Research events
The Research and Policy Centre fosters dialogue through research events including a lunchtime seminar series, conferences and workshops such as the social inclusion workshops program which commenced in 2008.
Many research events are open to researchers, students and other interested members of the public. Please RSVP to kphilipp@nullbsl.org.au if you wish to attend a seminar, or register to get updates for advance notice of research events.
Our lunchtime seminar series runs during university semesters, usually on Thursdays, 12 noon to 1 pm (*unless indicated otherwise) at 67 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, in Father Tucker's Room.
Upcoming and recent seminars and conferences are listed below, with related papers and presentations.
Program 2010
Local connections to work
Janie Davey, Centrelink Business Manager, Melbourne
26 August
Local Connections to Work is a place-based service arrangement aiming to help disadvantaged job seekers and their families overcome barriers to social inclusion and to enhance economic participation. Based on New Zealand's Community Links model, Local Connections to Work brings together Australian Government, state government and non-government services on a rostered basis ‘under one roof’ in Centrelink premises. These services include employment, housing, health support services including mental health, financial assistance, education and counselling. Job seekers who have been unemployed five years or more, and disadvantaged youth, receive wrap-around servicing through joint interviews with Job Services Australia / Disability Employment Services, other services and Centrelink staff to identify and coordinate assistance. Other job seekers can also access services subject to availability. A Community Partnership Group provides the local governance to oversee, plan and help integrate the provision of services.
Janie Davey is the Centrelink Business Manager involved in implementing the four Local Connections to Work sites across Australia, working in this role since April 2010. Prior to this Janie was the Centrelink National Manager responsible for the Commonwealth's contribution to the Victorian Bushfire Case Management Service. In addition to ensuring professional social work service delivery across Centrelink networks, she has been part of their emergency response teams deployed overseas to assist Australian citizens after disasters. Janie has worked in welfare service delivery in the non-government, state and Commonwealth sectors.
Janie Davey's presentation (PDF file, 4.2 MB)
Included or excluded? Low socioeconomic status young people and the community
Rosalyn Black and Dr Lucas Walsh, Foundation for Young Australians
19 August 2010
This presentation will share the findings of recent research conducted and commissioned by the Foundation for Young Australians that show how the experience of young Australians from low socioeconomic backgrounds compares with the continuing policy rhetoric of citizenship and participation. While some young people are civically engaged, innovative and hopeful, there are persistent structural reasons for the disengagement, marginalisation and exclusion of many more young people from the decision-making processes that affect them and their communities.
Rosalyn Black is the Senior Manager, Research and Evaluation, with the Foundation for Young Australians and a PhD candidate with the Australian Youth Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. Her research focus includes the capacity of schools in low socioeconomic contexts, school–community partnership and the role of young people in leading community and social change. Rosalyn’s book, Beyond the Classroom: Building new school networks, is published by ACER Press.
Dr Lucas Walsh is Senior Executive, Research and Evaluation, with the Foundation for Young Australians. His research interests include educational policy reform, technology and its political implications, particularly in the areas of e-government, e-learning and new forms of political participation. His most recent book, Building Bridges: Creating Cultures of Diversity, is authored with Professor Fethi Mansouri, Dr Louise Jenkins and Dr Michael Leach and published by Melbourne University Press. His next book, In Their Own Hands: How young people can change Australia, is authored with Rosalyn Black and will be published by ACER Press.
Ros Black and Lucas Walsh's presentation (PDF file, 1.1MB)
Making sense of inequality as we ‘move forward’
Dr Dina Bowman, Research & Policy Manager, In and Out of Work, Brotherhood of St Laurence
12 August
In a recent paper delivered at the International Sociological Association World Congress in Sweden, I looked at the ideas of Amartya Sen and Pierre Bourdieu and how they can help make sense of inequality. As Sen has observed, the tension between approaches arises only if we have room for 'at most one idea' (Sen 2009, p.308). I suggest that there is room for more than one idea, and that the capability approach can be usefully complemented by Bourdieu’s concepts which provide more finely grained insights into the processes and experience of inequality. This presentation also draws on my trip to the UK and Sweden to highlight some challenges and opportunities facing researchers, analysts and advocates as we work towards an Australia free of poverty.
Dr Dina Bowman joined the Brotherhood of St Laurence in 2009. Dina has a background in higher education, private enterprise and the community sector. She holds a PhD from Swinburne University and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Policy and Law from La Trobe University, and is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Current research projects include employment retention and advancement of disadvantaged jobseekers, balancing trust and control in the provision of employment services, and comparing outcomes for, people with disabilites, vocational training and employment, support for disadvantaged jobseekers with mental health issues, and labour market disadvantage and mature age workers.
