplinary Conference [EXTENDED DEADLINE]

7th June 2024 - Hosted by Futureworks, Manchester UK

Artificial Intelligence has advanced extremely rapidly over the past months. Responses have been polarized; with some predicting the end of the world and others celebrating a technology with the potential to create a new industrial revolution. The biggest difference between these new algorithmic technologies and those that preceded them are the potential for new AI models to generate creative content. Visual art, photography, literature and digital scripting have been produced by AI, to varying levels of success. To the existing debates around AI (questions of ethics, consciousness, or cyborg theory, for example) have arisen new problems regarding the role of art and the artist in the age, not of mechanical reproduction, but mechanical production. Can a robot be creative?

This conference aims to bring together researchers from across media studies, music and sound, the visual arts, video games, film and TV, animation, sociology, history, literature, politics, philosophy and aesthetic theory, to interrogate the growing role of AI in the creative industries, its potentials (both negative and positive), and how we are to react to the rise of AI as both tool and creator.

Abstracts for 20-minute papers are welcomed on subjects including, but not limited to:

• AI creativity: is it truly creative?
• AI and transhumanism
• AI and the question of consciousness
• Copyright law and artificial intelligence
• Utilization of AI as a creative tool
• The depiction of AI in creative media
• The ethics of AI usage and its potential to help or harm
• The aesthetics of artificial intelligence

Please submit 250 word abstracts with accompanying 50-word bio and 5 keywords to organizer joe.darlington AT futureworks.ac.uk by 29th February 2024. 

Submissions are encouraged from academics, postgraduate researchers and non-academic speakers alike. Creative practitioners are also welcome, as are those working in the production or utilization of AI.

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This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/AI-SGES, a mailing list hosted by www.jiscmail.ac.uk, terms & conditions are available at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/

"Shift" c/o Jacqui Symons

"Title: Shift
Artist: Jacqui Symons
Medium: Triptych of Artists’ Books
Year: 2020

Presented as a triptych of artist-books, ‘Shift’ explores three nurses’ individual shifts showcasing the sheer length of each working day through to the complexity and constantly shifting demand on their time, energy, experience, knowledge and empathy. In 2019, Jacqui Symons was artist-in-residence at Central Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. As part of her residency, she shadowed three nurses; the ward sister, a junior sister and a staff nurse, during their 12 and a half hour shifts on an older people’s ward within the hospital. These concertina books chart every minute of these three shifts."

INDIVIDUAL

|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

Shift: 762 Minutes (detail)

Shift: 727 Minutes (detail)

"When opened, each book is almost 200 metres long - they aim to show the sheer amount of hard work and dedication of each nurse and what they achieved during every moment of their busy shifts.  I found three shifts physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting and I was only observing the nurses' work. The book on the right shows the Ward Sister's - the yellow pages charted breaks for eating, drinking and toilet breaks - less than 30 minutes over the duration of 12 and half hours." p.23.

Shift

My source:

"Shift (727 minutes, 762 minutes and 754 minutes)", Artists' Books. PrintMaking Today, Summer 2023, 32:126. p.23.

https://www.cellopress.co.uk/page/printmaking-today

Image and text: c/o and with thanks - Jacqui Symons

https://jacquisymons.co.uk/

Poetry Health Service c/o HOME

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

Poetry Health Service The Poetry Health Service is now open! The PHS is a brand new, free, creative service offering contemporary poetry as a tool for connection and healing. Fill in a colour based flow chart and receive your own complimentary poem.

My source: HOME, Manchester

3rd Healthcare Digital Technology Congress: Manchester

I greatly enjoyed Convenzis's Congress in Manchester at etc.venues. The early train journey (as 'us' Northerner's know very well) was not pleasant. Upon arrival I worried I might behave like a sardine in the lift up to the 8th floor. The venue is very convenient near Oxford Road and Piccadilly (I got off early at O. Rd). Manchester and Liverpool are well served for conference venues.

