Industry Partnerships
Water in Drylands: A Wimmera-Mallee based Collaborative Research Program
Project Outline
The Water in Drylands Collaborative Research Program will advance and apply knowledge to improve the social, environmental and economic sustainability of dryland rural regions. It aims to contribute to a positive future for regional areas, specifically dryland agricultural regions in Australia by identifying and optimizing opportunities that arise from the availability of quality, reliable water. The research program addresses issues facing regional communities regarding the processes and the impact of the availability of quality, reliable water. The issues include:
- balancing the competing demands for water;
- optimizing and fostering change in the context of major infrastructure projects;
- effective community participation and sustainable population growth;
- attracting investment and the sustainable use of resources for economic development; and
- improving biodiversity and building environmental sustainability.
The research program is the initiative of a group of peak organisations in the Wimmera Mallee Region and the University of Ballarat. It focuses on short, medium and long term projects that will have a significant impact on shaping the region. The individual projects actively engage local organisations and personnel, building up community capacity through the research.
The Research Program encompasses four areas
- Restoration of Dryland Ecology, Ephemeral Waterways and Wetlands
- Industry and Investment in Dryland Economies
- Building Vibrant Regional Communities
- Initiating and Facilitating Large Regional Infrastructure Projects
The Program involves mainly large scale research conducted by teams over the short, medium and long term. The research is multidisciplinary, bringing together the diverse skills and knowledge of many disciplines to achieve solutions to complex, inter-related issues. The research calls upon the knowledge and expertise of the regional community to ensure a sound understanding of the issue, the identification of practical solutions, and the utilization of the research.
As well as local organizations and personnel actively working alongside researchers, regional personnel will be targeted to take up one third of the Post Graduate Research Scholarships. Both of these approaches are a strategy for the development and retention of community capacity within the region.
The research projects will be based at the Horsham campus of the University of Ballarat, with additional research infrastructure support provided from the Mt Helen campus of the University of Ballarat.
Ballarat Health Services
Lifeline
Project Title: Utilising Telephone Counselling Data as a Source of Social Indicators: A Lifeline to Social Support?
Supervisor: Associate Professor John McDonald
PhD Student Investigator: Rob Watson
Project Status: Completed
Industry Partner: Life Line Ballarat
http://www.lifeline.org.au/ballarat/about.php
Abstract:
It has been proposed that telephone counselling and referral data may provide a source of health information and potential social indicators. Social indicators measure progress, they can assist to engage community members in a dialogue about the future, and can help change community outcomes. Lifeline Australia Inc provides a telephone counselling and referral service to all Australians through the operation of more than 40 national member call centres. The service received more than 400,000 calls in the past year, which where answered by its trained volunteer counsellors. The telephone counsellors of the service record information on many of these calls in Lifeline’s Client Service Management Information System (CSMIS). The aim of this research was to examine the potential for data from Lifeline, as an example of a generalist telephone counselling and referral service, to be used for social indicator construction.
A call rate indicator for small-areas called was able to be produced from Lifeline Telstra data. This indicator was named the Lifeline Indicator of Social Need (LISN). The LISN was claimed to indicate an areas expressed need for social support and identify areas were other sources of social support may be lacking. As hypothesised, this indicator showed an association with the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia, and suicide rates. It would seem that the LISN is a potentially valid and objective indicator that can produce a rapid and low-cost measure of an areas expressed need for social support. The CSMIS data set was also described and analysed by the project. The CSMIS data set provided great insight into the calls received by the service and provided support for the construct validity of the LISN. The CSMIS analysis indicted that there were few differences between metropolitan and non-metropolitan use of the service. Reliability problems with the CSMIS data set were identified, particularly relating to the identification of the geographic location of a call, that mean it is a present not an ideal source of data for social indicator production. However, impending changes to the way such data is gathered by the service may mean that this comprehensive data source could be utilised for social indicators in the future.
Publications and Conferences:
October 1st 2004 – Presented paper at the 39th APS Annual Conference titled “Regional differentials in expressed needs for psychosocial assistance: Geospatial analysis of calls to Lifeline”;
November 3rd 2004 – Presented referred paper at University of Ballarat Annual research conference titled “An exploration of national calls to Lifeline Australia and their relationship with social isolation and social support”;
November 10th 2004 – Presented paper at the Lifeline Australia Convention 2004 titled “Lifeline in rural areas”;
December 9th 2004 – Presented referred paper at The Australian Sociological Association Conference titled “Areal call rates to a rural Lifeline centre”; and
March 10th 2005 – Presented referred paper at the 8th National Rural Health Alliance Conference titled “8th National Rural Health Alliance Conference”.
Child and Family Services
Project Title: The effects of maternal attachment, marital satisfaction and sensitivity to infants on infants attachment and adjustment: A longitudinal-structural equation study.
