The stressors experienced by families caring for children and youth with developmental disabilities (DD) impact quality of life for all family members. Families employ creative practices to cope and thrive in the midst of such challenges. This study sought to understand the adaptive practices, tactics, and strategies engaged in by parents. We interviewed 39 parents of 46 children and youth with DD in Canada. Thematic analysis elucidated three categories of adaptations and twelve tactics and strategic actions at three ecological levels: within the system—adapting with everyday tactics and strategies; within our family—constructing spaces of care; within myself—adjusting perceptions of adversity. Our critical interpretation highlights an ecology of parental labor across varying psychosocial and health care service contexts in which parents strive to make a good life for their children and families. Nurses can empower and enhance their well-being by conducting holistic assessments and targeted family nursing interventions.

Past studies have revealed a dizzying array of coping techniques employed by persons living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Unfortunately, research has provided little insight into when and why individuals adopt or abandon particular coping strategies. Using a retrospective narrative approach, we explored how participants made sense of changes in their approach to coping over time. Shifts in coping strategies were associated with particular illness experiences that wrought new understandings of IBD and novel identity challenges. They followed a common processual form and were marked by a movement away from techniques of purification, normalization, and banalization toward the development of a more communicative body. This was accompanied by notable shifts in identity work. Notably, participants moved from a preoccupation with maintaining continuity and sameness to permitting their extraordinary bodies to occupy a place in their public and personal identities. Implications of this process for theory and practice are discussed.

Despite common experiences of identity damage, decline, and deterioration, many brain injury survivors succeed in reconstructing robust identities in the wake of injury. Yet, while this accomplishment greatly benefits survivors’ quality of life, little is known about how positive identity work might be facilitated or enhanced in therapeutic institutions. Drawing on data from a women’s self-help group, we argue that an egalitarian, reflective, strength-focused, and gender-segregated environment can provide female ABI (acquired brain injury) survivors with a fertile scene for identity enhancement and offer unique opportunities for collective identity development. Sociolinguistic interactional analysis revealed four types of positive identity work undertaken within the group: constructing competent selves; tempering the threat of loss and impairment; resisting infantilisation and delegitimisation; and asserting a collective gender identity. This identity work was facilitated by specific programme attributes and activities and contributed to the global project of decentring disability and destigmatising impairments and losses. We call for increased attention to identity issues in brain injury rehabilitation and argue that gender-segregated programming can provide a unique space for female survivors to construct empowering individual and collective identities after injury.

Although researchers, service providers, and clients are determined to improve partnerships within disability services, a lack of partnership persists. Using our research as a case study, we reflect on three limitations of common research methods and social change techniques in this area. We suggest that typical approaches struggle to move beyond taken-for-granted ideas, common-sense solutions, and established ideology in the field of disability. Consequently, they often fail to reveal important barriers to collaboration, identify innovative solutions, or initiate meaningful improvements in partnership. We propose a new approach to partnership research and reform grounded in a pragmatic model of social change and argue that projects based on isolated or simplistic data, majority-rule decision-making, simple and efficient planning, and restricted inside perspectives (where storytelling is limited) must be complemented by observational studies, socio-cultural analyses, and critical investigations. In short, we must understand why working relationships do not change to improve disability services.

Introduction: Access of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth to gender-affirming medical care (GAMC) has become a contentious topic in the West, with many members of the general population, politicians, and even some experts and academic researchers voicing concerns about possible adverse effects of GAMC on the mental and physical health of TGD youth. Due to these concerns, recent years have seen a significant rise in legislation restricting TGD youth from accessing GAMC in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. However, in this critical review of the literature on the psychological (e.g., anxiety, depression, suicide, and body satisfaction) and physical (e.g., bone health, cognitive function, and fertility) health outcomes associated with GAMC among TGD youth, we argue that, given the state of current research, youth should not be restricted from accessing GAMC. Conclusions: Our findings reinforce the importance of close monitoring by doctors, counselling for TGD youth with respect to potential risks, and increased studies on the topic, especially those focusing on reproductive health.