Suchergebnisse

Australia has been experimenting with constraining the ways in which welfare recipients can spend their income support payments, limiting their ability to access cash and purchase some products. The policy objectives include to reduce spending on alcohol, gambling, pornography and tobacco in favour of meeting 'basic' family needs, especially for children, to limit the scope for financial harassment, encourage pro‐social behaviours, and build financial capabilities. In the logic of the programs these outcomes are expected to be manifest at the individual, family and community levels. The policy has primarily impacted on Indigenous Australians as a result of its geographic targeting, although a recent report has recommended a more stringent version of the program be introduced universally to all welfare recipients other than the aged. The largest of these experiments is 'New Income Management' in the Northern Territory, which has had more than 35,000 participants since its introduction in 2010. This article reports on the key findings of the major independent evaluation of New Income Management commissioned by the Australian Government.

The Welfare of Children with Mentally Ill Parents examines the interventions made by professional workers from a range of different disciplines in families with dependent children and a mentally ill parent. The authors compare responses of professionals in ten European countries and one state in Australia. The analysis of the differences sheds new light on both the inherent and system-determined difficulties in helping families to manage their situation effectively. * Features the only comparative study of mental health social services and the law governing compulsory hospital admission * Cove

AbstractThis article presents findings from an Australian study of veteran homelessness (Hilferty, Katz et al. 2019). The AHURI Inquiry into Homelessness Amongst Australian Veterans was funded by the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) to estimate the number of homeless veterans and to examine veterans' pathways into homelessness, service usage patterns and ways that service responses may be improved. This article presents the prevalence findings and describes the method employed by the research team. Drawing on primary data and extrapolating results to a larger sample of veterans, the researchers estimate that approximately 5,800 contemporary veterans experience homelessness over a 12‐month period in Australia. This estimate – the first ever to be based on primary data – indicates that veteran homelessness is a much larger problem than previously estimated and deserves priority attention from policymakers and sectoral representatives.

AbstractThe value of place‐based initiatives in the design and delivery of human services has long been recognised, but the need for hybrid service delivery to clients—that is any combination of online and in‐person modalities—has become more apparent in the wake of the COVID‐19 pandemic. At face value, there may be a perceived contradiction between the reliance on geographical place in place‐based initiatives and online service delivery. Yet, it is inevitable that human services will increasingly be delivered in a hybrid form—even in the context of place‐based initiatives. This exploratory study included a modified Delphi method and deliberative panels with policymakers, service providers, and academics with experience and/or knowledge of hybrid place‐based initiatives. A central finding was the lack of respondents' shared understanding and ability to link the three central intersecting ideas being examined in this research: 'hybrid' and 'place‐based' and 'human services'. The principles underpinning place‐based initiatives need to be retained when incorporating online service delivery within place‐based initiatives. This reflects the need to develop a shared lexicon on hybrid place‐based initiatives and more creative understandings and interpretations of the relationship between people and place.Points for practitioners
Increasingly, human services are being designed, implemented, and delivered through place‐based initiatives, yet the success of place‐based initiatives often relies on more than just face‐to‐face service delivery.
The COVID‐19 pandemic shifted many human services online, but how this has impacted on place‐based initiatives and their defining features of co‐location, collaboration, and co‐design has not been explored to date.
Following the pandemic, both service providers and clients see the benefit in retaining and integrating face‐to‐face and online services, without understanding how best to achieve this with place‐based initiatives.
This study draws on practices developed during the pandemic to understand how to best provide hybrid services (integrating in‐person and online services) and shows the relevance of hybrid services to place‐based initiatives and considerations moving forward.

The Australian Government Department of Communications commissioned the UNSW Social Policy Research Centre, the University of South Australia, the University of Western Sydney, the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, and the National Children's and Youth Law Centre to research youth exposure to, and management of, cyberbullying incidents in Australia. The research aims to provide the Australian Government with evidence relating to the desirability of whether to create a new, separate cyberbullying offence and in its consideration of a new civil enforcement regime.

AbstractChildren enter out‐of‐home care (OOHC) having experienced significant childhood adversities and trauma. Little is known about the short‐term impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on this vulnerable group. To gain some insights, we analysed the early impacts on the well‐being and experiences of children in OOHC and their carers using the Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study data prior to and post the first lockdown restrictions. A total of 862 children, young people and their carers were interviewed either pre‐COVID‐19 restrictions (n = 567) (April 2019–March 2020) or post‐COVID‐19 restrictions (n = 295) (June–December 2020). While the two groups showed no significant differences in socio‐emotional well‐being, both the pre‐ and the post‐COVID‐19 restriction groups of children in OOHC had slight reductions in socio‐emotional well‐being. The interviews with the post‐COVID‐19 group showed that the pandemic restrictions affected children's well‐being and behaviour, education, social and physical activities, as well as time spent with their birth family. Likewise, interviews with carers post‐COVID‐19 found a negative effect on carers' well‐being, their ability to manage financially and their capacity to care and access services and support. The article contributes new evidence to inform OOHC policy and practice to support service systems facing unique challenges arising from a pandemic.

AbstractChildren with disabilities are known to have high rates of contact with child protection services. However, little is known about child protection contacts for a broader group of children with special healthcare needs (SHCN; i.e., special needs or other impairments of concern that affect learning). This study examined the characteristics of contact with child protection services (prior to the age of 6 years) for children with SHCN identified at school entry using the 2009 Australian Early Development Census, using administrative data from more than 65,000 children in the New South Wales Child Development Study. Child protection contacts prior to age 6 years were more prevalent among children with SHCN compared with those without; in particular, children with SHCN had higher odds of a history of exposure to neglect and physical abuse, and higher odds of being placed in out‐of‐home care, compared with their typically developing peers. Understanding the characteristics of child protection contacts among children with SHCN, with consideration of factors that may influence their patterns of contact with these and other human services agencies, will inform the development of appropriate social policy initiatives to fulfil Australia's obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.