VET career pathways for school students living with disability: Working with employers

Research has shown that employers and industry are key partners in work-based learning and can hinder or enhance access to vocational education training (VET). Our capabilities approach focus concerns increasing employer understanding of what is involved in engaging in the work-based component of school-based VET for students with disability. It seeks to identify enhancers and barriers to both employer and student participation in work-based learning in workplaces and strategies to address the barriers. Using a qualitative approach, this interpretive research aims to answer the following principal question: How can employers, students, teachers and other influencers of student education and career pathway choice work together to increase opportunities for successful participation of students with disability in the work-based component of school-based VET? Employers and staff at organisations that support/place school-based VET students with disabilities were interviewed and inductive content analysis was used to code interview transcripts. Findings indicate that while communication and relationships are key factors in ensuring successful work-based learning placements, lack of understanding related to the spectrum of disability can be a barrier. Interview participants also identified workplace and policy barriers. Addressing the implications of our research findings will assist in increasing the willingness of employers to engage in work-based learning for school VET students with disability. This shift in practise has the potential to develop the workforce of the region and create greater breadth of opportunities for work-based learning in the community for school VET students with disability, leading to improved employment outcomes for people with disability

Mathématiques : Un lieu d’amour bienveillant et de renforcement de la capacité de résilience

Places of mathematical learning are not always places of loving kindness. Instead, they are sometimes loci of undetected cultural violence (Galtung, 1969) and associated harm. We explore how Cousin’s (2015) interpretation of love in the context of early years relates to building mathematical resilience across the lifespan. Our interpretation of loving kindness in the context of older learners includes unconditional positive regard (Rogers, 1961) and the explicit building of this into the classroom milieu. Education is understood in this work in a broad sense, not only as a means of acquiring knowledge and skills, but also an arena for making connections and gaining a shared understanding about what it is to be human (Tagore, 1933). One of the tools found helpful in the practice of loving kindness, especially where learners have experienced significant prior harm, is the growth zone model (Lugalia, Johnston-Wilder, & Goodall, 2013), informed by the hand model of the brain (Siegel, 2010) and the relaxation response (Benson, 2000). With unconditional positive regard, and with such tools, learners may be empowered to become less avoidant and more engaged with mathematics. They may also acquire resilience, including coping skills, to on greater challenges, once perceived as dangerous. Loving kindness in mathematics is enabling.Les lieux d'apprentissage de mathématiques ne sont pas toujours des lieux d'amour bienveillant. Au contraire, ce sont des fois des centres de violences culturelles non-détectées (Galtung, 1969) et, en relation, du mal. Nous explorons la relation entre l'interprétation d'amour en contexte des jeunes années proposé par Cousin (2015) et le développement d'une capacité de résilience en mathématiques tout au long de la vie. Notre interprétation de l'amour bienveillant en contexte des étudiants plus âgés, inclut un regard positif inconditionnel (Rogers, 1961) et sa mise en oeuvre expresse dans le milieu scolaire. L'éducation, compris au sens large du terme, n'est pas seulement un moyen d'accumuler des connaissances et des compétences, c'est une scène pourétablir des liens et acquérir une compréhension commune de ce que signifie être humain (Tagore, 1933). Un des outils jugés nécessaire dans la pratique de l’amour bienveillant, particulièrement là où les apprenants ont une expérience significative des méfaits antérieurs, est le modèle de zone de croissance (Lugalia, Johnston-Wilder, & Goodall, 2013), enrichi du modèle du cerveau dans la main (Siegel, 2010) et de celui de la réponse de relaxation (Benson, 2000). Avec un regard positif inconditionnel et de tels outils, c’est fort possible que les apprenants soient capables de devenir moins évitants et à s’investir dans les mathématiques. Ils pourraient également acquérir une capacité de résilience, y compris des stratégies d'adaptation, afin d'assumer des défis plus difficiles, une fois considérée dangereux. L'amour bienveillant en mathématiques est habilitant

\u27Everybody has settled in so well\u27: How migrants make connections and build social capital in Geelong

