Creating a standardised teaching and learning framework for social work field placements

Mapping and evaluating a student's progress on placement is a core element of social work education but there has been scant attention to indicate how to effectively create and assess student learning and performance. This paper outlines a project undertaken by the Combined Schools of Social Work to develop a common learning and assessment tool that is being used by all social work schools in Victoria. The paper describes how the Common Assessment Tool (CAT) was developed, drawing on the Australian Association of Social Work Practice Standards, leading to seven key learning areas that form the basis of the assessment of a student's readiness for practice. An evaluation of the usefulness of the CAT was completed by field educators, liaison staff, and students, which confirmed that the CAT was a useful framework for evaluating students' learning goals. The feedback also identified a number of problematic features that were addressed in a revised CAT and rating scale.

Copyright law and mash-ups: A policy paper

This report provides an analysis of the cultural, policy and legal implications of ‘mash-ups’. This study provides a short history of mash-ups, explaining how the current ‘remix culture’ builds upon a range of creative antecedents and cultural traditions, which valorised appropriation, quotation, and transformation. It provides modern examples of mash-ups, such as sound recordings, musical works, film and artistic works, focusing on works seen on You Tube and other online applications. In particular, it considers - * Literary mash-ups of canonical texts, including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Wind Done Gone, After the Rain, and 60 Years Later; * Artistic mash-ups, highlighting the Obama Hope poster, the ‘Column’ case, and the competition for extending famous album covers; * Geographical mash-ups, most notably, the Google Australia bushfires map; * Musical mash-ups, such as The Grey Album and the work of Girl Talk; * Cinematic mash-ups, including remixes of There Will Be Blood and The Downfall; and This survey provides an analysis of why mash-up culture is valuable. It highlights the range of aesthetic, political, comic, and commercial impulses behind the creation and the dissemination of mash-ups. This report highlights the tensions between copyright law and mash-ups in particular cultural sectors. Second, this report emphasizes the importance of civil society institutions in promoting and defending mash-ups in both copyright litigation and policy debates. It provides a study of key organisations – including: * The Fair Use Project; * The Organization for Transformative Works; * Public Knowledge; * The Electronic Frontier Foundation; and * The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse This report suggests that much can be learnt from this network of organisations in the United States. There is a dearth of comparable legal clinics, advocacy groups, and creative institutions in Australia. As a result, the public interest values of copyright law have only received weak, incidental support from defendant companies – such as Network Ten and IceTV – with other copyright agendas. Third, this report canvasses a succinct model for legislative reform in respect of copyright law and mash-ups. It highlights: * The extent to which mash-ups are ‘tolerated uses’; * The conflicting judicial precedents on substantiality in Australia and the United States; * The debate over copyright exceptions relating to mash-ups and remixes; * The use of the take-down and notice system under the safe harbours regime by copyright owners in respect of mash-ups; * The impact of technological protection measures on mash-ups and remixes; * The possibility of statutory licensing in respect of mash-ups; * The use of Creative Commons licences; * The impact of moral rights protection upon mash-ups; * The interaction between economic and moral rights under copyright law; and * Questions of copyright law, freedom of expression, and political mash-ups.

Forces shaping the future of work in a changing regional economy

This paper presents research which examined perceptions on the future of work in Queensland. It highlights the major drivers of change including: changing technology, demographics, increasing globalisation and economic shifts. Focus groups were conducted and findings show that Queensland businesses are acutely aware of the coming changes, but are less certain about how to respond. Current good practices plus recommendations for the future - particularly the lead role government and industry bodies need to play - are discussed. These recommendations will support Queensland businesses to thrive and adapt to the forces shaping work in this changing regional economy.

Moving European research on work and ageing forward: Overview and agenda

This paper summarizes the state of affairs of European research on ageing and work. After a close inspection of the age construct, an overview is presented of research in four areas: the relationship between age and HR-policies, early retirement, age and performance/employability, age and health/well-being. The overview results in a research agenda on work and ageing and in recommendations for practice.

Successful aging at work

The expression successful aging at work and related terms such as active, healthy, and productive aging at work are frequently used by organizational researchers and practitioners. However, there are no concrete definitions or theoretical frameworks that explain their meaning, assumptions, and underlying processes. In this paper, I first review conceptualizations of successful aging in the fields of gerontology and life span psychology. Second, I propose a working definition of successful aging at work based on four key elements: criteria, explanatory mechanisms, facilitating and constraining factors, and temporal patterns. I distinguish successful aging at work from usual and unsuccessful aging and from other age-related developments in the work context. Third, I introduce a theoretical framework organized around 5 principles on intraindividual age-related change over time, person and contextual mediators and moderators, and work outcomes. Fourth, I review theoretical and empirical research on age in the workplace published in the past decade through the lens of the proposed theoretical framework. Finally, I conclude this paper by outlining suggestions for future research on successful aging at work, including methodological considerations.