The journey was quickly forgotten, with a welcome coffee and breakfast. Networking started immediately thanks to a 'clear' twitter profile picture and some 'homework' with tweets the night before. Despite breakfast the exhibitor stands whetted the appetite for information at the breaks to follow.

These events are not just a help keep up-to-date #HealthIT #DigitalHealth wise, but a way to try to maintain some sense of balance as things are read while not experienced first-hand. Digital health is diverse and a reference during the day to juggling and its architecture was quite apt.The balance comes in countering the social media bubbles that (as users) we inhabit and are influenced by.

I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow account but Richard Price set the digital tone referring to technology development through the course of NHS's history:

- and The Topol Review (February 2019) and the digital future through Dr Eric Topol and a video:

As a scholar of literacy in its many forms I appreciated Richard's slide on the digital form. (Is this the same as 'information', or informatics' even?) This is interesting in being person-centred which at an individual level is not necessarily the same thing. Hopefully any e-careplan is formulated and constructed based on this, with time for data entry and practitioner-patient(person) engagement?

My thoughts or social media concerns here are based on tweets I have read which are often politicised and tied to related policy and the NHS Long Terms Plan. Health and Healthcare IS political, as previous posts have indicated. In contrast days like this and technical evangelism are a great experience for the optimism, technology, skills, problems solved and ongoing progress.

There was a question at the end of the day about AI artificial intelligence and how perhaps its role can be proven in less clinically applications. I was going to reply with the case of 'robotic process automation' which is gathering pace in other 'industries' such as insurance, recruitment and document management. Having experienced in the past new starters from universities have to retro-learn old applications and operating systems I was surprised to hear mention of 'Windows XP'. History - future all rolled up together.

In March I noticed a tweet andwell before I attended RCN Congress for the first time:

1 in 40 doctors participating in research compared to 1in 1, 000 nurses says Lord Willis @councilofdeans @JessicaCorner @KingsNursing @theRCN what can we do /enhance access and participation?

— anne marie rafferty (@annemarieraffer) March 13, 2019

Also on twitter I've wondered about wards, clinical teams having a 'research question' sitting on the shelf, if not a 'live' research project. Perhaps a ward could have three proposed questions that are revisited and even picked up by students. This could be part of the introduction to the placement and help raise awareness on several levels. At this event I spoke to InPhase and within the 'single assurance system' which was demonstrated to me there would be scope to incorporate such an initiative. Beyond this though ward managers, matrons and senior managers can have the tools such that 'data' about wards and even individual practitioners is available. While crucial (think CQC), this data turned into information and intelligence should not just be inspection fodder. There must be a clinical and research dividend to routine records. Also noted previously is the need for practitioners to manage their cases, their caseload.

A representative for Checkware explained their approach of patient involvement through self-reporting, self-management and long-distance follow-up. In terms of low-hanging fruit for computerisation this has long been one of them. The original box-ticking exercise that now seems to define the success or otherwise (mere completion?) of activities that it really shouldn't. After discussing copyright, patient engagement and the company's background I thought of Hodges' model (of course). I wanted to ask "What is the most general assessment tool you have?" There are many possible responses, but I didn't.

As a registered nurse I've always been defensive about patient data and what happens to it (IT). Consequently I've paid interest to data protection and public initiatives for e-records over the decades. It may be me, but I picked up a sense that a consensus within the public may be emerging? It's not even that the public were represented as such, just a sense from what was said. I may be wrong... and any optimism regards the maturity of the public's attitude to health e-record, does not equate to the maturity of the technology?

Hadleigh Stollar from NHSDigital explained the progress and plans of the National Record Locator Service, it’s success so far and benefits! This is pivotal for the experience of people with mental health problems in crisis and ambulance services. This is just the start. There was a phrase, LHCRE (which became 'lycra') that's "Local Health Care Records Exemplar" sites. There was a lot more with the Personal Health Record, a key example, as the event website indicates. The offerings of PureAV go far beyond the prompt for me to use video. Clinical Emergency Medicine Books - CEMbooks brought back some nursing memories. This was a very well organised, clearly well-planned Congress, informative, practical, with time for the exhibition and networking. Leaving at 1610 I even had a much better return journey.

