Provision of survivorship care for patients with haematological malignancy at completion of treatment: a cancer nursing practice survey study

Purpose Many haematological cancer survivors report long-term physiological and psychosocial effects, which persist far beyond treatment completion. Cancer services have been required to extend care to the post-treatment phase to implement survivorship care strategies into routine practice. As key members of the multidisciplinary team, cancer nurses’ perspectives are essential to inform future developments in survivorship care provision. Methods This is a pilot survey study, involving 119 nurses caring for patients with haematological malignancy in an Australian tertiary cancer care centre. The participants completed an investigator developed survey designed to assess cancer care nurses’ perspectives on their attitudes, confidence levels, and practice in relation to post-treatment survivorship care for patients with a haematological malignancy. Results Overall, the majority of participants agreed that all of the survivorship interventions included in the survey should be within the scope of the nursing role. Nurses reported being least confident in discussing fertility and employment/financial issues with patients and conducting psychosocial distress screening. The interventions performed least often included, discussing fertility, intimacy and sexuality issues and communicating survivorship care with the patient’s primary health care providers. Nurses identified lack of time, limited educational resources, lack of dedicated end-of-treatment consultation and insufficient skills/knowledge as the key barriers to survivorship care provision. Conclusion Cancer centres should implement an appropriate model of survivorship care and provide improved training and educational resources for nurses to enable them to deliver quality survivorship care and meet the needs of haematological cancer survivors.

Strategic renewal through design led innovation : findings from embedded practice

Strategic Renewal has been the subject of research in large organisations but has received relatively little attention in small and medium enterprises. Using case study examples of small and medium manufacturing firms, this paper presents the findings from a longitudinal action research project where participating companies explored design led innovation processes to find new ways to renew their businesses. Specifically our findings indicate that when designers act as innovation catalysts in embedded longitudinal action research, SMEs engage in strategic renewal, gain a deeper appreciation of their customers, become more aware of the value proposition of the company and engage in new practices to improve their competitive advantage.

Locating Indigenous Australia within community development practice : clients, consumers or change makers?

The philosophical promise of community development to “resource and empower people so that they can collectively control their own destinies” (Kenny 1996:104) is no doubt alluring to Indigenous Australia. Given the historical and contemporary experiences of colonial control and surveillance of Aboriginal bodies, alongside the continuing experiences of socio-economic disadvantage, community development reaffirms the aspirational goal of Indigenous Australians for self-determination. Self-determination as a national policy agenda for Indigenous Australians emerged in the 1970s and saw the establishment of a wide range of Aboriginal community-controlled services (Tsey et al 2012). Sullivan (2010:4) argues that the Aboriginal community controlled service sector during this time has, and continues to be, instrumental to advancing the plight of Indigenous Australians both materially and politically. Yet community development and self-determination remain highly problematic and contested in how they manifest in Indigenous social policy agendas and in practice (Hollinsworth 1996; Martin 2003; McCausland 2005; Moreton-Robinson 2009). Moreton-Robinson (2009:68) argues that a central theme underpinning these tensions is a reading of Indigeneity in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, behaviours, cultures, and communities are pathologised as “dysfunctional” thus enabling assertions that Indigenous people are incapable of managing their own affairs. This discourse distracts us from the “strategies and tactics of patriarchal white sovereignty” that inhibit the “state’s earlier policy of self-determination” (Moreton-Robinson 2009:68). We acknowledge the irony of community development espoused by Ramirez above (1990), that the least resourced are expected to be most resourceful.; however, we wish to interrogate the processes that inhibit Indigenous participation and control of our own affairs rather than further interrogate Aboriginal minds as uneducated, incapable and/or impaired...

Beyond the dotted drawings : the Aboriginal Health Worker and health promotion practice

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers' roles have changed over the years as the profession has shifted far beyond the mere provision of a cultural brokerage service. Important achievements have been made in enhancing the biomedical role of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait health worker, even though this is not the only area of expertise they need to possess.

Using strengths-based approaches in early years practice and research

Strengths-based approaches draw upon frameworks and perspectives from social work and psychology but have not necessarily been consistently defined or well articulated across disciplines. Internationally, there are increasing calls for professionals in early years settings to work in strengths-based ways to support the access and participation of all children and families, especially those with complex needs. The purpose of this paper is to examine a potential promise of innovative uses of strengths-based approaches in early years practice and research in Australia, and to consider implications for application in other national contexts. In this paper, we present three cases (summarised from larger studies) depicting different applications of the Strengths Approach, under pinned by collaborative inquiry at the interface between practice and research. Analysis revealed three key themes across the cases: (i) enactment of strengths-based principles, (ii) the bi-directional and transformational influences of the Strengths Approach (research into practice/practice into research), and (iii) heightened practitioner and researcher awareness of, and responsiveness to, the operation of power. The findings highlight synergies and challenges to constructing and actualising strengths-based approaches in early years childhood research and practice. The case studies demonstrate that although constructions of what constitutes strengths-based research and practice requires ongoing critical engagement, redefining, and operationalising, using strengths-based approaches in early years settings can be generative and worthwhile.

