The trials and tribulations of partnerships in refugee settlement services in Australia

The ascendency of neoliberal ideas in education and social policy in the 1980s and 1990s was succeeded in the new millennium by a ‘new’ social democratic commitment with emphases on community empowerment, building social capital and a ‘whole of government’ approach to partnering with civil society to meet community needs. In Australia this approach has resulted in the development of partnerships between schools and community organisations formed as part of a targeted, holistic approach to service delivery to meet the settlement and educational needs of refugee youth. Drawing on interviews conducted with community workers and government officers involved in the school-community partnerships, we document how these partnerships are working ‘on the ground’ in Queensland schools. We analyse our findings against the international literature on changing notions of neoliberal governance, and discuss the implications of the shift to the ‘partnering state’ for schools and community organisations working with refugee young people.

Contemporary behavioural influences in an organisational setting and implications for intervention development

Professional drivers and safety Within the industrialised world, work-related crashes are the most common cause of work-related death, injury and reduced productivity (Charbotel et al., 2001; Toscano and Windau, 1994). Likewise in Australia, road crashes are the most common cause of work-related fatalities, injuries and absence from work (Haworth et al., 2000), with the average time lost being greater than any other workplace claim (Stewart-Bogle, 1999). There are obvious costs related to work crashes such as vehicle and property repair costs. There are also many hidden expenses including third party costs, workers compensation, medical costs, rehabilitation, customer-related costs, increased insurance premiums, administrative costs, legal fees and loss of productivity (Collingwood, 1997; Haworth et al, 2000).

Mainstreaming sustainability into pre-service teacher edcuation in Australia

There is a growing interest in and support for education for sustainability in Australian schools. Australian Government schemes such as the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI), along with strategies such as Educating for a Sustainable Future: A National Environmental Education Statement for Australian Schools(NEES(Australian Government and Curriculum Corporation (2005) and Living Sustainably: The Australian Government’s National Action Plan for Education for Sustainability (Australian Government 2009), recognise the need and offer support for education for sustainability in Australian schools. The number of schools that have engaged with AuSSI indicates that this interest also exists within Australian schools. Despite this, recent research indicates that pre-service teacher education institutions and programs are not doing all they can to prepare teachers for teaching education for sustainability or for working within sustainable schools. The education of school teachers plays a vital role in achieving changes in teaching and learning in schools. Indeed, the professional development of teachers in education for sustainability has been identified as ‘the priority of priorities’. Much has been written about the need to ‘reorient teacher education towards sustainability’. Teacher education is seen as a key strategy that is yet to be effectively utilised to embed education for sustainability in schools. Mainstreaming sustainability in Australian schools will not be achieved without the preparation of teachers for this task. The Mainstreaming Sustainability model piloted in this study seeks to engage a range of stakeholder organisations and key agents of change within a system to all work simultaneously to bring about a change, such as the mainstreaming of sustainability. The model is premised on the understanding that sustainability will be mainstreamed within teacher education if there is engagement with key agents of change across the wider teacher education system and if the key agents of change are ‘deeply’ involved in making the change. The model thus seeks to marry broad engagement across a system with the active participation of stakeholders within that system. Such a systemic approach is a way of bringing together diverse viewpoints to make sense of an issue and harness that shared interpretation to define boundaries, roles and relationships leading to a better defined problem that can be acted upon more effectively. Like action research, the systemic approach is also concerned with modelling change and seeking plausible solutions through collaboration between stakeholders. This is important in ensuring that outcomes are useful to the researchers/stakeholders and the system being researched as it creates partnerships and commitments to the outcomes by stakeholder participants. The study reported on here examines whether the ‘Mainstreaming Sustainability’ model might be effective as a means to mainstream sustainability in pre-service teacher education. This model, developed in an earlier study, was piloted in the Queensland teacher education system in order to examine its effectiveness in creating organisational and systemic change. The pilot project in Queensland achieved a number of outcomes. The project: • provided useful insights into the effectiveness of the Mainstreaming Sustainability model in bringing about change while also building research capacity within the system • developed capacities within the teacher education community: o developing competencies in education for sustainability o establishing more effective interactions between decision-makers and other stakeholders o establishing a community of inquiry • changed teaching and learning approaches used in participating teacher education institutions through: o curriculum and resource development o the adoption of education for sustainability teaching and learning processes o the development of institutional policies • improved networks within the teacher education system through: o identifying key agents of change within the system o developing new, and building on existing, partnerships between schools, teacher education institutions and government agencies • engaged relevant stakeholders such as government agencies and non-government organisations to understand and support the change Our findings indicate that the Mainstreaming Sustainability model is able to facilitate organisational and systemic change – over time – if: • the individuals involved have the conceptual and personal capacities needed to facilitate change, that is, to be a key agent of change • stakeholders are engaged as participants in the process of change, not simply as ‘interested parties’ • there is a good understanding of systemic change and the opportunities for leveraging change within systems. In particular, in seeking to mainstream sustainability in pre-service teacher education in Queensland it has become clear that one needs to build capacity for change within participants such as knowledge of education for sustainability, conceptual skills in systemic thinking, action research and organisational change, and leadership skills. It is also of vital importance that key agents of change – those individuals who are ‘hubs’ within a system and can leverage for change across a wide range of the system – are identified and engaged with as early as possible. Key agents of change can only be correctly identified, however, if the project leaders and known participants have clearly identified the boundary to their system as this enables the system, sub-system and environment of the system to be understood. Through mapping the system a range of key organisations and stakeholders will be identified, including government and nongovernment organisations, teacher education students, teacher education academics, and so on. On this basis, key agents of change within the system and sub-system can be identified and invited to assist in working for change. A final insight is that it is important to have time – and if necessary the funding to ‘buy time’ – in seeking to bring about system-wide change. Seeking to bring about system-wide change is an ambitious project, one that requires a great deal of effort and time. These insights provide some considerations for those seeking to utilise the Mainstreaming Sustainability model to bring about change within and across a pre-service teacher education system.