Industry Partner: Child and Family Services Ballarat www.cafs.org.au
Principal Investigators: Associate Professor Rapson Gomez
PhD Student Investigator: Patricia Reed
Project Status: Current (2004 - 2007)
Grant Title: Australian Research Council Linkage Project
Project Summary: This study will examine how family and attachment factors effect the adjustment of infants at 24 months of age. A longitudinal study, using structural equation methods, will examine how maternal attachment and marital satisfaction when infants are 4 months of age will effect maternal parenting behaviours two months later, and how all three of these measures will effect infant attachment 6 months later. It will then examine how all four of these measures will effect the adjustment of infants 12 months later. The study will have important implications for early intervention and prevention of psychological problems in infants and children.
Ballarat and District Division of General Practice; Beaufort and Skipton Health Service
Project Title: Enabling change for women in rural general practice: Beyond the boundary fence of ‘fitting in’ and towards an enabling culture
Supervisors: Associate Professor John McDonald and Dr Janet Hall
PhD Student Investigator: Imogen Schwarz
Project Status: Completed
Grant Title: Australian Research Council Linkage Project
Industry Partners: Ballarat and District Division of General Practice http://www.bddgp.org.au/ ; Beaufort & Skipton Health Service (Beaufort Campus) Havelock Street, Beaufort.
Aims: The overarching aim of this project is to contribute to the recruitment and retention of female general practitioners in rural areas of Australia. The focus of this research is on how rural medicine is changing to accommodate the needs, interests, ideologies and practice styles of female GPs. More specifically, the research investigates how women are positioned as agents of change at the organizational (as activists) and individual level (as GPs) of the male dominated culture of rural general practice.
Questions: What strategies are women activists (including researchers, bureaucrats, educationists, general practitioners, and managers) using to pressure for change? What gains have been made and what sources of resistance are they encountering?
In what ways are rural female GPs contesting the traditional model of rural practice - defined as a full-time, always-available, procedurally skilled doctor with a supporting spouse - and carving out work structures that suit their practice style and life circumstances?
Methodology: A feminist qualitative design guided the research study which involved: in-depth interviews with seventeen women activists and thirteen rural women GPs from Australia; a grounded theory approach to analyse transcribed interviews; the development of codes and categories around the emerging central variable of ‘enabling change’; and interpretation of the findings through a feminist-poststructural lens.
Preliminary findings: illustrate how male exclusionary practices towards change are played out through the ‘male as norm’ ideology which maintains that female doctors are ‘the problem.’ Consequently marginal adjustments are being made to accommodate their needs. Activist stories emphasise the individual and collective tactics women use to claim legitimacy and build momentum for change. Through this change process they are articulating a woman-defined discourse in rural general practice. Results reveal that women’s working life, as rural GPs, is constructed by powerful discourses which position women in highly contradictory ways. However beyond the struggle of ‘fitting in,’ women have found space to create new meanings and work structures and furthermore aspects of the rural context in which they live and work are integral to the evolution of this enabling culture.
Publications:
Schwarz, I. and McDonald J. (2004). ‘Patriarchy and Resistance to Change in Rural General Practice: Progress by Female Activists in Revisioning a Male Institution’ in TASA 2004 Conference Proceedings, K. Richmond (ed), Latrobe University December 2004
Schwarz, I. (2003). ‘The agenda for change among female rural general practitioners’ in 7th National Rural Health Conference: The Art and Science of Health Community, 1-4 March 2003, Hotel Grand Chancellor, Hobart. On CD: Rural and Remote Health Papers 1991-2003, National Rural Health Alliance Inc. On NRHA website: http://www.ruralhealth.org.au/nrhapublic/Index.cfm?Category=ConferencePast
Presentations:
Schwarz, I. and McDonald J. (2004). ‘Patriarchy and resistance to change in rural general practice: progress by female activists in revisioning a male institution’ at The Annual Conference of The Australian Sociological Association: Revisioning Institutions: Change in the 21st Century, 8-11 December 2004, La Trobe University, Beechworth Campus, Beechworth
Schwarz, I. (2004). ‘Shut the Gate! How ideological and cultural closure of medicine continues to limit opportunities for female rural GPs’ at University of Ballarat Annual Research Conference 2004: Regional Research – Connecting the Local with the Global, 3 November 2004, Geoffrey Blainey Auditorium, Mt Helen Campus, Mt Helen
Schwarz, I. (2003).‘The agenda for change among female rural general practitioners’ at 7th National Rural Health Conference: The Art and Science of Health Community, 1-4 March 2003, Hotel Grand Chancellor, Hobart.
Schwarz, I. (2003). ‘Crafting strategies of change: The experience of women key activists in rural general practice,’ at Institute for Regional and Rural Research Forum, 17 April 2003 Mt Helen Campus, University of Ballarat.
Schwarz, I. (2002). ‘Women in the front of the outback: Inside out change needed for rural medicine’ at University of Ballarat Annual Research Conference: ‘Breaking New Ground: Regional Research Partnerships’, 6th November 2002, Mt Helen Campus, University of Ballarat
Disability Discrimination Legal Service
Project Title: (Dis)abling Reports: Mapping uptake, progress and outcomes of police reports of sexual assault made by those with a cognitive impairment.
