A tale of two Victorian historic coastal towns : dilemmas of planning and conservation in Queenscliff and Sorrento

Change has engulfed the coastal fringe of Australia. In balancing the built and natural environment, community needs, cultural significance and economic sustainability, planners aim to improve quality of life and create vibrant communities. Yet managing place change, particularly in coastal areas, is fraught with tensions. Most planning discussions about the rapidity of change, the impact of the Sea Change process and increased development have focused upon the extensiveness of residential expansion and the housing styles that challenge the essence of the character of these coastal towns. Character and sense of place qualities are the very reasons that sea changers desire to engage with and reside within these communities. One aspect missing from this discussion and analysis is the impact that large-scale transformations of iconic buildings are having upon these places. This paper examines the consequences that major commercial development projects have upon the communities of Sorrento and Queenscliff. It considers changes (proposed or realised) to four landmark historic hotels: The Koonya and Continental in Sorrento; and the Ozone and Vue Grand in Queenscliff. This paper focuses on issues of planning, social engagement and community debate.

Community museums and the creation of a ‘sense of place’: Holocaust Museums in Australia

Community museums have traditionally focused on a particular geographical location. This proximity between museums and the focus of their collection give them a unique opportunity to make connections between objects, the museum building, landscape, and community. These linkages are one of the key strengths of local museums due to their potential to tell inclusive stories of people and place. Australian Holocaust museums are displaced from this geographical proximity and situated at great distance from the events they commemorate. Due to the intense involvement of survivors in their inception and development, however, such museums have been driven, indeed, defined by communal imperatives. This paper examines the connections between community and place constructed through these museums. Further, it asks how community, place and the local are defined, and how and in what way the community museums examined make connections between here and there, then and now.

This paper takes as its focus two Holocaust museums in Australia: the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne and the Sydney Jewish Museum. After briefly exploring the origins of the respective institutions and the motivations of those involved, the paper discusses how the museums construct ideas of community and place, focusing particularly on the complex imaginative geography that creates intimate, emotional connections between different times and places.

Contested Publics: Racist rants, bystander action and social media acts of citizenship

While social media tools enable new kinds of creativity, cultural expression and forms of public, civic and political participation, we often hear more about the harms that arise from instances of trolling and 'aberrant' online participation, including racist provocation. In media and communications research, these issues have been framed in a number of ways, usually focusing on new tools for civic engagement, political participation and digital inclusion. Government policy has been shifting steadily towards potential regulation of social media 'misuse' in relation to appropriate forms of 'digital citizenship'. It is in this evolving context that we consider several instances of cultural or nationalistic provocation and conflict in which social media platforms (YouTube and Facebook in particular) have been central to the social dynamic that has unfolded. We examine the recording and uploading of racist rants and associated bystander actions on public transport in Australia and elsewhere around the world. In this article, we contend that while racism remains an issue in uses of social media platforms such as YouTube, this focus often overshadows these platforms' productive potential, including their capacity to support agonistic publics from which productive expressions of cultural citizenship and solidarity might emerge.

Protocol for the implementation and evaluation of a community-based intervention seeking to reduce dietary salt intake in Lithgow, Australia

Excess dietary salt is a leading risk for health. Multiple health, government, industry and community organisations have identified the need to reduce consumption of dietary salt. This project seeks to implement and evaluate a community-based salt reduction intervention.

Dealing with alcohol-related problems in the night-time economy: a study protocol for mapping trends in harm and stakeholder views surrounding local community level interventions

This project will provide a comprehensive investigation into the prevalence of alcohol-related harms and community attitudes in the context of community-based interventions being implemented to reduce harm in two regional centres of Australia. While considerable experimentation and innovation to address these harms has occurred in both Geelong and Newcastle, only limited ad-hoc documentation and analysis has been conducted on changes in the prevalence of harm as a consequence, leaving a considerable gap in terms of a systematic, evidence-based analysis of changes in harm over time and the need for further intervention. Similarly, little evidence has been reported regarding the views of key stakeholder groups, industry, government agencies, patrons or community regarding the need for, and the acceptability of, interventions to reduce harms. This project will aim to provide evidence regarding the impact and acceptability of local initiatives aimed at reducing alcohol-related harms.