Dina Bowman's presentation (PDF file, 172 KB)
Increasing the age pension eligibility age and its (dis)contents
Professor Allan Borowski, School of Social Work and Social Policy, La Trobe University
5 August
This seminar will explore both the reasons behind the increase in the Age Pension eligibility age announced in the May 2009 Federal budget and the underlying factors. It will also consider whether the objectives of the eligibility age increase are likely to be realized. It will be argued that the issues of the Age Pension eligibility age is unlikely to go away. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that still further increase can be expected in the future.
Allan Borowski is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the Gerontological Society of America and the Australian Association of Gerontology. His research interests include two aspects of demography: the economics of ageing and international population movements.
Allan Borowski's presentation (PDF file, 359 KB)
Overview of financial inclusion in the UK: the current state of banking, savings, credit and insurance
Emeritus Professor Elaine Kempson, Personal Finance Research Centre, Bristol University, UK
3 August
Elaine Kempson is an internationally respected authority on consumer financial issues, with over 25 years' experience researching personal financial services, including banking, saving and investment, insurance, credit, mortgages and pensions. Although much of her work looks at the consumer perspective, she has also undertaken research into provision of financial services and advice services. Elaine is particularly known for her research into financial inclusion, over-indebtedness and financial capability, including the provision of financial education.
Elaine was the first independent reviewer of the UK Banking Codes in 2002 and was reappointed to review the Codes in 2004. With Sharon Collard, she undertook the first independent assessment of the Financial Ombudsman Service. She is currently a consultant to the World Bank and OECD on financial capability. Elaine is a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee, the HM Treasury Financial Inclusion Taskforce and the BERR Advisory Group on Over-indebtedness. In December 2007 she was appointed to the Financial Ombudsman Service board as a non-executive director. Until recently she was also a non-executive director of the Banking Code Standards Board. In 2007 Elaine was awarded a CBE for services to the financial services industry. Elaine is a visiting academic hosted by the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University.
Elaine Kempson's presentation (PDF file, 3.7 MB)
The Abecedarian Approach: research findings and implications for home visit and parent education programs
Dr Joseph J Sparling, Research Professor, Georgetown University Center on Health and Education, and Fellow, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina, USA
11 June
Dr Joseph Sparling will present on the research history and findings from a series of scientific studies which show that the Abecedarian Approach results in positive outcomes for at-risk children and families. The child gains show up at 18 months of age and are still significant at 30 years of age. The Abecedarian Approach has been used in centres, visits, and parent education workshops.
Joseph Sparling, PhD, an early childhood educator, has been a co-principal investigator on three longitudinal research projects known as the Abecedarian studies. He is the author of Learning Games, Partners for Learning, and Conversation Books, educational resources for parents and teachers of very young children. Dr Sparling is currently in Australia at the invitation of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the University of Melbourne.
Joseph Sparling's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.1 MB)
Joseph Sparling's presentation (PDF file, 566 KB) and video (5 minutes, via You Tube)
Joseph Sparling's learning games handout (PDF file, 68 KB)
Young people’s experience of work placement and part-time work
Dr Helen Stokes, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne
27 May
Living with and managing change and uncertainty become key factors for young people in late modernity where they face changing labour market and unpredictable transitions in an increasingly globalised culture and society. Crafting narratives within a neo-liberal economic discourse has required young people to draw on enterprising subjectivities such as the need to be self-managing and responsible for their life course directions. However differing social, economic and geographical circumstances impact on young people's capacity to access resources to navigate their life situations and biographical patterns. While this period for young people is often described as a transitional phase, for example from school to work, this description does little justice to the complex processes that are occurring and the active identity work that young people are undertaking. This seminar explores work as a context for the crafting of identity narratives, in particular investigating the resources that young people draw upon including work placement, part-time work, community activities and parental support.
Dr Helen Stokes has been a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Youth Research Centre, University of Melbourne, since 1996. Central to her work has been research about young people’s participation in and experiences of work, including VET, structured work experience and part-time work. Her PhD research focused on the relationship between identity formation and the role of formal and workplace learning for young people.
Helen Stokes' seminar audio (MP3 file, 6.46 MB)
Helen Stokes' presentation (PDF file, 361 KB)
Financial Inclusion beyond the mainstream: considerations for developed countries
Dr Zuleika Arashiro, Research & Policy Manager, Financial Inclusion, Brotherhood of St Laurence
20 May
Financial inclusion policies are historically linked to the context of welfare reforms in developed countries, and in the UK to the New Labour’s social inclusion agenda. After reviewing some approaches followed overseas, this seminar discusses how a progressive financial inclusion agenda can be built in Australia through a combination of programs and policies that not only address individual inclusion but also deal with the regulatory and institutional constraints that create systemic barriers to the process of financial inclusion. The concept of financial inclusion has been predominantly associated with the promotion of effective access to mainstream financial services and products. Access to financial instruments such as bank accounts, credit, insurance, and savings is certainly an essential component in the process of social inclusion. However, I argue that this restricted definition risks minimising the relevance of financial inclusion policies to the social inclusion agenda.
