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The WellComm toolkit is used across many areas of the UK to identify and support early years children with their speech, language and communication. There is some evidence for positive outcomes for children who are assessed and supported using the toolkit. However, wider implications of implementing the toolkit have not been fully investigated. This study aimed to explore the impact of implementing the WellComm toolkit on practitioners, practically and for their knowledge and skills. An additional aim was to reflect on the impact this may have on evaluation research. Early years practitioners (EYPs) in the UK completed an online survey asking about their experiences of using the WellComm toolkit, and a sub-sample participated in interviews. Survey and interview respondents spanned different early years settings. Practitioners described positive ways in which using the WellComm toolkit had impacted their knowledge of speech, language and communication, supported improvements in practice, and the quality and specificity of speech and language referrals. Negative implications, such as time costs and staffing burdens, were also discussed but were found not to outweigh the benefits of use. The positive implications of using the WellComm toolkit on practitioners’ own development and knowledge are likely to support the outcomes of children, though the usefulness of the WellComm toolkit for children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) and children with special educational needs (SEND) is questioned. Such findings have implications for the work of evaluation researchers, who need to be sensitive to the use of such toolkits in settings where interventions are being evaluated.

Parents of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in the UK ( n  = 241) were asked to describe the impact of COVID-19 on their own mental health and that of their child. An inductive content analysis of the data was undertaken. Both parents and children appear to be experiencing loss, worry and changes in mood and behaviour as a result of the rapid social changes that have occurred. Some parents reported feeling overwhelmed and described the impact of child understanding and awareness. Finally, a minority of parents reported that COVID-19 has had little impact on mental health in their family, or has even led to improvements. Implications for how to support these families in the immediate future are discussed.

Farmers, regulators, and researchers rely on pesticide use data to assess the effects of pesticides on crop yield, farm economics, off-target organisms, and human health. The publicly available pesticide use data in the United States do not currently account for pesticides applied as seed treatments. We find that seed treatment use has increased in major field crops over the last several decades but that there is a high degree of uncertainty about the extent of acreage planted with treated seeds, the amount of regional variability, and the use of certain active ingredients. One reason for this uncertainty is that farmers are less likely to know what pesticides are on their seed than they are about what pesticides are applied conventionally to their crops. This lack of information affects the quality and availability of seed treatment data and also farmers’ ability to tailor pesticide use to production and environmental goals.

The decline of monarch butterflies in both the eastern and western United States has garnered widespread public interest. Planting milkweeds, their larval host plants, has been promoted as one action individuals can take, but little is known with respect to potential pesticide contamination of store-bought milkweeds. In this study, we collected leaf samples from 235 milkweed plants purchased at 33 retail nurseries across the US to screen for pesticides. Across all samples, we detected 61 different pesticides with an average of 12.2 (±5.0) compounds per plant. While only 9 of these compounds have been experimentally tested on monarch caterpillars, 38% of samples contained a pesticide above a concentration shown to have a sub-lethal effect for monarchs. We detected only a modest predictive ability of retailer size and milkweed species; and plants with labels advertising their value for wildlife did not have fewer pesticides at concentrations known to have a negative effect on monarchs. These results demonstrate the extensiveness of pesticide exposure within nursery milkweeds and the potential impacts on monarchs and other insects exposed to store-bought plants. Milkweeds were collected from stores in the United States and screened for pesticides. We detected multiple pesticides in every milkweed plant sampled. Over one third of samples contained a pesticide at a known harmful concentration for monarchs. Plants labeled as wildlife-friendly did not have fewer potentially harmful compounds.

The decline of monarch butterflies in both the eastern and western United States has garnered widespread public interest. Planting milkweed has been promoted as one action that individuals can take, but very little is known with respect to potential pesticide contamination of store-bought milkweeds during the process of production and transport to market. In this study, we collected 235 milkweed leaf samples from 33 retail nurseries across the US to screen for pesticides. Across all samples, we detected 61 different pesticides with an average of 12.2 compounds per leaf. While most of the compounds have unknown effects on caterpillars, 48 samples contained a pesticide at a concentration that exceeds a published lepidopteran LD50 and 89 contained a pesticide above a concentration shown to have a sub-lethal effect for a monarch. We detected only modest effects of store size and milkweed species; however, plants with labels advertising their value for wildlife were more likely to contain pesticides at concentrations known to have negative effects on monarchs. These results demonstrate the extensiveness of pesticide exposure within nursery milkweeds and the potential impacts on monarch caterpillars and other insects consuming store-bought plants. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) are in decline in the western United States and are encountering a range of anthropogenic stressors. Pesticides are among the factors that likely contribute to this decline, though the concentrations of these chemicals in non-crop plants is not well documented, especially in complex landscapes with a diversity of crop types and land uses. In this study, we collected 227 milkweed (Asclepias spp.) leaf samples from 19 sites representing different land use types across the Central Valley of California. We also sampled plants purchased from two stores that sell to home gardeners. We found 64 pesticides (25 insecticides, 27 fungicides, and 11 herbicides, as well as 1 adjuvant) out of a possible 262 in our screen. Pesticides were detected in every sample, even at sites with little or no pesticide use based on information from landowners. On average, approximately 9 compounds were detected per plant across all sites, with a range of 1 to 25 compounds in any one sample. For the vast majority of pesticides detected, we do not know the biological effects on monarch caterpillars that consume these plants, however we did detect a few compounds for which effects on monarchs have been experimentally investigated. Chlorantraniliprole in particular was identified in 91% of our samples and found to exceed a tested LD50 for monarchs in 58 out of 227 samples. Our primary conclusion is the ubiquity of pesticide presence in milkweeds in an early-summer window of time that monarch larvae are likely to be present in the area. Thus, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that pesticide exposure could be a contributing factor to monarch declines in the western United States. This both highlights the need for a greater understanding of the lethal and sublethal effects of these compounds (individually, additively, and synergistically) and suggests the urgent need for strategies that reduce pesticide use and movement on the landscape.