Dr Elroy Dearn
Luke Michael (@luke_michael96) highlights findings from a new research report from Children and Young People with Disability Australia that suggest problems with NDIS implementation are many and varied, and are not likely to be fixed by the Government’s proposed major reform of Indpendent Assessments. He talks over the implications with the report’s lead author Professor Helen Dickinson.
Read MoreAlastair Stark, Nivek Thompson (@NivekKThompson) and Greg Marston argue that public deliberation can lead to better policy design by offering something more dynamic than a ‘snapshot’ of public opinion: it can show policymakers how citizens think and justify their decisions.
Read MoreOne of the headline figures in Tuesday’s federal budget was a A$1.1 billion dollar investment in women’s safety. This came as part of a special women’s budget statement, which pitched the budget as helping provide women with “respect, dignity, choice, equality of opportunity and justice”. It also comes amid a national crisis in domestic violence. On average, one woman is killed every week in Australia by a male current or former partner. So does the budget deliver on its promise to prioritise women’s safety and equality at home and at work? Does it do enough?
Read MoreFor decades addressing men’s violence against women has been “a women’s issue” and women’s responsibility. Women have established shelters and refuges to provide safety to women and children, women have taken to the streets to march for their safety, women have shared their lived experiences of violence and much more. We rarely hear from men or from children about their experiences of living with and witnessing men’s violence. This deeply personal piece seeks to start to change that.
Read MoreDespite being 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, families continue to lose loved ones. More than 455 Indigenous Australians have lost their lives in police or prison custody since the Royal Commission reported and according to families, the loss of life is higher than what has been reported. In today’s post, Eddie Cubillo, a proud Larrakia, Wadjigan, Central Arrernte man from the Northern Territory and Senior Indigenous Fellow at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, highlights successive government’s failure to act on the Royal Commission’s recommendations and calls for taking real and effective action into Aboriginal deaths in custody.
Read MoreIn today’s post, originally published in The Conversation, Professor Helen Dickinson (@drhdickinson) outlines concerns about the introduction of independent assessments into Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme, and explains why an independent evaluation of the proposed changes, designed in consultation with people with disability and their families, is needed before they are introduced.
Read MorePRIMARY CARE NETWORKS (PCNs) were introduced across England in July 2019, bringing together groups of general practices, along with community providers, to develop new services for patients. These networks respond to a need for better integration of health and social care services and issues of sustainability in primary care.
Read MoreThe Covid-19 pandemic is presenting governments, social work leaders, managers and frontline practitioners with unique challenges. In this blog, Harry Ferguson, Sarah Pink and Laura Kelly discuss their Economic and Social Research Council-funded research, which explores its impact on children, families and child protection social work.
Read MoreDespite being at increased risk from the negative health impacts associated with COVID-19 infection, and despite potentially serious consequences to changes in service provision in 2020, for unstated reasons people who rely on the Disability Support Pension did not qualify for the Coronavirus Supplement. Today’s important piece by Holly Barrow, of the UK-based Immigration Advice Service, outlines the dire situation for people with a disability in the UK and warns that the neoliberal response to the pandemic reflects a calculated valuation of lives.
Read MoreThere is increasing cross-sectoral unease about the mental health impact of COVID-19 and the lockdown put in place to combat it. A recent commentary in the Lancet suggested that “suicide is likely to become a more pressing concern as the pandemic spreads and has longer-term effects on the general population, the economy, and vulnerable groups” (Gunnell et al. 2020). While a relationship between COVID and suicide is not clearly established, Dr Anna Lavis argues that the key to forging understandings of their potentially complex connections is an attention to the many suicide-related discussions currently happening on social media.
Read MoreWe know that the NDIS is a lot of administrative work for scheme participants, but the administrative burden isn’t just borne by people with disability. Today’s post comes from Ellie Malbon (Centre for Social Impact), Gemma Carey (CSI), Helen Dickinson (Public Service Research Group), Megan Weier (CSI), and Gordon Duff (National Disability Services), who have done some research on the administrative burden of the NDIS for service providers.
Read MoreToday’s post by Dr Esperanza Vera-Toscano and Professor Roger Wilkins ( @RogerWilkins_au ) discusses the relationship that childhood poverty has with adulthood poverty.
This article was first published on Pursuit. Read the original article.
Read MoreIn an article originally published by The Canberra Times, Dr Sue Williamson and Associate Professor Linda Colley discuss their recently released report Working During the Pandemic: From resistance to revolution. Their research found that the majority of public service employees want to continue the working from home arrangements some workplaces put in place during the coronavirus epidemic, and that while there are negative aspects to working from home, these are far outweighed by the positives. Governments may not find it as easy as they might hope to put this particular genie back in its bottle.
Read MoreThe pandemic has exposed the multitude of dangers in trusting private entities with public data, demonstrating the need for carefully thought out regulation argue Jenna Harb and Kate Henne from the Justice and Technoscience (JusTech) Lab at the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance.
Read MoreJensen Sass and Kate Henne, from the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the ANU, argue that the pandemic has opened up space for reconfiguring the relationships between states and markets.
Read MoreIn today’s post, Georgia Katsikis, Alex Devine and Sue Olney explore the implications of COVID-19 for disability policy in Australia – policy currently affecting one in five Australians living with disability with the potential to affect a growing number who may acquire a disability as a consequence of the pandemic. They argue that the needs and rights of people with disability must be integrated into plans to rebuild the economy now, to avert far-reaching and long-lasting social and economic costs.
Read MoreThe Covid-19 second wave in Victoria has once again highlighted the economic impacts of the pandemic, however it is important to remember that the economy is inextricably linked to health and social outcomes. While the Federal and State/Territory Governments have instituted a raft of policy measures to address some of the economic impacts, are these responses enough to also address the wider social and health effects of the pandemic? In todays blog post Dr Megan Weier and Isabella Saunders from the Centre for Social Impact examine the policy responses from both federal and state/territory governments to see where vulnerabilities might lie that could worsen the impacts of the pandemic.
Read MoreWho suffers the most from the extended Melbourne lockdown?
Read MoreThe second spike of Covid-19 in Victoria which has resulted in a large number of outbreaks in aged care homes is shining a light on the policies and practices of how governments and the private sector manage aged care. In this blog post Bernard Keene discusses challenges within the aged care sector such as casualisation of the workforce that require immediate attention in the wake of the corona virus crisis.
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