Zuleika Arashiro has previously worked on policy-oriented research for government agencies, the corporate sector and non-profit organisations, with an emphasis on trade and development policies. Her professional experience in Brazil and in the United States has contributed to her commitment to a comparative perspective on the relationship between economic policies and inequality. Zuleika has a PhD in Politics and International Relations from La Trobe University and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne.
Zuleika Arashiro's seminar audio (MP3 file, 12.5 MB)
Zuleika Arashiro's presentation (PDF file, 882 KB)
Can governments ever act collaboratively?
Professor Peter Shergold AC, Macquarie Group Foundation Professor at the Centre for Social Impact, University of New South Wales
18 May
The contractual relationship of governments and community organisations is marked by asymmetric power. Non-profit organisations too often are confined to being outsourced providers of public services rather than having the opportunity to influence policy development and delivery design. Frequently they are funded to deliver programs that actually reinforce the learned helplessness that marks social exclusion. This seminar will ask how citizens and community organisations can become part of a networked governance that acts as a foundation for participatory democracy.
Peter Shergold was a CEO in the Australian Public Service for two decades. For five years he served as Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He is now the Macquarie Group Foundation Professor at the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW. He has served on the Board of CSIRO and Centrelink, and is now Chair of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Chair of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, and a Director, National Centre for Indigenous Excellence, and the Sir John Monash Foundation.
Peter Shergold's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.9 MB)
The 'rise of the provider'
Professor Ed Carson, Social Policy, University of South Australia
13 May
Near-full employment in recent years has shifted the focus of labour market programs from addressing high rates of unemployment to addressing skills shortages and the need to increase labour force participation rates, including offering assistance for those who have multiple barriers to employment, at the same time as ensuring that people receiving working age benefits fulfill their responsibilities. This, combined with outsourcing of labour market programs as promoted by New Public Management, has led to the ‘rise of the provider’ as a key feature of the education, employment and training sector. Paradoxically, the sector charged with addressing some of the skills deficit is itself under-skilled and in need of revitalisation (on 22 April 2010, the Productivity Commission was charged with undertaking a study of the education and training of workforce in Australia). This seminar will report on a project investigating labour market disadvantage in the Northern Adelaide Region, one of the most disadvantaged in the country as measured by SEIFA indicators. It explores concerns about supply-led training being offered at the expense of industry demand-led training, and explores the implications of competitive funding imperatives for coordination across the plethora of private and public providers of services in education, employment and training in a disadvantaged region.
Ed Carson is Professor of Social Policy at the University of South Australia. He has had a longstanding interest in employment services and state – third sector relationships. His current research interests include the meaning of New Localism and New Regionalism in Australia and the implications of these for employment and workforce planning.
Ed Carson's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.5 MB)
Ed Carson's presentation (PDF file, 554 KB)
Insights into neighbourhood stigma
Dr Deborah Warr, Senior Research Fellow, McCaughey Centre, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne
6 May
Problems of neighbourhood stigma, where residents are stereotyped in unflattering, misleading and negative ways are frequently reported as a significant problem by residents living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Worryingly, tendencies to defame and discredit poor neighbourhoods are arguably heightening in post-industrial societies. In this presentation, I discuss residents’ accounts of experiences of place-based stigma, contemporary contexts for understanding why people and places are vulnerable to being stigmatised, the contribution of stigma to problems of social exclusion and the reproduction of socio-economic disadvantage, and strategies for challenging place-based stigma.
Deborah Warr is a sociologist whose work explores the social determinants of health and spans theoretical, empirical and methodological issues. She has a commitment to knowledge transfer and exchange activities that maximise the value of research for disenfranchised communities and populations. Her current research includes projects exploring associations between neighbourhoods and health, problems of social inclusion and preventing social exclusion among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations and people from migrant and refugee backgrounds and exploring the value and challenges of participatory methods for research.
Deborah Warr's seminar audio (MP3 file, 13.2 MB)
Deborah Warr's presentation (PDF file, 103 KB)
Climate change and social justice: the importance of building a fast and equitable pathway to a safe climate future
Professor John Wiseman, Director, McCaughey Centre, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne
29 April
This seminar will address the question, to what extent are current Australian community sector climate change arguments, policies and strategies an adequate response to the threat of catastrophic climate change? The presentation will begin with an overview of recent evidence on the social impacts of global and Australian climate change trends, particulalry for disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. This evidence suggests that while a wide range of adaptation strategies are essential, there are clear and finite limits to the capacity of any society to adapt to runaway climate change. Designing and building a fast and equitable path to a low carbon, safe climate future is therefore a crucial task for anyone concerned with ensuring a socially just response to climate change. Effective action to restore a safe climate will require first a rapid transition to a zero net carbon economy, seondly drawing down existing atmospheric carbon, and finally actions to ensure an equitable, democratic and sustainable transition process. The seminar will conclude with some reflections on political, policy and advocacy implications and priorities for the Australian community sector.