The show must go on’ : older entertainers making music in the community in Melbourne, Australia

Globally countries are faced with an aging population and Australia is no different. This creates challenges for the maintenance of well-being which can be enhanced by active engagement in society. There is extensive research that confirms that engagement in music by older people is positively related to individual and community wellbeing. Music engagement encompasses a range of social participation and has the potential to recognise the contribution of older people to their local communities. Music participation can contribute to a better quality of life, particularly in relation to health and happiness. There are many possible forms of music engagement. This study is part of an on-going Deakin University and Monash University research project, Well-being and ageing: community, diversity and the arts in Victoria. This article focuses on three members of a mixed voluntary singing group formed by older residents of an outer suburban community in Melbourne, Australia. This group, The Skylarkers, were established in 1999 as a four-part choir. Over the years the nature of the choir has changed under subsequent music directors. Since 2009 the group has focused on music theatre repertoire and performance style. Membership of the group is fluid reflecting changing life circumstances of the members but the ensemble is resilient. This small amateur music theatre group is based in suburban Melbourne, rehearses weekly and performs regularly at retirement villages, nursing homes and facilities for senior citizens. This article presents a phenomenological qualitative single case study of members of the Skylarkers. In this study, interview data were gathered in 2011-2012 and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Two significant themes emerged that concern musical self-identity and gaining a sense of purpose and fulfilment. The Skylarkers are more than a choir; they are an amateur entertainment troupe that engages with each other and the wider community. This resilient group holds true to the motto ‘the show must go on’.

Coproduction and Casula's Pacifica Program: Initial research findings

This research takes Casula Powerhouse Art Centre’s Pacifica program as a case study to investigate the ways in which museum and galleries are involved in coproduction with culturally diverse communities. Coproduction is defined here as:Museum and gallery practice conducted jointly with communities or other external partiesThe benefits of coproduction are that it leads to more effective and efficient public services (including arts and cultural services) while also building the skills and capacity of the community. However coproduction is not easy, particularly because it requires public service providers and communities to work in ‘equal and reciprocal’ relationships.As an organisation with strong and strategic alliances to its governing body (Liverpool City Council), Casula brings a strong capacity for coproduction. Internally it has support and commitment to coproduction from across the organisation. The staff at Casula bring exceptional relational skills. The organisation’s capacity to coproduce draws heavily on their skills as cultural brokers and experience in community cultural development practice. The communities Casula works with bring strong cultural knowledge and practice, along with a desire to maintain and preserve these community resources. Casula’s coproduction work also meets external political needs for public services to deliver increased public value as well as a greater diversity in the profile of arts audiences.The key challenge for Casula Powerhouse’s coproduction work is the extent to which it aims for joint delivery of public services through ‘equal and reciprocal’ relationships with the community, or uses coproduction as a tool for community engagement and audience development. Advocates of coproduction in the public sector argue for its value as a means of delivering more effective and efficient public services while at the same time building the skills and capacity of local communities. A critical element of coproduction according to these writers and scholars is the development and delivery of public services through ‘equal and reciprocal’ relationships between providers and users.The value of coproduction for Casula Powerhouse and the Pacifica program is its use as a means of community engagement and audience development. Coproduction is a feature of the components of Pacifica that enable the participation of the community and provide entry points for audiences to engage with contemporary art. Evidence of this approach to coproduction can be seen in the dual ‘stakeholder’ and ‘audience’ role that the community have within the Pacifica program. The community is therefore both a contributor to Pacifica and a beneficiary of this work. The benefits Casula Powerhouse receives from the community’s involvement in Pacifica are greater public value of its work and stronger engagement with communities and audiences.Although coproduction may not be the focus of all aspects of Pacifica, the involvement of Pacific Islander communities in the program results in exhibitions and public programs that are not typical contemporary art gallery offerings. Pacifica is further evidence of Casula Powerhouse’s innovative and entrepreneurial approach to gallery practice. The use of coproduction also ensures Pacifica offers an authentic and distinctive gallery experience.

