Children and young people's preference of thematic design and colour for their hospital environment

In this innovative project, the views of children and young people were explored regarding their preference of thematic design and colour for their hospital environment in a new children's unit. The novelty of the approach was that it was driven by the preferred choices of children and young people through the use of 'child-friendly' interviews and questionnaires. Informing the study was the development of a group of children and young people who underwent research training, and with support, developed all data collection tools and helped to verify data analysis. A two-phased sequential study was undertaken. During phase 1, 40 interviews were performed with children and young people, including 10 with additional learning needs and physical disabilities while 140 questionnaires were analysed for phase 2 of the study. Notable issues emerged about preferred thematic designs of walls, doors and floors, while new findings were revealed regarding colour preferences for wards, entrances and outpatient areas. © 2008 SAGE Publications

Publishing for the protected area community: A vision for PARKS from its Editorial Board

In this editorial essay, members of the Editorial Board of PARKS review the status of conservation literature. Three problems are identified: 1) the growing gap between the formal conservation literature and the so-called ‘grey literature’ of project reports, studies and working papers; 2) the effectiveness of the majority of conservation literature in promoting good conservation; and 3) the lack of open access to much of the conservation literature currently available. The article sets out the vision of this journal: PARKS, the International Journal of Protected Areas and Conservation, published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) expert World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). PARKS aims to encourage new writers, including younger researchers, conservation professionals who do not generally write for peer-reviewed publications and people from developing countries, including indigenous and local people, to share their best practices in protected area management. PARKS is published twice a year as an online, open-access and peer reviewed journal and welcomes submissions of papers from all protected area professionals worldwide