Risk factors for preterm,low birthweight and small for gestational age births among Aboriginal women from remote communities in Northern Australia

Objective

To identify the risk factors for preterm birth, low birthweight and small for gestational age babies among remote-dwelling Aboriginal women.

Working in partnership: user perceptions of intensive home visiting

The aim of this study was to explore the perceptions of vulnerable women about the value of intensive home visiting in pregnancy and the first year of life delivered by health visitors trained to work in partnership with families. Twenty in‐depth interviews were conducted with women who had completed the home visiting programme and agreed to be interviewed. The data were fully transcribed and analysed thematically. Despite initial concerns and negative preconceptions about health and social service professionals, participating women greatly valued the relationships that were established with their home visitors and identified a number of ways in which they had benefited. These included increased confidence, improved mental health, better parenting, improved relationships and changes in their attitudes toward professionals. These findings demonstrate the potential of intensive home visiting delivered in partnership with mothers in reaching and helping vulnerable and ‘hard‐to‐reach’ families. They highlight the importance of establishing a trusting relationship between helper and provider, and the need for home visitors to have the necessary skills and qualities to establish such relationships. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Meeting Family Housing Needs: Experiences of Rural Women in the Midst of Welfare Reform

Though sometimes overlooked, the availability, affordability, and quality of housing in rural communities are a potential barrier to transitioning from welfare to work. In this investigation we examine housing issues confronting 17 rural women and their families who were recipients of welfare benefits in 1997. Respondents' housing accounts illustrate the significance of reliance on both government housing subsidies and informal subsidies supplied by friends, family, and more distant relatives. The study focuses on concerns women have in meeting their families shelter needs and the complexities involved in doing so. The findings of the research suggest that additional housing policy initiatives, as well as a targeted research agenda are needed, especially for families whose welfare benefits are nearing termination.     

Grey Advantage: New strategies for the old

With nearly one fifth of the population of the industrialized world soon to be beyond a traditional retirement age, businesses need to re-appraise their attitudes towards both older workers and older customers. Whilst some public and private sector organizations may have signalled such intentions, the gap between the rhetoric and reality of ‘third age’ employment and grey market development is still substantial. Analysing the ‘Age-Quake’, this article reviews current ageing population trends and associated business agendas. Using case study analysis, it then challenges three perceived ‘grey discontinuities’, as well as the traditional perception of simplistic step-change declines in physical and mental abilities and economic activity at the traditional retirement age. Deriving from this, the article challenges the older received wisdom by offering the individual assessment of ‘third-agers’ in terms of abilities as employees and tastes as customers as two generic strategies to assist managers in the strategic alignment of their organizations in pursuit of “grey advantage”.     

Beer and Tea: Harmony and Contradiction Among Two Unlikely Counterparts

This essay begins by examining the representations and interpretations of women and men in two sets of images: the Women's Institute Alternative Calendar and a television commercial for Guinness beer. Both of these compositions are exceptional in their own right, and have captured the imaginations of wide audiences. Taken together, the counterpointing of culture and nature, serenity and intensity, and feminine charm and virility creates a montage of images that both reflect and represent traditional forms of femininity and masculinity. This essay draws on a variety of sociological and interdisciplinary theoretical approaches, with an emphasis on the storied nature of lives, sexuality, and life change. C. Wright Mills declares that the sociological imagination is necessary in order to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society (Mills, 1959, p. 6). The author's aim in this essay, following through on Mills's idea, is to provide insight into the lives of earlier cohorts of women and a glimpse into how personal and social change comes about.     

Social exclusion in Europe: some conceptual issues

In the late 20th and early 21st century, social exclusion has become something of a trope around which is pegged justifications for various reforms. The notion of social exclusion has found its way into the lexicon of all major global governance institutions. How has this happened, and what are its implications for scholars of contemporary welfare reforms? In this article, we consider the ‘rise and rise’ of the discourse of social exclusion, with particular reference to its development as a policy paradigm within the European Union. We note that its initial iteration was anchored in a functionalist discourse of social organisation but that this was quickly challenged both by post‐structuralist and post‐colonial perspectives and by research findings that undermined the view of mainstream institutions as fundamentally integrative and inclusive in nature. The debate about social exclusion, we suggest, is simultaneously a debate about the historical and social dynamics of European modernity.     

Self-managed Supervision

The growth of professional supervision in social work has been accompanied by complex attempts to theorise key elements of supervisory practice and highlight the need to further examine what constitutes supervisory support in current regulatory environments. Changes in human service organisations resulting from new public management generate a need to theorise broader patterns of support available to human service workers. This article draws on an electronic, mixed-method self-reporting study of advice and support-seeking behaviours of 193 human service professionals in 3 South Australian organisations. The findings indicate the fluidity of current professional supervision practice, with workers seeking professional wisdom, identifying practice direction, and debriefing with a range of colleagues within and outside their organisation. Accordingly, the article confirms that supervisors should no longer be thought of as the sole providers of professional advice and support for human service workers and conceptualises the workers as active agents shaping their own learning.