Imagining one's compassionate self and coping with life difficulties

There is increasing evidence that when people focus on being a certain kind of person, for example optimistic, this changes how they engage with life difficulties. We explored individuals’ experiences in thinking about a small life difficulty before and then after being guided through a compassionate self exercise. During a compassion focused therapy workshop (2016), 95 participants were guided through a Compassionate Mind Training practice that enables them to compare and contrast thinking about a life difficulty from a natural position and then a compassionate self mental state. Following the exercises, individuals completed a short evaluation form exploring the impact of switching to a compassionate mental state when thinking about the life difficulty. All 95 participants rated switching to a compassionate self as increasing their abilities to be empathic to their difficulty, generate more insight into their difficulty, feel better able to cope and feel encouraged about the future. Results suggest guiding people to generate a compassionate sense of self is experienced as having a number of helpful outcomes. It is these outcomes generated by the compassionate self that may be useful to people.This study did not receive any funding, but was supported by the Compassionate Mind Foundation

Cloning, sequencing, and characterization of the hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine degradation gene cluster from Rhodococcus rhodochrous

Hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) is a high explosive which presents an environmental hazard as a major land and groundwater contaminant. Rhodococcus rhodochrous strain 11Y was isolated from explosive contaminated land and is capable of degrading RDX when provided as the sole source of nitrogen for growth. Products of RDX degradation in resting-cell incubations were analyzed and found to include nitrite, formaldehyde, and formate. No ammonium was excreted into the medium, and no dead-end metabolites were observed. The gene responsible for the degradation of RDX in strain 11Y is a constitutively expressed cytochrome P450-like gene, xpLA, which is found in a gene cluster with an adrenodoxin reductase homologue, xplB. The cytochrome P450 also has a flavodoxin domain at the N terminus. This study is the first to present a gene which has been identified as being responsible for RDX biodegradation. The mechanism of action of XplA on RDX is thought to involve initial denitration followed by spontaneous ring cleavage and mineralization

Styles of leadership, fears of compassion, and competing to avoid inferiority.

There is general agreement that styles of leadership evolved from mammalian group living strategies that form social ranks. In both non-human primates and humans, different styles of hierarchical dominant-subordinate and leader-follower behavior can be observed. These can be described in terms of dimensions of antisocial (relatively self-focused, aggressive and threat-based) and prosocial (relatively empathic, caring, and supportive) interpersonal styles. The aim of this study was to explore how a set of established self-report questionnaires might relate to these two dimensions. Two hundred and nineteen students completed questionnaires assessing ruthless self-advancement, coalition building, and dominant leadership styles, as well as hypercompetitiveness, narcissism, striving to avoid inferiority, compassion focused and ego focused goals, fears of compassion, social safeness and attachment (in)security. A principal component analysis supported an antisocial leadership style factor which comprised of ruthless self-advancement, narcissism and hypercompetitiveness. This was significantly correlated with fears of compassion, ego focused goals, insecure striving (striving to avoid inferiority), fears of losing out, fears of being overlooked, fears of being rejected, and avoidant relating in close relationships. It was significantly negatively correlated with compassionate goals. As the results did not reveal a clear factor solution for a prosocial leadership style, we chose to use the coalition building leadership style variable. This showed the opposite pattern, being significantly negatively correlated with narcissism, hypercompetitiveness, fears of compassion, fears of active rejection, and avoidance in close relationships. It was significantly positively correlated with secure striving, compassionate goals, and social safeness. We also found that fears of compassion for others was a partial mediator of the relationship between insecure striving with antisocial leadership style. Moreover, lower fears of compassion for the self emerged as a key mediator for the relationship between non-avoidant attachment with coalition building leadership style and, secure non-striving with coalition building leadership style. While the motive to accumulate social power, resources and dominance may be linked to antisocial forms of leadership, the intensity of the drive may also be linked to unaddressed threats and fears of rejection and fears of compassion. Efforts to promote more ethical, moral and prosocial forms of leadership may falter if such fears are left unaddressed.This research was supported by a donation received by the Compassionate Mind Foundation charity (https://compassionatemind.co.uk/) from Slimming World

