Poster presented at EFYE 2018. Strengthening the wellbeing of students is an increasingly important approach of the development of students’ social, emotional and academic skills. Personal wellbeing motivates, among other things, students to learn and increases academic involvement and performance accordingly (Noble et al., 2008). According to the Centre for Education of Statistics and Evaluation (CESE, 2015) the educational welfare of students is also important for another reason; the recognition that teaching is not just about achieving academic performance, but also about the welfare of the student as a whole (intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral and spiritual). Recent studies indicate that more and more students suffer from (mental) health problems (LSvB 2013, 2017; Schaufeli et al., 2002). The aim of the Student Wellbeing Project at Inholland University of Applied Sciences is to 1) investigate the state of student wellbeing in Dutch higher education and investigate the factors that influence wellbeing, 2) explore and offer best practices to improve student wellbeing (curative and preventive) 3) establish a strong (international) partnership and collaborate to improve student wellbeing.
DOCUMENT
Een van de meest populaire modellen voor onderzoek naar welzijn, stress en bevlogenheid van medewerkers is het Job Demands-Resources model (JD-R model). Voor onderzoek naar het welzijn van studenten heeft het lectoraat Studiesucces het Student Wellbeing model ontwikkeld, een model gebaseerd op het JD-R model. Het Student Wellbeing model beschrijft net als het JD-R model een motivatieproces en een uitputtingsproces, maar dan van studenten. Het model veronderstelt dat de balans tussen positieve (energiebronnen) en negatieve (stressoren) kenmerken van ‘het student zijn/de studententijd’ invloed heeft op het welzijn van studenten en o.a. de studieprestaties kan beïnvloeden.
DOCUMENT
Factsheet Wellbeing@Work, Hoe vitaal zijn onze zorgprofessionals?
DOCUMENT
Against the backdrop of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3, good health and wellbeing, this paper reports on a study that examined how outdoor guides perceive their role in facilitating the psychological wellbeing of tourists who consume slow adventure experiences. These experiences, such as canoeing, stargazing or foraging, are characterised by a slower passage of time, immersion in the natural world and a sense of belonging to small social groups. Grounded in research on wellbeing from a positive psychology perspective, the study utilised semi-structured, in-depth, interviews with ten outdoor adventure guides in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Following a hermeneutic interpretive approach to analyse the interview transcripts, the findings revealed how perceptions of time, meaningful moments and a sense of togetherness are choreographed by slow adventure guides to shape tourists’ psychological wellbeing through immersive guided experiences, ultimately helping tourists to re-establish a much-yearned-for connection with nature. The study adds to tourism, wellbeing and sustainability literature by providing new perspectives on psychological wellbeing through guided slow adventures. In particular the findings contribute to positive tourism, or tourism and positive psychology field of research, by revealing how mindful and eudaimonic visitor experiences are organised by adventure tour guides in natural settings.
LINK
The necessity for humans inhabiting the 21st century to slow down and take time to carry out daily practices frames the discourse of this research note. We suggest reconceptualising tourist wellbeing through the concept of slow adventure, as a response to the cult of speed and as a vehicle for engaging in deep, immersive and more meaningful experiences during journeys in the outdoors. We suggest that slow adventure has the potential to improve people’s general health and wellbeing through mindful enjoyment and consumption of the outdoor experience and thus bring people back to a state of mental and physical equilibrium. In so doing, we argue that extending the concept to include discussions around the psychological and social aspects of slow adventure is needed.
MULTIFILE
Objectives:People with intellectual disabilities are more vulnerable to and experience mental health concerns at a higher incidence than their peers without intellectual disabilities. This may be directly related to the aetiology of their intellectual disability but also occur because of negative psychological and social factors that affect their lives, such as loss of self-esteem or lack of meaningful opportunities. The SOOTHE project, sought to understand the meaning that adults with intellectual disabilities attribute to mental health and wellbeing, the factors influencing good and poor mental health, and the strategies they utilised to maintain good mental health and wellbeing. Using an online anonymous survey, participants were invited to electronically submit an image that represented their perspectives on what mental health and wellbeing meant to them.Methods:This study, which took place in 2020 during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, employed an anonymous survey approach which resulted in individual images being received from 329 people with intellectual disabilities living in Spain, the Netherlands, and Ireland. These were analysed thematically and brought together in an electronic quilt/mosaic.Results:Images were classified into seven potential themes: (1) Covid-19 and mental health; (2) maintaining good mental health; (3) activities that promote good mental health; (4) nature and mental health; (5) perspectives on self; (6) the impor- tance of relationships; and (7) home and feeling safe.Conclusions:This paper explores the possible meaning of the images and seeks alignment of those meanings with the rights and freedoms enshrined in the UNCRPD. The project supports the belief that persons with intellectual disabilities have an understanding of mental health and wellbeing and are able to identify ways of maintaining positive mental health.
