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With the current push towards using fewer antipsychotics and more non-pharmacological interventions in long-term care, it has become increasingly important for knowledge and best-practice sharing across the province. The “Good Ideas” project began in 2001 in the context of my work as a Royal Ottawa geriatric psychiatry behavioural support outreach nurse to long-term-care facilities in Ottawa. A toolkit was begun as various ideas and tools were found to be useful in the management of behavioural challenges in the care of long term care residents. These non-pharmacological tools can have a significant impact on the management of behavioural challenges. Some were discovered via “out-of-the-box” thinking, some as a result of exploring possibilities on the Web, others were shared with me by colleagues in various roles and settings. I have worked in geriatric psychiatry in various capacities as a nurse at The Royal Ottawa Health Care Group since 1986, and have had the opportunity to accumulate several “good ideas” over time. I found myself carrying various articles, pamphlets, booklets, photos in my workbag and noticed I was being contacted more frequently over time on how to obtain certain items. When these non-pharmacological approaches were implemented, and successful, a common response would be: “what a good idea!” Thus, the name given to the project came to be. Good Ideas has grown over the years as the information has been shared with outreach team members and utilized in their own practice. All contacts are encouraged to share any new “good ideas” they encounter so those too can be added. Originally a hardcopy handout with a list and the resources to outsource items was created and distributed. This evolved into a PowerPoint presentation explaining the usefulness of each tool in specific target behaviours and how to obtain the tool, as well as photos. Later a poster was made and a second version was produced more recently. Currently the project is in the process of being translated to French for our bilingual Ottawa area. The project has circulated among my teammates to be used in education sessions in their long-term-care facilities or as an adjunct to larger full day education sessions on the topic of dementia care. A large colorful hatbox also contains some sample items to add to the hard copies. Good Ideas has been presented at the Regional Geriatric Program Annual Meeting poster presentation Oct 12, 2013, with very positive feedback from participants. Good Ideas is a project in perpetuity, with no stop date planned. It is my hope it will continue to grow long after my retirement date. It promotes the concept of creative thinking about behavioural challenges in dementia care, while supporting that pharmacological intervention should most often be as a last resort.

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Background: Adolescence is a critical stage in human development. Most young people become sexually active during adolescence and are more likely to have multipartner and unprotected sex with high-risk behavior that predisposes them to sexually transmitted infections such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Objectives: The objective of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a structured teaching programme on transmission and prevention of HIV/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) among adolescent girls. Methods: An evaluative research approach was adopted, in which a preexperimental, one group pre- and post-test research design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the structured teaching programme on transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS among adolescent girls studying at Lowry Memorial High School, Bengaluru. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were presented in frequency tables and statistical graphs (bar charts) and analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistical methods (Chi-square and paired “t”-tests) using SPSS version 21. Results: The findings of the study revealed that the mean percentage difference in the pre- and post-test knowledge scores was statistically significant at 5% level ( P < 0.05). The overall mean post-test knowledge score of adolescent girls on transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS was 88.83%. It is apparently higher compared to the pretest knowledge score, which was 67.67% with enhancement of 21.16%. This implies that the structured teaching programme was effective in gaining knowledge of adolescent girls regarding transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS. Conclusion: Our study suggests that structured teaching programme enhanced the knowledge of the adolescent girls on transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS. We, therefore, recommend that structured teaching programmes on transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS should be encouraged among adolescents and youths to reduce the spread of HIV infection.