Professor John Wiseman has worked in public sector, academic and community sector settings. He has published widely on social justice and public policy issues, especially on the role of local communities and civil society in responding to globalisation.
John Wiseman's seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.27 MB)
John Wiseman's presentation (PDF file, 14.8 MB)
Flexibility, routinisation and a decade of private employment services in Australia
Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan, Research Fellow, School of Social & Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
22 April
In 1998, Mark Considine surveyed frontline staff in Australia’s employment sector. At that time Australian employment services had been partially privatised, signalling an end to the public monopoly of welfare services. Considine reported signs of specialisation, flexibility, and networking on the part of frontline employment services staff. In 2008, Mark Considine, Jenny Lewis and Siobhan O’Sullivan asked Australian employment services professionals to complete the same survey. By 2008, the sector had been fully privatised. This seminar will present results from the two surveys, along with responses from recent interviews. They show that in the ten years between surveys there was a marked increase in the level of routinisation and standardisation reported by frontline staff. They also show that by the end of Job Network there was little discernable difference between the service offered by for-profit and not-for-profit agencies. In conclusion, some possible causes of the observed increases in routinisation and standardisation in the sector will be discussed.
Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan specialises in reseach related to the welfare state, especially the delivery of employment services. For the last two years Siobhan has been working with Mark Considine and Jenny Lewis on an ARC funded project called ‘Activating States’.
Siobhan O’Sullivan's presentation (PDF file, 219 KB)
Social inclusion, power and the everyday
Professor Stephen A. Webb, Director, The Australian Institute for Social Inclusion and Wellbeing, University of Newcastle, NSW
8 April
There are a number of conceptual problems associated with the term social inclusion. It is a slippery concept capable of a wide range of analytical and policy formulations and of both ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ interpretations. Weak interpretations typically do not focus on who it is that is preventing the inclusion or the social and economic consequences of a full reversal of the conditions of exclusion. Another common criticism is that inclusion is merely a descriptive and normative, rather than explanatory concept. Further ambiguity threatens the usage of social inclusion as a solution to social problems. Its application is questionable whenever indiscriminate generalizations are asserted or implied. One common practice is to try to operationalise inclusion as if it exists by fiat. Another is the attempt to measure inclusion from a loosely fashioned referent. Each tends to confuse the issue. The confusion is often translated into policy formation and implementation. This seminar will identify processes of closure as crucial to an understanding of the inclusion/exclusion dynamic. It shows how closure is an attempt to plasticise the reality of exclusion within power relations at the level of the everyday. An attempt is made to soften up the dogmatic form of exclusion not by invoking principles of structure, rather by showing how structure of sorts is generated by processes of closure at the level of the everyday. This approach militates against much of the policy talk about social inclusion with its bias towards structural change, social indicators and measurements and evidence-based policy impacts. The paper offers an alternative way of thinking about the concept of social inclusion.
In 2008 Stephen Webb was appointed from the University of Sussex, UK to the University of Newcastle where he is Professor of Human Sciences.
Stephen Webb's seminar audio (MP3 file, 14.63 MB)
Stephen Webb's presentation (PDF file, 128 KB)
Making work pay – and making income support work
Eve Bodsworth, Research Officer, Research & Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence
1 April
This seminar presented the findings of the Brotherhood’s Making Work Pay study. With the Henry Tax Review in mind, this research began with the modest aim of documenting ways in which the tax and transfer system created barriers against labour market entry for some unemployed people and sole parents through the operation of effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs). What we found, however, through in-depth interviews with forty-four such people, was a far more complex and sometimes chaotic pattern of incentives and disincentives. This study revealed that Australia's income support system has failed to adapt to the new economic environment and to equip the most disadvantaged citizens to manage the many risks they face when engaging with insecure forms of paid work. It points to the need for a wide-ranging overhaul of our income support, housing and employment services, and includes recommendations for a system that can indeed make the transition to work pay for some of the most disadvantaged members of our community.
Eve Bodsworth conducted the Making Work Pay study and is also currently completing PhD research looking at the experiences of single mothers affected by the welfare-to-work policy introduced in 2006, part of a project funded by an Australian Research Council linkage grant between the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Deakin University. Eve previously practised as a community lawyer specialising in family law and family violence law.