Thanks to the Convenzis Team and etc.venues.

Talk @PHPNW Manchester 2nd April 7pm

Responding to a couple of tweets by @phpnw, I am now (happily) tasked with giving a talk on Tuesday evening:

Concepts, Spaces and Thresholds and why they matter

57 Thomas Street

Northern Quarter

Manchester

M4 1NA

Within the Drupal community and online I've heard frequent mention of imposter syndrome as reflected here. I'm no 'programmer', as much as I might wish and after stepping in to help with a quick editorial I'm also conscious of the risks of self-plagiarism - repeating myself yet again.

On Tuesday I'm pulling together threshold concepts, conceptual spaces and #h2cm in that order. I still believe there is a very worthy project here. Even if only having a sense that all the jig-saw pieces are present even if not quite 'correct'?

Recognising the expertise and professionalism of the audience I'm trying to make it relevant with an exercise too. I'm very grateful for the faith of the organisers as I fill a gap of sorts.

Thank goodness the talk is not a day earlier- which might be quite apt in respect of the 'new' site.

With changes in my full-time work status there will be more time.

Always good to see an excuse bite the dust...

Study: Measuring Different Types of Relationship Styles in Psychosis

Division of Psychology and Mental Health
2nd Floor, Zochonis Building
The University of Manchester
Brunswick Street
Manchester
M13 9PL

Participant Information Sheet

Measuring Different Types of Relationship Styles in Psychosis

You are being invited to take part in a research study developing a questionnaire to measure different types of relationship styles in psychosis. Before you decide whether or not you would like to take part in the study, please read the following information carefully so that you can understand what taking part would involve for you. Then click the button at the bottom of the page to continue. If you have any questions or queries about taking part in the study, please contact the principal investigator, Catherine Pollard (catherine.pollard AT postgrad.manchester.ac.uk). You do not have to make a decision straight away, so if you have any doubts or feel unsure please take some time to think it over.

What is the study about?

Our early relationships have been linked to the development of psychosis, a mental health problem that means people interpret things differently from those around them. Psychosis involves experiences such as hallucinations, where a person hears, sees and in some cases feels, smells or tastes things that are not there; or delusions, where a person has strong beliefs that are not shared by others.

When people are young, they develop a sense of how they relate to themselves, others and the world. This includes how others relate to them. Some people grow up seeing their parent/guardian as fearful. Research suggests that when these young people grow up they are more likely to report hearing voices and feel paranoid. However, it is not clear how this happens.

At the moment, it is difficult to understand why these people are more likely to hear voices and feel paranoid. Therefore, more research needs to be done. We aim to develop a questionnaire that measures whether people have grown up feeling scared of their parent/guardian so that we can use this in research to help us understand the link between feeling fearful in early relationships and the development of psychosis.

This study will not directly offer you any benefit, but the study addresses a gap in psychosis research. Our work will help to understand the development of unusual experiences and help us develop more treatments for distressing experiences.

Please CONTINUE READING...

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

SELF beliefs early relationships  lived experiences sensory experiences - hear, see, feel, smell, taste ... hallucinations, delusions psychosis, distress, trauma Confident with	WORLD Involved in major accident antipsychotic medication Diagnosis  Evidence-base Measures
English language OTHERS social environment parent(s), guardian, significant others fear, traumatic loss of other  Therapeutic input: CBT, Psychologist	WORLD Treatment in a Mental Health Unit / Hospital Input from Community Mental Health Team or Early Intervention Service

subjective ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OBJECTIVE

qualitative -------------------------------------------------------------- QUANTITATIVE

My source:
@HearingVoicesUK & @RSInPsychosis
https://twitter.com/HearingVoicesUK/status/1073647206685663232

UK Health Camp - Manchester 8th Sept

The free ‘unconference' for everyone interested in digital, design, 

technology and data for health and care.

