Do we need a law to help people try experimental drugs?

People with life-threatening or incurable diseases may be willing to try experimental drugs and unproven treatments, but they face the risk of exploitation. Is the law the best avenue to ensure that they are protected while medical innovation is encouraged? Protection of vulnerable people is a thread running through many laws, in Australia and elsewhere. In medical law, for instance, children and people with impaired decision-making capacity warrant special attention. But what of the ordinary person diagnosed with a life-threatening disease? Such people are vulnerable to harm and potential exploitation when they seek access to innovative, experimental or unproven treatments that depart from the existing range of accepted medicine.

Socioeconomic status and its effect on pregnancy and childbirth : paramedic considerations in the prehospital setting

This poster aims to identify the role that socioeconomic status plays in determining poor health outcomes in pregnancy and childbirth. It brings to light the limitations and complications that a person in a lower socioeconomic society may face, and the effect that this possibly has on the health of the mother and child. A review of the peer reviewed literature was undertaken which identified three key areas relating to pregnancy in lower socioeconomic areas. These were social and emotional matters, lifestyle factors and financial issues. Particular focus has been put on understanding these issues from a paramedic perspective and how this can assist in both the treatment and education of patients in the pre-hospital environment. While there has been sufficient research into the three individual areas highlighted in the literature which affect pregnant patients living in lower socioeconomic communities, this poster has drawn these topics together to create an overview of a subject which is complex and multifaceted.

Blood in our hearts or blood on our hands? The viscosity, vitality and validity of Aboriginal 'blood talk'

Blood metaphors abound in everyday social discourse among both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. However, ‘Aboriginal blood talk’, more specifically, is located within a contradictory and contested space in terms of the meanings and values that can be attributed to it by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. In the colonial context, blood talk operated as a tool of oppression for Aboriginal people via blood quantum discourses, yet today, Aboriginal people draw upon notions of blood, namely bloodlines, in articulating their identities. This paper juxtaposes contemporary Aboriginal blood talk as expressed by Aboriginal people against colonial blood talk and critically examines the ongoing political and intellectual governance regarding the validity of this talk in articulating Aboriginalities.

Hosting an asylum seeker in Australia: A nationwide exploratory study

In recent years, there has been a rise in the number of people seeking asylum in Australia, resulting in over-crowded detention centres in various parts of the country. Appropriate management and assistance of asylum seekers has been an issue of major socio-political concern. In mid-2012, the Australian ruling government introduced a ‘first of its kind’ community placement initiative, which involved relocating low-risk asylum seekers from detention centres to homes of those Australian families who volunteered for this program. The present study investigated host families’ motivations for volunteering into this scheme and their resulting experiences. Twenty-four men and women from all over Australia were interviewed in person or over the telephone. Consistent with theoretical frameworks of altruism, acculturation, and intergroup contact, thematic analysis indicated participants’ interest in diversity/humanitarian issues were major factors that motivated them to host asylum seekers. Language and cultural barriers were reported as challenges, but generally, participants found the experience positive and rewarding. The initiative was regarded as an excellent avenue of learning about new cultures. The hosts played a strong role in promoting the English language proficiency and intercultural settlement of the asylum seekers. The scheme was considered as one way of diffusing fear/biases against asylum seekers prevalent amongst the Australian community at-large. Participants also provided suggestions to improve the scheme.

How does the use of a reflective journal enhance students’ critical thinking about complexity?

Introduction to Youth Services is a second year Social Work and Human Services unit. In this unit a reflective writing task was introduced to assess students’ reflections on an ongoing tutorial discussion to which they contributed. The discussion was based on a fictional young person each tutorial group ‘worked with’ across eight weeks of a semester. In developing the process and the criteria for the reflective journal, the ideas raised by the Teaching and Assessing Reflective Learning (TARL) in Higher Education project (see Chap. 2) were utilised, scaffolding the work with resources and submission of a draft. The students were also invited to choose the form of reflective process they used, it could be a written journal but did not need to be. The evidence exemplified that a reflective journal is an effective tool for students to record their developing understanding regarding the concept that issues people experience are complex and compounding. Importantly, it was also a useful vehicle for students to begin to consider the impacts of their own and others’ values and beliefs on their response to the issues raised within the case discussion. The reflective journal also helped participants to consider how this learning contributes to the ongoing development of their professional practice framework.

