Suchergebnisse

On 12 November 2012 the then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced she was recommending to the Governor General the establishment of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Following inquiries in Australia and elsewhere much is already known about institutional and inter-institutional child protection failures and what is required to address them. That Australia's national government has pursued another abuse inquiry with terms of reference limited to institution-based (excluding the family) sexual abuse is of interest given the lack of political will to enact previous findings and recommendations. This article examines the background to the Government's announcement, the Commission's terms of reference and some of its settings, and literature on the nature of royal commissions across time and place. After the lack of success in implementing the recommendations of previous inquiries into how to better protect Australia's children, the question is: how will this Royal Commission contribute to Australian child protection and safety? Will the overwhelming public support generated by "truth speaking to power" in calling for this inquiry translate into action?

There is now increasing recognition that child abuse and domestic violence are not separate phenomena and 'witnessing' domestic violence can seriously affect children. This paper reports on a qualitative research project undertaken by researchers from the University of South Australia from June 1998 to January 1999, as part of the Commonwealth and States' Partnerships Against Domestic Violence initiative. The focus of the research was on assessing the needs of women, men and young people who have experienced domestic violence in South Australia. The participants identified many 'effects' of witnessing or experiencing domestic violence on children, along with their needs. The findings will inform early intervention campaigns as well as broader service systems in supporting and responding to the needs of these young people.

In October 2017, the #MeToo hashtag went viral on social media, emerging as a global medium for solidarity between women who had experienced sexual violence. However, the contextless nature of a hashtag meant that individual variations of experiences were erased in the positioning of #MeToo as a singular statement. Previous literature exposed a lack of understanding of how geographical factors contributed to the response and uptake of #MeToo. This phenomenological study explored rurality as an intersectional factor that influenced women's engagement with the #MeToo movement. Thirty-one women from rural and remote Australia participated in an anonymous online survey, sharing their experiences and perceptions. The barriers for engagement identified by participants mirror the social and structural factors that inhibit disclosure and help-seeking behaviour in rural and remote areas. Regardless of personal engagement, many of the participants felt a collective sense of strength and empowerment through the virtual solidarity of victims. The author concludes with the suggestion for an anonymous online platform for victims of sexual violence to connect and share their experiences. This format may allow victims the psychological benefits of disclosure whilst preventing the negative repercussions of speaking out publicly.

Discretionary judgment is a necessary and desirable attribute of child protection practice and decision-making. Increasingly, approaches towards accountability in child protection services act to constrain the use of practitioner discretionary judgement through ever increasing layers of standardisation and technical-rational approaches to practice. This situation is at odds with the need for professionals to adaptively respond to practice environments that are characterised by uncertainty and complexity. At the same time, there are known weakness and problems that are reported in the decision-making literature, begging questions about how to best support and evaluate for effective and accountable discretion and decision-making across a whole system. In this paper discretion is conceptualised as a structural and epistemic phenomena that is constrained and restricted under the weight of standardisation. A five-part conceptual framework for a systems approach to policy evaluation is presented, and it is argued that this framework would support the capacity for effective discretionary judgement and decision-making to emerge as a property of the system overall. This paper is a theoretical and conceptual argument for a systemic policy evaluation framework that is supportive of discretionary judgment and decision-making in child protection systems shifting the emphasis away from technical-rational compliance.

On 12 November 2012 the then Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced she was recommending to the Governor General the establishment of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Following inquiries in Australia and elsewhere much is already known about institutional and inter-institutional child protection failures and what is required to address them. That Australia's national government has pursued another abuse inquiry with terms of reference limited to institution-based (excluding the family) sexual abuse is of interest given the lack of political will to enact previous findings and recommendations. This article examines the background to the Government's announcement, the Commission's terms of reference and some of its settings, and literature on the nature of royal commissions across time and place. After the lack of success in implementing the recommendations of previous inquiries into how to better protect Australia's children, the question is: how will this Royal Commission contribute to Australian child protection and safety? Will the overwhelming public support generated by "truth speaking to power" in calling for this inquiry translate into action?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of relational contract theory in situations where government departments contract with non‐government welfare organisations to deliver human service programmes. Its limits are highlighted by an assessment of programmes for domestically violent men that epitomise "management of incomplete contracts" central to the theory.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on an evaluation of contracted‐out programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence in Australia that set out to compare and contrast distinct models of service delivery by documenting programme logic, service delivery effectiveness and effects on programme participants. It reflects on the difficulties of monitoring such programmes and considers the implications of this for contracting theory and for human service practice.FindingsIn contrast to critiques of contracting‐out in a neo‐liberal environment that emphasise how accountability and reporting requirements limit the autonomy of contracted agencies, this paper highlights considerable variation in how programmes were managed and delivered despite standardised service delivery contracts developed by the government department funding the programmes. This leads to a consideration of "incomplete contracts" where service delivery outcomes are hard to measure or there is limited knowledge of the contracted agencies by the contracting government department.Originality/valueThe paper highlights a situation in which the recommendations of relational contracting theory can exacerbate the difficulties of quality assurance rather than minimise them. It then argues a need for workforce development in the government departments and the contracted agencies, to enable a nuanced monitoring of the programmes' service delivery and promotion of quality assurance processes.