Saturday 8th September
The Federation, Manchester
#ukhc18

[ see you there...? ]

A new Paradigm? No just Paragraphs...

While I have not had the practical reason to apply it (to my shame) I have known of 'maintenance mode' for donkey's y-ears. I have been listening. As tweeted earlier this week, I've been trying to remove Webform so I can update / replace it. I'm avoiding core 'experimental' modules in an attempt to avoid future problems. I'd managed to remove webform bootstrap, but trying to delete from the usual Drupal interface did not work. I checked the tables and those for webform were empty. Impatience set-in and I removed the folder within modules. That was the big mistake. For a time there, I could not access the localhost site on my laptop. I thought it had gone...

I had a MySQL backup and imported this while a CTRL 'Z' restored the folder. This did the trick. I have the HTML source for the archive pages as files too.

At several Drupal events Paragraphs has been presented as very useful site building module. With four 'basic pages' whatever follows will benefit from and no-doubt demand more thought about content types. Checking out some videos Paragraphs really does seem to fit the bill when allied with field group.

I'm looking forward to the local Drupal meetup in Manchester this Tuesday.

'Critical Thinking and Health in Music Education' 14 Nov 2017 Manchester

Raluca Matei posted this item to the Mental Health in Higher Education hub. The resonances with the purposes of Hodges' model are clear to me. With Raluca's permission I will map the themes of this event to Hodges' model in a further post. There is no primary link for the event itself, please see the contact details below:

Dear All,

My name is Raluca and I am an AHRC-funded PhD student in psychology and health promotion among musicians, at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), in Manchester. Together with Keith Phillips, a fellow PhD student in music psychology, we are organising ‘Critical thinking and health and music education’, a one-day event to be held at RNCM, on 14 November 2017, with funding from the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP).

OK…but why do that at all? 

• The physical and psychological demands of the training and practice that musicians must achieve to perform to a high standard on their instruments can produce deleterious effects on health and wellbeing, arising mostly from musculoskeletal, neurological and audiological causes. 
• Although there is a need for more rigour in the empirical investigation of potential interventions to address musicians’ health and wellbeing, British conservatoires remain guided more by tradition than the available evidence. Their websites still endorse practices that are either not supported by research (despite their popularity among musicians) or are so poorly defined that they can hardly be researched and investigated. This retrograde outlook encourages a rather conservative and conformist attitude that is prevalent among musicians. 
• An unfair emphasis on individuals to enact changes in lifestyle is continuously being pushed, while the larger cultural, social and environmental factors remain vastly unaltered and particularly resistant to change. 
• We argue that the above are at least partially due to the lack of critical thinking training and health education among music students and their teachers. Introducing such training might not only increase their health literacy (i.e. the achievement of health-related knowledge and relevant set of skills), but also empower them individually and as a group to question the status quo and assertively demand for changes to be made accordingly, to their own benefit, rather than submissively adapt to cultural norms informed by the mere passage of time and the burden of tradition. 
• Although such changes require considerable resources and never happen immediately, we argue that we need to start by asking questions. The literature suggests that critical thinking needs specific training and doesn’t necessarily happen by itself, especially given that one would need exceptional courage and to assume some risk to go against ingrained cultural norms. 
• Given that the role of higher education is not solely to prepare students for existing jobs but also to turn them into informed citizens, critical thinking can help them to shape the world and to embody the change they want to see. In addition, efforts focused on changing policy and management practices might be more effective, realistic and beneficial for a larger number of people than solely attempting to change individuals. 

And what are you aiming for? 

• To raise awareness of and debunk various myths that are being circulated in music education in relation to psychology and health
• To discuss about the importance of critical thinking in education and what the available literature tells us about effective interventions aimed at training it
• To discuss how we can, as researchers, bridge the gap between the evidence and the practical real world, as well as educational policies
• To discuss the findings of the first paper on neuromyths among music teachers and how these might inform future practice 
• To discuss potential ways in which the specific training of critical thinking could be incorporated into the pedagogical training of musicians
• To address the link between critical thinking and health promotion in music education 
• To discuss how the Socratic method might be used in training critical thinking 
• To brainstorm ideas on how critical thinking and psychology might be incorporated as part of musicians’ formal training – examples will be provided from the latest research in the field 

How would I benefit from this?