Editorials: A different kind of treatment

Health professionals' duty of care includes combating racism in society as well as in health care settings. The Australian Government's proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and the repeal of section 18C has transfixed national debates on legally defining racial discrimination.1 Under these changes, racial discrimination would no longer include acts that “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” a person based on the person's race, colour or national or ethnic origin and instead be limited to acts that “incite hatred” or “cause fear of physical harm”.2 These proposed changes have been framed in the context of enabling “free speech”, yet, evidence presented in this issue of the Journal shows that they have potential to cause harm. In this issue, Kelaher and colleagues highlight the prevalence of racism as experienced by Indigenous Australians and its deleterious effects on mental health.3 Alarmingly, almost every Aboriginal Victorian participating in this study reported an experience of racism in the preceding 12 months, which included jokes, stereotypes, verbal abuse and exclusionary practices. The experiences of racism reported here neither incited hatred nor caused fear of physical harm, yet resulted in harm such as psychological distress, especially when meted out in our health care system. These findings are a stark reminder that racism is indeed an important health issue, and as health professionals, our duty of care extends to contributing to these broader policy discussions...

‘Only a pawn in their game’ : crime, risk and politics in the case of Robert Fardon

In 2003 Robert Fardon was the first prisoner to be detained under the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003 (Qld), the first of the new generation preventive detention laws enacted in Australia and directed at keeping sex offenders in prison or under supervision beyond the expiry of their sentences where a court decides, on the basis of psychiatric assessments, that unconditional release would create an unacceptable risk to the community. A careful examination of Fardon’s case shows the extent to which the administration of the regime was from the outset governed by politics and political calculation rather than the logic of risk management and community protection. In 2003 Robert Fardon was the first person detained under the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003 (Qld) (hereafter DPSOA), a newly enacted Queensland law aimed at the preventive detention of sex offenders. It was the first of a new generation of such laws introduced in Australia, now also in force in NSW, Western Australia and Victoria. The laws have been widely criticized by lawyers, academics and others (Keyzer and McSherry 2009; Edgely 2007). In this article I want to focus on the details of how the Queensland law was administered in Fardon’s case, he being perhaps the most well-known prisoner detained under such laws and certainly the longest held. It will show, I hope, that seemingly abstract rule of law principles invoked by other critics are not simply abstract: they afford a crucial practical safeguard against the corruption of criminal justice in which the ends both of community protection and of justice give way to opportunistic exploitation of ‘the mythic resonance of crime and punishment for electoral purposes’ (Scheingold 1998: 888).

Starting with strengths : an Indigenous early years intervention

Aboriginal protocol usually links the right to tell a story with a declaration of involvement or connection to the story. I am Aboriginal . . . I am a woman, daughter, sister, aunty and wife. I am also a mother to three beautiful children aged 6, 4 and 2 years. To my children at this point in their lives, I am their provider, nurturer, teacher, cook, taxi driver, mediator, stylist, Elder, slave, and expert on all there is to know in the world. Being the centre of the universe to three impressionable young minds is a role that I cherish deeply, and I take the responsibilities of it very seriously. I love the job of parenting. As any parent would agree, it is the most challenging and difficult job of all, but the opportunity to bring a life into the world and shape and mould a little person into a big person brings rewards that no career can.

Emotional expressions preferentially elicit implicit evaluations of faces also varying in race or age

Both facial cues of group membership (race, age, and sex) and emotional expressions can elicit implicit evaluations to guide subsequent social behavior. There is, however, little research addressing whether group membership cues or emotional expressions are more influential in the formation of implicit evaluations of faces when both cues are simultaneously present. The current study aimed to determine this. Emotional expressions but not race or age cues elicited implicit evaluations in a series of affective priming tasks with emotional Caucasian and African faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and young and old faces (Experiment 3). Spontaneous evaluations of group membership cues of race and age only occurred when those cues were task relevant, suggesting the preferential influence of emotional expressions in the formation of implicit evaluations of others when cues of race or age are not salient. Implications for implicit prejudice, face perception, and person construal are discussed.

The challenge of developing a fleet driving risk assessment tool: What can be learned from the process?

One of the riskiest activities in the course of a person's work is driving. By developing and testing a new work driving risk assessment measurement tool for use by organisations this research will contribute to the safety of those who drive for work purposes. The research results highlighted limitations associated with current self-report measures and provided evidence that the work driving environment is extremely complex and involves constant interactions between humans, vehicles, the road environment, and the organisational context.

