Sue Olney
The potential savings on medical costs could make a big difference for relieving pressure on Australia’s health systems and residential facilities, says Ben O’Mara.
The new Aged Care Standards recently released by the Australian Government could have helped reduce the costs of end-of-life support and help more elderly people deal with a terminal illness, but did not mention the role of palliative care in aged care facilities. The omission is a lost opportunity.
Read MoreIn this article, republished from the Conversation today, Associate Professor Helen Dickson from the Public Service Research Group at UNSW and Dr Catherine Smith from the University of Melbourne discuss their recent research published today by the Australia and New Zealand School of Government. The authors discuss the pros and cons of automation and say that the governments need to carefully plan for the inevitable expansion of new technologies to safeguard vulnerable people.
Read MoreDuring the Senate Estimates on 25th October 2018, Labor Senator for Victoria, Kim Carr, revealed on Twitter that then minister for education and training, Simon Birmingham, rejected 11 funding grants recommended by the Australian Research Council (ARC) in 2017 and 2018. The grants, all for funding in the humanities, amounted to a combined total of A$4.2 million, including A$1.4m in discovery grants. The decision has been widely condemned in Australia and overseas as undermining confidence in Australia’s highly competitive and rigorous peer-review system.
In the post below, social science researcher and Power to Persuade moderator, Dr. Brigid Trenerry, summaries key reports in Australia and overseas and reflects on how the recent ministerial veto could harm innovation and technological change, where Australia must boost rather than curb investment in social science and humanities research.
Read MoreDiversity training is one of the most popular diversity strategies undertaken in workplaces today. Approaches can range from cultural awareness training and unconscious bias reduction to initiatives that deal more directly with issues of racism. Although reviews have generally found diversity training to have a positive impact on participants, there is growing evidence that diversity training is only effective when accompanied by systemic level intervention, including increased accountability for diversity work. In this article, originally posted in the Conversation in April 2018, Dr. Victor Sojo Monzon and Dr Melissa Wheeler from the Centre for Workplace Leadership at the University of Melbourne reflect on the potential impact of diversity training for Starbucks’ employees after two black men were arrested at a Starbucks store while waiting for another colleague to arrive . Starbucks has since released part of its diversity curriculum, which includes a strong focus on racial bias, and is committed to employing a diverse workforce, including in senior roles.
Read MoreThe Victorian Council of Social Service (VCOSS) has released the Empowered Lives report in the leadup to this month's state election, outlining the key systemic issues facing Victorians with disability and ways government can provide more opportunities for people with disability, more inclusive environments and communities, and stronger support when needed.
Read MoreRefugee and migrant settlement agency AMES Australia recently published research that looks into the economic and social and impact of the settlement of relatively large numbers of refugees at Bendigo, in Central Victoria.
Its CEO Cath Scarth outlines the findings below. They include a significant net benefit to the region and confirm the necessary conditions for successful settlement.
Read MoreCalls for management of the NDIS market are increasing rapidly as the scheme progresses. There have been a number of high-profile calls for better market stewardship for the many NDIS markets and sub-markets nationally, most recently the market readiness report from the Joint-Standing Committee on the NDIS. Social researchers Gemma Carey and Eleanor Malbon highlight how the NDIA can detect market deficiencies and what strategies it can use to address them.
Read MoreIf you can’t quite get a grip on co-production, you’re not alone. Much of the literature dating back as far as 1984 suggests that it’s something of a greased pig and that efforts to define it end up like a policy pig scramble. Is it democratic citizen involvement public services? Is it individual, ‘responsibilised’ health and social care consumerism? Is it power shifting to communities through participatory governance? Some authors have said that ‘neither on the level of interactions between organisations nor on the level of servicing users, has co-production a fixed meaning’ and others have noted its ‘excessive elasticity.’ Perhaps it’s the ultimate post-modern policy concept. Dr Sarah Carr of the Institute for Mental Health at the University of Birmingham asks can it work for mental health?
