Children and young people in their middle years (defined here as between the ages of 8 – 12) are being overlooked in policy and program design. Not yet adolescents, but no longer children, these young people are increasingly experiencing complex challenges. Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand is launching their new report, Bridging the divide: Supporting children and young people in their middle years this week. Authors Magdalena McGuire ( @MagdalenaMcGuire ) and Susan Maury ( @SusanMaury) undertook this research to highlight some of these challenges and to identify how to better support this age group. This research included a scoping exercise, a review of recent research literature and the current policy context relating to the middle years cohort, and consulting with a key informant advisory forum – a process that sought insight from a curated group of 43 expert participants representing over 20 cross-sector organisations with experience working with the middle years. This post provides a shortened version of the executive summary. The report will be launched on Thursday afternoon; you can register here for this free event.
Read MoreWhat can academics learn from how civil society organisations and NGOs approach policy impact? Julia Himmrich (@juliahimmrich) argues that academics have a lot to gain from embracing the practices of long-term advocacy. Advocacy is about establishing relationships and creating a community of experts both in and outside of government who can give informed input on policies. Being more aware of the political aspects of research can help academics understand and re-evaluate their own arguments about the impact of research.
Read MoreGovernments value evidence-based policy; but are policy makers using all possible evidence to inform their decisions? Dr. Anna N. Li, Postdoctoral Fellow at UNSW Canberra argues that "soft, qualitative, practice-based evidence can be used to better inform decision making by providing frontline, implementation information, which can increase the chance of policy success.
Read More
The Australian Government announced in its 2017 budget that it would trial random drug-testing of recipients of the Newstart Allowance and Youth Allowance in three locations from January 2018. Evidence suggests this approach will neither help people overcome addiction or find a job. Drawing on her recent article in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, Dr Sue Olney from the Public Service Research Group at UNSW Canberra explains why this is bad policy.
Read MoreThe potentially life transforming National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) won’t be a safety net for all if the market is weak. UNSW Canberra's Eleanor Malbon and Gemma Carey canvas what options the government’s market stewards have to ensure none are left behind. This article was originally posted on The Mandarin.
Read MoreWhat links flexible work, flexible thought, and diversity? Sue Williamson, Senior Lecturer of Human Resource Management at UNSW Canberra's School of Business explains these interlinking concepts in this repost from Government News.
Read MoreGeoff Browne refocuses our policy interest on local government and the important role it plays in preventing many of the health conditions that place demands on the Australian health care system.
Read MoreRuth Liston at RMIT explores the urgent need for Australian universities to consider their role in the prevention of sexual violence.
Read More
Professor Paul Smyth with The University of Melbourne explores the Productivity Commission's recently released five-year outlook on productivity in Australia. He examines the underlying context surrounding this ‘breakthrough’ report.
Read More
Are the wicked issues of climate change and obesity mutually exclusive or inextricably linked? Stephen Gow, from specialist health system advisory service Open Advisory Pty Ltd, challenges us to bring together these two schools of thought.
Read MoreMelbourne has been awarded the world's most liveable city and yet the experience of traffic congestion, unaffordable housing and public transport bursting at the seams would suggest otherwise. The authors suggest 7 domains of liveability and consider how our capitals perform and the implications for policy. This post by Billi Giles- Corti, Director, Urban Futures Enabling Capability Platform and Director, Healthy Liveable Cities Group, RMIT University and Jonathan Arundel, Senior Research Fellow, Healthy Liveable Cities Group, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University originally appeared on The Conversation.
Read MoreThis week the Victorian Upper House will debate - and possibly pass - the Assisted Dying Bill. This legislation is extremely emotive, and emotions have been at the heart of the discussion in the wake of the protracted and painful deaths of family members experienced by MP Jill Hennessy and Premier Dan Andrews. However, it is critical to ensure adequate public debate on this issue prior to its passage precisely because it is emotive. The medical community itself is divided on this topic, with the Australian Midwifery & Nursing Federation supporting it, while the Australian Medical Association and Palliative Care Australia are both opposed.
The merits of a policy must be considered, not in the light of those who have high levels of personal agency, but in terms of how it will affect those in the margins. As always, the Women's Policy Action Tank is interested in how policies may impact differently on women compared to men. Today's analysis, by Rachel Wong and originally appearing in The Conversation, provides a gender analysis on the Assisted Dying Bill.
