Harm reduction is being used to support people who self-harm within inpatient psychiatry and some practitioners report potential benefits of this approach. However, this raises particularly complex practical, ethical and legal issues and further research is needed to assess the safety, acceptability and efficacy of the approach.

Childbearing trans and nonbinary people are confronted with the heteronormative and cisgender frameworks that underpin “maternity” services. We explored the educational needs of 108 perinatal staff in the United Kingdom as related to the needs of trans and nonbinary service users. Participants were most confident in formulating care plans and least confident about the provision of colleagues’ perinatal care in this context. While the majority of participants were positive toward the trans and nonbinary communities, they considered that those communities remain marginalized in perinatal services. Transphobic, anti-trans, and nonbinary attitudes were highlighted by our respondents. Our findings suggest that caregivers witnessed transphobia among colleagues and were apprehensive themselves about providing care to childbearing trans and nonbinary people. They reported a cisheteronormative model of care that lacked awareness of trans and nonbinary issues. The educational needs identified included information about the practicalities of childbearing as a trans or nonbinary person, how to use inclusive language effectively, and creating policies and processes for supporting childbearing trans and nonbinary people. These caregivers’ preferences included hearing from trans and nonbinary people and sharing best practices among themselves, with open discussions about how to be inclusive.

Background: Translational neuroscience aims to make discoveries about the brain that will benefit health, especially mental health. Up to now, however, translational neuroscience studies have been designed with very little input from stakeholders who have lived experience of mental health problems. To address this serious gap, stakeholder participation needs to take place at many levels, as it does in service-oriented studies. Methods: We convened a ‘Lived Experience Advisory Panel’ (LEAP) in order to improve the design of a new study about people’s decision to trust in and continue with, or to stop, psychotherapy treatments. Results: The LEAP productively challenged the ecological validity and relevance of the study design, increasing its potential to improve mental health and to attract research funding. It helped determine the place of lived experience experts in multiple roles within the study throughout its duration. It also helped improve relevance by refining the framing of the therapy-like tasks within the study, and by improving the specification of the study population. LEAP discussions informed the pathways to impact first the consultation process itself, and then the new study. The LEAP convened during the COVID-19 lockdown and its remote work process, described here, demonstrates both the potential for greater involvement of stakeholders in research design, but also some difficulties which future collaborations should address.Conclusion: Involvement of relevant stakeholders very early in the process of designing this research study has improved the study design and its potential to bring positive impacts to those stakeholders. This should be considered broadly across research fields and particularly within translational neuroscience, where limited input by stakeholders with lived experience of mental health problems have been sought to date.

Vision is a complex sense which has a significant impact on healthy brain development, education, and immersive interaction with the world. Ensuring vision is protected, respected, and enhanced if required, is essential in achieving Maaori health goals. Taa (Sir) Mason Durie claimed that the key priority within Maaori health is to be able to achieve full and active participation within society. Vision loss is associated with negative social and physical health consequences beyond visual impairment, including exacerbation of chronic illnesses and increased risk of depression. Thus, addressing vision loss for Maaori is a matter of striving for equity to ensure full and active participation within society is attainable.

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