In recent years, mental health policy and legislation have changed dramatically, allowing for more human rights-based and recovery-orientated services to come into being. One example of this is the enactment of The Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015 which allowed for conversations to begin within mental health about respecting the wishes of the person, even when they are in crisis. Within health discourse, this can be achieved through the creation of an advance healthcare directive. However, to date, within mental health services, clinicians, and service users do not have a recognised template that can be adapted for this purpose when a service user loses capacity to make decisions about their own life and care they receive. This paper proposes that Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP), and particularly the crisis and post-crisis planning section of the programme should be used as a potential structure for such advance healthcare directives to be formulated. This is potentially plausible due to how engrained WRAP is in Irish mental health services, the evidence base backing for WRAP as well as the ease of use of the initiative to support overall well-being. As such, this paper has laid out how such plans can be used as an advance healthcare directive in an Irish setting and is also likely to be applicable internationally.

Land snails of the genus Poecilozonites, endemic to Bermuda, have undergone precipitous declines, and both extant species, P. bermudensis and P. circumfirmatus, are categorized as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Here we report on recovery efforts to reintroduce P. bermudensis derived from a remnant wild population and ex situ breeding programme to within the species’ indigenous range. Follow-up monitoring of initial reintroductions on the small Nonsuch Island carried out over 7 years revealed that the snails rapidly established a self-sustaining population at one of three release sites. By 2023, the snails, released in 2016, had increased their area of occupancy to 6,849 m2, moved up to 92 m from the release site, and reached an estimated mean density of up to 44.2 adult snails/m2. Across the archipelago, we released 105,970 P. bermudensis (adults and juveniles) to 11 offshore islands and 16 main island sites from 2019 to 2022. Based on persistence, reproduction, and expansion from the release site after at least 1 year from release, reintroductions to six offshore islands were successful, but those on the main island failed, possibly because of higher predation pressure and paucity of suitable refuges. Controlling predators, such as rodents, and safeguarding these offshore islands against predator incursion is essential to ensure continued survival of the reintroduced populations.

Although peer support is increasingly used in mental health services worldwide, service users’ experiences have been studied mostly in high-income countries. The current study examined service users’ experiences of peer support in the UPSIDES Trial, delivered across diverse cultural and resource contexts, including high, middle and low-income countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 service users across six study sites (Germany [two sites], Uganda, Tanzania, Israel, and India) and analyzed using thematic analysis to identify patterns in participants’ experiences. To capture diverse perspectives, service users were purposively sampled based on pre–post changes in social inclusion and personal recovery, with participants randomly selected from the top and bottom 20% (‘high’ and ‘low’ responders). Four themes emerged: (1) adaptable settings and intervention flexibility; (2) ‘active ingredients’ such as mutuality, reciprocity, and role-modeling; (3) positive intra-personal, inter-personal, and behavioral outcomes; and (4) barriers, including mismatches, unmet expectations, unclear boundaries and challenges to continuity. The study highlights shared relational elements of peer support alongside context-specific adaptations. Findings reinforce its value as a complementary, person-centred service with global relevance, while pointing to challenges including improving matching, reducing dropout, and clarifying expectations. Site-specific aspects are discussed, offering insights for global implementation.

Inspired by teaching Black kindergarteners at the White Rose Mission in New York City in the 1890s, Alice Dunbar-Nelson wrote 12 stories about children in an urban neighborhood targeted for uplift. Around 1900, she drafted a table of contents for the collection, The Annals of ‘Steenth Street. The collection was never published as such, but some of these stories were published individually in multiple periodicals over several decades. Dunbar-Nelson’s stories center on the neighborhood’s children and their perspectives. This was literature intended, at least in part, for a child audience. Both the content and the publication history of Dunbar-Nelson’s stories raise important points for scholars of African American children’s literature. Our discussion focuses on the story Dunbar-Nelson intended to appear first in her collection, “The Revenge of James Brown,” published in the Chicago Daily News in 1899 and in the Methodist Episcopal Church School Publications’ weekly paper, the Classmate, in 1930. This story extends notions of where we might look for children’s literature of the Harlem Renaissance to include print venues not often examined with Black children in mind. Moreover, Dunbar-Nelson’s revisions of this story allow for complex considerations of her representations of Black childhood. This essay’s authors are co-founders of the Black digital humanities project, Taught by Literature, the work of which includes creating a freely available digital edition of “The Revenge of James Brown” and Dunbar-Nelson’s other ’Steenth Street stories, working with K-12 educators to create materials to facilitate teaching these stories to children in the present.

Rural communities face unique challenges after a disaster as a result of overlapping vulnerabilities related to limited housing and transportation infrastructure, employment or income loss, and fewer emergency response and recovery resources. Hurricane Helene (Southeast Coast, USA; 2024) made landfall in Florida as a Category-4 hurricane, later impacting Western North Carolina with severe flooding, landslides, and hurricane-force winds. Communications and transportation were interrupted for months, leading to disinformation, recovery disruptions, and a loss of trust. To assess household impacts and recovery from Hurricane Helene in two rural Western North Carolina counties, a 29-question survey was adapted from a Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) conducted in Buncombe County, a nearby urban county. Thirty clusters were selected with probability proportionate to population across the two counties. Survey teams completed 183 interviews (completion rate = 87.1%). More than 35% of households evacuated because of Hurricane Helene, with nearly 18% evacuating in the week after due to on-going communication and utility outages. Less than 10% of households experienced new or worsening environmental health or chronic diseases. However, 40% reported anxiety, 30% reported trouble sleeping and depression, and 60% reported worrying about another disaster affecting their home. Nearly one year after the direct impact of the hurricane, much work remained as part of continued long-term recovery and resilience building. Because of their small populations and limited infrastructure, restoration of services necessary for response and recovery can be hindered in rural areas which often lack options such as public transportation, affordable short-term housing, and broadband or Wi-Fi.

Fruit-derived flavonoids may enhance exercise performance and/or improve recovery due to their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Evidence in humans suggests that supplementation with about 300 mg of flavonoids before exercise may affect exercise performance and recovery. The aim of this study was to evaluate the plasma metabolomic response to a 1-h cycling trial after twelve participants had consumed either a high or low dairy milk-based flavonoid (490 or 5 mg) pre-workout beverage for 15 d. A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled design was used, and subjects completed a submaximal cycling trial (45 m 70 % VO2 max, 15 m time trial). Plasma was collected before and after the exercise trial and at 1-h and 4-h post-exercise. No statistically significant difference was observed (P = 0·051), but a small effect size (d = 0·16) suggests a marginal trend towards increased power output during cycling with the treatment. Plasma samples were extracted, derivatised and subjected to GC-MS-based metabolomics analysis. Sixty-two metabolites were measured, of which forty-two were identified, and twenty are unknowns. A two-way repeated ANOVA with log-transformed and auto-scaled values indicated that 56 of the 62 features were significantly different with respect to time, but no significant treatment effects or treatment-by-time interactions were observed. Using the Euclidean distance measure and Ward clustering algorithm, a heatmap was generated that divided the metabolite response into eight groups and sixteen subgroups. Metabolites (carbohydrates, lipids and amino acids) changed to varying degrees in response to exercise, suggesting that multiple fuel substrate pathways were activated throughout exercise and recovery.