Australian and Victorian Government policies encourage settlement&nbsp;in regional areas for international migrants, refugees and internal&nbsp;migrants. Migrants to regional areas are diverse in terms of their&nbsp;area or country of origin, skills and occupation, family status&nbsp;and other demographic characteristics. The regional cities to&nbsp;which they migrate are also varied in terms of their community&nbsp;resources, social and cultural capital. The objective shared by all&nbsp;of these cities is for migrants to engage successfully with their&nbsp;new communities. Just how this occurs is the subject of debate&nbsp;and a lack of clarity. This therefore calls for a sound, theoretically&nbsp;informed understanding of how employers and community groups&nbsp;(formal and informal) can effectively assist migrants to make&nbsp;social connections in regional cities, and practical strategies which&nbsp;respond to these insights. The well-established social determinants&nbsp;of health tell us that the more socially included, connected and&nbsp;stable workforce and their families are, the better will be their&nbsp;physical and mental health and wellbeing.People in Australia generally move to live near family and friends;&nbsp;for better access to work or work opportunities; or to live in an&nbsp;attractive neighbourhood. Policies and programs intended to assist&nbsp;with settlement tend to be short term and project based. Good&nbsp;practice in assisting migrants make social connections however&nbsp;is long term and embedded into the community. Workplaces and&nbsp;community groups that are already established, and groups that&nbsp;migrants or others tend to form naturally, are good examples of&nbsp;such best practice. Workplaces, local government, institutions&nbsp;such as schools, community spaces and other organisations can&nbsp;also assist in the settling in process and can complement formal&nbsp;and informal community groups, once a sound evidence base is&nbsp;established.This is the second paper to emerge from a research project&nbsp;running over 2011-2012 at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute&nbsp;(ADRI), Deakin University in Geelong. The first Working Paper&nbsp;(No. 32) (Jackson et al., 2012) located the research theoretically.&nbsp;This second Working Paper will report on the research itself,&nbsp;its methods and outcomes as well as policy implications. The&nbsp;first section of this paper will briefly outline the project before&nbsp;considering those who have migrated to Geelong in the past two&nbsp;to five years: to investigate why they moved to Geelong; how&nbsp;they made connections and with whom; and, what was the value&nbsp;of those connections (Section 2). The third section of the paper&nbsp;examines how employers, non-government organisations (NGOs)&nbsp;and other facilitators effectively assist migrants to make social&nbsp;connections. The fourth and fifth sections look at the barriers to&nbsp;making connections but also those things &ndash; organisation and&nbsp;policies - that facilitated settling in. Section six summarises the&nbsp;findings and makes a series of policy recommendations for&nbsp;individuals, organisations and government on how to better the&nbsp;prospects for migrant in regional centres.</div

Continuity of carer in the public hospital system in the eyes of rural women and maternity health providers in Tasmania, Australia

This study investigates Tasmanian maternity health providers’ and rural women’s experiences and views of continuity of care in the public health system and the feasibility of this model is explored. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 women who had childbirth experiences in six rural areas in Tasmania in the past five years. In addition 20 multidisciplinary maternity health providers currently employed by the health care system were also interviewed. Multidisciplinary maternity health providers and rural women believed that continuity of carer would help them build up relationship with each other and contribute to their satisfaction with care. However, both Tasmanian maternity health providers and rural consumers recognised the challenges of providing continuity of carer in the current public health system due to the constraints of human resources. Given the human resource constraints in the public hospital system, women would be happy with the quality of care provided by the team of health professionals

Staying healthy: industry organisations’ influence on behaviours and services used by fishers

This study emerged in response to a previous report that used a strength-based approach to identify best-practice good-health behaviours in a number of farming and fishing communities, titled Staying Healthy: Behaviours and services used by farmers and fishers. This earlier report found there was a need for specific attention to the physical and particularly the mental health of those in the Australian commercial fishing industry. This included a better understanding of the issues, logistical and social barriers to good-health practices, and avenues of health communication and treatment. The 2013 Staying Healthy study echoed the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) research and development Plan for 2008-2012, Collaborative Partnership for Farming and Fishing Health and Safety, which advocated research into health, well-being and resilience in rural primary industries. These reports are coupled with widespread anecdotal accounts describing very poor physical and mental health within the fishing industry, including accounts of suicide and attempted suicide. As a contributor to a body of scholarly research, this study is supported by other literature, which is addressed, below. In this short section we introduce research that is most relevant to appreciating the findings of this study on fisher health and well-being

Online mental health forums and rural resilience: mixed methods study and logic model

Background: Rural mental health is a growing area of concern internationally, and online mental health forums offer a potential response to addressing service gaps in rural communities. Objective: The objective of this study was to explore and identify pathways by which online peer support mental health forums help to build resilience for rural residents experiencing mental ill-health by contributing to overcoming their specific contextual challenges. Methods: We developed a Theoretical Resilience Framework and applied it to 3000 qualitative posts from 3 Australian online mental health forums and to data from 30 interviews with rural forum users. Results: Drawing on the findings and an abductive approach, a logic model was developed to illustrate links between the resilience resources built and enabling features of forums that make them spaces that facilitate resilience. Conclusions: The study demonstrated that online forums make valuable contributions to social well-being and access to a range of timely support services for rural people experiencing mental ill-health, and, while doing so, involve users in the processes of resilience building. The study provides a new way for practitioners to frame the work of and value produced by forums. It gives a logic model that can be used in evaluation and audit as it facilitates a causal framing of how forums, as an intervention, link with resilience outcomes. Ultimately, the study contributes to developing new knowledge about how rural resilience building can be conceptualized and measured while showing how forums are part of contemporary health service provision in rural places