A journey of embedding mental health lived experience in social work education

Abstract

The value of learning from mental health lived experience is widely acknowledged, however, the nature of lived experience involvement in Australian social work education seldom extends beyond guest lecturing. Further, few opportunities exist that build the capacity of people with lived experience to become educators within tertiary settings. In this paper we present the Valuing Lived Experience Project (VLEP), an initiative led by a Lived Experience Academic (LEA) that seeks to systematically and meaningfully embed lived experience into the social work curriculum at a Western Australian university by providing significant opportunities for the capacity building of both individuals with mental health lived experience and academics. Given the relative infancy of service user involvement in Australian social work education, the VLEP offers a number of opportunities for reflection and consideration. A long-standing partnership between a LEA and Social Work Academic is described, the activities and key learnings of the VLEP to date are outlined, and we offer our reflections on challenges encountered throughout the journey. We hope that our experiences and learnings can be drawn upon to progress lived experience participation in tertiary settings and further legitimise lived experience involvement in the education of social workers.     

Critical autism studies: exploring epistemic dialogues and intersections,challenging dominant understandings of autism

In this paper we explore how our cultural contexts give rise to different kinds of knowledges of autism and examine how they are articulated, gain currency, and form the basis for policy, practice and political movements. We outline key tensions for the development of critical autism studies as an international, critical abilities approach. Our aim is not to offer a cross-cultural account of autism or to assume a coherence or universality of ‘autism’ as a singular diagnostic category/reality. Rather, we map the ways in which what is experienced and understood as autism, plays out in different cultural contexts, drawing on the notion of ‘epistemic communities’ to explore shifts in knowledge about autism, including concepts such as ‘neurodiversity’, and how these travel through cultural spaces. The paper explores two key epistemic tensions; the dominance of ‘neuro culture’ and dominant constructions of personhood and what it means to be human.     

The militarisation of English schools: Troops to Teaching and the implications for Initial Teacher Education and race equality

This article considers the implications of the Troops to Teaching (TtT) programme, to be introduced in England in autumn 2013, for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and race equality. TtT will fast-track ex-armed service members to teach in schools, without necessarily the requirement of a university degree. Employing theories of white supremacy, and Althusser’s (1971 Althusser, Louis. 1971. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, edited by, Althusser Louis, New York: Monthly Review Press. Accessed September 10. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm [Google Scholar]) concept of Ideological and Repressive State Apparatus, I argue that this initiative both stems from, and contributes to, a system of social privilege and oppression in education. Despite appearing to be aimed at all young people, the planned TtT initiative is actually aimed at poor and racially subordinated youth. This is likely to further entrench polarisation in a system which already provides two tier educational provision: TtT will be a programme for the inner-city disadvantaged, whilst wealthier, whiter schools will mostly continue to get highly qualified teachers. Moreover, TtT contributes to a wider devaluing of current ITE; ITE itself is rendered virtually irrelevant, as it seems TtT teachers will not be subject specialists, rather will be expected to provide military-style discipline, the skills for which they will be expected to bring with them. More sinister, I argue that TtT is part of the wider militarisation of education. This military-industrial-education complex seeks to contain and police young people who are marginalised along lines of race and class, and contributes to a wider move to increase ideological support for foreign wars - both aims ultimately in the service of neoliberal objectives which will feed social inequalities.     

Weekend Work and Leisure Time With Family and Friends: Who Misses Out?

The authors explored links between weekend work and leisure time shared with partners, children, other resident/nonresident family, and friends, using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 2006. Drawing a sample of employed persons (n = 3,903), they tested associations between weekend work and shared leisure time on the day of work and to see whether shared leisure time is made up on other days over the following week. Analyses were stratified by three family types: (a) couples without children, (b) couples with children, and (c) singles without children. For all groups, weekend work was associated with significantly less shared leisure time on days worked. Some weekend workers (e.g., part‐time employees, men) recouped some shared leisure time (notably with friends) over the following week, but most did not. Indeed, for some forms of shared leisure—most importantly, with partners and children—there were further negative associations on weekdays.     

Organizational Responses to Contending Institutional Logics: The Moderating Effect of Group Dynamics

This paper advances knowledge on how the forms of institutional logics that emerge and become venerated among members of a singular organization in a heterogeneous field are influenced by struggles between contending interest groups. It examines the moderating effect of group dynamics that occur when an organization attempts to balance novel institutional complexity within organizational bounds through its hiring and promotion systems. The authors argue that, while the specific institutional oppositions of heterogeneous fields compel organizational changes, the institutional forms that emerge and become legitimate among members of an organization in such fields are the effects of indeterminate social processes of regularization and breaking of coexisting logics. The paper provides insights into how the negotiations among groups of organizational actors over the process and outcome of institutional change are influenced by asymmetric power relationships yet significantly mediated by their social strategies. The findings reported are from an ethnography of the enactment of institutional changes at a South Korean credit card company following the economic crisis in 1997 and the International Monetary Fund bailout programme.     

Do trees flower longer in the city? A comparison of flowering eucalyptus trees in streets,remnants and continuous forest and their association with nectarivorous birds

Human-dominated environments are often subjected to increased nutrient and moisture regimes which have the potential to influence the flowering phenology of plants. Protracted flowering periods within urban landscapes may result in increased food resources, in the form of nectar, and this high resource availability may support a high density of nectarivorous birds within cities. In order to determine whether there was a difference in the productivity and flowering period associated with urbanisation, we compared the number of flowers produced and duration of flowering period for three species of native tree that were present in streetscapes, remnant vegetation and continuous forest. We also recorded the presence of nectarivorous parrots at flowering trees to determine if the presence of nectarivores was associated with flower productivity. All three species in streetscapes produced more flowers and flowered for longer than in remnants and continuous forest. The number of flowers per tree significantly predicted the presence of nectarivorous parrots in streetscapes. This study demonstrates that the flowering phenology of plants within streetscapes can differ from continuous forest, with remnants appearing to be intermediate. This increased flower productivity within urban landscapes may be partially responsible for the high abundance of nectarivorous parrots within some cities.     

History,The City and The Interactionist: Anselm Strauss,City Imagery,and Urban Sociology

My goal in what follows is to explore some of the questions, analyses and insights that a scholar, equipped with a sense of history and the sensitivity of an interactionist, might bring to the study of the city. But before I begin that task, I want to spend a little time laying some ground- work. I want to introduce my readers to (or remind them of) two snippets of sociological history: the first snippet has to do with the place-more accurately, the lack of place-of the interactionist perspective within the field of urban sociology; the second deals with the unique contributions of one of the few interactionists to work urban sociology: Anselm Strauss.