DOCUMENT
This dissertation revolves around the older and younger Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands. Specifically, the topic of study was the wellbeing of the older Chinese immigrants, and cultural elements as filial piety may play part in the in the wellbeing of this population.Comparative studies regarding frailty, loneliness and Quality of Life were conducted in China and the Netherlands, among older Chinese adults. In general, the older Chinese immigrant adults are predominantly socially vulnerable, such as a high prevalence of loneliness, whereas the native Chinese adults report a high prevalence of frailty. A second cross-national study provided insights in the cross-cultural equivalence of the De Jong Gierveld loneliness scale among the native and diasporic older Chinese adults.The cultural element filial piety is found to be relevant both to the first- and second-generation Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands. It is specifically of importance to the mental wellbeing of the older first-generation Chinese immigrants. Moreover, a qualitative study shows that filial piety frames how filial caregiving takes place among the second-generation Chinese immigrants. Lastly, a normative filial piety scale was translated to Dutch and psychometric validated among second-generation Chinese immigrants.These findings indicate that older Chinese immigrants are socially vulnerable. Secondly, filial piety is of relevance to the Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands. It is of importance to consider these aspects for professionals working both with older and younger Chinese immigrants in the Netherlands.
DOCUMENT
Online support communities are gaining attention among child-attracted persons (CAPs). Though research has largely focused on the negative consequences these environments create for potential offending, they may also provide a beneficial alternative to more formal treatment settings. To assess the utility for clinical and therapeutic purposes, this analysis focused on subcultural dynamics to examine self-reported wellbeing outcomes of participation in a Dutch forum for CAPs. A total of 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with moderators, members and mental health professionals involved in the community. Thematic analyses demonstrated that by means of informal social control, bonds of trust and social relational education, the network aims to regulate the behavior and enhance the wellbeing of its marginalized participants. Key outcomes include a decreased sense of loneliness and better coping with stigma, to the point that participants experience less suicidal thoughts. Association with prosocial peers also helps to set moral boundaries regarding behavior towards children, although we cannot fully rule out potential adverse influences. Online support networks offer a stepping stone to professional care that fits individual needs of CAPs, while also providing an informal environment that overcomes limitations of physical therapy and that extents principles of existing prevention and desistance approaches. Gepubliceerd door uitgever Sage: Bekkers, L. M. J., Leukfeldt, E. R., & Holt, T. J. (2024). Online Communities for Child-Attracted Persons as Informal Mental Health Care: Exploring Self-Reported Wellbeing Outcomes. Sexual Abuse, 36(2), 158-184. https://doi.org/10.1177/10790632231154882
DOCUMENT
Attending to the broader wellbeing debates, this study examines the interplay between forest-based tourism practices and sustainability. It does so by building on Max Weber’s notion of disenchantment of the world to explore how planetary wellbeing can be cultivated through the commercial practice of forest bathing. In positioning the study within the Serbian context, we build on feminist new materialist ideas to explore the ways in which broken ties between postmodern humans and forests as our primordial home can be reclaimed through this tourism practice. Using the empirical data collected during two forest tours, we take the relational approach in our analysis of the meanings the forest tour attendees ascribed to their experiences. In extending scholarly understandings of the notion of sustainability, we discuss the ways of achieving planetary wellbeing through forest bathing and the potential of more-than-human entanglements to re-enchant the world. To conclude, we discreetly illuminate one way of reconceiving the idea of enchantment and encourage rethinking our everyday and tourist practices in disenchanted Anthropocene.
LINK