Teachers as health workers: Patterns and imperatives of Australian teachers’ work

With increasing cross-sectoral relationships and partnerships and the blurring of the boundaries of the various service sectors (Westall 2009), the membrane that is assumed separate education and health in terms of young people’s wellbeing looks thinner than ever. In this project we are concerned to know what teachers do in terms of young people’s health, how much time they spend doing it, and to what extent this work might be considered as health work? The paper is informed by a Likert style survey and semi-structured interview data collected from a large cohort of teachers employed in different school sectors across Queensland, Australia and is framed by Bourdieu’s (1977) ideas around field, practice and doxa. The data suggest that teachers, often with a minimum of training undertake work that might be categorised as health work and do so with a high degree of commitment and with a growing sense of urgency but with concerns related to their competence. We consider it important to understand the reasons why and the extent to which teachers engage in work that might be more readily associated with public health and to ask “are teachers health workers?”

A systematic review of studies identifying predictors of poor return to work outcomes following workplace injury

BACKGROUND: Injuries occurring in the workplace can have serious implications for the health of the individual, the productivity of the employer and the overall economic community. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to increase the current state of understanding of individual demographic and psychosocial characteristics associated with extended absenteeism from the workforce due to a workplace injury. METHODS: Studies included in this systematic literature review tracked participants' return to work status over a minimum of three months, identified either demographic, psychosocial or general injury predictors of poor return to work outcomes and included a heterogeneous sample of workplace injuries. RESULTS: Identified predictors of poor return to work outcomes included older age, female gender, divorced marital status, two or more dependent family members, lower education levels, employment variables associated with reduced labour market desirability, severity or sensitive injury locations, negative attitudes and outcome perceptions of the participant. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need for clear and consistent definition and measurement of return to work outcomes and a holistic theoretical model integrating injury, psychosocial and demographic predictors of return to work. Through greater understanding of the nature of factors affecting return to work, improved outcomes could be achieved.

Social work and complex care systems: The case of people hospitalised with a disability

Health and hospital system reforms prioritise efficiency. However, initiatives can impact on people with new or existing disabilities who require time to maximise functional independence. With greater demands for shorter hospital stays social workers face increasing pressure to facilitate discharge. This paper reports findings from research identifying factors contributing to extended stays for adults with disabilities. We sought to better understand patient characteristics and discharge planning challenges by analysing a clinical data set of 80 patients and qualitative interviews with five experienced hospital social workers. Three key factors are identified: issues around rehabilitation services; assessment and planning for community care; and availability of and access to discharge options. Strategies to reduce length of stay are reported. We argue that building collaborative partnerships and working across multiple, complex systems and disciplines are vital to ensure these patients access appropriate community-based resources within the current health reform environment.

Seamless journeys : enhancing accessibility to work through digital technologies for people with mobility-related impairments

Numerous disruptions and barriers are encountered by persons with mobility-related disabilities in their daily’s experience of going to work and the pressure these exert on gaining and maintaining their employment. The nature and extent of their difficulties to workforce participation entails a requirement for extensive planning and also strategies to address problems of being stranded (for example, when the bus they are waiting for is not accessible). This paper presents the conceptualisation and methods of understanding workforce participation as a journey, and a discussion on the role digital technologies play in helping people with mobility-related disabilities in their journeys to work and mitigating disruptions when these occur. This is presented through an initial case study that helped identify the sequence of supports needed to be in place to make the work journey possible. Importantly, the paper also highlights points of intervention for the use of digital technologies and where design can potentially help to enhance accessibility to work for people with mobility-related impairments by making journeys to work seamless.

The construction of a taxonomy of early childhood educators’ work

Despite considerable research on the impact of early childhood education (ECE), there is little empirical evidence about what the everyday work of educators entails. This paper reports on the development of a tool to capture generalisable data on the everyday work of educators so as to inform effective workforce policy. This tool—a taxonomy of early childhood educators’ work���was developed by drawing on the expertise of six early years’ experts from Australia and the United States of America (USA) and includes time-use diaries, focus groups and interviews with 21 early childhood educators working in long day care and preschool services. The taxonomy, which we present here, consists of 10 domains, each with a number of sub-classes. We propose that this taxonomy is a useful codification system for ascertaining the everyday work tasks, activities and actions of early childhood educators in diverse early years’ settings. It is anticipated that the taxonomy will prove a valuable tool for subsequent research investigating the early childhood workforce.