Experiences of Education, Health and Care plans: A survey of parents and young people

An Education, Health and Care plan (EHC plan) sets out the education, health and care support that is to be provided to a child or young person aged 0-25 years who has Special Educational Needs (SEN) or a disability (SEND). It is drawn up by the local authority after an Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment of the child or young person has determined that an EHC plan is necessary, and after consultation with relevant partner agencies and with children, young people and parents. EHC plans, and the needs assessment process through which these are made, were introduced as part of the Children and Families Act 2014. The Act, and an accompanying SEND Code of Practice1, sets out how local authorities must deliver these, including:• Developing and maintaining these collaboratively with children, young people and parents; • Supporting children, young people and parents to participate fully; • Focusing on securing the best possible outcomes for the child/young person; • Enabling participation by relevant partner agencies, to enable joined-up provision.The SEND accountability framework established in 20152 sets out an approach for assessing SEND provision in conjunction with the Act and SEND Code of Practice. The framework provides structure for improving outcomes and experiences for children, young people and their families and, when applied, seeks to show how the system is performing, hold partners to account and support self-improvement. The framework applies at the local and national levels and to independent assessments of the EHC plan process – such as those carried out by Ofsted. In this context, the Department for Education commissioned a survey of parents and young people with an EHC plan, in order to build a representative national (and, where the data allows, local) picture of how parents and young people in England were experiencing the EHC needs assessment and planning process and the resultant EHC plans. The aim was to assess whether delivery of the EHC needs assessments and planning process and the resultant EHC plans reflected the intentions set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 and the accompanying SEND Code of Practice. The findings would help inform the SEND accountability framework.To achieve these aims the survey sought to answer the following questions: • To what extent do children, young people and families experience the EHC needs assessment and planning process as they are intended to be experienced; • How satisfied are children, young people and families with the EHC needs assessment and planning process and the resultant EHC plan; and • To what extent does this vary by local authority and by groups with different characteristics? The findings presented here and throughout the main report explore parents’ and young people’s responses to the survey questions. The report also explores where experiences of the EHC needs assessment and planning process varied for groups with different characteristics, applying a bivariate analysis approach3. The report only highlights such differences where these are statistically significant4.Department for Educatio

Education, Health and Care plans: A qualitative investigation into service user experiences of the planning process

An Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan sets out the education, health and care support that is to be provided to a child or young person aged 0-25 years who has Special Educational Needs or a Disability (SEND). It is drawn up by the local authority after an EHC needs assessment of the child or young person, in consultation with relevant partner agencies, parents and the child or young person themselves. EHC plans, and the needs assessment process through which they are created, were introduced as part of the Children and Families Act 2014. The Act, and an accompanying SEND Code of Practice, sets out how local authorities must deliver EHC plans. In 2016, a national survey commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE) found variations in how EHC plan recipients experienced the EHC planning process across different local authorities.1 Based on these results, DfE commissioned two further research projects: a multivariate analysis of factors affecting satisfaction with the EHC planning process, and this qualitative investigation of user experiences of the EHC planning process. The qualitative investigation consisted of two distinct exercises: • Twenty-five face-to-face in-depth interviews with parents involved in the 2016 survey, with the aim of better understanding factors that lead to satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the EHC plan process. Thirteen interviews were conducted in local authorities with above average satisfaction, and 12 were conducted in local authority areas with below average satisfaction. • An evaluation of EHC plan quality focussing on plans provided by 18 of the 25 parents interviewed. The evaluation was conducted by a panel of 10 SEND experts with wide experience as SEND policy advisors, strategic leaders in LAs, specialist advisory teachers, officers in SEN statutory services, Special Needs Co-ordinators, teachers in special and mainstream schools and lecturers. There was little evidence of a link between families’ satisfaction with the process of getting the EHC plan and experts’ evaluations of the quality of the plan: this report therefore discusses these two strands of research separately.Department for Educatio