People with disability and the COVID-19 response

Leading health and disability researchers in Australia are calling for urgent action from State and Federal governments to develop a targeted response to COVID-19 for people with disability, their families and the disability service sector. In this post originally published by Croakey, Professor Anne Kavanagh from the University of Melbourne and Associate Professor Gemma Carey from UNSW flag risks facing people with disability in this rapidly shifting environment and set out recommendations for government to mitigate those risks.

Advocacy, Issues, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade16 March 2020disability, NDIS, health, COVID-19, pandemic

Lived Experience: soundbite or values shift?

Gerry Hamill from UK NGO First Time Inside helps new prisoners prepare for incarceration through ‘rehabilitation’. In this blog, Gerry reflects on the uses and abuses of people with ‘lived experience’ in the social service sector.

Justice Capital: From the darkness into the light

Advocacy, Innovation, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade18 February 2020prisons, social services, social justice, Social Welfare

How Do We Ensure That Primary Care in the UK Remains in Good Health?

General practice in the United Kingdom has long had an international reputation as a positive exemplar of primary care. Free at the point of access, funded on basis of population and needs (i.e. not a fee for service), and led by clinicians, our model is seen to have a better chance than most of providing the support that is preventative, coordinated, and with continuity of care. In this post, Professor Robin Miller considers how over recent years, it has become apparent that our traditional model will struggle with expected demographic changes such as an ageing population, the rise of obesity, and increasing people living with multiple long-term conditions. These combined pressures are indeed leading to frustration for patients in relation to accessing appointments, and considerable stress for general practice.

Taking a stand against bullying: Addressing mental health problems from within

Many people have childhood memories of being pushed around and being punched by other pupils when we felt you couldn’t retaliate. They may also remember being the topic of nasty rumours or being excluded by others. Unfortunately, being bullied is not an unusual experience, even today. Similar to maltreatment, bullying involves abusive behaviours where it is more difficult for the victims to defend themselves. But in contrast to maltreatment, these abusive behaviours are perpetrated by others of the same age. In this blog post, Professor Louise Arseneault discusses research that she has been conducting for the past 15 years – alongside great collaborators – and emphasises the importance of moving away from the common perception that bullying is just an unavoidable part of growing up.

How is patient experience feedback used to improve the quality of adult inpatient mental health care in NHS England?

EURIPIDES is the short title for Evaluating the Use of Patient Experience Data to Improve the Quality of Inpatient Mental Health Care study. EURIPIDES aimed to understand which of the many different approaches to collecting and using patient experience data are the most useful for supporting improvements in inpatient mental health care.

Researchers from the EURIPIDES study team have made a series of recommendations for improving the way that NHS mental health trusts collect and use patient feedback to improve the quality of care for mental health inpatients. In this post, Dr Sarah-Jane Fenton summarises some of the key findings ahead of the full report being published in early 2020 as health research academics call for NHS to act on mental health patient feedback.

Blunt mechanisms fail to move unemployed people into viable employment

Despite the government’s commitment to and investment in a Welfare to Work strategy to incentivise people into employment, many people are languishing on the extraordinarily low Newstart Allowance for long periods of time. What exactly is going wrong? In a submission to the Victorian Government’s Inquiry into sustainable employment for disadvantaged jobseekers, Sue Olney (@olney_sue) of the Public Service Research Group (@PSResearchG) at UNSW Canberra provides a brief but comprehensive outline of why current levers seem to be falling well short of government targets. You can read the full submission in its original format here.

Policy and governance, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade5 October 2019sue olney, Wicked issues, welfare reform

Changing the global approach to youth mental health

In the past, the greatest health challenge for young people was to survive childhood. Thankfully, in most of the world this is no longer the case. However, the big health issue now for young people is mental health. Consulting with experts and stakeholders around the world, the Global Youth Mental Health Framework project will provide guidance for funders about the costs of investing, and the costs of not investing, in youth mental health. It also aims to produce a youth mental health care framework that is responsive to local needs, and a toolkit to help communities all over the world advocate for youth mental health services. On International Youth Day, Eóin Killackey outlined a new undertaking to make youth mental health a global priority.

Tracking the Financial Icebergs in Australia.

In today’s post Dr. Archana Voola, Research fellow at University of New South Wales, discusses the societal, community and individual levels factors playing a role in our everyday financial lives. The daily news media depicts stories about the debt crisis, housing un-affordability and sluggish wage growth. But what is actually happening behind these numbers? Who are the humans who make up the data? And what can we do about it? Archana uses her sociological imagination to uncover the icebergs in the financial seascape of Australia.

What do Aboriginal Australians want from their aged care system? Community connection is number one

Older Aboriginal Australians are considered one of the most vulnerable populations in the country as they are at greater risks for multiple chronic diseases while being less able to access culturally appropriate care.

In this post from The Conversation, Neuroscience Research Australia’s Tony Broe believes that an effective Indigenous aged care model must facilitate greater family and community involvement to improve the health outcomes of older Aboriginal Australians.

