The Internal and External Affects of a Governor\u27s State Budget Cuts on the Department of Child Welfare

State budget cuts reduce the resources available to the Department of Child Welfare. The Child Welfare Unit has had an increase in caseloads and a decrease in workers, resulting in an increase in caseloads for the remaining workers. In January 2009, the Department of Child Welfare made a transition with a community wide initiative to a more family directed all inclusive, team approach to service provision. The State was divided into four Initiative Regions, with a lead agency in each. This research examines areas of success, changes in staff responsibilities, changes in clients’ participation in services and barriers to the success of this initiative through interviews with Region Directors. Findings reveal that staff is likely to experience a more client directed approach, and clients are likely to experience more collaborative, family driven, services. To ensure the success of this initiative there needs to be dedication and an effort to involve a growing portion of community agencies. The potential barriers to the success are lack of clarification of roles and responsibilities within the partnerships and unanswered questions. The Directors are feeling support from the Department of Child Welfare and view this partnership as integral to a real systems change. The continued success of this initiative relies on working together and learning through democratic debate

Young people and sexting in Australia: ethics, representation and the law

The Young People and Sexting in Australia report presents the findings of a qualitative study of young people’s understandings of, and responses to, current Australian laws, media and educational resources that address sexting. The project, led by Dr Kath Albury involved a review of both international local and academic research as well as popular media addressing sexting, and a review of educational resources for young people. Three focus groups were conducted with young people aged 16 and 17 in 2012, and a working paper based on those findings was then distributed to adult stakeholders in the fields of law enforcement, youth and children’s legal support, education, criminology, media and communications, youth work, youth health care, counseling and youth health promotion

The 1975-1978 Maritime Composite Agreement

In 1975, the maritime employers and unions negotiated a composite maritime agreement. By 1978 however, and despite the goodwill that had gone into its negotiation, the agreement had disintegrated. Although this disintegration has been attributed to the failure to negotiate satisfactory wage relativities, this explanation is seen as inadequate. This article intends to show that the problem of wage relativities, rather than being a cause of this disintegration, was in fact only a sympton of a more serious underlying problem