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By June 2021, children and young people had experienced two periods of lockdown and home learning in Northern Ireland. The detrimental impact of these periods of indefinite confinement is wider reaching than reported educational stagnation, with the fundamental rights of childhood: play; rest; and leisure; all adversely implicated. Autistic children's experiences of Covid‐19 have been largely absent from current crisis and recovery discourse. This is the first published study to directly and specifically involve autistic children both as research advisors and as research participants in a rights‐based participatory study relating to the pandemic. Drawing on concepts of ableist childism and epistemic injustice, this article presents, through Photovoice, the emotional, social and educational experiences of post‐ primary aged autistic young people in Northern Ireland during the first 2020 lockdown of the Covid‐19 pandemic. The project was grounded in a child rights‐based approach and was guided by a group of four autistic young advisors aged 11–15. The paper concludes by arguing that government responses to the pandemic, as experienced by autistic young people, act as forms of oppression that prioritises and further embeds normative non‐autistic structures and responses under the guise of public health necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Adults with an intellectual disability (ID) have much lower rates of employment than their counterparts without intellectual disability, which increases their risk of poverty and social exclusion. Differential treatment of people with intellectual disability in welfare and training policies suggests an expectation they will be passive welfare recipients rather than productive employees. Methods: This paper aims to examine occupational activities by older people with intellectual disability in Ireland, exploring factors influencing outcomes using data from the IDS‐TILDA study (n = 708). Results: Most people were unemployed but engaged in regular occupational activity. Occupational activity was associated with better emotional/mental health. Activities of Daily Living (ADL) functioning was associated with an active occupational status, while social supports most strongly predicted high occupational engagement across a range of activities. Conclusions: A focus on the individual meaning derived from a broad range of engagement may better support people with intellectual disabilities to benefit from regular occupational activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Burnout has been disproportionally reported in child protection social work. This paper presents data from 162 child protection staff in Northern Ireland, assessed for burnout using the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Path models were estimated, based on an extension of the two‐process demands and values model (Leiter, ) to include additional measures of resilience using the Resilience Scale‐14, as well as perceived rewards and sense of community from the Areas of Work Life Scale (Leiter, ). Optimal model fit was achieved by modelling resilience as a mediator of the relationship between organizational factors of control and value congruence and burnout. Resilience also directly predicted emotional exhaustion (β = −.23, p < .005) and personal accomplishment (β = .46, p < .001). Workload was the strongest direct predictor of emotional exhaustion (β = −.54, p < .001). Adding perceived rewards to extend the two‐process model resulted in moderate associations with control (β = .44, p < .001), workload (β = .26, p < .005), fairness (β = .40, p < .001), and values (β = .32, p < .001). In the final model, resilience is modelled as both an outcome of some organizational factors whilst also making a unique direct contribution to explaining burnout alongside other organizational factors. Other pathways and mediating relationships are reported and further research directions discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social support is widely seen as an integral component for coping with the stresses of everyday life. While there are various sources and types of support potentially available to young people, it is perhaps less obvious the extent to which young people differentially experience these sources and types. Anecdotal evidence suggests that context, culture and other factors unique to local life shape the many dimensions of social support for youth. In this paper, we seek to examine this research need in more detail by focusing on a broad range of factors shaping youth social support and youth well-being. Drawing on mixed methods research, we examine social support evidence for adolescents in Florida, USA, and Offaly, Ireland. Through this research, we investigate how the connection between social support and well-being bears out in these two different socio-cultural contexts; second, we seek to understand whether types and sources of social support differ among youth in both countries; and what relationship exists between well-being and types and sources of support. Comparing similar measures of social support across two distinct societal contexts allows us to determine similarities and differences, while also providing suggestions for application that can shape future programmes and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite much research on the relationship between unemployment and mental health, consideration of the relationship between economic and psychological problems remains re markedly rare. Available evidence suggests that income affects psychological well-being indirectly via subjectively appraised financial strain. This paper presents an analysis of the relationships between measures of household income and resources, subjectively appraised financial strain and psychological distress drawing on a nationally representative sample of 3294 households in the Republic of Ireland. Our analysis demonstrates that objectively assessed exclusion from customary lifestyles, involving deprivation of socially defined necessities, is associated with increased psychological distress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]