The state of applied demography in Australia

What is the state of applied demography in Australia from a practitioner’s perspective? The paper discusses this question by addressing the following aspects: what issues are and are not receiving media coverage; the use and misuse of demographic data; the level of service received by the demography community from the main suppliers of data; the emerging role of some key players on the scene and some suggestions on the teaching of demography in Australia.     

Information for Clinical Social Work Practice: A Potential Solution

The field of social work requires knowledgeable, skilled and self-confident professionals. We assume that many of these social workers will have less than optimal access to professionally relevant information, within and outside of their workplaces. We also assume that they, like others searching for information, will have a limited set of search skills yet will want to obtain the information for practice they need as easily as possible. Finally, we assume they will continue turning to the Internet to access relevant information. This paper describes Information for Practice (IP), an Internet service designed for social work practitioners based on these assumptions. Data regarding use of this service are presented.     

Transforming gender roles in domestic and caregiving work: preliminary findings from engaging fathers in maternal,newborn, and child health in Rwanda

This article draws on Promundo and RWAMREC's programmatic experiences in Rwanda of implementing MenCare+, a gender transformative approach to engaging young and adult men (ages 15–35) in caregiving, maternal, newborn, and child health, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. We present initial results from fathers' groups with more than 600 men, including the impact of participation in these groups on men's participation in care work. The results confirm the importance for practitioners' planning strategies to engage fathers to think beyond men's token participation in care work, to use father participation as an entry point to truly transform gender dynamics within the home. The article provides practical lessons learnt to guide other organisations interested in working with men to transform norms around fatherhood and care work.     

What Lies Beneath: Trauma Events,PTSD, and Alcohol Misuse in Driving Under the Influence Program Clients

The prevention and reduction of alcohol misuse is one of the Grand Challenges of Social Work. Addressing client needs beyond alcohol misuse can improve client outcomes. Driving under the influence program clients (N = 1,248) were screened for trauma events and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Results found that males more often reported having been assaulted with a weapon or that they caused injury to someone else. Females more often reported sexual assault and other unwanted sexual experience. About 26% overall screened positive for PTSD. Social workers need to be alert to various types of trauma and help clients identify the connection between trauma and alcohol misuse.     

Measuring density dependence in survival from mark-recapture data

We discuss the analysis of mark-recapture data when the aim is to quantify density dependence between survival rate and abundance. We describe an analysis for a random effects model that includes a linear relationship between abundance and survival using an errors-in-variables regression estimator with analytical adjustment for approximate bias. The analysis is illustrated using data from short-tailed shearwaters banded for 48 consecutive years at Fisher Island, Tasmania, and Hutton's shearwater banded at Kaikoura, New Zealand for nine consecutive years. The Fisher Island data provided no evidence of a density dependence relationship between abundance and survival, and confidence interval widths rule out anything but small density dependent effects. The Hutton's shearwater data were equivocal with the analysis unable to rule out anything but a very strong density dependent relationship between survival and abundance.     

The tidal model. The healing potential of metaphor within a patient's narrative

1. The human experience of growth and development is a fluid phenomenon, occurring in small, barely visible changes. 2. The Tidal Model embraces a patient's expression of his or her experience by focusing on the lived experience of the narrative and its personally meaningful metaphors and symbols. 3. To re-empower a patient, the Tidal Model assessment is written in the patient's own voice and all care planning is conducted conjointly. 4. The Tidal Model was developed from empirical studies of the perceived need for nursing and the process of empowerment in clinical nursing practice.