Australia : LIS education

The topic of library and information science (LIS) education has been under the spotlight in the professional literature in Australia and New Zealand for a number of years. Critical issues of discussion encompass the apparent lack of a core curriculum for the discipline, the perceived gulf between LIS education and LIS practice, and the pressing need for career-long learning and development. One of the central points of debate that emerges repeatedly is the long-standing question about the positioning of the profession: Is LIS a graduate profession of highly skilled individuals valued for their expertise and professionalism or is it a profession of anyone who works in a library, regardless of their qualifications (LIANZA, 2005)? While Australia and New Zealand do not stand alone in this debate – similar issues are echoed in many other countries – there are inevitably some local characteristics which warrant exploration. The discussion presented here highlights the historical background to professional training, the specific professional policies and standards that guide LIS education and some of the challenges facing professional and paraprofessional education, given the changing environment of education in Australia as a whole, with some comparisons made with the New Zealand situation. While all too often library practitioners point the finger at the library educators to ‘right the wrongs’, the authors wish to reinforce the idea that the future of effective and relevant LIS education is a matter for all stakeholders in the profession: practitioners and educators, students and staff, employers and employees, with cohesion potentially offered by the professional body.

neXus2. An investigation into the library and information services workforce in Australia: The institutional perspective. Final report prepared for the Australian Library and Information Association and National and State Libraries Australia

The neXus2 research project has sought to investigate the library and information services (LIS) workforce in Australia, from the institutional or employer perspective. The study builds on the neXus1 study, which collected data from individuals in the LIS workforce in order to present a snapshot of the profession in 2006, highlighting the demographics, educational background and career details of library and information professionals in Australia. To counterbalance this individual perspective, library institutions were invited to participate in a survey to contribute further data as employers. This final report on the neXus2 project compares the findings from the different library sectors, ie academic libraries, TAFE libraries, the National and State libraries, public libraries, special libraries and school libraries.