Empowering the disempowered through voice-inclusive practice: Children’s views on adult-centric educational provision

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a significant platform to include children’s views on issues that affect their lives, yet, in many contexts, particularly in educational practice, children’s perspectives continue to be irregularly sought and are rarely acted upon. By providing children’s perspectives on what they would like adults to know, this article explores a unique view of childhood and the interactions with family, community, educational experiences and well-being. The children’s insights about their worlds that they feel adults are missing potentiate the development and incorporation of voice-inclusive practice. While the sense that each child makes of their Lebenswelt – the ‘ingredients’ – is idiosyncratic and will be influenced by many factors, including peers, teachers, parents, other adults and the media, it is the nature of this personal understanding that is poorly understood, and consequently ignored by adults. By exploring the commentary of more than 1000 children across five countries – Australia, England, New Zealand, Italy and Sweden – this research reveals an overwhelming collection of what the authors describe as ‘comments that rhyme’ in terms of the identification of expressed sentiment and thematic representations of their perspectives.

Secular and religious moral grounds resonating across state schools in Indonesia

This paper describes moral education in Indonesia, more particularly, how teachers have implemented the Character Education policy issued by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC) in 2010. This policy required teachers to instil certain values in every lesson, including EFL lessons, to contribute towards building a shared national moral character. Drawing on Durkheim's distinction between secular and religious morality, this paper considers how state schools accommodated and promoted this ‘rational moral education' or secular morality (Durkheim, 1925) in government schools, and how it interacted with religious moral education. This paper uses Bernstein's concepts of pedagogic discourse, instructional and regulative discourses to analyse how teachers have recontextualised this policy in the micro pedagogic settings of their EFL classes. Three types of data were collected for this study: interviews, class observations and teachers' lesson plans. In this way, four EFL teachers working in state schools were interviewed on two occasions and three of their classes were observed. The first interview identified teachers' beliefs and perceptions regarding the Character Education policy. Their classroom and lesson plans were observed to augment this information. Then the final interview asked about the teacher's thinking behind their actions in the observed classes. Since character education was issued within the broader frame of school based curriculum that offered schools and teachers more choices to develop the local curriculum and its intent, the analysis will focus on what moral premises were evident in their school and classes, and how such morality was transmitted through the EFL lessons. The conclusion suggests that teachers' implementation of moral education in their classes was dominated by their school communities and the teachers' own preferred value of religiosity. Such value played out in the classes through both the regulative discourse and the instructional discourse.

Practice-based learning in community contexts: A collaborative exploration of pedagogical principles

The primary focus of this chapter is an exploration of four pedagogical principles emerging from a practice-based learning lab. Following an overview of community engaged learning and the Lab approach, the chapter is structured around a discussion of pedagogical principles related to (1) collaboration, (2) interdisciplinarity, (3) complexity and uncertainty and (4) reflection. Through a participatory action research (PAR) framework, students, academics and community partners have worked to identify and refine what it takes to support students negotiate complexity and uncertainty inherent in problems facing communities. It also examines the pedagogical strategies employed to facilitate collaboration across disciplines and professional contexts in ways that leverage difference and challenge values and practices.

Understanding advanced and extended professional practice

The Advanced Pharmacy Practice Framework Steering Committee (now replaced by the Pharmacy Practitioner Development Committee) undertook work to develop an advanced pharmacy practice recognition model. As part of that work, and to assure clarity and consistency in the terminology it uses, the Committee collated the definitions used in literature sources consulted. Most recently, this involved a review of the meaning attributed to the terms ‘advanced’ and ‘extended’ when used in the context of describing aspects of professional practice. Both terms encompass the acquisition of additional expertise. While ‘advanced’ practice involves the acquisition of additional expertise to achieve a higher performance level, ‘extended’ practice relates specifically to scope of practice and involves the acquisition of additional expertise sufficient to provide services or perform tasks that are outside the usual scope of practice of the profession. Performance level operates independently of scope of practice but both must be elucidated to fully describe the professional practice of an individual practitioner.

