Social Work - Theses

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    A comprehensive planning & evaluation framework for dual disability service systems: co-existing intellectual disability & mental illness
    O'Neal, Paul Douglas ( 2005)
    This thesis focuses upon those people who are disadvantaged through the coexistence of intellectual disability and mental illness. This group is among the most vulnerable in contemporary Australian society. The overall purpose of this research is to develop a comprehensive planning and evaluation framework for dual disability service systems. This framework will address the complex needs of people living with co-existing intellectual disability and mental illness through the development of a plausible service system model. The framework will identify the parameters, principles, boundaries, structures, components, and processes of an effective and quality DD service system. It is anticipated that the development of a service system model will provide the foundation for addressing consumer and carer needs in a comprehensive, coordinated, and systematic way.
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    The pursuit of aboriginal control of child welfare
    Freedman, Linda ( 1989)
    This is essentially a study of Aboriginal child welfare in Victoria today. However, from necessity it is more than this for the study cannot be undertaken without reference to the events and policies of the last 200 years. Nor can it be isolated from the range of issues confronting Aboriginal communities today including the realms of health and education as well as the broader community services arena. The theme of this study is Aboriginal community control, a call by Aboriginal people for an abandonment of past and present approaches by governments, and for the opportunity for Aboriginal people to determine their destinies in ways they wish. This call is particularly strong in the child welfare field where there has been a failure of governments, at both state and national levels, to address Aboriginal child welfare issues. Government rhetoric, both Commonwealth and Victorian, is about "self-determination". Aboriginal demands are for "community control". This study will be looking at the gap between government policies and practices, with the emphasis on the child welfare field, and between government policies and practices and Aboriginal demands. (From Introduction)
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    Family reunification : the journey home
    JACKSON, ANNETTE ( 1997-07)
    Within the child protection system, children are separated from their parents in different ways and for different reasons. Family reunification following these separations, similarly occurs in a variety of ways and is experienced differently by those involved. Through a qualitative design, this study gathered together a range of perspectives regarding the experiences, emotions and beliefs of those involved in family reunification. By interviewing parents, protective workers, caregivers, family support workers, family preservation workers, health workers and others, the researcher hoped to capture their wisdom and insight. Overall, 38 people were interviewed in relation to five examples of reunification. Key concepts and categories were derived from the interviews in conjunction with descriptions of the cases. The researcher then developed a pathways tool which documented the journeys travelled through the process of reunification. Although all the children in these examples of reunification returned to their parents’ care and were still there up to two years later, there were different opinions as to whether or not the reunification was successful, and what barriers hindered and what strategies led to success. The different definitions of success appeared to be greatly influenced by the participants’ assumptions and perspectives regarding the role of state intervention in the lives of families. The findings in this research included a broader understanding of the emotional reactions of parents, caregivers and workers. The enormous sense of loss and other strong emotions felt by parents were often experienced prior to the children being removed, as well as during the separation itself. This therefore challenged the concept of filial deprivation being limited to physical separation of children from their parents and subsequently raised a number of practice issues. Many of the workers and caregivers also described feelings of powerlessness, lack of control and being confronted with limited options. Some of the workers, however, spoke of reunification as a more positive and fulfilling experience than other aspects of their work, even though it involved significant risk and difficult decisions. The principles under lying reunification practice, as outlined in the literature, were evident in aspects of the cases to a varying extent. Opportunities for parents to be actively involved in their children’s placements ranged from no contact with the carer, to visiting almost every day and being actively involved in all decisions. There were some principles which were absent in all of the case examples, such as none of the children experienced continuity of care due to being in multiple placements. There were descriptions of several service models involved at different times and stages along the families’ pathway through reunification, including different reunification programs. There did not appear to be any clarity regarding when a family would be referred to one type of service compared to another. There was also discussion regarding the influence of universal services, such as schools, on the family members’ experience of being included or isolated in each other’s lives. Dilemmas and challenges which arose through reunification included those which were common to many fields in social work, such as clashes of values and beliefs and needing to make decisions between limited and inadequate options. Some of the complex issues particularly relating to reunification were the impact of the separation on children and parents, and the experience of being a ‘parentless child’ or a ‘childless parent’. This was an example of the meaning of an issue being subjective and as important as the factual information. Some of the practice issues which arose through this study included: discussion regarding operationalising permanency planning principles rather than focussing on a parents’ rights or children’s rights dichotomy; developing a partnership perspective with parents, caregivers and workers; the importance of planning and preparation before reunification; whether to celebrate the day of home return or plan it to be as uneventful as possible; and the support and services required following the children’s return home. There were also a number of recommendations made for future research which could further inform practice in working with children and their families through the process of reunification.