Read MoreIn today’s post, Dr Emma Tinning, outlines some of her findings from her recent PhD on organ donor registration. Emma explores whether a change in framing the act of organ donation from a “heroic” act to a collective act would help address Australia’s low rate of donor registration through the current opt in policy.
Read MoreStalking as a phenomenon has been noted in human behaviour for well over a century. References to obsessive behaviour and the need to retain intimacy with another person can be seen in the writing of Victorian author, Louise May Alcott, who wrote Little Women. In her novel, A Long Fatal Love Chase, a woman is chased across the seas for years by her estranged husband, until he mistakenly kills her whilst trying to murder her new partner. Holding her dead body in his arms, the ‘stalker’ then kills himself and as he does so he says “Mine first - mine last – mine even in the grave!” This obsession to the point of murder is not a sensational, fictitious idea but a behaviour which is worryingly still prevalent within our society in 2017. In this blog post Victoria Charleston, Policy Officer at Suzy Lamplugh Trust explores stalking and potential implications for policy.
Read MorePerhaps nobody is more deplorably served by Australian policy than asylum seekers. In today's post, Azadeh Dastyari ( @azdastyari ) of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University, explains how women held in detention in Nauru face very specific physical and mental harm due to their gender. This blog first appeared on Themis Says: The Blog of the Feminist Legal Studies Group at Monash ( @feminist_law ). NOTE: This blog post contains references to sexual and physical assault that may be distressing to some readers.
Read MoreEconomist Nicholas Gruen looks at problems with various attempts to measure wellbeing and the struggle to get from noble principles to practical outcomes. This is a repost from the Mandarin of a part three of Nicholas Gruen’s essay series about the difficulty of translating policy into outcomes. Read part one, on wellbeing frameworks, and part two on commonsense hacks government could use to bolster Australians’ wellbeing.
Read MoreWhile it is widely acknowledged that the Internet has many positive aspects, it may be used by some individuals to engage in illegal behaviour. Durkin (1997) suggested four different ways in which the Internet may be misused by individuals who have a sexual interest in children: (a) exchanging child sexual abuse material; (b) identifying potential victims for sexual abuse in the physical world; (c) engaging in inappropriate sexual communication; and (d) corresponding with like-minded individuals. The ‘engagement in appropriate sexual communication’ involves offenders accessing Internet communication platforms (ICPs) to approach children and initiate conversations with them, which may develop into interactions in which offenders incite them to engage in sexually explicit talk and/or activities. As part of such interactions, offenders may request sexual images and exposure via webcam. This is commonly referred to as ‘online sexual grooming’. The following blog post explores the cutting edge research of Dr Juliane Kloess at the University of Birmingham, and looks at what we know about offenders, and what can be done to support young people around awareness of the risks of online abuse.
Read MoreAs part of the recently-held Women's Policy Forum, Jesuit Social Services CEO Julie Edwards and GetUp!'s Human Rights Campaign Director Shen Narayanasamy engaged in a conversation that explored the intersection between policy change and campaigning. Jesuit Social Services’ Policy and Advocacy volunteer Jemima Hoffman recaps the presentation, in a blog that originally appeared on the Jesuit Social Services website.
Read MoreAustralia is set for massive growth in the number of jobs in health and social assistance over the coming years, but there are big risks including qualification silos, the undermining of our TAFE system, inadequate pay and career pathways, and a lack of diversity.
In the post below, David Hayward, Director of the Future Social Service Institute, looks at the challenges and opportunities and concludes that it’s time we started attracting more people to the social service industry, training the workforce to have the skills required to properly meet people’s needs, and developing new professions and careers.
Read More
The Federal Government is expanding its pilot of ParentsNext, a compliance-based program to assist young parents – mostly mothers – to become employment-ready. While in principle a program of this type is most welcome, the quiet way in which the Department of Employment is rolling this out and its lack of a strong evidence base is concerning.
In the context of Anti-Poverty Week this, it is critical to ask whether these types of policies are actually creating greater vulnerability to poverty, rather than supporting people out of it.
In this blog, Juanita McLaren (@defrostedlady) and Policy Whisperer Susan Maury (@SusanMaury), both of Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand, summarise some of the points contained in their submission on this program.
Read More