Integrating biological and social values when prioritizing places for biodiversity conservation

The consideration of information on social values in conjunction with biological data is critical for achieving both socially acceptable and scientifically defensible conservation planning outcomes. However, the influence of social values on spatial conservation priorities has received limited attention and is poorly understood. We present an approach that incorporates quantitative data on social values for conservation and social preferences for development into spatial conservation planning. We undertook a public participation GIS survey to spatially represent social values and development preferences and used species distribution models for 7 threatened fauna species to represent biological values. These spatially explicit data were simultaneously included in the conservation planning software Zonation to examine how conservation priorities changed with the inclusion of social data. Integrating spatially explicit information about social values and development preferences with biological data produced prioritizations that differed spatially from the solution based on only biological data. However, the integrated solutions protected a similar proportion of the species' distributions, indicating that Zonation effectively combined the biological and social data to produce socially feasible conservation solutions of approximately equivalent biological value. We were able to identify areas of the landscape where synergies and conflicts between different value sets are likely to occur. Identification of these synergies and conflicts will allow decision makers to target communication strategies to specific areas and ensure effective community engagement and positive conservation outcomes.

The media, the social media and the elections

This chapter provides a snapshot of politicians and mainstreammedia’s engagement on social media platforms, particularly Twitter. The chapter, based on preliminary analysis, explores the extent to which some of the political parties relied on social media as a vehicle for their conversation with their followers, and the mainstream media’s opportunistic utilisation of this free-for-all information source to know what is happening on the ground. The chapter also points to a nexus between the politicians, mainstream media and social media during the 2014 General Election campaign in India.

School-community collaborations: bringing authentic science into schools

There is increasing interest in collaborative arrangements between schools and community scientists to enhance student engagement with learning. We describe research in which we identify a wide range of such collaborations in Australia, and investigate through interviews with community participants their perspectives on the purposes of collaborations, on the outcomes, and the factors affecting success. We identify challenges with communication, with curriculum and with organisational arrangements that need to be considered in setting up collaborative partnerships, and argue the importance of having a teacher acting as a broker to bridge between the school and scientific communities of practice, if these challenges are to be met.

Locating learning: making connections between virtual and physical spaces with mobile touch-screen devices

This paper is concerned with the potential of mobile touch-screen devices and emerging socio-technological practices to support pedagogies of place that provide a means for young people to reflect critically on the social construction of place and to take actions that speak of and to their own locatedness. Drawing on de Certeau’s (1984) concept of space as a practiced place and Massey’s (2005) perspective of spatiality and interrelatedness, we examine two school-based examples of learning activities that bring together the virtual and physical as in experiences and representations of place. The first example is an Australian local history unit, where lower secondary school students participated in a series of field trips, planned and conducted under the guidance of an indigenous elder. They used Smartphones and iPads to capture and create personalised audio-visual records of their knowledge of place that were then used to create geo-location games. In the second example, upper primary school students worked with local authorities and environmental educators to select sites for two environmental monitoring posts, which were then installed and provided a locus for the students’ school-based environmental science learning as well as a vehicle for community engagement. Drawing on interview, video and photographic data, this paper examines the way mobile technologies were deployed for student knowledge production, engagement with place, reconstruction of place and engagement with community.

Measuring community and service provider attitudes to child sexual abuse in remote indigenous communities in Western Australia

This study aimed to evaluate a scale to measure attitudes to child sexual abuse (CSA) in remote Australian Indigenous communities. The scale was developed to gauge attitudes that may be inhibiting the reporting of cases of CSA to police, as well as to evaluate whether interventions that focused on collaborative relationships between community members and police resulted in changes in attitudes. Participants included service providers living outside the community (58%), community members (living within the community; 9%), and service providers who were also community members (33%); 18% of participants identified as Indigenous. Principal components analysis revealed a nonintuitive six-factor solution that did not support the original four concepts. Four intuitive factors emerged from an abridged version of the scale: entrenched issues, personal understanding and knowledge, communication between community and government, and community action. The scale detected significant differences between community status and between Indigenous status groups on some factors.

