The production, use and effect of social work research. This project aims to reform social work research to improve the quality and effectiveness of human services. The human services industry is vital to many people’s quality of life, but lacks innovation and struggles to demonstrate its effectiveness. Crucially for social work, research expands thinking about how to respond to social disadvantage. This project intends to examine the scope and quality of Australian social work research in child ....The production, use and effect of social work research. This project aims to reform social work research to improve the quality and effectiveness of human services. The human services industry is vital to many people’s quality of life, but lacks innovation and struggles to demonstrate its effectiveness. Crucially for social work, research expands thinking about how to respond to social disadvantage. This project intends to examine the scope and quality of Australian social work research in child protection, disability services, and aged care; assess the use of this research to the human services sector and its effect on generating innovation; and develop strategies to advance the production, uptake, and effect of social work research.Read moreRead less
Fostering lifelong connections for children in permanent care. The out-of-home care sector in Australia is undergoing transformation to ensure children who cannot be restored to birth families exit care to permanent families. New South Wales is leading the way on these reforms. The emerging Australian policy model, permanency with lifelong connection to birth families, is distinctly different from the policy models in similar Western nations. While the Australian policy goal is clear, practices ....Fostering lifelong connections for children in permanent care. The out-of-home care sector in Australia is undergoing transformation to ensure children who cannot be restored to birth families exit care to permanent families. New South Wales is leading the way on these reforms. The emerging Australian policy model, permanency with lifelong connection to birth families, is distinctly different from the policy models in similar Western nations. While the Australian policy goal is clear, practices for achieving this goal are under-developed. This action research project will engage the New South Wales out-of-home care sector to design and trial relationship-building practices that promote positive relationships between children and their birth families.Read moreRead less
Strengthening Relationships for Young People in Residential Care. Young people in residential care face major challenges in forming positive relationships, many having experienced adults as a source of threat rather than safety. This project aims to investigate practices within therapeutic residential care that enable or limit young people’s identity formation, positive social connections, safety and wellbeing. This research will generate nuanced knowledge informing interpersonal and institution ....Strengthening Relationships for Young People in Residential Care. Young people in residential care face major challenges in forming positive relationships, many having experienced adults as a source of threat rather than safety. This project aims to investigate practices within therapeutic residential care that enable or limit young people’s identity formation, positive social connections, safety and wellbeing. This research will generate nuanced knowledge informing interpersonal and institutional change. Expected outcomes include improved approaches to therapeutic care and to methods for enabling the participation of young people in care in matters that may change their life trajectory on exiting care. Expected benefits include more responsive policies and frameworks for practice.Read moreRead less
Enhancing outcomes for young people in out-of-home care who self-place. This project aims to enhance the safety and well-being of young people in out-of-home care who leave formal placements to stay in unapproved locations. The significance lies in the development of new knowledge with this group of young people about their needs and of factors shaping effective responses to them. Expected outcomes include the generation of policies and practices to reduce the drivers of young people leaving a ....Enhancing outcomes for young people in out-of-home care who self-place. This project aims to enhance the safety and well-being of young people in out-of-home care who leave formal placements to stay in unapproved locations. The significance lies in the development of new knowledge with this group of young people about their needs and of factors shaping effective responses to them. Expected outcomes include the generation of policies and practices to reduce the drivers of young people leaving approved placements and to address the support and protective needs of young people when staying in unapproved locations. The benefits include improved social and economic inclusion of young people in out-of-home care and reduced socio-economic burdens on health and justice systems associated with placement breakdown. Read moreRead less
Leveraging lived experience to prevent burnout among healthcare workers. Providing treatment for people with mental health problems or misuse of alcohol and drugs can be emotionally taxing, making staff particularly susceptible to client-related burnout. This proposal aims to examine whether staff who have lived-experience of the issues faced by their clients are buffered from this form of burnout. The proposal further examines whether this buffering effect is brought about by changes in empath .... Leveraging lived experience to prevent burnout among healthcare workers. Providing treatment for people with mental health problems or misuse of alcohol and drugs can be emotionally taxing, making staff particularly susceptible to client-related burnout. This proposal aims to examine whether staff who have lived-experience of the issues faced by their clients are buffered from this form of burnout. The proposal further examines whether this buffering effect is brought about by changes in empathy, attributions, and recovery knowledge from lived-experience. The outcomes of this research will provide the knowledge base to enable future research to develop interventions to reduce burnout, thereby boosting resilience, engagement, and longevity among healthcare staff – ultimately improving client outcomes.Read moreRead less