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    Professional aspirations and consumer expectations: nurses, midwives, and women's health
    GREHAN, MADONNA MAY ( 2009)
    This thesis undertakes a history of midwifery's present in the arena of Victoria, Australia. It asks: what lies behind midwifery's aspiration to differentiate itself as a profession, separate and distinct from nursing? The thesis applies contemporary and historical inquiry in two parts. In Part I, the contemporary arm, a review of discourses and policies was combined with individual (n=22) and group interviews (n=4) to discover the perspectives of nurses, midwives, consumers, and others, on midwifery's separation from nursing via its professionalising process. In the larger arm, Part II, midwifery's and nursing's historical and professional trajectories in Victoria were mapped from European settlement in the 1840s through to the present. This was achieved by detailed examination of a range of primary sources, including records of the Melbourne Women's Hospital, the Victorian parliament and its delegated authorities, and professional associations. The Foucauldian concept of government frames this interpretation of women's health care history. Government encompasses the themes of regulation and expertise, both of which are key elements in claiming status as a profession, and are argued here to be central in nursing's and midwifery's history. Because tensions over the status of pregnancy and birth as health states or potential illness states are longstanding, the concepts of health and illness also inform this inquiry. Midwifery's history is shown to be a contingent and complex history, intricately intertwined with that of nursing since the earliest days of settler society. Throughout 170 years of history following European settlement in Victoria, two themes dominate the provision of care to women, and the roles of midwives and nurses in that care. The primary theme is the safety of women. An interconnected theme is the politics of women's health, that is, the politics of delivering safety. Stemming from concerns about women's safety and how to achieve it, the arena of women's health care and the roles of midwives and nurses within it is characterised by a perennial cycle of seemingly intractable issues. These issues include: questions about who should practice midwifery/maternity care, under what conditions, what education and training is required for the role, perceived disparities between city and rural services, consumer choice, autonomy, and the cost of services. While the context in which these perennial problems are played out has changed considerably over time, and while the meaning of safety has shifted over time, the issues, themselves, have remained consistent. These intractable issues are a permanent feature of the women's health care arena. Over the 170 years of history examined here, they have not been resolved by the formation or reframing of professional identities, by the reconfiguration of education pathways, or by new models of care. Thus, the promise of a reformed maternity care service for the betterment of all women may not be achieved by midwifery's separation from nursing. In the Victorian setting, midwifery has had, and continues to have, much in common with nursing. A grasp of these historically-enduring commonalities confirms that there may be a lot to lose by midwifery's separation from nursing.
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    Reflecting on decision-making in child protection practice
    Clark, Robin ( 1988)
    The aim of the study was primarily to inform the protective services field by examining the nature of decision-making in protective intervention work, its unique features, its successes and failures. I shall argue that child protection services cannot be seen in isolation from the wider community services field of which they are a part. In addition, the discussion to follow will highlight the significant influence brought to bear on the child protection worker by those other workers in the child welfare field with whom there is constant interaction. On that basis, questions will be raised about the way in which we locate responsibility for the protection of children with one group in the community, namely the child protection services' workers.
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    A case study in the practice of social intervention: government intervention in Aboriginal affairs (Victoria) 1834-1972
    Boas, Phillip J. ( 1975)
    The study is of the social intervention programmes undertaken by government in the State of Victoria with respect to the original inhabitants of that territory, the Aborigines. The study describes selectively and briefly some early programmes from 1834 to 1957 noting the existence of value conflicts, the resulting dilemmas and the compromises which ultimately produced these programmes. It is argued that these programmes were at best only partially successful in resolving some of the dilemmas, and in so doing created new ones for the future. It is also argued that they were programmes not aimed at resolving the problems in social functioning which existed for the Aborigines but were designed to effect social control, the goal sought being the conversion of the Aborigines from their way to the European one. In 1957 the fragmentary residual administration could no longer cope with the problem and pressure groups forced a government enquiry subsequently referred to as the McLean report. As a result the Aborigines Welfare Board was established. The study examines in considerable detail the policy and programmes of this administration through selective use of a wide range of qualitative and quantitative processes, and it is argued that for such a study the data must relate to the problem. Some of the categories of data include the historical record, government files, public comment in the press, parliamentary debate, economic, statistical and demographic records. It is noted that the focus of this administration shifts to the individual Aboriginal person and family and expresses primary concern in resolving their problems of social functioning. For the first time professional social workers are employed. As an effective broad aim intervention programme the Aborigines Welfare Board programme suffered from a number of significant flaws, however, it recognised its inability to come to grips with the dimensions of the task as it had come to perceive them and took steps which led to new legislation in 1967. The study then makes an analysis, comparing and contrasting the Aborigines Welfare Board and the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs administrations and draws a limited number of conclusions in the form of hypotheses about broad-spectrum social intervention programmes. The total thus forms a case study in the practice of social intervention with more intensive study of the period 1957-72.
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    Gendered 'gerrymanders': a study of women candidates in the 1997 Victorian local government elections
    Cumberland, Rhonda ( 2000)
    Women’s political citizenship, particularly the right to represent locally is under a cloud since the Victorian council amalgamations of 1997. No longer is local government ‘the home’ of women’s representation. A reputation it earned when more women were elected to local government than State or Federal parliaments. Women’s local representation in percentage terms has failed to show increases like those recorded at State and Federal levels. This study describes the demographic characteristics of the 1997 local government women candidates and their policy issues. The candidates were identified as family women as most were married with children. Family and friends were also the main sources of candidate support. Two thirds of candidates worked either part-time or were not in the paid workforce at all, although most were highly educated. This could be explained by the age of the candidates which was late forties to early fifties. Only 9 per cent of candidates were of non-English speaking backgrounds. The candidates had strong backgrounds in community organisations, but organisations of all kinds including political parties were not supportive of women candidates. Most candidates supported the goals of the women’s movement, and wanted to be elected to local government in order to ‘bring back local democracy’ and to improve services. The experience of women candidates in the 1997 local government elections illustrates the need to develop a gendered theory of women’s participation in the so called ‘public sphere’. These women were in general disconnected from publicly defined power, such as high income networks. It might be useful to describe them as ‘privately empowered’. Women maximised the power of their private identities and relationships to transpose the barrier of public powerlessness. While ‘privately empowered’ election campaigns are not likely to reward women with equal political representation, they do illustrate the inextinguishable intentions of women to pursue legitimacy in the public sphere. Neat borders do not surround the public and private spheres. This finding needs to be considered in future analyses of public/private theory. Just like the pioneering women earlier this century, women enter local elections as independent candidates. The goal of equal and diverse representation appears more remote since collapsing 210 councils into 78 giving political gatekeepers permission to recreate so called ‘local democracy’ only in their image.