title: Local economic impact modelling: TIEBOUT, tourism and training

authors: Chalmers, Lex

abstract: This paper describes the use of a sophisticated computer model in university teaching. TIEBOUT is a PC‐based program which assesses the economic impacts of expenditure in National Parks. The program has been used extensively by Parks Canada, but it has had even greater use as a teaching tool at the University of Waterloo. The paper documents the development, features and use of the TIEBOUT model, and then outlines the way students were asked to conceptualise, execute and comment on various scenarios using the model. The real world basis of the model, and the elegance of its formulation, allowed some fundamental concepts in the operation of multipliers to be fully explored. The final section of the paper reports on student and instructor evaluations of the TIEBOUT teaching program.

text: Local economic impact modelling: TIEBOUT, tourism and training This paper describes the use of a sophisticated computer model in university teaching. TIEBOUT is a PC‐based program which assesses the economic impacts of expenditure in National Parks. The program has been used extensively by Parks Canada, but it has had even greater use as a teaching tool at the University of Waterloo. The paper documents the development, features and use of the TIEBOUT model, and then outlines the way students were asked to conceptualise, execute and comment on various scenarios using the model. The real world basis of the model, and the elegance of its formulation, allowed some fundamental concepts in the operation of multipliers to be fully explored. The final section of the paper reports on student and instructor evaluations of the TIEBOUT teaching program.

year: 1992

title: Video-recording for therapeutic purposes in couple counselling

authors: Depree, Jim

subjects: couples

abstract: The challenges of producing fair and respectful relationships sometimes takes couples to counselling. Problematic and taken-for-granted, individualistic, adversarial and gendered discursive practices continue to get in the way of fair and respectful relationships, with studies showing that in heterosexual relationships women are often expected to do most of the work required to maintain and repair couple relationships which continue to centre men’s experiences. When couples get to counselling, counsellors may also struggle to address individualistic and gendered relational processes and, may reproduce them despite their best intentions. In response, narrative therapists work with clients to externalise and deconstruct discursive practices to make visible the operation of power in relationships and to make available other readings, ways of being and identities, which better position members of a couple to collaborate in order to produce solutions. This study employed narrative therapy co-research and video technology in order to investigate the researcher’s own narrative therapy counselling practice with couples. Three couples, all heterosexual, in marriage or marriage-like relationships, were recruited from the researcher’s counselling practice. Together the couples and researcher reviewed and co-researched the video records of the counselling meetings. Practices of co-research with video made visible and unfamiliar some previously unseen and taken-for-granted territories of life. Co-research of these territories generated understandings and proposals for action, which the couples then experimented with and reviewed. As well, the couples all began to imagine how their actions might appear on video and to adjust their actions and thinking to better fit with their values. The video records also provided a text for further deconstructive analysis. Within the counselling, re-membering conversations, taking-it-back practices and definitional ceremonies, were employed and enhanced by using the video in order to support preferred developments and to strengthen the contributions of children, family and communities to the couples’ preferred ways of being. This approach was used to investigate: the ways the couples shared and conducted their conversations in counselling; their parenting; an anger problem; and the sharing of property and income. Ongoing analysis of the video records and transcripts developed and extended the theoretical tools available in the moments of the counselling, producing a richer telling of a practice that was effective at the time. This retelling involved thinking with Derrida and deconstruction as justice in order to cast counselling as an hospitable, collaborative process of co-research which has as its focus addressing justice in the complex, relational, gendered, cultural and contextual territories in which couples’ relationships are played out. The thesis argues that the positioning of counsellor and couples as co-researchers, using hospitable and deconstructive perspectives, greatly reduced conflict and equipped the counsellor and couples to review and research their own experiences, and to collaborate in order to produce more effective problem solving strategies, which addressed their situations and their hopes for justice.

