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Counselling Suicidal Clients addresses the important professional considerations when working with clients who are suicidal. The 'bigger picture', including legal and ethical considerations and organizational policy and procedures is explored, as is to how practitioners can work with the dynamics of suicide potential in the therapeutic process. The book is divided into six main parts: The changing context of suicideThe prediction-prevention model, policy and ethicsThe influence of the organizationThe client processThe practitioner processThe practice of counseling with suicidal clients

Purpose
This study aims to explore co-learning classes, a novel approach to leveraging universities' capacity to contribute to the local sustainable development agenda whilst enhancing students' learning. These participatory classes were piloted within a UK university masters' module focussed on action for sustainability. The classes sought to combine knowledge exchange, reflection and social network development by bringing together students and community stakeholders.


Design/methodology/approach
The classes were run as a series of five free events, each focussed on sustainability issues relevant for local practitioners. These were either regular timetabled sessions opened up to the public or additional on-campus public events. Attendance was either face-to-face or online. Evaluation was based upon participation data, written feedback and module leader's post-event reflections.


Findings
The classes successfully secured participation from diverse community members, including local government staff, voluntary sector workers and interested individuals. Both students and community stakeholders valued the participatory format, linkages of theoretical and practical knowledge and diversity of attendees.


Research limitations/implications
Findings are based upon a small-scale pilot study. Further research using a wider range of contexts is required to enhance understanding of the co-learning approach.


Practical implications
This paper highlights some key practical issues to consider if employing co-learning approaches in other contexts, including using inclusive language, aligning with students' motivations and choosing appropriate focal event topics.


Originality/value
Opening up participatory university classes for the public to attend as co-learners is a rarely used approach and has little coverage in academic literature. This small-scale study therefore has value by highlighting some of the potential impacts, strengths and limitations of this approach.

Concerns about unaccountable executive power have featured recurrently in political debates from the American founding to today. For many, presidents' use of unilateral power threatens American democracy. No Blank Check advances a new perspective: Instead of finding Americans apathetic towards how presidents exercise power, it shows the public is deeply concerned with core democratic values. Drawing on data from original surveys, innovative experiments, historical polls, and contexts outside the United States, the book highlights Americans' skepticism towards presidential power. This skepticism results in a public that punishes unilaterally minded presidents and the policies they pursue. By departing from existing theories of presidential power which acknowledge only institutional constraints, this timely and revealing book demonstrates the public's capacity to tame the unilateral impulses of even the most ambitious presidents. Ultimately, when it comes to exercising power, the public does not hand the president a blank check.

AbstractWhen things go wrong, and the government may be to blame, the public support enjoyed by elected executives is vulnerable. Because attribution of responsibility is often not straightforward, elected executives can influence citizens' evaluations of their performance through presentational strategies, or explanatory frames which describe their roles in the management of the crisis. We examine the effectiveness of two ubiquitous presentational strategies: blame claiming, where the executive accepts responsibility, and blame deflecting, where the executive shifts blame to others. Using survey experiments incorporating stylised and real-world stimuli, we find that blame claiming is more effective than blame deflecting at managing public support in the aftermath of crises. In investigating the underlying mechanism, we find that blame claiming creates more favourable views of an executive's leadership valence. While elected executives are better off avoiding crises, we find that when they occur, "stopping the buck" is a superior strategy to deflecting blame.

Taylor and Reeves' chapter opens with the increasing concerns regarding the self-harm suicide rate amongst the veteran community across the USA. The author's highlight powerfully that this issue wrenches the attention beyond those veterans who have sustained mental injury from conflict alone. The issue's contemporary relevance is focused around the US military's proposal to draw up 'no harm contract' under a 'Separation Oath' model. The chapter provides an overview of the current situation facing US military veterans' engagement with health and welfare sectors. The authors assert the roots of stigma and the avoidance of help-seeking are operating at both formal and informal levels in the military, at the added expense of mental health crises experienced by those in non-combat roles, which are often carried out into their civilian lives. The chapter then critically examines the notion of the no harm contract suggestion- finding a distinct lack of evidence for their efficacy in reducing the potential for suicide and self-harm. The chapter closes with a critic of the adoption of Oaths on Exit as a therapeutic intervention.