Eve Bodsworth's presentation (PDF file, 90 KB)
Improving the wellbeing of young Australians – the role of prevention science
Professor Ann Sanson, Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne and Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY)
25 March
For a wealthy country, too many young Australians are experiencing problems which not only impact on them in the present, but will impact on their capacity to be healthy and productive future citizens - see ARACY’s Report Card on the Wellbeing of Young Australians. The problems that children and young people face are complex and cross physical, emotional, social and educational domains, but with closely interrelated causal drivers concentrated amongst disadvantaged communities and groups. Current strategies to address these problems focus on crisis-end treatment, which is costly, relatively ineffective and fails to reach the majority of those affected. This seminar describes a proposal to establish a Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Prevention Science for Children and Young People, which aims to deliver integrated, evidence-based preventive strategies to improve the health, development and wellbeing of Australia’s young people. It will engage in collaborative, cross-sectoral, multi-disciplinary research, driven by the needs of policy and practice end-users. It will address all phases of prevention science – identifying the best leverage points for intervention, rigorous development of innovative prevention strategies, and applied research of how to take prevention strategies to scale, to those who need them most and in a sustainable way. Knowledge exchange and capacity-building will underlie all its work, ranging from PhD training through secondments to work-based training modules.
Ann Sanson is a Professor in Paediatrics at the University of Melbourne and the Network Coordinator for ARACY. She is a developmental psychologist and plays a leading role in both the 26-year Australian Temperament Project and “Growing Up in Australia”, a Longitudinal Study of the Australian Children. She has over 180 publications and is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and the Association for Psychological Science. Ann is leading the bid for the CRC in Prevention Science for Children and Young People.
Ann Sanson's presentation (PDF file, 1.4 MB)
Living the second fifty years: generation matters
Dr Helen Kimberley, Acting Senior Manager, Retirement & Ageing, Research & Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence
18 March
‘Older’ is a slippery concept. Does the use of this epithet to encompass people aged anywhere from 50 to 101 place us in danger of homogenising the aspirations, characteristics and needs of three different generations? Utilising a capabilities approach, an analysis of multi-dimensional measures of poverty and disadvantage indicates that there are significant differences among age cohorts and that policy development needs to take account not only of these differences but also the cumulative and interdependent nature of factors impacting on people’s lives as they set out on their second fifty years. This presentation drew on recent research findings published in The Brotherhood’s Social Barometer: living the second fifty years (Kimberley & Simons 2009), the fourth in the Brotherhood's Social Barometer series, its predecessors being The working years (Allen Consulting Group 2007), Challenges facing Australian youth (Boese & Scutella 2006) and Monitoring children’s chances (Scutella & Smyth 2005).
Helen Kimberley's presentation (PDF file, 1.4 MB)
'Turning 18', Life Chances report and DVD launch
Wednesday 24 February
Launch of Turning 18: pathways and plans, the new report from the Brotherhood's Life Chances longitudinal study, and the DVD created by filmprojects, with panel discussion about engaging disadvantaged young people in education. Presentation by Ian Claridge, General Manager, Student Wellbeing Division, Office for Government School Education, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, about ways of addressing the challenges facing schools in engaging young people at risk of disengagement, and panel discussion.
Contact: Janet Taylor
Email: jtaylor@nullbsl.org.au
Phone: (03) 9483 1376
Copenhagen climate talks 2009: a justice perspective
Josie Lee, Research Officer, Equity in Response to Climate Change program, Brotherhood of St Laurence
Friday 5 February
Josie Lee provided a first-hand account of her recent experience working on climate change with the Third World Network, an organisation promoting in the interests of developing countries. The network advocates for a fair, ambitious and legally binding deal at the United Nations climate change negotiations. Josie explained what an equitable and just deal means from the perspective of developing countries, the highs and lows of the negotiating process and the politics behind the scenes, and discussed the outcomes from Copenhagen negotiations.
Josie Lee's presentation (PDF file, 1 MB)
Program 2009
Special research and policy events 2009
Ready for the second fifty years
2 December 2009
This workshop included the launch of The Brotherhood's Social Barometer: living the second fifty years and discussion of the research and policy agenda to underpin advocacy to enhance social and economic inclusion of those who are disadvantaged in later life. Presentations included:
Helen Kimberley, Brotherhood of St Laurence, The Brotherhood’s Social Barometer: ready for the second fifty years? (PDF file, 92 KB)
Peter Davidson, ACOSS, Retirement incomes and assets: from equality to inequality in mature age (PDF file, 164 KB)
Owen Donald, National Housing Supply Council, The future of housing for older Australians (PDF file, 366 KB)
Erica Smith, University of Ballarat, Mature aged workers: some research evidence (PDF file, 59 KB)
Francesca Beddie, National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Mature age learning (PDF file, 114 KB)
Partnering to learn: the role of community organisations in supporting disadvantaged students forum
Hosted by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Melbourne Citymission
12 November 2009
The Partnering to Learn forum brought together over 100 representatives from state and federal governments, schools, the community sector, and parents, to explore the role of Learning Support Programs, such as homework clubs and tutoring programs, to promote better outcomes for disadvantaged students.
