Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the ACT Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in the Australian Capital Territory. Government administrative data over a decade (2003-2012) were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (both mandated reporters e.g., police, teachers, doctors, nurses depending on the jurisdiction, and non-mandated reporters e.g., family members, neighbours, depending on the jurisdiction), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the New South Wales Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in New South Wales. Government administrative data were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (both mandated reporters e.g., police, teachers, doctors, nurses, and non-mandated reporters e.g., family members, neighbours), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the Northern Territory Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in the Northern Territory. Government administrative data over a decade (2003-2012) were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (e.g., police, teachers, doctors, nurses, vs family members, neighbours), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the Queensland Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in Queensland. Government administrative data over a decade (2003-2012) were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (both mandated reporters e.g., teachers, doctors, nurses, and non-mandated reporters e.g., family members, neighbours), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the South Australian Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in South Australia. Government administrative data over a decade (2003-2012) were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (both mandated reporters e.g., police, teachers, doctors, nurses; and non-mandated reporters e.g., family members, neighbours), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the Tasmanian Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in Tasmania. Government administrative data over a nine year period (2004-2012) were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (both mandated reporters e.g., police, teachers, doctors, nurses; and non-mandated reporters e.g., family members, neighbours), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the Victorian Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in Victoria. Government administrative data over a decade (2003-2012) were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (both mandated reporters e.g., police, teachers, doctors, nurses; and non-mandated reporters e.g., family members, neighbours), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the West Australian Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in Western Australia. Government administrative data over a decade (2003-2012) were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (e.g., police, teachers, doctors, nurses, family members, neighbours), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Impact of a new mandatory reporting law on reporting and identification of child sexual abuse: A seven year time trend analysis

Child sexual abuse is widespread and difficult to detect. To enhance case identification, many societies have enacted mandatory reporting laws requiring designated professionals, most often police, teachers, doctors and nurses, to report suspected cases to government child welfare agencies. Little research has explored the effects of introducing a reporting law on the number of reports made, and the outcomes of those reports. This study explored the impact of a new legislative mandatory reporting duty for child sexual abuse in the State of Western Australia over seven years. We analysed data about numbers and outcomes of reports by mandated reporters, for periods before the law (2006-08) and after the law (2009-12). Results indicate that the number of reports by mandated reporters of suspected child sexual abuse increased by a factor of 3.7, from an annual mean of 662 in the three year pre-law period to 2448 in the four year post-law period. The increase in the first two post-law years was contextually and statistically significant. Report numbers stabilised in 2010-12, at one report per 210 children. The number of investigated reports increased threefold, from an annual mean of 451 in the pre-law period to 1363 in the post-law period. Significant decline in the proportion of mandated reports that were investigated in the first two post-law years suggested the new level of reporting and investigative need exceeded what was anticipated. However, a subsequent significant increase restored the pre-law proportion, suggesting systemic adaptive capacity. The number of substantiated investigations doubled, from an annual mean of 160 in the pre-law period to 327 in the post-law period, indicating twice as many sexually abused children were being identified.

SELinux policy management framework for HIS

Health Information Systems (HIS) make extensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The use of ICT aids in improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare services by making healthcare information available at the point of care (Goldstein, Groen, Ponkshe, and Wine, 2007). The increasing availability of healthcare data presents security and privacy issues which have not yet been fully addressed (Liu, Caelli, May, and Croll, 2008a). Healthcare organisations have to comply with the security and privacy requirements stated in laws, regulations and ethical standards, while managing healthcare information. Protecting the security and privacy of healthcare information is a very complex task (Liu, May, Caelli and Croll, 2008b). In order to simplify the complexity of providing security and privacy in HIS, appropriate information security services and mechanisms have to be implemented. Solutions at the application layer have already been implemented in HIS such as those existing in healthcare web services (Weaver et al., 2003). In addition, Discretionary Access Control (DAC) is the most commonly implemented access control model to restrict access to resources at the OS layer (Liu, Caelli, May, Croll and Henricksen, 2007a). Nevertheless, the combination of application security mechanisms and DAC at the OS layer has been stated to be insufficient in satisfying security requirements in computer systems (Loscocco et al., 1998). This thesis investigates the feasibility of implementing Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) to enforce a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policy to help protect resources at the Operating System (OS) layer. SELinux provides Mandatory Access Control (MAC) mechanisms at the OS layer. These mechanisms can contain the damage from compromised applications and restrict access to resources according to the security policy implemented. The main contribution of this research is to provide a modern framework to implement and manage SELinux in HIS. The proposed framework introduces SELinux Profiles to restrict access permissions over the system resources to authorised users. The feasibility of using SELinux profiles in HIS was demonstrated through the creation of a prototype, which was submitted to various attack scenarios. The prototype was also subjected to testing during emergency scenarios, where changes to the security policies had to be made on the spot. Attack scenarios were based on vulnerabilities common at the application layer. SELinux demonstrated that it could effectively contain attacks at the application layer and provide adequate flexibility during emergency situations. However, even with the use of current tools, the development of SELinux policies can be very complex. Further research has to be made in order to simplify the management of SELinux policies and access permissions. In addition, SELinux related technologies, such as the Policy Management Server by Tresys Technologies, need to be researched in order to provide solutions at different layers of protection.

