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.     

Pathways from Casual Employment to Economic Security: the Australian Experience

Casual employment is extensive and has been increasing for more than two decades in Australia. The concept of casual employment used in the Australian context is unusual, but it is directly linked to benefit and rights exclusion within the regulatory framework governing employment. The expansion in casual employment has spread across all sectors, industries and occupations. Casual employment is associated with various forms of insecurity including income and employment insecurity. There are a number of ways in which the insecurity associated with casual employment could be reduced.

Is poverty multidimensional? A comparison of income and asset based measures in five Southern African countries.

This paper contests the major emphasis placed on the multidimensional nature of poverty measurement. Instead, it argues that poverty pictures created by different measures and at different units of analysis tend to converge. This argument is derived from a comparison of poverty pictures created using income and asset-based measures at the national and household level in five South African Development Community countries. Although multidimensional measures have value in illuminating subtle differences, the findings indicate a single dimension of poverty that runs throughout all the measures and levels of analysis. However, despite the single poverty picture provided by different measures, the abandonment of these different measures is not supported. Multidimensional measures provide insight into particular elements of poverty that is useful and relevant to poverty interventions.     

Maternal Reminiscing Style and Children’s Developing Understanding of Self and Emotion

Individual differences in how mothers structure reminiscing about shared past experiences with their preschool children are related to children’s developing autobiographical memory skills and understanding of self and emotion. More specifically, mothers who engage in highly elaborative reminiscing have children who come to tell more coherent and emotionally expressive autobiographical narratives, and these children also show better understanding of self and are better able to regulate emotion than children of less elaborative mothers. This body of research is reviewed and relations between maternal reminiscing style and children’s developing self and emotional understanding are explicated. This paper was written while the first author was a senior fellow in the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University, sponsored by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pew Charitable trusts.     

The collaborative push: moving beyond rhetoric and gaining evidence

Collaboration has been enacted as a core strategy by both the government and nongovernment sectors to address many of the intractable issues confronting contemporary society. The cult of collaboration has become so pervasive that it is now an elastic term referring generally to any form of ‘working together’. The lack of specificity about collaboration and its practice means that it risks being reduced to mere rhetoric without sustained practice or action. Drawing on an extensive data set (qualitative, quantitative) of broadly collaborative endeavours gathered over 10 years in Queensland, Australia, this paper aims to fill out the black box of collaboration. Specifically it examines the drivers for collaboration, dominant structures and mechanisms adopted, what has worked and unintended consequences. In particular it investigates the skills and competencies required in an embedded collaborative endeavour within and across organisations. Social network analysis is applied to isolate the structural properties of collaborations over other forms of integration as well as highlighting key roles and tasks. Collaboration is found to be a distinctive form of working together, characterised by intense and interdependent relationships and exchanges, higher levels of cohesion (density) and requiring new ways of behaving, working, managing and leading. These elements are configured into a practice framework. Developing an empirical evidence base for collaboration structure, practice and strategy provides a useful foundation for theory extension. The paper concludes that for collaboration, to be successfully employed as a management strategy it must move beyond rhetoric and develop a coherent model for action.     

Abstinence and Relapse Rates Following a College Campus-Based Quit & Win Contest

Abstract

Objective: To conduct and evaluate Quit & Win contests at 2 2-year college and 2 4-year university campuses. Participants: During Spring semester, 2006, undergraduates (N = 588) interested in quitting smoking signed up for a Quit & Win 30-day cessation contest for a chance to win a lottery prize. Methods: Participants (N = 588) completed a baseline survey, provided a urine sample to verify smoking status before joining the contest, and completed a follow-up survey at contest end to assess abstinence. Participants reporting continuous 30-day abstinence were surveyed again 2 weeks post contest to assess relapse. Results: Participants smoked an average of 9.8 ± 6.7 cigarettes/day on 26.7 ± 5.7 days/month. Among participants completing a follow-up survey (74%), 72.1% reported abstinence during the entire contest period (Intent-to-Treat Analysis = 53.2%). 55.3% of those abstinent at the end of contest had resumed smoking 2 weeks post contest. Conclusions: Campus Quit & Win contests appear feasible, acceptable, and effective at facilitating short-term abstinence. Further research is needed to identify strategies to prevent postcontest relapse.     

Gambling Revenues as a Public Administration Issue: Electronic Gaming Machines in Victoria

Gambling activities and the revenues derived have been seen as a way to increase economic development in deprived areas. There are also, however, concerns about the effects of gambling in general and electronic gaming machines (EGMs) in particular, on the resources available to the localities in which they are situated. This paper focuses on the factors that determine the extent and spending of community benefit-related EGM-generated resources within Victoria, Australia, focusing in particular on the relationships between EGM activity and socio-economic and social capital indicators, and how this relates to the community benefit resources generated by gaming.     

A usable body: coaxing the body into and out of captivity at the museum

The visual logic of ‘black’ identity as a social and historical fact is presented at museums depicting the transformation of enslaved Africans to racial citizens. I focus on the work of the body in narrating this transition at a black history museum: the historical object on display – the captive African and later the US citizen – and the imagined visitor moving through the physical space of the museum. I consider the visual treatment of the enslaved body in captivity as broken, bowed, beaten and often nude in contrast to the post-abolition period when the body is positioned as erect, individuated, self-possessed and always clothed. I also discuss how the imagined visitor’s body is oriented both to the narratives on display and to the built environment of the museum itself.