Keynote speaker, Rosalyn Black, Senior Research Manager, The Foundation for Young Australians and author of ‘Beyond the Classroom: Building new school networks’ (2008), presented on overcoming the barriers to educational success through a collective response to young people’s educational needs. Other presenters came from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, Learning Beyond the Bell program, Melbourne Citymission, and the Brotherhood of St Laurence.
The Brotherhood and Melbourne Citymission’s position is that these programs are a promising example of local school-community partnerships that need to be taken up into policy. Options for their development were outlined in the following papers and presentations.
Forum discussion paper
Pate, A & Bond, S 2009, Partnering to learn: the role of community supporting disadvantaged students, Melbourne Citymission & the Brotherhood of St Laurence.
Anne Pate and Sharon Bond's paper (PDF file, 266 KB)
Forum papers and presentations
Black, Rosalyn 2009, Overcoming the barriers to engagement and equity for all students, The Foundation for Young Australians.
Rosalyn Black's paper (PDF file, 389 KB)
Horn, Michael 2009, Policy frameworks for learning support, Brotherhood of St Laurence.
Michael Horn's paper (PDF file, 157 KB)
Ryan, Kim 2009, School-community partnerships: policy and practice, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
Kim Ryan's presentation (PDF file, 978 KB)
Tribe, Robyn 2009, Learning support programs in Victoria, Learning Beyond the Bell, Centre for Multicultural Youth.
Robyn Tribe's presentation (PDF file, 84 KB)
Anne Pate and Sharon Bond 2010, Partnering to learn: the role of community organisations in supporting disadvantaged students summary of forum 19 November 2009 (PDF file, 260 KB)
Related reports and programs
Bond, Sharon 2009 Learning support programs: education reform beyond the school (PDF file, 347 KB)
Bond, Sharon 2009, The cost of a free education: cost as a barrier to Australian public education (PDF file, 311 KB)
Melbourne City Mission Learning support programs
Housing Roundtable
Brotherhood of St Laurence and Good Shepherd
13 May 2009
The Brotherhood of St Laurence, Good Shepherd Youth and Family Services, and the Housing Justice Roundtable convened a gathering to assist people to be fully informed and involved in the current housing debate. A major topic was how to make the most of the current golden opportunity to house homeless people and people with disabilities, to accommodate an ageing population, and to enable families to establish themselves in decent, affordable housing, which also needs to be linked with employment, support services and community infrastructure.
Brotherhood and Good Shepherd Housing roundtable program (PDF file, 244 KB)
Tony Dalton's housing policy presentation (PDF file, 848 KB)
Julian Disney's 4-year growth plan presentation (PDF file, 68 KB)
Michael Lennon's supply gap presentation (PDF file, 1.65 MB)
Brotherhood and Good Shepherd Housing roundtable notes (PDF file, 166 KB)
Lunchtime seminar series 2009
New developments in housing policy
Professor Tony Dalton, AHURI Research Centre, RMIT
29 October
Housing policy has crept back onto the national agenda, as evidenced by recent initiatives such as the National Affordability Rental Scheme, the National Affordable Housing Agreement, the expansion of the First Home Owners Grant as an element of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, and the establishment of the National Housing Supply Council charged with assessing land supply and demand for housing for all levels of government. These initiatives have been enacted against underlying structural issues, including declining housing affordability; housing under-supply, especially for low-income renters and aspirant purchasers; and long-term creep in real house price increases. This presentation assessed recent policies against the background of the longer-term changes in the Australian housing system. Tony Dalton's primary research interest is housing and social policy, with a focus on changing housing markets and distributional outcomes in a period of social and economic restructuring. More recently he has expanded his research to consider the challenges of climate change or Australian housing provision and policy.
Tony Dalton's presentation (PDF file, 1.1 MB)
Single parents, poverty and social inclusion
Dr Kay Cook, School of Health & Social Development, Deakin University
22 October
This seminar outlined baseline findings from an ARC Linkage project supported by the Brotherhood, examining the health and social exclusion of single parents engaged in Australia’s ‘welfare to work’ program. When the welfare to work policy was introduced, the then government claimed that the benefits to single parents would include higher incomes, better social participation, and improved wellbeing. Using data from baseline surveys and qualitative interviews, three issues for low-income single parents were considered including quality of life, time use, and volunteering. Implications for low-income women's social inclusion were then discussed.
Kay Cook's presentation (PDF file, 150 KB)
Re-thinking ‘spheres of responsibility’: Business, Human Rights and Institutional Action
Dr Kate MacDonald, School of Political Sciences, University of Melbourne
8 October
This seminar considered two frameworks for defining the scope of business responsibility for human rights. The first advocates the extension of business responsibility beyond the boundaries of enterprise to encompass broader ‘spheres of influence’. The second advocates a business ‘responsibility to respect’ human rights, but not also to protect, promote or fulfill rights. Building on a critical evaluation of these competing accounts, a modified framework of ‘spheres of responsibility’ is developed. Business responsibility is conceptualised not only in terms of direct ‘harms’ imposed by business, but also in relation to corporate influence over broader institutional relationships and structures that shape and constrain human rights. This presentation suggests that such a model of responsibility may be given concrete expression as shared and partial responsibilities for institutionally mediated outcomes, and suggest possible directions for such innovation.