• Free access to an interdisciplinary, ground-breaking event on critical thinking in higher education

• The chance to be innovative within your own field and even initiate new professional pathways

• The opportunity to meet students, researchers and practitioners from your field of interest, as well as from related fields

• The opportunity to have your ideas discussed within an exploratory round table discussion, given that we will allow plenty of room for this!

Our speakers include:

• Prof. Reinhard Kopiez, Professor of Music Psychology, Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media
• Prof. Jane Ogden, Professor of Health Psychology, University of Surrey

The event will incorporate a considerable amount of group discussion, in an attempt to dive into a rather innovative field and hopefully reach some meaningful conclusions and suggest a few solutions. 

Our event is highly interdisciplinary, and it is open to postgraduate students, researchers and specialists in:

• Music (Performance and Education)
• Psychology
• Philosophy
• Education sciences and policy
• Medicine (with a focus on health education, health promotion and prevention, as well as public health)
• Science journalism/Science communication 

Although attendance is free, places are limited and registration will be based on a brief expression of interest. We ask potential participants to explain the nature of their research, interests and/or background, and detail why this event is relevant to them in writing to us by Sunday, 15 October 2017. 

Finally, we will keep the format and content flexible and depending on the background and interests of attendees, the conversations we will be having can follow various pathways. 

Raluca Matei – ... 

Keith Phillips – ... 

Please do email one of us for further details. Additionally, If you could please forward this to any relevant postgraduate students, researchers and/or specialists, I would be immensely grateful! 

With many thanks and kind wishes,

Raluca

Raluca Matei MSc, BMus, MBPsS

AHRC-funded PhD student in psychology and health promotion 

Royal Northern College of Music, 

Manchester

...

I am looking f/w to attending. PJ 

NHS HACK DAY 12 & 13 Sept, Manchester

Dear HANDI Member - you may be interested in the event below:-

NHS Hack Day - Manchester on 12th & 13th September 2015.

For those who aren't familiar with it, NHS Hack Day is a relaxed and free-form software development day, run as an unconference, and allowing participants to pitch their ideas and NHS problems to the audience of developers and Health IT specialists. After pitching, teams form organically and people start working on their solutions. On the Sunday, work continues, and then the work is presented to the judging panel. Prizes are awarded, but the main point of participation is the lessons learned, the community that has formed around NHS Hack Day, and the exhilaration of helping develop software over a weekend. ...

What would a CCIO get out of it?

When you see how well developers work when they get chance to work directly with users is inspiring. Realising how rarely they get this opportunity certainly suggests some reasons why NHS IT often falls short of where we would like it to be. Understanding the user need, pitched by a patient or relative, can be an important experience.

At NHS Hack Day we often get excellent representation of junior health professionals, patients, and developers from Health IT and non-Health IT backgrounds. Unfortunately, representation at NHSHD of the NHS IT 'establishment' - NHS Trusts, HSCIC, IT managers, and NHS IT technical staff etc, is less strong. I'm hoping that with the right leadership from CCIOs we can change this.

Sign up here (it's free) ...

Many thanks,
Jill Riley - HANDI Health

...

(I have my ticket.)

Health literacy conference: measures & references - conceptualising and conceptual frameworks

Keynote 2 was delivered by Prof. Richard Osborne - What is the purpose of measuring health literacy: changing people, places or policy?

Overall the conference helped me by explaining some of the main tools including this presentation:

• REALM - Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine
• TOFHLA - Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults
• Newest Vital Sign

Prof. Osborne mentioned the following resources:

DeWalt, D.A., et al. (2004) Literacy and Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review of the Literature, Journal of General Internal Medicine. 19,12,1228–123.

