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(2007)Conference PaperThroughcare’ has been a policy reality across Australia for some years but is it an implementation reality. Is it making the positive difference to re-entry, integration & settlement it was claimed it would? Key systemic factors related to the implementation of ‘throughcare’ particularly in regard to Indigenous Australians, women and those with mental health disorders and cognitive disability are examined critically and ‘glimmers on the horizon’ are discussed.
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(2008)Working PaperThis submission provides recommendations for improvements to NSW services to overcome Indigenous disadvantage and close the large life expectancy gap. These recommendations are mainly based on research performed by two of the authors of this paper, Sue Green and Dr Eileen Baldry and their peers. This research was largely focused on human services, housing and incarceration and encompasses both analysis of the issues and evidence-based recommendations to improve services. Despite many previous reports outlining past policy failures and the consequent current Indigenous disadvantage, current policy continues to make the same mistakes. The federal intervention in the Northern Territory is a prime example of what not to do. The way forward in closing the gap is to strengthen Indigenous communities, not weaken them as this policy does. Part of the problem is that Australian human services and social work are dominated by Euro-Western theories and practices and consequently have poor records in Indigenous outcomes. This submission proposes commonly agreed elements for an Indigenous social framework. In addition, several vicious cycles are in motion and underpin the life expectancy gap. One of these is the unrelenting criminalisation of and systemic discrimination against Indigenous peoples in, and lack of appropriate support through, the NSW criminal justice and prison systems. This compounds Indigenous disadvantage in NSW. A government framework for social, agency and family support is needed to avoid the cycle of incarceration. Another vicious cycle is that of homelessness and disadvantage. Many suggestions to improve support for the homelessness and stop the cycle are attached in the findings from a related research project. Reference is also made to mental health problems facing Indigenous Australians and the scarcity of policy and resources to address the issue. International research supports national findings that sovereignty matters. ‘When Native nations make their own decisions about what development approaches to take, they consistently out-perform external decision makers…’ on a wide range of policy areas (Harvard University 2003-2004). A Commonwealth analysis of ‘things that work’ supports this view by including the following in their list of ‘success factors’: ‘a bottom-up rather than top-down approach’ (Commonwealth Government of Australia 2007, p.11). There is no mystery to overcoming Indigenous disadvantage. The answers have been well-documented. With a booming economy, Australia, and NSW in particular has an exceptional opportunity to make this a reality. NSW can provide the power, respect and resources to its Indigenous communities to close the gap.
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(2005)Journal ArticleWith the trend towards keeping children with a disability in their families, intervention practices are seeking to ensure child safety. A research project in New South Wales, Australia, aimed to discover whether particular support programme(s) for children with a disability and their families significantly and positively influenced outcomes for the child and family, and if significant positive change did occur, which programme elements, strategies and/or techniques significantly contributed to positive client outcomes. Families in crisis and their support workers participated in the research and were followed and interviewed using quantitative and qualitative methods, at instigation of intervention, immediately post-intervention, at six and at twelve months post-intervention. Measurements of empowerment, emotional support, parent-child involvement, abuse potential, family functioning, symptom reduction, hope, happiness and worker-client alliance were used to gather data, as were qualitative interviews. Analyses indicated that the interventions improved families' levels of well-being and functioning and were significantly successful in reducing child abuse potential. Specific worker strategies and programme elements were found to be associated with these improvements and are discussed in detail. Safety of children with disabilities can be improved significantly using the family-centred interventions that were a distinctive feature of the programmes studied.
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(2008)Conference PaperThe growing presence of people with mental health disorders and cognitive disability in criminal justice systems (CJS) is of serious concern. This paper discusses an Australian study linking data from CJS and human service agencies to provide a systemic, institutional analysis of the pathways these persons take into and through the CJS. Early insights indicate the importance of an integrated and critical conceptualisation of justice, social and health involvements that moves beyond compartmentalised approaches. It recognizes the CJS and the community as part of a fluid continuum for these persons and suggests how these persons are rendered invisible in the broader social and body politic.
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(1998)ReportThe following report is a detailed description of the Indigenous Australian content of thirteen BSW courses offered at various Australian Universities. The content descriptions were collected and summarised by Joe Nipperess, a fourth year social work student, from information kindly sent by various staff members at those universities and was checked back with those staff members for accuracy. Most of the respondents returned the material with some changes which were incorporated; a small number did not reply. There may be some inaccuracies therefore in some segments. If so, please accept our apologies. Please inform us of any changes needed.
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(2003)Journal ArticlePoverty, being a ward of the state, Aboriginality, lack of secure home due to abuse or other negative factors, drug abuse, mental illness, intellectual and learning disabilities, debt, unemployment, lack of education and poor social skills and social isolation are all factors over-represented amongst those facing criminal court, those in juvenile detention and adult prisons and amongst partners and families of prisoners. (Baldry 2001) Policy responses to these very serious forms of cumulative disadvantages associated with a large number of those in prison and thus of those being released from prisons have been long on rhetoric but short on action. On the whole people in these situations have been treated as if their problems were entirely due to individual failings and pathologies and the remedies have been equally based on individual treatments and crisis interventions.
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(2008)Journal ArticleAn Indigenous social work guided by Indigenous Australians' participation and experience that has, at its heart, human rights and social justice is in its infancy in Australia. The present paper continues a discussion on Indigenous Australian social work theory and practice developments being generated by those working in this field. Aspects of this “praxis” include recognition of the effects of invasion, colonialism, and paternalistic social policies upon social work practice with Indigenous communities; recognition of the importance of self-determination; contemporary Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues working in partnership; the impact of contemporary racist and neocolonialist values; and rethinking contemporary social work values and practices. There is discussion of appropriation and reinterpretation of social work concepts, incorporation of international and local Indigenous theory, and the framing of social work by Indigenous Australians' views and values