Kate MacDonald's presentation (PDF file, 108 KB)
Kate MacDonald's paper (PDF file, 265 KB)
Microfinance and social inclusion
Dr Mohshin Habib, Faculty of Higher Education, Swinburne University of Technology, & Honorary Research Fellow, Brotherhood of St Laurence
24 September
Across continents, women are the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in all economic, social and political dimensions. Women’s control over and access to material resources is essential to their exercise of social power and autonomy. Microfinance programs not only provide financial services to the poor , but can provide an avenue for acheiving broader change can be achieved, with little if any threat to the existing social and institutional order. Microfinance programs often have specific components to both address poverty and involve their participants in socio-cultural and political activities. This seminar presented a tested theoretical model depicting the complex inter-relationship between poverty, social exclusion and human development, and provided evidence of microfinance programs addressing social exclusion. Likewise, the proposed relationship between ‘poverty and human development’ and ‘social exclusion and human development' is supported by multivariate analyses.
Dr Mohshin Habib currently works as a Lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology. A former development practitioner in both non-profit and international development agencies, he has worked in South-east Asia, conducting research in 20 microfinance institutions in Bangladesh and the Philippines. Mohshin’s research interests include microfinance, non-profit sector management, poverty index/assessment tool, social exclusion, social capital, social protection, human development and gender. Mohshin is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in the Research andPolicy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence.
Mohshin Habib's presentation (PDF file, 7.1 MB)
Youth underclass: a critical analysis of social divisions in the era of welfare reform
Dr Sonia Martin, Brotherhood of St Laurence
17 September
Current welfare arrangements are underpinned by contentious assumptions about the behaviour and morality of welfare beneficiaries. This agenda is guided by the belief that the sources of disadvantage and exclusion are largely attributable to the perceived behavioural problems and moral shortcomings of the disadvantaged themselves, and the perceived disincentive effects of the welfare state, manifest in what is believed to be an ‘underclass’. The policy solution is to tighten eligibility requirements, coerce individuals into behaving in prescribed ways and to enforce labour market participation. Guided by critical social inquiry, this seminar asks whether the ‘underclass’ is a useful heuristic device for understanding some young people’s disengagement from the labour market. Reporting on interview findings with 27 young people with varying attachments to work, it explores respondents’ experiences of, and their values and attitudes towards, work and welfare and examines whether there is evidence to suggest some welfare recipients are ‘behaving badly’.
Sonia Martin's previous appointments were at the University of Melbourne working on the semi-longitudinal ARC project ‘150 low-income Australians’, and the Universities of Adelaide and South Australia undertaking research and teaching in the field of social policy. Sonia’s interests include the social divisions of welfare, the underclass thesis, social inclusion/exclusion, locational disadvantage and the social work profession.
Sonia Martin's presentation (PDF file, 694 KB)
Monitoring poverty and social exclusion
Guy Palmer, webmaster of The Poverty Site www.poverty.org.uk, supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation,,and founding member of the New Policy Institute, UK
3 September
The British Labour Party's manifesto for the 1997 General Election did not even mention either 'poverty' or 'social exclusion'. Ten years later, 'poverty and social exclusion' has a high political profile in the UK. Guy outlined the reasons for this, the main policies introduced, and the extent to which they have succeeded in reducing poverty and social exclusion. He suggested lessons for Australia, such as the prerequisites for getting poverty and social exclusion higher up the list of political priorities, and the potential role of organisations such as the BSL in independently monitoring what is actually happening.
The Poverty Site (www.poverty.org.uk) is widely recognised as the most authoritative source of analyses about poverty and social exclusion in the UK. Supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, it is the data source for the foundation's annual Monitoring poverty and social exclusion reports. Before emigrating to Australia, Guy was founding Director of the New Policy Institute, a UK-based think tank concerned with social justice, his research topics ranging from low pay and labour market disadvantage through financial exclusion and utilities, to homelessness and child play services.
Guy Palmer's presentation (PDF file, 270 KB)
The risk agenda – what does it mean to understand the social world in terms of risk?
Associate Professor Jens Zinn, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne
27 August
In present day societies, risk is pervasive. Controversies about global dangers, social risks and everyday life seem to dominate our social existence. However, it is still contested whether life is more risky than 100 years ago. The growing amount of risk communication might be a result of an increase in (neo-) liberal values or a specific style to govern societies rather than of new risks. Dr Zinn explored the sources of current perceptions and responses to risk and how the risk agenda affects the societal construction and management of social problems. He concluded with perspectives for a critical approach to risk and uncertainty in (social) policy.