text: Video-recording for therapeutic purposes in couple counselling The challenges of producing fair and respectful relationships sometimes takes couples to counselling. Problematic and taken-for-granted, individualistic, adversarial and gendered discursive practices continue to get in the way of fair and respectful relationships, with studies showing that in heterosexual relationships women are often expected to do most of the work required to maintain and repair couple relationships which continue to centre men’s experiences. When couples get to counselling, counsellors may also struggle to address individualistic and gendered relational processes and, may reproduce them despite their best intentions. In response, narrative therapists work with clients to externalise and deconstruct discursive practices to make visible the operation of power in relationships and to make available other readings, ways of being and identities, which better position members of a couple to collaborate in order to produce solutions. This study employed narrative therapy co-research and video technology in order to investigate the researcher’s own narrative therapy counselling practice with couples. Three couples, all heterosexual, in marriage or marriage-like relationships, were recruited from the researcher’s counselling practice. Together the couples and researcher reviewed and co-researched the video records of the counselling meetings. Practices of co-research with video made visible and unfamiliar some previously unseen and taken-for-granted territories of life. Co-research of these territories generated understandings and proposals for action, which the couples then experimented with and reviewed. As well, the couples all began to imagine how their actions might appear on video and to adjust their actions and thinking to better fit with their values. The video records also provided a text for further deconstructive analysis. Within the counselling, re-membering conversations, taking-it-back practices and definitional ceremonies, were employed and enhanced by using the video in order to support preferred developments and to strengthen the contributions of children, family and communities to the couples’ preferred ways of being. This approach was used to investigate: the ways the couples shared and conducted their conversations in counselling; their parenting; an anger problem; and the sharing of property and income. Ongoing analysis of the video records and transcripts developed and extended the theoretical tools available in the moments of the counselling, producing a richer telling of a practice that was effective at the time. This retelling involved thinking with Derrida and deconstruction as justice in order to cast counselling as an hospitable, collaborative process of co-research which has as its focus addressing justice in the complex, relational, gendered, cultural and contextual territories in which couples’ relationships are played out. The thesis argues that the positioning of counsellor and couples as co-researchers, using hospitable and deconstructive perspectives, greatly reduced conflict and equipped the counsellor and couples to review and research their own experiences, and to collaborate in order to produce more effective problem solving strategies, which addressed their situations and their hopes for justice.

year: 2016

title: A walking stick in one hand and a chainsaw in the other: Patients’ perspectives of living with multimorbidity

authors: Signal, Louise

abstract: AIMS: Multimorbidity is common, yet there are major gaps in research, particularly among younger and indigenous populations. This research aimed to understand patients’ perspectives of living with multimorbidity. 

METHODS: A qualitative study of 61 people living with multimorbidity, 27 of whom were Māori and a third aged under 65, from urban and rural regions in New Zealand. Six focus groups and 14 interviews were conducted, recorded, transcribed and analysed. 
RESULTS: For many participants, living with multimorbidity disrupted their ‘normal’ lives, posing challenges in everyday activities such as eating and toileting, working and managing medications. Dealing with the health system posed challenges such as accessing appointments and having enough time in consultations. Cultural competency, good communication and continuity of care from healthcare providers were all valued. Participants had many recommendations to improve management, including a professional single point of contact to coordinate all specialist care. 
CONCLUSIONS: Living with multimorbidity is often challenging requiring people to manage their conditions while continuing to live their lives. This research suggests changes are needed in the health system in New Zealand and elsewhere to better manage multimorbidity thus improving patient’s lives and reducing costs to the health sector and wider society.

text: A walking stick in one hand and a chainsaw in the other: Patients’ perspectives of living with multimorbidity AIMS: Multimorbidity is common, yet there are major gaps in research, particularly among younger and indigenous populations. This research aimed to understand patients’ perspectives of living with multimorbidity. 

METHODS: A qualitative study of 61 people living with multimorbidity, 27 of whom were Māori and a third aged under 65, from urban and rural regions in New Zealand. Six focus groups and 14 interviews were conducted, recorded, transcribed and analysed. 
RESULTS: For many participants, living with multimorbidity disrupted their ‘normal’ lives, posing challenges in everyday activities such as eating and toileting, working and managing medications. Dealing with the health system posed challenges such as accessing appointments and having enough time in consultations. Cultural competency, good communication and continuity of care from healthcare providers were all valued. Participants had many recommendations to improve management, including a professional single point of contact to coordinate all specialist care. 
CONCLUSIONS: Living with multimorbidity is often challenging requiring people to manage their conditions while continuing to live their lives. This research suggests changes are needed in the health system in New Zealand and elsewhere to better manage multimorbidity thus improving patient’s lives and reducing costs to the health sector and wider society.

year: 2017