Principal Investigator: Dr Caroline Taylor
PhD Student Investigator: Margaret Camilleri
Project Status: Current (2005 – 2008)
Grant Title: Australian Research Council Linkage Project
Project Summary: This project examines reporting outcomes of police reports of sexual assault by people with a cognitive impairment. This group is more vulnerable to sexual offences yet less likely to have the report progress completely through the investigative pathways of the police. There exist no studies identifying the decision-making police use when determining the progress of reports. Decisions as to whether a report proceeds or exits the justice system are documented and contained in a restricted police data system. Analysing this data will generate a framework around the decision making applied and map the progress and exit stages of these reports.
Industry Partner: Disability Discrimination Legal Service: an independent community based legal service offering legal assistance and educator in the area of disability discrimination.
www.ddls.org.au
Box Hill & Cabrini Hospitals
Project Title: Investigating community partnerships in the context of complex health service delivery.
Principal Investigator: Prof Sally Wellard
PhD Student Investigator: Wendy Penney
Project Status: Completed
Grant Title: Australian Research Council Linkage Project
Project Summary:
Whilst increased consumer participation has been demonstrated to improve health outcomes, there has been no translation of this benefit to people with chronic illness using acute care services. People with chronic conditions represent an increasing propotion of health care consumers and due to the existence of co-morbidities their needs are usually complex. Depsite this, they have been marginalised in the current development of participatory models of service delivery. This project will investigate the determinants of participation for consumers during episodes of acute health care and identify barriers to their participation. This work will develop testable strategies for increasing effective consumer particiaption in acute health care services.
Industry Partners: Box Hill and Cabrini Hospitals.
Ballarat Health Services; Child and Family Services (Ballarat);
Grampians Community Health Centre; Wimmera Uniting Care
Project Title: Too Close for Comfort?…The adoption and management of personal and professional roles in rural health and welfare practice
Principal Investigators: Assoc Prof Rosemary Green and Dr Suzanne McLaren
PhD Student Investigator: Raeleene Gregory
Project Status: Completed
Grant Title: Australian Research Council Linkage Project
Project Summary:
The rural health and welfare literature includes work on the provision of services in rural and remote settings, the challenges of addressing community needs, and issues of the funding and staffing of service provision agencies. Rural sociology addresses the social, political and economic factors impinging on Australian rural life. What is missing from the discussion is extensive exploration of practitioner experience – the voices of the workers go largely unheard.
Over the past five years, researchers at the University of Ballarat have been undertaking projects focussing on these issues. A number of conference papers and journal articles have been published addressing issues such as safety for workers and their families, the challenges of confidentiality in rural areas, and the realities of rural and remote practice in the Australian context. These projects contribute to our understanding of the experience of health and welfare practitioners in rural Australia, and raise further questions for consideration by the field. The project ‘Too Close for Comfort?’ has grown from this research. It is undertaken in conjunction with four health and welfare industry partners (Ballarat Health Services; Child and Family Services; Grampians Community Health centre; Wimmera Uniting Care) and the Australian Research Council. The issues of personal and professional role boundaries, and multiple relationships present daily dilemmas for practitioners, their employers, families and communities in rural areas. This qualitative project facilitates open and public discussion of what is often unspoken – the challenges presented by living and working in rural communities, often in contentious professional roles. The aim of this study is to use grounded theory methodology to develop a theory about how rural health and welfare workers experience the personal and professional role boundary issues implicit in their daily lives. Exploration of these issues will further our understanding of the experience of professionals living and working in rural communities; inform our education, planning and employment decisions; and improve access to health and welfare services for rural Australians.
Industry Partners:
Ballarat Health Services
Child and Family Services (Ballarat)
Grampians Community Health Centre
Wimmera Uniting Care
Hepburn Health Services
Project Title: Effectiveness and innovative health project development and evaluation in rural communities
Supervisor:Assoc Prof John McDonald
PhD Student investigator: Ms Kate Brass
Project Status: Ongoing (Commenced March 2006)
Project Summary:
Kate’s doctoral proposal is centred on an innovative community based project being conducted by Hepburn Health Services. CHRP is a partner in the project and Hepburn Health Services is contributing funding to support the doctoral project in addition to employing a project officer to implement the project.
The project aims to reduce the incidence of depression, diabetes, heart disease and stroke by increasing physical activity and reducing social isolation among Hepburn Shire residents in the 35-55 age group who are not currently experiencing ill health. The proposal is aligned with a National Research Priority: Promoting and Maintaining Good Health. Funding for the project has been approved by the Dept. of Human Services under the Small Rural Health Service Program.
Kate will work alongside the project officer and contribute on going evaluation of the project. However the doctoral research is more than a straightforward evaluation, it will investigate a number of central questions or issues at different levels. These include: exploring the local politics of a shift towards preventative health care at the health funding level; how to effect a whole-of-community approach to health promotion at a service system level, and how to support people who are on a trajectory for chronic health conditions adopt a healthier lifestyle at the individual level.
There are two main components to the methodology, quantitative pre and post measures of physical activity and social isolation among the target group and qualitative data generated from individual and group interviews. The qualitative data will address the effectiveness of the measures put in place and the ways of working among the multiple stakeholders.
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