An architecture for trustworthy open data services

This paper addresses the development of trust in the use of Open Data through incorporation of appropriate authentication and integrity parameters for use by end user Open Data application developers in an architecture for trustworthy Open Data Services. The advantages of this architecture scheme is that it is far more scalable, not another certificate-based hierarchy that has problems with certificate revocation management. With the use of a Public File, if the key is compromised: it is a simple matter of the single responsible entity replacing the key pair with a new one and re-performing the data file signing process. Under this proposed architecture, the the Open Data environment does not interfere with the internal security schemes that might be employed by the entity. However, this architecture incorporates, when needed, parameters from the entity, e.g. person who authorized publishing as Open Data, at the time that datasets are created/added.

Examining how projections about the future of society are related to present-day climate change action

Global climate change will affect all domains of person-environment relations. Tackling climate change will require social change that can be motivated by people’s imaginings of the future of their society where such social change has occurred. We use the “collective futures” framework to examine whether beliefs about the future of society are related to present-day intentions to take climate change action. Participants from two Brazilian samples imagined their society in 2050 where climate change was mitigated and then rated how this future society would differ from Brazilian society today in terms of societal-level dysfunction and development and personal-level traits and values. To the extent that participants believed preventing climate change would result in societal development and more competence traits, they were more willing to engage in environmental citizenship activities. Individual differences in future time perspective also impacted environmental citizenship intention. Societal development and consideration of future consequences seem to be distinct routes by which future thinking influence climate change action.

Contextualising merit and integrity within human research

The first consideration of any Australian Human Research Ethics Committee should be to satisfy itself that the project before them is worth undertaking. If the project does not add to the body of knowledge, if it does not improve social welfare or individual wellbeing then the use of human participants, their tissue or their data must be questioned. Sometimes, however, committees are criticised for appearing to adopt the role of scientific review committees. The intent of this paper is to provide researchers with an understanding of the ethical importance of demonstrating the merit of their research project and to help them develop protocols that show ethics committees that adequate attention has been paid to this central tenet in dealing ethically with human research participants. Any person proposing human research must be prepared to show that it is worthwhile. This paper will clarify the relationship between research merit and integrity, research ethics and the responsibilities of human research ethics committees.

David Clutterbuck, mentoring and coaching - A commentary

Simon Jenkins, in his stimulus piece on David Clutterbuck amply demonstrates just how prolific Clutterbuck has been over a working lifetime. Generally accepted as the person who introduced supported mentoring into Europe, Clutterbuck has written widely on matters that relate to relationships, processes, evidence (and its capacity or otherwise to influence practice), procedures, complexity, management, supervision, guidance (of one kind or another); the list goes on. It is an impressive vita indeed and yet, Clutterbuck’s influence on the world of sports and more specifically, sports coaching; remains relatively modest. Of course this is the purpose of Jenkins’ piece, to stimulate our thought processes such that our attention can be drawn to the possible impact Clutterbuck might have in sport, sports coaching, and athlete and coach mentoring. If nothing else, this is an admirable challenge that Jenkins has set himself.

Émile Durkheim and Thomas Luckmann: Religion, spirituality and mental health

This chapter examines connections between religion, spirituality and mental health. Religion and spirituality influence the way people conceive themselves, others and the world around them, as well as how they behave – and are strongly associated with numerous mental health outcomes. Religion and spirituality therefore demand the attention of those who seek a comprehensive understanding of the factors that affect mental health. Mental health professionals are increasingly being asked to consider their clients’ religious and/or spiritual beliefs when devising their treatment plans, making the study of religion and spirituality an essential area of learning for those working in the mental health field. Initial discussion in this chapter will focus on the different approaches taken by sociologists in studying mental health. Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of sociology, proposed that religion was fundamental to societal wellbeing and was the first to demonstrate a link between religion and mental health at a population level in the late 19th century. Durkheim’s classic theory of religion, together with the work of Thomas Luckmann and other contemporary social theorists who have sought to explain widespread religious change in Western countries since World War II will be examined. Two key changes during this period are the shift away from mainstream Christian religions and the widespread embracing of ‘spirituality’ as an alternative form of religious expression. In combination, the theories of Durkheim, Luckmann and other sociologists provide a platform from which to consider reasons for variations in rates of mental health problems observed in contemporary Western societies according to people’s religious/spiritual orientation. This analysis demonstrates the relevance of both classic and contemporary sociological theories to issues confronting societies in the present day.