The growing significance of domestic violence programs run by the state and contracted nongovernment agencies in Australia over the past decade has not been matched by a commensurate growth in evaluation of those programs. A number of evaluations have been conducted, but only a few have been long-term and large-scale, due to funding and other constraints. The promotion of evidence-based practice and policy encourages practitioners and scholars to aim for comprehensive and systematic review of initiatives, but achieving that is no mean feat since both the service delivery and governance of these programs are often complex and multi-stranded. In this article we reflect on theoretical and practical issues of evaluation by reporting on the experience of undertaking an evaluation of domestic violence perpetrator and victim support programs delivered for an Australian state government by contracted community service agencies. The experience was not as we had expected on the basis of social policy debates. In this situation, there were difficulties in generating sufficiently robust data on offenders in group programs that delayed and limited the scope of a quasi-experimental assessment of intervention, although that strand continues to date. At the same time, however, this strengthened the importance of evaluating service delivery and governance issues within a 'realist evaluation' paradigm. Since contemporary domestic violence programs often typically combine coordinated support for women and children and behaviour change intervention with offenders, evaluation needs multi-stranded approaches that may draw on paradigms more commonly thought of as being in tension.

In this article we report on the research findings from our exploratory study examining connections between Australian responses to two important social issues: domestic violence and employment. Although international literature particularly from North America, comprehensively addresses the connections between domestic violence and employment, there is a paucity of Australian research on this topic. Intrigued by this as both practitioners and researchers, we sought to discover whether the problems, solutions and conclusions addressed internationally were relevant to an Australian context. The result was a unique contribution to Australian knowledge and practice where we demonstrate the applicability of some aspects of North American approaches to Australia and document innovative local practices in the field. In this article we argue for a more comprehensive approach in responses to the connections between domestic violence and employment as an alternative pathway out of poverty for women affected by domestic violence.

Abstract
With a record number of people reported to be forcibly displaced worldwide and an increasingly anti-asylum policy environment in Global North host nations, it is critical to examine social work and human services with people seeking asylum and people with refugee status. This scoping review sought to identify and review the existing qualitative research on such practice from the perspectives of social work and human service practitioners, people seeking asylum and people with refugee status and clients in Global North host nations. The review presents the key findings and trends emerging from twenty publications and identifies areas for future research to further develop knowledge of this field of practice as there is a dearth of research on this topic. Through thematic analysis of very different publications, it was found that Global North host nations have varying forms of restrictive policy and dominant anti-asylum discourses. This and other factors result in many potential areas for improvement of social work and human services. The findings include recommendations for more inclusive and compassionate policy, person-centred and strength-based practice approaches, and further qualitative research with people seeking asylum.

AbstractWhile there is growing recognition of the importance of meaningful youth participation in activities and decisions which impact their lives, facilitating such engagement within different forums requires varied approaches. A programme of youth research at one Western Australian university has sought to embed pathways for ongoing youth participation in longitudinal research. In particular, we discuss Navigating Through Life, a large‐scale WA research project comprising three sub‐studies exploring young people's transitions from out of home care (OOHC) to independence. We established a youth advisory group to run alongside the project and employed peer researchers to conduct research tasks. In this paper, we seek to explicate the development and various iterations of youth participation in the project. We utilise our reflections, interview data and documentation from YAG meetings and feedback sessions with the peer researchers to illustrate the processes of transformation and flexibility required to develop and maintain youth participation in various ways across the project's life. Drawing on our findings and current literature, we highlight how funding bodies and researchers must consider the additional needs, unique and changeable life circumstances of young people to best facilitate their involvement in research.