Complexity of collaborative work in residential aged care facilities: An analysis of information exchange for medication management

Information exchange (IE) is a critical component of the complex collaborative medication process in residential aged care facilities (RACFs). Designing information and communication technology (ICT) to support complex processes requires a profound understanding of the IE that underpins their execution. There is little existing research that investigates the complexity of IE in RACFs and its impact on ICT design. The aim of this study was thus to undertake an in-depth exploration of the IE process involved in medication management to identify its implications for the design of ICT. The study was undertaken at a large metropolitan facility in NSW, Australia. A total of three focus groups, eleven interviews and two observation sessions were conducted between July to August 2010. Process modelling was undertaken by translating the qualitative data via in-depth iterative inductive analysis. The findings highlight the complexity and collaborative nature of IE in RACF medication management. These models emphasize the need to: a) deal with temporal complexity; b) rely on an interdependent set of coordinative artefacts; and c) use synchronous communication channels for coordination. Taken together these are crucial aspects of the IE process in RACF medication management that need to be catered for when designing ICT in this critical area. This study provides important new evidence of the advantages of viewing process as a part of a system rather than as segregated tasks as a means of identifying the latent requirements for ICT design and that is able to support complex collaborative processes like medication management in RACFs. © 2012 IEEE.

Combinatorial Design of Secure Lightweight Data Dispersal Schemes (Work in Progress)

Dispersing a data object into a set of data shares is an elemental stage in distributed communication and storage systems. In comparison to data replication, data dispersal with redundancy saves space and bandwidth. Moreover, dispersing a data object to distinct communication links or storage sites limits adversarial access to whole data and tolerates loss of a part of data shares. Existing data dispersal schemes have been proposed mostly based on various mathematical transformations on the data which induce high computation overhead. This paper presents a novel data dispersal scheme where each part of a data object is replicated, without encoding, into a subset of data shares according to combinatorial design theory. Particularly, data parts are mapped to points and data shares are mapped to lines of a projective plane. Data parts are then distributed to data shares using the point and line incidence relations in the plane so that certain subsets of data shares collectively possess all data parts. The presented scheme incorporates combinatorial design theory with inseparability transformation to achieve secure data dispersal at reduced computation, communication and storage costs. Rigorous formal analysis and experimental study demonstrate significant cost-benefits of the presented scheme in comparison to existing methods.

This is not the work

The exhibition THIS IS NOT THE WORK surveyed a selection of community-engaged artist projects from different locations around the world, and followed the pathways of women-centred social networks in order to initiate further collaboration and conversation. The projects documented in this exhibition were examples of artists working with women and community in challenging and unpredictable ways, demonstrating feminist sensibilities and a commitment to non-hierarchical and collective structures. Co-curated by the feminist art collective LEVEL, this exhibition project uses the gallery as a conceptual base-camp or frontline rather than a just site of display. The exhibition was developed and presented at The Block, Creative Industries Precinct, Queensland University of Technology in 2014. A co-authored paper about the project 'THIS IS NOT THE WORK – Feminist Collectives, Collaboration and Curating‘ was presented by members of LEVEL at the 'Feminist Curating: Contemporary Art and Feminism Symposium', Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney in October 2014.

Promoting and providing expert guidance in work-intensive clinical settings

This paper discusses how expert guidance can be best provided in work intensive clinical settings. The adequacy for supporting learning in the clinical practicum for health care disciplines is often complicated by the intensive work practices in healthcare settings. Often, clinicians' work is so intense that the scope for providing close guidance for students is quite restricted. The case advanced here draws on a range of empirical work to propose how clinician-student interactions might be optimized through the provision of a clinical ccn guided learning such as demonstrating and role-modeling. These roles can contribute in essential ways to the development of learning environments where clinicians have the opportunity to facilitate the learning of others as part of their workload, and without being burdened by the requirements of teaching and assessment processes. It differs from other approaches because although clinicians partner students and provide feedback to them, clinicians are not expected to formally assess or award a grade for student performance. Assessment and remedial action, when required, is undertaken by the role of a designated clinical supervisor qualified to perform such activities. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Social work in a hospital emergency department

This paper describes how a Hospital Social Work Department's Emergency Team has attempted to provide a crisis and out-of-hours service to its Emergency Department. Through a staffing commitment to extensive evening and weekend cover, the Emergency Team's social worker is able to provide an immediate intervention and assessment service to problems. This has resulted in early detection and treatment of the non-medical aspects of a patient's problem and appropriate referral to other agencies for longer-term follow-up.