Implementing novel models of posttreatment care for cancer survivors: Enablers, challenges and recommendations

AIM: The American Society of Clinical Oncology and US Institute of Medicine emphasize the need to trial novel models of posttreatment care, and disseminate findings. In 2011, the Victorian State Government (Australia) established the Victorian Cancer Survivorship Program (VCSP), funding six 2-year demonstration projects, targeting end of initial cancer treatment. Projects considered various models, enrolling people of differing cancer types, age and residential areas. We sought to determine common enablers of success, as well as challenges/barriers. METHODS: Throughout the duration of the projects, a formal "community of practice" met regularly to share experiences. Projects provided regular formal progress reports. An analysis framework was developed to synthesize key themes and identify critical enablers and challenges. Two external reviewers examined final project reports. Discussion with project teams clarified content. RESULTS: Survivors reported interventions to be acceptable, appropriate and effective. Strong clinical leadership was identified as a critical success factor. Workforce education was recognized as important. Partnerships with consumers, primary care and community organizations; risk stratified pathways with rapid re-access to specialist care; and early preparation for survivorship, self-management and shared care models supported positive project outcomes. Tailoring care to individual needs and predicted risks was supported. Challenges included: lack of valid assessment and prediction tools; limited evidence to support novel care models; workforce redesign; and effective engagement with community-based care and issues around survivorship terminology. CONCLUSION: The VCSP project outcomes have added to growing evidence around posttreatment care. Future projects should consider the identified enablers and challenges when designing and implementing survivorship care.

The use and abuse of 'community' and 'neighbourhood' within disability research: an exposé, clarification, and recommendation

Almost invariably in the disability literature, the terms 'neighbourhood' and 'community' are used as though they have some commonly understood meaning. They do not, and authors rarely offer a definition. This problem adds opacity to the literature describing people's living environment and the nature of their interaction with others living in the same area. This ambiguity becomes crucial to understanding when these terms are linked to other vague, but emotionally-charged words, such as 'inclusion' or 'integration'. This review presents some of the ways 'neighbourhood' and 'community' may be correctly employed. It also explores the theoretical basis for understanding how and why their use may be misleading. Finally, it is demonstrated that the assumed relevance of neighbourhood participation for life quality has been greatly exaggerated. We recommend that authors carefully define their use of these terms in order to facilitate understanding free from emotional bias.

Views of women and health professionals on mHealth lifestyle interventions in pregnancy: a qualitative investigation

BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that women are failing to meet guidelines for nutrition, physical activity, and weight gain during pregnancy. Interventions to promote a healthy lifestyle in pregnancy demonstrate mixed results and many are time and resource intensive. mHealth-delivered interventions offer an opportunity to provide trusted source information in a timely and cost-effective manner. Studies regarding women's and health professionals' views of mHealth in antenatal care are limited.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore women's and health professionals' views regarding mHealth information sources and interventions to assist women to eat well, be physically active, and gain healthy amounts of weight in pregnancy.

METHODS: A descriptive qualitative research approach employed focus groups and in-depth interviews with 15 pregnant or postpartum women and 12 in-depth interviews with health professionals including two from each category: obstetricians, general practitioners, midwives, dietitians, physiotherapists, and community pharmacists. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed.

RESULTS: Women uniformly embraced the concept of mHealth information sources and interventions in antenatal care and saw them as central to information acquisition and ideally incorporated into future antenatal care processes. Health professionals exhibited varied views perceiving mHealth as an inevitable, often parallel, service rather than one integrated into the care model. Four key themes emerged: engagement, risk perception, responsibility, and functionality. Women saw their ability to access mHealth elements as a way to self-manage or control information acquisition that was unavailable in traditional care models and information sources. The emergence of technology was perceived by some health professionals to have shifted control of information from trusted sources, such as health professionals and health organizations, to nontrusted sources. Some health professionals were concerned about the medicolegal risks of mHealth (incorrect or harmful information and privacy concerns), while others acknowledged that mHealth was feasible if inherent risks were addressed. Across both groups, there was uncertainty as to who should be responsible for ensuring high-quality mHealth. The absence of a key pregnancy or women's advocacy group, lack of health funds for technologies, and the perceived inability of maternity hospitals to embrace technology were seen to be key barriers to provision. Women consistently identified the functionality of mHealth as adding value to antenatal care models. For some health professionals, lack of familiarity with and fear of mHealth limited their engagement with and comprehension of the capacity of new technologies to support antenatal care.

CONCLUSIONS: Women exhibited positive views regarding mHealth for the promotion of a healthy lifestyle in antenatal care. Conversely, health professionals expressed a much wider variation in attitudes and were more able to identify potential risks and barriers to development and implementation. This study contributes to the understanding of the opportunities and challenges in developing mHealth lifestyle interventions in antenatal care.