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Talent pools are drying up across high-risk industries like public safety and critical infrastructure sectors (e.g., energy and nuclear). According to the National Institute of Building Sciences, the construction industry will need 439,000 new workers to meet demand in 2025. Staffing at many police and fire departments has reached historic lows. 

Available evidence suggests these trends will continue. Younger workers prioritize considerations like work/life balance, low stress, and high flexibility in their jobs — things that high-risk industries aren’t historically known to offer.  

While high-risk employers cannot change the nature of their work, they can get creative with recruiting and retention tactics. Organizations that act now can gain a long-term advantage over their competitors.  

As society continues the shift toward embracing diversity and inclusive practices, the need to understand and accommodate individual sensory preferences is becoming increasingly recognized in mental health settings. Dr. Elana Moore, an expert in sensory processing and mental health, took some time to highlight the critical role that sensory environments play in the therapeutic process.

Educators know that each student is unique in how they learn—and it’s part of what makes the job so fascinating and rewarding. Classrooms have diverse learners who process information and demonstrate their understanding in remarkably different ways. This natural variation in learning styles and cognitive strengths makes teaching both an art and a science, especially when interpreting and acting on assessment results that don't always tell the complete story.

It’s why cognitive assessments like the Differential Ability Scales™ (2nd ed., DAS™–II) play a crucial role, allowing educators to obtain a differential diagnosis. By pinpointing a specific cause for a given learning deficit, educators can feel like they’re not wasting time or resources but instead developing the right targeted interventions and accommodations to support the student's learning needs.

The future of mental healthcare lies in digital innovation.

With over 10,000 digital mental health apps available and a global mental health apps market valued at $6.12 billion, telehealth, online therapy platforms, apps and other digital tools are becoming integral to mental healthcare.

Digital tools have the potential to improve access to mental health services, collect real world data, and deliver data-informed, personalized care. This potential has led organizations from the World Health Organization to the American Psychological Association to emphasize the benefits of digital mental healthcare.

“Digital mental healthcare helps extend access to mental health treatment and support,” says Katherine Presnell PhD, psychologist and research director at Pearson Assessments US.

Digital tools have the power to augment and reinforce concepts and techniques learned in therapy between sessions and capitalize on the unique innovations that a digital environment offers—but realizing these benefits requires overcoming challenges.

In the world of aviation, the margin for error is minimal, and the importance of selecting the right personnel is extremely important. Aviation roles are inherently stressful, and pilots and air traffic controllers must make quick decisions under pressure, manage complex information, and maintain composure in emergency situations. Traditional hiring methods normally focus on technical skills and experience but may not be able to capture or determine a candidate’s ability to handle stress. This makes the hiring process for these high stress/high-stakes roles vitally important. One of the most effective ways to ensure the right candidates are hired for the job is to use personality and mental health assessments that are designed to support the decision process for these specific job roles.

In 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established the Pilot Fitness Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) to assess pilot mental health following the Germanwings 9525 incident, where the co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane after concealing a long history of mental health issues from his employer. In response to this and other recent mental health incidents, prominent airlines are now utilizing personality and mental health assessments during the hiring process. Here’s why these assessments are indispensable in the aviation industry:

It requires a specific kind of employee to pursue security clearance work. These individuals must embrace pressure and want to make a difference in national security. The constrained talent pool of cleared employees shows how unique this population is, and, on top of that, cybersecurity and technology roles in the intelligence community and government agencies require extremely specific skill sets. The rapid advancement of AI is accelerating this trend even further.

“The recent Executive Order on AI adoption is just the latest driver of talent demand in the security-cleared space,” says Andy Gill, strategic talent acquisitions lead with MetroStar, a northern Virginia-based digital services and IT modernization company focused on Federal, Department of Defense (DoD) and national security customers at the highest security levels. “The need for technical skills and security clearances means it’s more important than ever to not only find the right candidates but also to retain the cleared folks you already have and ensure talent mobility,” he adds.

How can staffing firms and HR professionals manage talent acquisition (TA) with this employee population and keep key positions filled? By emphasizing learning and development (L&D) opportunities, recruiters and TA teams can address both sides of this coin — recruiting qualified candidates and retaining valuable employees.

London, 31 Oct. 2024 – Pearson (FTSE: PSON.L), the world’s lifelong learning company, today announced it has acquired the assets of Revibe Technologies, a digital therapeutics company that has developed technology to treat children with attention- deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

After many years of an arguably “hidden” status in schools, dyslexia has emerged as a critical concern in education thanks to parental advocacy and because of dyslexia’s far-reaching implications for a child’s well-being and educational success. However, while awareness and recognition have increased, dyslexia may still go unidentified or misidentified in elementary school classrooms.

As a speech-language pathologist (SLP), assessment professional, and parent, I’ve gained an acute appreciation for dyslexia and all the learning I’ve gathered over the decades from research, practice, and individuals/families. Yet, I continue to learn that many professionals still may not be comfortable identifying common symptoms which indicate the need for assessment and will open the door to effective support and growth.

As educators settle into their routines with the new school year well underway, I think daily about supporting teachers who often notice behaviors and student performance before anyone else. While I encourage all my fellow SLPs to step into the classroom and listen to teacher assessments often, I also want to encourage our classroom teacher colleagues (and the rest of the educational team). Here are some of the indicators that can help identify students who may have dyslexia so they can get the support they need to succeed in school and beyond.