Breaking the cycle of intergenerational child maltreatment using 'big data'. This project aims to provide the first comprehensive investigation of inter-generational child maltreatment using over 50 years of linked data for a population cohort of children and their parents in New South Wales. The project will generate new knowledge about the prevalence and characteristics of families in which child maltreatment is initiated, maintained across generations, or in which the trauma cycle is broken, ....Breaking the cycle of intergenerational child maltreatment using 'big data'. This project aims to provide the first comprehensive investigation of inter-generational child maltreatment using over 50 years of linked data for a population cohort of children and their parents in New South Wales. The project will generate new knowledge about the prevalence and characteristics of families in which child maltreatment is initiated, maintained across generations, or in which the trauma cycle is broken, using innovative statistical techniques. Expected outcomes include new knowledge of the true prevalence of inter-generational family trauma that can only be known from combining inter-agency data, and enhanced capacity to identify cross-agency levers in an effort to break the cycle of inter-generational disadvantage.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE230101177
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$456,607.00
Summary
Beyond Inclusion: Belonging and Racial dignity for Africans in Australia . This project aims to investigate why Black Africans in Australia experience significant challenges of integration in comparison to other migrant groups. This issue of national concern, exacerbated by ongoing negative public and media discourse, has prompted calls for deportations of community members due to failed integration. Applying a unique and innovative Afrocentric methodology, this project expects to generate a ne ....Beyond Inclusion: Belonging and Racial dignity for Africans in Australia . This project aims to investigate why Black Africans in Australia experience significant challenges of integration in comparison to other migrant groups. This issue of national concern, exacerbated by ongoing negative public and media discourse, has prompted calls for deportations of community members due to failed integration. Applying a unique and innovative Afrocentric methodology, this project expects to generate a new understanding of racial dignity as key to belonging for Black Africans in Australia. By linking racial dignity as core to integration and belonging, the project should expand cross-cultural understandings that may inform culturally appropriate practice approaches with members of this community. Read moreRead less
Researching an all-of-family program in family violence & substance misuse. Family violence services and drug and alcohol services have been inappropriately siloed given co-occurrence of these problems is common. This project aims to evaluate an innovative program which integrates these services, focuses on fathering to ensure recognition of the needs of children (50% of family violence victims) and provides all-of-family support to ensure the safety and well-being of women and children. Expect ....Researching an all-of-family program in family violence & substance misuse. Family violence services and drug and alcohol services have been inappropriately siloed given co-occurrence of these problems is common. This project aims to evaluate an innovative program which integrates these services, focuses on fathering to ensure recognition of the needs of children (50% of family violence victims) and provides all-of-family support to ensure the safety and well-being of women and children. Expected outcomes include better evidence for countering family violence, and policy frameworks for integrated service provision. Changing the behaviour of men who use violence is a significant social challenge and the outcomes of this targeted approach should have ramifications nationally and internationally. Read moreRead less
Confronting everyday harms: preventing abuse of people with disability. The findings of the Disability Royal Commission necessitate new approaches to prevent violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Framed by recognition theory, this project proposes empirical research with young people with cognitive disability, using a new concept of ‘everyday harms’ in their paid relationships. The results will inform early responses to poor quality interactions in disability support. The strategic alliance ....Confronting everyday harms: preventing abuse of people with disability. The findings of the Disability Royal Commission necessitate new approaches to prevent violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. Framed by recognition theory, this project proposes empirical research with young people with cognitive disability, using a new concept of ‘everyday harms’ in their paid relationships. The results will inform early responses to poor quality interactions in disability support. The strategic alliances with the government, industry and community partners will develop a practice framework to prevent everyday harms and the escalation to abuse, and to promote safety and wellbeing. The research has policy benefits for capacity-building in the sector to act on the rights and voices of people with disability. Read moreRead less
Engaging ethnic minority and majority blood donors in donor recruitment. Word-of-mouth is a potentially powerful way to recruit blood donors. Talking about donation increases awareness, trust, commitment and positive feelings about donating, particularly in ethnic minority groups. However, donors seldom tell others about donating. This project aims to determine how to motivate blood donors to recruit new donors using word-of-mouth, through research comprising co-design, surveys, and experiments. ....Engaging ethnic minority and majority blood donors in donor recruitment. Word-of-mouth is a potentially powerful way to recruit blood donors. Talking about donation increases awareness, trust, commitment and positive feelings about donating, particularly in ethnic minority groups. However, donors seldom tell others about donating. This project aims to determine how to motivate blood donors to recruit new donors using word-of-mouth, through research comprising co-design, surveys, and experiments. This project will generate new knowledge of how to encourage effective word-of-mouth for pro-social behaviours. Expected outcomes include producing culturally relevant, validated resources that will significantly benefit Australia by encouraging effective conversations to promote blood donation in all communities.Read moreRead less