Learning from Domestic Homicide Reviews in England and Wales

This paper aims to contribute to the prevention of future domestic homicide by analysing 141 domestic homicide reviews (DHRs) in England and Wales. All publicly available DHRs (n=141) were retrieved from Community Safety Partnership websites in England and Wales in June 2016. Utilising a mixed methods approach, we designed templates to extract quantitative and qualitative data from DHRs. Descriptive statistics were generated by SPSS. 54 DHRs were analysed qualitatively, using N-Vivo for data management. The findings revealed that perpetrators were aged: 16 - 82 years; with a mean average age of 41 years. Victims’ ages ranged from: 17 and 91 years old; with a mean average age: 45 years. Perpetrators’ mental health was mentioned in 65% of DHRs; 49% of perpetrators had a mental health diagnosis. Healthcare services, in particular, mental health services, were most likely to be involved with perpetrators. ‘Movement’ was identified as a key contextual feature of the 54 DHRs analysed qualitatively and this was found to interact with risk assessment, language barriers and housing problems. In conclusion, domestic violence and abuse risk assessments need to be informed by the knowledge that domestic abuse occurs across the age span. Mental health settings offer an opportunity for intervention to prevent domestic homicide. Domestic Homicide Reviews can provide valuable material for training practitioners

Proceedings from the ASPC

Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) was introduced in 1996 to replace Non-English Speaking Background (NESB), both of which are commonly used in the social policy discourse to refer to all of Australia’s ethnic groups other than the English-speaking, Anglo-Saxon majority. However, CALD has developed negative connotations. It can produce ‘relational exclusion’, or the feeling of not belonging, for both minority ethnics groups as well as the majority, and it can produce ‘distributional’ exclusion, which refers to unequal access to services, opportunities, or representation. We argue that CALD should only be used in a functional way to celebrate Australia’s diversity, but not in a categorical way to refer to a sub-group of its population. For this latter function, we propose the term ‘Australians Ethnically Diverse and Different from the Majority’ (AEDDM). We explore in this paper how this term can provide researchers, practitioners, and policy makers with a better ability to monitor and respond to their level of social exclusion and inequity to services, opportunities and representation, as the basis for promoting ethnic equality in the future

Focus group research for beyondblue with consumers and carers

To better achieve these aims, beyondblue commissioned the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in September 2010 to conduct focus group research with consumers and carers. Consumers are defined as people with personal experience of depression, anxiety and related substance use disorders, and carers are defined as family members and friends who care for consumers.This study aims to: (i) comprehensively describe the range of needs and experiences of consumers and carers, and (ii) use these as the basis for developing practice and policy recommendations to beyondblue about how best to increase awareness, decrease stigma, promote its impact, and improve treatment. To do this, four key themes were explored in each of the focus groups. These were consumers’ and carers’ perceptions and experiences of: Community awareness of mental health issues; Stigma associated with mental health issues; The social and economic impact of mental health issues; and Treatment for mental health issues