Dr Zinn has worked in several collaborative research centres and research networks in Germany and the UK on institutional and individual management of risk and uncertainty. Recent books are Risk in Social Sciences (2006, with P. Taylor-Gooby, Oxford University Press) and Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty (2008, Blackwell).
Jens Zinn's presentation
Older men’s learning through social inclusion
Associate Professor Barry Golding, School of Education, University of Ballarat
20 August 2009
Research by Barry Golding, Annette Foley and Mike Brown into the effectiveness of older men’s involvement in men’s sheds has led them to ask what role informal learning plays in other community-based organisations, and especially how diverse learning contexts can engage and benefit older men not in paid work. The seminar was informed by early findings from 2009 research for National Seniors Australia and the Western Australian Department of Education and Training, based on recent interviews and surveys in 12 sites and 87 organisations across four states. Insights come from older men involved in adult education, sporting, Indigenous, religious, age-related, disability, fire and emergency services and men’s special interest organisations including community sheds.
Barry Golding's presentation (PDF file, 1,2 MB)
Golding, Brown and Foley, Men’s Learning and Wellbeing Research paper 2009 (PDF file, 184 KB)
Studying up, down and sideways
Dr Dina Bowman, Research and Policy Manager, In and Out of Work, Brotherhood of St Laurence
6 August 2009
Forty years ago Laura Nader famously challenged anthropologists to ‘study up’. In this presentation Dina Bowman drew on her research on the very wealthy and ‘wannabe wealthy’ to argue that it is important to study up, down and sideways when examining the patterns, practices and processes of advantage and disadvantage.
Dina Bowman's presentation (PDF file, 207 KB)
Applying social inclusion principles to education policy: new evidence from the ruMAD? Program
Rosalyn Black, Senior Research Manager, The Foundation for Young Australians
30 July 2009
The seminar drew on insights from the ruMAD? Program, which engages young people to create and lead social change within their school, local or global community, to argue for stronger links between schools and community agencies to address the long tail of disadvantage, and explored how these links can be forged.
Rosalyn Black's presentation (PDF file, 1 MB)
Religion, welfare and the new social contract in Australia
Professor Paul Smyth , General Manager of the Research and Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence, and Professor of Social Policy, Centre for Public Policy, University of Melbourne
23 July 2009
While church-related agencies are major deliverers of government social services in Australia, the role has been little researched and typically conflated by researchers with that of the voluntary sector in general. This presentation explored the Australian experience through a case study of the Anglican welfare agency, the Brotherhood of St Laurence. It identified dimensions of he social policy regime which have lent Australia’s voluntary sector certain distinct features.
Paul Smyth's presentation (PDF file, 37 KB)
Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into the Contribution of the Not for profit Sector (PDF file, 143 KB)
Social enterprises – UK and Australia
Alastair Wilson, CEO, School of Social Entrepreneurs, UK and
Professor David Adams, Australian Innovation Research Centre, University of Tasmania
8 April 2009
Social enterprises: a UK perspective
Alastair Wilson, CEO, School of Social Entrepreneurs, UK
The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) is being launched in Australia, based on the highly successful SSE in the UK which has operated for 10 years and spans 7 Schools. The goal of the SSE is to identify, develop and support social entrepreneurs to establish effective and sustainable enterprises and initiatives that meet social and community needs. Alastair spoke about the SSE UK experience; the policy implications for support agencies, government and others; and the effectiveness of the SSE 'action learning' approach in supporting the learning needs of social entrepreneurs.
Alastair Wilson's presentation (PDF file, 2 MB)
Social enterprises: new approach to social inclusion or another candle in the wind?
Professor David Adams, Australian Innovation Research Centre, University of Tasmania
Social enterprises are now maturing in a number of countries but are still on the margins of social inclusion strategies in Australia. We still debate the meanings of the idea; whether it is politically correct enough; whether it should be a universal strategy or only selectively invoked; how social enterprises should be funded; and whether and for whom they work best. David canvassed where the theory and practice might be heading in Australia and what can be done to accelerate progress.
David Adams' presentation (PDF file, 921 KB)
Green jobs – towards decent work in a sustainable, low-carbon world
Peter Poschen, Senior Advisor Sustainable Development and Climate Change, ILO
7 April 2009
'Green jobs' have become something of an emblem of a more sustainable economy and society that aims to preserve the environment for present and future generations and to be more equitable and inclusive of all people and countries. Green jobs hold the promise that humankind will be able to face up to the two defining challenges of the twenty-first century: averting dangerous climate change and environmental degradation and providing decent work and thus the prospect of well-being and dignity for all. This presentation will focus on green jobs for development. The concept of green jobs is even more relevant in the current economic crisis. The major investments made to overcome the crisis can become a unique opportunity to begin the shift towards more sustainable production systems and towards more social justice.
Peter Poschen's presentation (PDF file, 1.5 MB)