Pathways to better practice: developing human resources in child protection services for Indigenous communities in Western Australia and Queensland. This study addresses the serious and escalating problem of providing child protection services to Indigenous children and their families in rural and remote areas. Service delivery to rural and remote environments in Australia is a high cost exercise and, to date, little research has been conducted to understanding the complex nature of professiona ....Pathways to better practice: developing human resources in child protection services for Indigenous communities in Western Australia and Queensland. This study addresses the serious and escalating problem of providing child protection services to Indigenous children and their families in rural and remote areas. Service delivery to rural and remote environments in Australia is a high cost exercise and, to date, little research has been conducted to understanding the complex nature of professional (non-medical) interventions in communities with high proportions of Indigenous families and children. The study, conducted across two states, will contribute to national benefit in 3 key areas: the health and wellbeing of Indigenous children; skills shortage in rural areas and intergenerational change in professional disciplines.Read moreRead less
School drug education for junior high school students in Victoria - Assessing the impact of a state-wide, evidence-based intervention
. Young people are faced with numerous and powerful influences to use both legal and illicit drugs, and drug education can play an important counterbalancing role in shaping a normative culture of safety, moderation and informed decision making in this group. The research will develop, implement and evaluate one all encompassing, evidence-based, drug education pr ....School drug education for junior high school students in Victoria - Assessing the impact of a state-wide, evidence-based intervention
. Young people are faced with numerous and powerful influences to use both legal and illicit drugs, and drug education can play an important counterbalancing role in shaping a normative culture of safety, moderation and informed decision making in this group. The research will develop, implement and evaluate one all encompassing, evidence-based, drug education program for junior high school students across Victoria. The study is unique in its size and scope and will be of national benefit because its findings will influence the nature of future drug education in all secondary schools in Australia.Read moreRead less
Exploring the impact and implementation of family group conferencing for Aboriginal children. This ground-breaking study aims to transform child protection services and improve the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable Aboriginal children. This project will explore new models to assist compliance with child safety plans developed through family group conferences in child protection matters in Alice Springs.
Reducing young women’s offending through improved service delivery . Young women’s contact with justice and welfare agencies has increased rapidly across Australia and the world, creating a crisis that is costly and harmful, especially for young Indigenous women. Pathways into these systems are gendered; but the systems were designed to address the needs of young male offenders. This project therefore aims to discover how these systems could be better designed to improve outcomes for young women ....Reducing young women’s offending through improved service delivery . Young women’s contact with justice and welfare agencies has increased rapidly across Australia and the world, creating a crisis that is costly and harmful, especially for young Indigenous women. Pathways into these systems are gendered; but the systems were designed to address the needs of young male offenders. This project therefore aims to discover how these systems could be better designed to improve outcomes for young women. The project uses a novel approach that gives young women a voice in how five Anglicare end-users (the research partners) and other end-users can enhance their service provision in the welfare and justice sectors and become models of best practice.Read moreRead less
Cross-cultural institution-building and development interventions: linking applied and critical approaches. This project will examine cross-cultural institutions created in the context of development, planning and management interventions. The proposed collaboration will support two APAI scholars to research the social and cultural processes whereby such institutions engage local communities in resource mapping, planning and decision-making. One scholar will work in East Timor, the other in the ....Cross-cultural institution-building and development interventions: linking applied and critical approaches. This project will examine cross-cultural institutions created in the context of development, planning and management interventions. The proposed collaboration will support two APAI scholars to research the social and cultural processes whereby such institutions engage local communities in resource mapping, planning and decision-making. One scholar will work in East Timor, the other in the Northern Territory. A key objective is to combine applied and critical approaches in expanding our understanding of the interactions that takes place between external agencies and local communities. The research will contribute to the improved design and implementation of initiatives for managing local resources.Read moreRead less
Investigating social, built and physical environment factors for remote Indigenous communities, and their relationships with cardiometabolic outcomes. This study with 74 remote Indigenous communities will be the first to evaluate features of their social, built and physical environments in relation to cardiometabolic risks and diseases. Policy-relevant results will identify features of environments to be targeted to assist reducing chronic diseases for Indigenous peoples in remote communities.
Can there be good policy? Tracing the paths between policy intent, evidence and practical benefit in regional and remote Australia. By tracking major health, housing and education reforms currently underway across regional and remote Australia, this research generates fresh perspectives on an urgent contemporary debate in Indigenous social affairs: namely, are governments best placed to drive social change or to determine policy imperatives; and if not, are there alternate ways to generate good ....Can there be good policy? Tracing the paths between policy intent, evidence and practical benefit in regional and remote Australia. By tracking major health, housing and education reforms currently underway across regional and remote Australia, this research generates fresh perspectives on an urgent contemporary debate in Indigenous social affairs: namely, are governments best placed to drive social change or to determine policy imperatives; and if not, are there alternate ways to generate good policy? An anthropological approach will be used to observe government policy at work. The research will explore the institutional reasons behind the gap between intention and outcome in Indigenous social policy; how failure cycles in policy are replicated; and possible techniques for creating and implementing a new ethics of policy engagement.Read moreRead less
Evaluation Of The Effectiveness Of Mobile Preschool For Child Health And Development In Remote Aboriginal Communities
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$456,369.00
Summary
This project is a retrospective study of the effectiveness of the NT Mobile Preschool Program using assessment data for children's emergent literacy, social and emotional competencies and health status. Effectiveness will be established by comparison with achievement and health status data for children not attending preschool and those in communities with no preschool service. The study will identify and describe the key factors influencing the health and learning outcomes of the three groups.
Digestive Physiology of Crocodilians: Towards an Improved Diet and Feeding Regime for Use by the Farming Industry. Crocodile farming promotes the sustainable production and consumption of crocodile products without harming natural populations. The industry grosses over $15 million per year in Australia and $200 million worldwide. Costs associated with transporting and storing food are the single largest expense that crocodile farms have. Increases in the efficiency of converting food into growth ....Digestive Physiology of Crocodilians: Towards an Improved Diet and Feeding Regime for Use by the Farming Industry. Crocodile farming promotes the sustainable production and consumption of crocodile products without harming natural populations. The industry grosses over $15 million per year in Australia and $200 million worldwide. Costs associated with transporting and storing food are the single largest expense that crocodile farms have. Increases in the efficiency of converting food into growth will have positive economic benefits to the industry. Efficiencies can be produced by (1) increasing food absorption, (2) decreasing the energetic costs of digestion, and (3) producing a new food that is less expensive to ship and store. This project will directly address the first two of these and will lay the foundation for the development of the third. Read moreRead less
Community Foundations of Resilience of Young People. Understanding and promoting resilience in young people is one of the most important health priorities of the Federal Government. The proposed project advances resilience research in a new direction. It is highly innovative in bringing together a research team from disciplines and professional knowledge domains that generally do not inform each other, to fill the conceptual gap in current knowledge around care, control and social resilience usi ....Community Foundations of Resilience of Young People. Understanding and promoting resilience in young people is one of the most important health priorities of the Federal Government. The proposed project advances resilience research in a new direction. It is highly innovative in bringing together a research team from disciplines and professional knowledge domains that generally do not inform each other, to fill the conceptual gap in current knowledge around care, control and social resilience using an applied community development project and a methodology of engagement with young people, to bring about social change.Read moreRead less