Business Creation Processes in Australia : What Start-Up Attempts Get Up and Running, and Why? - A Preliminary Assessment

The Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE) is the largest study of new firm formation that has ever been undertaken in Australia. CAUSEE follows the development of several samples of new and emerging firms over time. In this report we focus on the drivers of outcomes – in terms of reaching an operational stage vs. terminating the effort – of 493 randomly selected nascent firms whose founders have been comprehensively interviewed on two occasions, 12 months apart. We investigate the outcome effects of three groups of variables: Characteristics of the Venture; Resources Used in the Start-Up Process and Characteristics of the Start-Up Process Itself.

Ageing and learning in Australia

Powerpoint presentation of keynote speech

Members abroad - Australia - Brisbane and the Gold Coast

Brisbane's sub-tropical climate, vegetation and urban history as a British settlement, endow the region with many characteristics that are familiar in KwaZulu-Natal. Brisbane settlement, firstly as a penal conlony to accommodate the hardiest criminals dispatched from Sydney, was established in 1825 on a wide river, several kilometers upstream from Moreton Bay with the Pacific Ocean beyond. The penal colony was short lived and was soon opened up to free settlement in 1842. The growth of the fledgling town was characterized by brick warehouse and service buildings to the port that was established on its riverbanks, resembling those of the old Point Road area in Durban. Government and administration buildings heralded Brisbane as the captial city of the State of Queensland, annexed from New South Wales in 1859. Morphological studies reveal that Brisbane had reached its first zenith around 1930 as a commerical city of four and five storey buildings. The urban form remained stagnant until the post-1960's building boom and the developments from this period on, consolidated land amalgamations largely ignoring the urban characteristics of the established city. Public space was poorly observed, resulting in a city that had turned its back on the river. It is only in recent times that the currency of good urban design, under the custodial direction of the City Council, has fostered a re-engagemed urban realm that, enabled by the recent building boom, has delivered high quality urban environments

Members abroad - Australia : Paul Sanders

I have been an academic since joining the University of Natal in 1998 and, following a period as a visiting lecturer in Brisbane in 2001, I joined the staff at QUT on an ongoing basis in 2003. I was appointed as Architecture Co-ordinator in 2006, and this role involves the leadership of the architectur discipline of 17 full time academics. I am currently enrolled in a PhD course in the field of urban morphology. This research proposes a theory on the relevance of mapping the evolutionary aspects of historical urban form to develop a measure for evaluating architecural elements and deriving parameters for new buildings. My participation in a QUT design team contributed to a recent successful invited competition bid for an Urban Transit Centre in Hangzhou, China. The Centre will include retail, business, entertainment, residential and service components at the heart of the Binjiang district on the 11.5ha core area with 32ha surrounding urban design precinct. The project has received the approval to commence and is to be implemented over the next three years!

Members abroad - Australia : Lindy Osborne

When I arrived in Queensland's capital in 1996, Brisbane was commonly referred to as an 'overgrown country town'. This might have been an acceptable description in the 1990s, but it cannot be applied any longer. Brisbane, affectionaly referred to by the locals as Bris-Vegas, has now come of age. Following Sydney and Melbourne, Brisbane is the third most populous city in Australia with a population of approximately two million. Interestingly, the 2006 Census showed that 22 per cent of Brisbane's population was born overseas, the three main countries of birth being the UK, New Zealand and South Africa. Brisbane City is centred on its most dominant environmental element, the Brisbane River, which effectively carves Brisbane into two areas - the Northside and the Southside. The 2001 addition of Cox Rayner's Goodwill Pedestrian and Cycle Bridge signified Brisbane's acceptance and affectionate embrace of its River resulting in a long overdue linage between Brisbane's North and South. It connects the City's key precincts - the Northside CBD through Queensland University of Technology (QUT), across Brisbane River, to the recreational precinct of the Southside Southbank Parklands. The Southside cultural precinct of Southbank is the home to Queensland's Art Gallery, Performing Arts Complex, State Library and Museum -each of which were designed by Brisbane Stalwart Architect Robin Gibson, in the 1970s and '80s. The CBD component of the Brisbane River is flanked by a number of Institutional Facilities, including the campuses of QUT, Griffith University and the Southbank Education and Training Precinct (SETP), which combine to form a cross-river educational precinct. The past decade has born witness to a city which has keenly supported emerging architects in addition to the more entrenched stalwarts of the profession, resulting in a youthful, relaxed and unpretentious sub-tropical city. Viva Bris-Vegas!