Biomechanics of transfemoral amputees fitted with osseointegrated fixation: Loading data for evidence-based practice

This presentation will provide an overview of the load applied on the residuum of transfemoral amputees fitted with an osseointegrated fixation during (A) rehabilitation, including static and dynamic load bearing exercises (e.g., rowing, adduction, abduction, squat, cycling, walking with aids), and (B) activities of daily living including standardized activities (e.g., level walking in straight line and around a circle, ascending and descending slopes and stairs) and activities in real world environments.

Review of direct measurement of inner prosthesis loading in transfemoral amputation: Potential benefits for evidence-based practice

The understanding of the load applied on the residuum through the prosthesis of individuals with transfemoral amputation (TFA) is essential to address a number of concerns that could strongly reduce their quality of life (e.g., residuum skin lesion, prosthesis fitting, alignment). This inner prosthesis loading could be estimated using a typical gait laboratory relying on inverse dynamics equations. Alternative, technological advances proposed over the last decade enabled direct measurement of this kinetic information in a broad variety of situations that could potentially be more relevant in clinical settings. The purposes of this presentation are (A) to review the literature about recent developments in measure and analyses of inner prosthesis loading of TFA, and (B) to extract information that could potentially contribute to a better evidence-based practice.

Shared book reading by parents with young children: Evidence-based practice

There is considerable recognition that shared book reading helps develop young children's early reading and literacy skills. Home is an important context in which children first start to develop their early literacy skills. This paper reviews Australian and international literature of shared book-reading intervention pertaining to the effects of two different strategies (dialogic reading and print referencing) on young children's early literacy skills. Further, a brief summary of findings of a recent Australian study are presented that showed some significant effects of shared reading on children's early literacy skills. This research used a pragmatic RCT (randomised controlled trial) to investigate a combination of these two forms of shared book-reading home intervention with parents and their children enrolled in the Prep year of school in Queensland. The paper concludes with a discussion of the significance of the findings and implications for parents and teachers to use an evidence-based approach to help children develop early literacy skills.

Playing Pranks: Traditions, communities & co-creative cultural performance practice

Pranks, hoaxes and practical jokes are co-creative cultural performance practices that appear across times, contexts and cultures. These practices include everyday play amongst families, friends and coworkers, entertainment programs such as Prank Patrol, Punked or Scare Tactics, and aesthetic and activist pranks perpetrated by situationist artists, guerrilla artists, and, most recently, culture ‘jammers’ or ‘hackers’ intent on turning capitalist systems back on themselves. Although it can, in common usage, describe almost any show off behaviour, a prank in the strictest definition of the term is a performance that deploys a very specific set of strategies. It is an act of trickery, mischief, or deceit, that must be taken as real, and momentarily cause real fear, anger or worry for an unwitting spectator-become-performer, who is meant to play along until the trick is revealed and their response can be represented back to the prankster, other spectators, or society as a whole, either for the sake of entertainment or for the sake of commentary on a cultural phenomenon. A prank, in this sense, deliberately blurs the boundaries between daily and dramatic performance. It creates a moment of uncertainty, in which both the prankster’s ability to be creative, clever, or culturally astute, and the prankee’s ability to play along, discern the trick, discern the point of the trick, and, in the end, be duped, be a good sport, or even play/pay the prankster back, are both put to the test. In this paper, I consider a number of pranking traditions popular where I am in Australia, from the community-building pranks of footballers, bucks parties and ‘drop bear’ tales told to tourists, to the more controversial pranks of radio shock jocks, activists and artists. I use performance, spectatorship and ethical theory to examine the engagement between prankster, pranked spectator, and other spectators, in this most distinctive sort of community-driven performance practice, and the way it builds and breaks status, social and other sorts of relationships within and between specific communities.

BIM and PLM: Comparing and learning from changes to professional practice across sectors

This paper explores the effects of PLM and BIM on professional practice. It draws on existing literature documenting the experiences of both communities of practice to explain shifts in professional boundaries. A review of case study based literature compares the nature of changes triggered by PLM and BIM relative to the new activities, roles/responsibilities and knowledge competencies, and supply chain relationships. The paper synthesises these changes and reflects PLM and BIM experiences against each other so as to contrast the continuing evolution of professional practice and lessons learned.

Basic Religious Charities

Just over 44,000 registered charities filed their first Annual Information Statement (AIS) return with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) before the end of October 2014. Of these, 10,918 charities self-identified as Basic Religious Charities (BRCs). These are usually, but not always, unincorporated religious congregations which receive no or little government funding. Having a central agency for reporting, in the form of the ACNC, having access to information supplied in the AIS by registered organisations has allowed access to new measures of charities and their activities. In September 2014 the ACNC, in conjunction with Curtin University Not-for-profit Initiative, released a high-level report on the first AIS, and the data were also made available digitally through the Australian Government Data Repository. This factsheet builds on that report by focusing on BRCs.