Being ethical : how process drama assists pre-service drama teachers to reflect on professional ethics

This research thesis focuses on the experiences of pre-service drama teachers and considers how process drama may assist them to reflect on key aspects of professional ethics such as mandatory codes or standards, principled moral reasoning, moral character, moral agency, and moral literacy. Research from higher education provides evidence that current pedagogical approaches used to prepare pre –professionals for practice in medicine, engineering, accountancy, business, psychology, counselling, nursing and education, rarely address the more holistic or affective dimensions of professional ethics such as moral character. Process drama, a form of educational drama, is a complex improvisational group experience that invites participants to create and assume roles, and select and manage symbols in order to create a fictional world exploring human experience. Many practitioners claim that process drama offers an aesthetic space to develop a deeper understanding of self and situations, expanding the participant’s consciousness and ways of knowing. However, little research has been conducted into the potential efficacy of process drama in professional ethics education for pre-professionals. This study utilizes practitioner research and case study to explore how process drama may contribute to the development of professional ethics education and pedagogy.

National numeracy tests : a graphic tells a thousand words

Mandatory numeracy tests have become commonplace in many countries, heralding a new era in school assessment. New forms of accountability and an increased emphasis on national and international standards (and benchmarks) have the potential to reshape mathematics curricula. It is noteworthy that the mathematics items used in these tests are rich in graphics. Many of the items, for example, require students to have an understanding of information graphics (e.g., maps, charts and graphs) in order to solve the tasks. This investigation classifies mathematics items in Australia’s inaugural national numeracy tests and considers the effect such standardised testing will have on practice. It is argued that the design of mathematics items are more likely to be a reliable indication of student performance if graphical, linguistic and contextual components are considered both in isolation and in integrated ways as essential elements of task design.

How to achieve sustainability : regulatory challenges

The importance of designing sustainable buildings is gaining greater acceptance worldwide. Evidence of this is how regulators are incorporating sustainable design principles into building regulations and requirements. The aim being to increase the number of sustainable buildings and move from a traditional voluntary compliance to one that is mandatory. However, developing regulations that actually achieve these aims can be a difficult exercise. Several countries in South East Asia, such as Singapore and Malaysia, have performance based building regulations that are supplemented by prescriptive measures for achieving the desired performance. Australia too has similar building regulations and has had energy efficiency regulations within the Building Code of Australia for over a decade. This paper explores some of the difficulties and problems that Australian regulators have experienced with the performance-based method and the prescriptive or “deemed-to-comply” method and measures that have been taken to try and overcome these problems. These experiences act as a useful guide to all regulators considering the incorporation of sustainable design measures into their countries building regulations. The paper also speculates on future environmental requirements being incorporated into regulations, including the possibility of non-residential buildings being required to meet minimum energy efficiency requirements, and the possible systems that would need to be in place before such requirements were included. Finally, the paper looks at a possible way forward using direct assessment from electronic designs and introduces several software tools that are currently being developed that move towards achieving this goal. Keywords: Sustainable buildings, Performance-based, Regulations, Energy efficiency, Assessment tools.

Comparative study : health research on traffic noise pollution vs. Technical research on traffic noise mitigation

Community awareness and the perception on the traffic noise related health impacts have increased significantly over the last decade resulting in a large volume of public inquiries flowing to Road Authorities for planning advice. Traffic noise management in the urban environment is therefore becoming a “social obligation”, essentially due to noise related health concerns. Although various aspects of urban noise pollution and mitigation have been researched independently, an integrated approach by stakeholders has not been attempted. Although the current treatment and mitigation strategies are predominantly handled by the Road Agencies, a concerted effort by all stakeholders is becoming mandatory for effective and tangible outcomes in the future. A research project is underway a RMIT University, Australia, led by the second author to consider the use of “hedonic pricing” for alternative noise amelioration treatments within the road reserve and outside the road reserve. The project aims to foster a full range noise abatement strategy encompassing source, path and noise receiver. The benefit of such a study would be to mitigate the problem where it is most effective and would defuse traditional “authority” boundaries to produce the optimum outcome. The project is conducted in collaboration with the Department of Main Roads Queensland, Australia and funded by the CRC for Construction Innovation. As part of this study, a comprehensive literature search is currently underway to investigate the advancements in community health research, related to environmental noise pollution, and the advancements in technical and engineering research in mitigating the issue. This paper presents the outcomes of this work outlining state of the art, national and international good practices and gap analysis to identify major anomalies and developments.