Read MoreAn ANZSOG-funded research project is exploring the increasing use of robots in care services to replace or complement the roles of humans. In this article, researchers Catherine Smith, Helen Dickinson, Gemma Carey & Nicole Carey explore how the growth of robots in care services is changing how we think about care, and what we need to do to ensure that the ethics of care are maintained. The full report is expected to be published in the near future.
Read MoreA few weeks ago, the co-occurrence of a ‘twitter discussion’ (initiated by @LukeCraven) and some reading I was doing on policy analysis tools prompted me to start thinking about what Hill (2013) refers to as process advocacy. Process advocacy is concerned with improving the nature of policy making. It is different to policy advocacy in that it concerns advocating generally for ‘better’ policy process rather than the substance or content of a particular policy.
Read MorePost 9/11 Islamophobia and the pathologisation of black people in the UK mental health context should be tackled as part of the ongoing Mental Health Act review, argue former psychiatrist Suman Fernando and researcher Tarek Younis in this post for re-published from Mental Health Today.
Read MoreEverybody wants to improve healthcare in Australia; however, the ways we can do that are as numerous as the drugs that are available to treat disease. Which approach is the most optimal? Is it individuals making lifestyle choices that improve their health? Is it doctors that engage patients in their own healthcare? Or is it hospitals that actively engage stakeholders in a systemic approach to healthcare improvement? In fact the answer is, of course, all of these things and so much more. Underlying all of these is knowledge: its generation; mobilisation; presentation; and discussion. The potential for misunderstanding or misusing evidence, or not using any evidence at all, has significant implications for decision-making, policy development and healthcare improvement.
Read MoreAn increasing number of women in Australia are retiring into poverty and, consequently, experiencing housing stress, housing crisis or homelessness. It is time to demand a national agenda for action to address these appalling realities for far too many older women.
Read MoreSafety and quality are consistently the leading priorities on the healthcare agenda. There is overwhelming evidence of a clear link between healthcare safety, quality and patient outcomes, not to mention the potential financial savings that could be gained through improvements in both. So this leads us to the million dollar question –how do we effectively improve healthcare quality and safety?
Read MoreAshley Baker, General Manager of Werribee Racing Centre in Victoria explores a comprehensive approach to reform implementation and its impact on racing participants.
Read MoreIn 2015, Australia joined 193 other Leaders and Ministers in endorsing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. While non-binding, Australia was an active participant in their negotiation and the government reports on progress voluntarily. In today’s post, Policy Whisperer Kay Cook (@KayCookPhD) summarises the government’s analysis of their progress to end poverty (SDG 1) and achieve gender equality (SDG 5), followed by a critique produced by the Academics Stand against Poverty network Oceania chapter. Anti-Poverty Week is an apt time to reflect on how the government frames the intersection of gender and poverty, and what needs to change in order to see real progress.
Read MoreThe concept of social prescribing has been gaining some traction in Australia recently. The King’s Fund defines social prescribing as a means of enabling GPs, nurses and other primary care professionals to refer people to a range of local, non-clinical services [1]. This is a broad definition which implies that social prescribing might refer to a General Practitioner (GP) actively encouraging a patient to participate in Parkrun to help them lose weight and meet new people, through to a chronic disease nurse linking a patient experiencing homelessness to a local housing service.
Read MorePerceptions of both the fairness and impacts of gender equality measures can help to either promote greater equity or, conversely, create barriers to their uptake. In today’s post, Pia Rowe of University of Canberra’s 50/50 by 2030 Foundation shares highlights from their recently-released report From Girls to Men: Social Attitudes to Gender Equality in Austria (co-authored with Mark Evans, Virginia Haussegger and Max Halupka).
Read MoreDoes a specific policy focus on older workers overstate and oversimplify the problems they face? Philip Taylor, Professor of Management at Federation University Australia responds
Read MoreUnpaid work, part-time and interrupted work, and the gender pay gap are only some of the reasons women are poor in retirement. A lot of the time the reasons are far more complex.
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