Development and validation of 3-Minute Nutrition Screening (3-MinNS) tool for acute hospital patients in Singapore

It is important to detect and treat malnutrition in hospital patients so as to improve clinical outcome and reduce hospital stay. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a nutrition screening tool with a simple and quick scoring system for acute hospital patients in Singapore. In this study, 818 newly admitted patients aged above 18 years old were screened using five parameters that contribute to the risk of malnutrition. A dietitian blinded to the nutrition screening score assessed the same patients using the reference standard, Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) within 48 hours. The sensitivity and specificity were established using the Receiver Operator Characteristics (ROC) curve and the best cutoff scores determined. The nutrition parameter with the largest Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) was chosen as the final screening tool, which was named 3-Minute Nutrition Screening (3-MinNS). The combination of the parameters weight loss, intake and muscle wastage (3-MinNS), gave the largest AUC when compared with SGA. Using 3-MinNS, the best cutoff point to identify malnourished patients is three (sensitivity 86%, specificity 83%). The cutoff score to identify subjects at risk of severe malnutrition is five (sensitivity 93%, specificity 86%). 3-Minute Nutrition Screening is a valid, simple and rapid tool to identify patients at risk of malnutrition in Singapore acute hospital patients. It is able to differentiate patients at risk of moderate malnutrition and severe malnutrition for prioritization and management purposes.

The reliability and validity of the Severity of Dependence Scale for detecting cannabis dependence in psychosis.

Aims: To determine the reliability and validity of the Severity of Dependence Scale (SDS) for detecting cannabis dependence in a large sample of in-patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Design: Cross-sectional study. Participants: Participants were 153 in-patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder in Brisbane, Australia. Measurements: Participants were administered the SDS for cannabis dependence in the past 12 months. The presence of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Version-IV (DSM-IV) cannabis dependence in the previous 12 months was assessed using the Comprehensive International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Findings: The SDS had high levels of internal consistency and strong construct and concurrent validity. Individuals with a score of ≥2 on the SDS were nearly 30 times more likely to have DSM-IV cannabis dependence. The SDS was the strongest predictor of DSM-IV cannabis dependence after controlling for other predictor variables. Conclusions: The SDS is a brief, valid and reliable screen for cannabis dependence among people with psychosis

Multi-criteria ranking and source apportionment of fine particulate matter in Brisbane, Australia

This paper reports the application of multicriteria decision making techniques, PROMETHEE and GAIA, and receptor models, PCA/APCS and PMF, to data from an air monitoring site located on the campus of Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia and operated by Queensland Environmental Protection Agency (QEPA). The data consisted of the concentrations of 21 chemical species and meteorological data collected between 1995 and 2003. PROMETHEE/GAIA separated the samples into those collected when leaded and unleaded petrol were used to power vehicles in the region. The number and source profiles of the factors obtained from PCA/APCS and PMF analyses were compared. There are noticeable differences in the outcomes possibly because of the non-negative constraints imposed on the PMF analysis. While PCA/APCS identified 6 sources, PMF reduced the data to 9 factors. Each factor had distinctive compositions that suggested that motor vehicle emissions, controlled burning of forests, secondary sulphate, sea salt and road dust/soil were the most important sources of fine particulate matter at the site. The most plausible locations of the sources were identified by combining the results obtained from the receptor models with meteorological data. The study demonstrated the potential benefits of combining results from multi-criteria decision making analysis with those from receptor models in order to gain insights into information that could enhance the development of air pollution control measures.