Jordan, J.E., Osborne, R.H., Buchbinder, R. (2010) Critical appraisal of health literacy indices revealed variable underlying constructs, narrow content and psychometric weaknesse, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 64, 4, April 2011, 366-37. (I located this on Science Direct)

A quick look at Jordan et al. shows that the full size table outlining the measures is very informative.

Table 2 - Selected results of critical appraisal of indices that directly test patient abilities 

- includes the question:

Is the instrument based on an underlying conceptual framework?

I am also a little dizzy with the repeated mention of domains

- but seriously this is why I believe h2cm definitely has a role here.

Here's another reference (the last of 72 listed) I've just downloaded and look forward to reading:

Jordan, J.E., Buchbinder, R., Osborne, R.H. (2010) Conceptualising health literacy from the patient perspective, Patient Education and Counseling, 79, 36–42.

Presentations from the conference will be available in due course.

Health literacy conference - definitions & Hodges' model

Well yesterday was a very useful and enjoyable day both in learning about health literacy [HL] and trying to get the message out there about the potential of Hodges' model.

The keynotes a.m. and p.m. were all very informative the speakers leaders in this field - inc.

Prof. Don Nutbeam who talked about definitions of health literacy:

• functional literacy
• communicative and interactive literacy
• critical literacy

One of many take home points being that a person can have high health literacy, but low general literacy. The other and new literacies that I have illustrated on W2tQ and on my poster were mentioned. Prof. Nutbeam's description of health literacy in absolute and relative terms brought out the meerkat in me (well, ok I sat up - I didn't stand on my chair and look all around). As is often the case it's something we kind of know, but without the eloquence that specialism, expert thought and structure brings.

The absolute form of health literacy is applicable in clinical care - conceptualised as RISK;
while the relative form of health literacy has greater application in public health as an ASSET.

Clearly, Hodges' model can be related to Prof. Nutbeam's work both in theory and practice especially with the communicative / interactive and critical forms. Perhaps the health care domains model could also form part of an assessment to measure functional literacy; one that is hybridized across the literacies, e.g. SCIENCES care domain = drug dose / admin calculation or nutrition task?

From the outset the need to conceptualize health literacy was noted. This had me scribbling away - conceptual navigation - conceptual envisioning ....

My poster did erm... stand out next to the A0 - A1 and greater efforts. I'll investigate the possibility of future support if needed from a local university to produce something - A1 would be brilliant. At the end of the day in the panel discussion I was able to highlight Hodges' model and I am grateful to the people who approached me afterwards and look f/w to hearing from them.  In turn I will try to effect some connections on behalf of others - my local council and children's services.

The other sessions were brief at 15 mins, but nonetheless demonstrated the vibrancy and creative potential of health literacy. I'll post more on HL - other sessions, references, call for papers, news of other events, 2012 and the significance of HL to Hodges' model and my interest in informatics.

Before I close - the lack of anyone present with central policy gravitas was raised in questions and the previous support of DoH was stressed by a delegate in response. As I understand DoH also originally contributed to the funding of the HL initiative and steering group.

I wonder if some health literacy practitioners could make an impression on policy makers through the acknowledged need to get people back to work? If so, they could help carry the HL flag for the rest of the community; and should they need a design for that flag.... ;-)

1st National Health Literacy Research Conference - NW England

As noted at the start of the month the health care domains model will be presented in the form of a poster at the following event on the 10th June. There are still a few places left!

Health Literacy: A Public Health concern?

1-day Conference at Chancellors Hotel and Conference Centre (Manchester)

Friday 10th June 2011

Join us for our first national Health Literacy Research Conference. Health literacy is:

‘the cognitive and social skills which determine the motivation and ability 

of individuals to gain access to, understand, and use information 

in ways which promote and maintain good health’.

The conference will include 2 plenary sessions with international health literacy keynote speakers and a panel discussion.

More details are available from the website www.healthliteracy.org.uk
or Lucy McDonald - Email: mcdonall at lsbu.ac.uk