SafetiPin: an innovative mobile app to collect data on women's safety in Indian cities

Women's safety is a key concern of governments and civil society today. In India, the issue has become prominent in the wake of the gang rape and murder in 2012. One of the key elements in addressing the lack of safety in cities is identifying the causes. SafetiPin, a mobile app, is one tool that has been developed to collect data on safety in cities. Building on the international methodology of safety audits, SafetiPin has transformed it into a mobile app that crowd sources data and information on insecurity in cities. Using SafetiPin, data have been collected in seven Indian cities. This article examines some of the data to understand what factors lead to lack of safety and insecurity in cities, and discusses future plans for the project.     

Building research capacity for social work practitioners: a regional perspective

This article explores the research experiences, interests and capacity of social work professionals working as frontline workers and managers in human service organizations in regional South Australia. It also draws attention to social work practice issues requiring further investigation as identified by these professionals. The research data for this paper were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data provided evidence to show the extent of research interests among social work practitioners in the region. Qualitative data added depth to the findings by identifying social work practice issues as described by research participants. The study revealed that few participants had any research experience; however, the majority felt the need to undertake research, expressed interest in research training and a desire to be involved in research projects. These findings have implications for higher education providers in the social work discipline. They draw attention to the importance of better preparing students for research in practice, and also for schools of social work to actively engage in building research capacity and output in regional Australia.

Abbreviations: Frontline social work professionals (FLSWP); The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)     

Making Continuing Professional Development Relevant and Accessible in Regional Social Work

ABSTRACT

Continuing professional development (CPD) is an integral component of quality social work practice (Australian Association of Social Workers, 2013). Despite this, there is a lack of knowledge around the perceived needs and challenges of accessing CPD for rural and regional social work practitioners. This research explored professional development education needs and challenges for rural social work practitioners. The findings revealed an increase in complex cases in practice leading to the need for more training in mental health, legal aspects, and therapeutic interventions. Strong demand for CPD was evident, with a preference for face-to-face training instead of online modules. In the face of persistent challenges some innovative solutions were possible from a partnership between service providers, higher education providers, and the professional body to better meet the needs of the rural social work practitioners.

IMPLICATIONS

• Increasing complexity in rural, regional, and remote social work practice has placed extra demands on the knowledge resources of social workers.

• Continuing professional development (CPD) must be relevant and readily accessible to meet the needs of those who practice in these areas.

• Partnerships between agencies, higher education providers, and professional bodies, along with the use of technology can increase accessibility for rural, regional, and remote social workers.

     

Linear. empirical bayes estimation in the case of the wishart distribution

We consider independent pairs (X₁,∑₁), (X₂,∑₂),…,(X_n∑_n), where each Si is distributed according to some unknown density function g(∑) and, given ∑_i = ∑, X has a conditional density function g(x|∑) of the Wishart type. In each pair, the first component is observable but the second is not. After the (n + l)-th observation X_n+i is obtained, the objective is to estimate ∑ _n+i corresponding to X_n+i. This estimator is called an empirical Bayes (EB) estimator of ∑. We construct a linear EB estimator of ∑ and examine its precision.     

Teaching pedagogies enhancing social work students’ perceptions and attitudes toward older age in an undergraduate course on working with older people

Approximately threefold increases in older age population groups (+65 years) are projected in the next 15 years. Demographic changes in society will mean greater numbers of older adults in proportion to the younger generation. In the current policy on older age groups, emphasis is placed on healthy aging warranting a multidisciplinary workforce to work with older people. Despite this need and increased demand in the aged care sector, a fewer social work students are willing to undertake aged care placements or to choose it as a career option.

An innovative teaching and learning pedagogy was used in designing the course curriculum titled ‘Social Work with Older People’, including the input of invited specialist guest speakers, an on-campus interactive workshop with older guests, and an assessment designed to evaluate the learning related to the workshop content. The paper reports changes in the attitudes of students studying gerontological social work after the course delivery, evaluated through an online survey with the purpose of improving the learning outcomes in the course and to gauge students’ interest, experiences, attitudes and motivation to work in the aged care sector. The paper contributes to building knowledge in addressing the needs of the changing social demographic.     

Book Reviews

Indonesia: the making of a culture. James J. Fox (ed.). 286pp, maps, figures, tables, bibliographies. (Vol. 1 in Indonesia: Australian Perspectives. James J. Fox, Ross Garnaut, Peter McCawley, J.A.C. Mackie (eds).) Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. 1980. $10.

Mekeo: inequality and ambivalence in a village society. Epeli Hau’ofa. x, 3 39pp., maps, figures, tables, plates, appendices, glossary, bibliography, index. Canberra: Australian National University Press. 1981. $19.50.

Tribal communities in rural areas. Elspeth Young, xxiii, 230pp., maps, figures, tables, bibliography. (The Aboriginal Component in the Australian Economy, no. 1.) Canberra: Development Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. 1981. $9.

Women in India and Nepal. Michael Allen and S.N. Mukerjee (eds). xiii, 286pp., figures, bibliographies, index. Canberra: The Australian National University (Monographs on South Asia no. 8). 1982. $10.     

Testing Homogeneity of Gini Indices Against Simple-Ordered Alternative

Gini index is one of the most popular indices employed for measuring inequality in income and wealth. In this article, we propose a multi-sample test for testing Gini indices against simple-ordered alternatives. The exact critical points through simulation were computed for the proposed test in case of two-parameter exponential distribution; however, the proposed test can be applied even in case of other distributions like Pareto, Weibull, etc. Construction of simultaneous one-sided confidence intervals (SOCIs) was proposed along with an illustration. Power of the test is computed and some power comparisons are also made.     

A TEST FOR THE NONPARAMETRIC TWO SAMPLE SCALE PROBLEM

We propose a distribution-free test for the nonparametric two sample scale problem. Unlike the other tests for this problem, we do not assume that the two distribution functions have a common median. We assume that they have a common quantile of order a (not necessarily 1/2). The test statistic is a modification of the Sukhatme statistic for the scale problem and the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney statistic for stochastic dominance. It is shown that the new test is uniformly more efficient (in the Pitman sense) than the Sukhatme test and has very good efficiency when compared to the Mood test.     

Re-centring ‘Race’ in Development: Population Policies and Global Capital Accumulation in the Era of the SDGs

Abstract

This article argues that contrary to some recent theorizing of contemporary development interventions, ideologies of race and discursive and material processes of racialization remain central to development and are embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals. This is explored through an examination of current population policies, and in particular the ‘global family planning strategy’ initiated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with the British government. Population concerns are now routinely invoked in the context of neo-Malthusian discourses which relate migration, climate change, and conflict. This article argues however that contemporary population policies represent more than a discursive smokescreen for the destructive impacts of global capital accumulation—they are in fact deeply enmeshed in strategies for its expansion. As such, they rely upon embodied coercion and violence which is racialized and gendered, even as they invoke narratives of reproductive rights and choices.