Advocacy, Issues, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade19 July 2019Aboriginal issues, health, public health

Adopting large-scale personalisation in the NDIS

The rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has be challenging, with the scheme experiencing delays in budget allocation as well as the design and review of individual plans. But how can this be avoided for a service that, to be fit-for-purpose, requires a significant amount of client engagement and service personalisation?

In this article from The Mandarin, BIS Oxford Economics’s Flavio Souza explains why he believes adopting innovative approaches to client segmentation may be the answer.

Service DeliveryPower to Persuade18 July 2019Disability, NDIS, innovation

Why Indigenous values matter for all public servants and all communities

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples occupy a unique position as the first sovereign peoples of Australia. And while governments have been striving to improve their relationships with as well as their abilities to represent and provide services to Indigenous Australians, there is still a long way to go.

In this post, the Australia and New Zealand School of Government’s (ANZSOG) Aurora Milroy discusses why Indigenous values and culture should be embedded in the Australian Public Service (APS), and outlines practical solutions for helping the Commonwealth begin to reset its relationship with Indigenous peoples.

Report finds every $1 Australia spends on preschool will return $2, but this won’t just magically happen

Is Australia getting good return on investment in early childhood education? A report conducted by PwC for the Front Project finds that Australia is getting $2 back for every $1 spent on preschool.

While this statistic is important, Jen Jackson of Victorian University’s Mitchell Institute argues that we need to examine and invest in the complex chain of events that in order for the country to reap the two-for-one return.

This article was originally published in The Conversation.

Issues, Policy and governance, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade16 July 2019education

Looking after loved ones with mental illness puts carers at risk themselves. They need more support

The Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System - the first of its kind in Australia - is looking into ‘[accelerating] improvements in access to mental health services, service navigation and models of care.’ One element of the mental health care system, which is often overlooked, is help for informal carers that support those who have mental illness.

In this article originally published in The Conversation, the University of Newcastle’s Jaelea Skehan and Sally Fitzpatrick explain the emotional labour involved in caring, the case for preventing their psychological distress, and the policy setting that government needs to enhance carers’ wellbeing and prevent the onset of mental health issues of their own.

Policy and governance, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade15 July 2019mental health

Putting value creation back into public value

While value creation has long been discussed in the private sector, the concept of value creation by the public sector is largely absent. Until recently there has been no clear role for the public sector to create value itself – the term ‘public value’ does not even exist in economics. However a new paper by Mariana Mazzucato and Josh Ryan-Collins at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose proposes ways that public value can be created using a theory of collective public value creation. This article orginally appeared in The Mandarin and is authored by Maria Katsonis.

Feminist theory and Australia’s care and support sector

Australian policymakers will need to take critical action in response to the care crisis revealed by coverage of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety and the lead up to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Laura Davy (@LauraKDavy) from the Public Service Research Group, UNSW Canberra, discusses how feminist ethics and feminist economics can inform workforce investment strategies into the future.

Service Delivery, Policy and governancePower to Persuade5 July 2019Workforce Reform, care work

Automating Inequality – the Australian way

In recent weeks, Dr Simone Casey (@simonecasey) has examined issues in Australia's employment services system in a series of posts covering the ParentsNext program; mutual obligation; and 'work first' activation of jobseekers. This week, she tackles the growing influence of algorithms and increasing automation in Australia's welfare system, drawing on Virginia Eubanks' book Automating Inequality. Dr Casey is an Associate of the RMIT Future Social Services Institute.

Service DeliveryPower to Persuade25 June 2019employment, social services

Private prisons: Are they really cheaper, better and more accountable?

Victoria has recently committed to spending a whole lot more on prisons and corrections to accommodate its growing prison population. As Deirdre O’Neill, Valarie Sands and Graeme Hodge of Monash University report, Victoria relies more heavily on privatised prisons than anywhere else in the country, but lack of transparency makes it frustratingly difficult to tell whether privatisation has delivered on its promises of cheaper, better and more accountable. This post is based on their recent article in the Australian Journal of Public Administration.

Policy and governance, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade11 June 2019prisons, crime

Does tree-shaking work? Evidence based policy and welfare conditionality

This article from Dr Simone Casey explores why Australia’s Mutual Obligation requirements are so demanding and whether this is based on evidence about what works. It asks why critical research evidence has not received more attention from Australia ‘s activation policy makers. She argues that lack of engagement with critical social research is a limitation which hampers social justice efforts and reflects disregard for social suffering, and says there is plenty of room for stronger engagement with participatory policy design approaches. Dr Casey is an Associate of the RMIT Future Social Services Institute.

The complex intersection between aid facilities and aid effectiveness

Are Australia’s aid facilities part of a “cartel of good intentions?” The Crawford School of Public Policy’s Stephen Howes unpacks the complex problem of aid facilities and their impacts on aid effectiveness.

Issues, Service DeliveryPower to Persuade3 May 2019international aid and development

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