Outcomes of the Inner City Youth at Risk Project

The Inner City Youth at Risk (ICYAR) Project is a partnership project which draws together 21 government and non-government organisations (NGOs) to target and respond to young people who are experiencing homelessness and/or at risk of homelessness in Kings Cross and surrounding areas. Partners include mainstream health services, other government agencies, local government, and a range of youth and homelessness support agencies and Non Government Organisations. This report describes the activities and achievements of the project and the costs of providing services, based on the ICYAR database between 1st July 2010 and the 30th June 2012. Key findings are: Over the data collection period, 1145 instances of brokerage were provided to 487 clients, including 190 food vouchers, 157 housing set-up costs, 142 instances of emergency accommodation and 116 contributions towards education and vocation. A quarter of all clients identified as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin. The average age at which clients first had contact with ICYAR was 22, and young men and women were equally represented. The project is reaching its target client group of highly disadvantaged young people. The majority of clients experienced unstable accommodation (82.9 per cent). Around a third had mental health issues, and almost a third of clients had alcohol and other drug (AOD) issues. The majority of clients had multiple presenting issues. Access to brokerage is a highly valued component of the ICYAR service model, but average expenditure is quite low. Supported housing applications had the highest overall mean amount ($1242 per application) which reflects high costs such as payments for staff time. Case managed brokerage had an average of$437 and emergency brokerage an average of $93 per application. Ten properties were made available to ICYAR for clients with complex needs, and an additional 3 properties have been sourced through partnerships with housing providers. The majority of clients that are assisted to enter housing in this program successfully maintained their tenancy. The overall retention rate for supported housing clients is 80 per cent.The service model is regarded by partner agencies as effective and efficient, and their sustained participation over the life of the project reflects this. Prepared for South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Data Practices in a Web of Values: Reflections on the Gap between Ethical Principles and Data-Driven Social Policy

This chapter examines the ethical dimension of the data-driven social policy initiatives reported in Chapters 2 to 6 and discusses the apparent gap between ethical standards and the realities of policy implementation

A ‘promising tool’? A critical review of the social and ethico-political effects of wastewater analysis in the context of illicit drug epidemiology and drug policy

Wastewater analysis has been taken up with enthusiasm in the illicit drugs field. Through a critical social science lens, we consider claims to what these ‘promising’ methods might afford in the context of drug epidemiology and policy, recognising that all methods have social effects in their specific contexts of use. We outline several ethico-political issues, highlighting how methods can have different effects as they move from one discipline (environmental science or analytic chemistry) into another (illicit drugs). Translated into the drugs field, wastewater analysis problematically shifts the focus of drug policy from harm reduction to drug use prevalence and entrenches stigma. Without comprehensive information about the social and contextual aspects of drug harms, effective drug policy is not possible

Linking Schools and Early Years Project evaluation Evaluation framework (2010-13)

Ilan Katz and kylie valentine, with colleagues from the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC), University of New South Wales will conduct an evaluation of the project. Evaluation has been built into the project model from the outset, and there is a clear intention to examine the effectiveness of the model and the potential for wider implementation. The evaluation will be based on data collected from each of the primary groups involved in the project, and from contextual data on the three project communities. The primary groups involved include: • The parents of children starting school. • Schools. • Early education and care (EEC) services, that is, services whose primary business is delivering early education and care services to children in the prior to school years. For the purposes of the project the term ‘early childhood education and care’ services refers to: kindergarten or pre-school, long day care and family day care. • Local government. • Child and Family services, including organisations, groups and agencies whose primary business is delivering health, family support, advocacy and advice services to young children and their families. Example of Child and Family services are maternal and child health, playgroups, pre-school field officers, neighbourhood renewal, libraries etc. This document updates and replaces the original evaluation framework published as an appendix to the baseline or Time 1 (T1) evaluation report (valentine and Dinning, 2009). The most significant change is the expansion of process evaluation methodologies with the addition of primary data collection

Poverty and Australian housing: findings from an Investigative Panel

This research investigates the key links between housing and poverty. Its purpose is to draw together different dimensions of the relationships between housing costs and poverty, including policy settings, tax and transfer systems, housing assistance and place-based dimensions and individual capabilities. The causal relationships between housing and poverty are complicated. Housing costs commonly comprise the largest share of living costs and can increase the risk of poverty. Insecurity caused by excessive housing costs relative to income over extended periods of time can lead to entrenched poverty that can be hard to escape. Reconceptualising poverty creates opportunities for targeted housing policy towards social goals. First, poverty should be identified as the consequence of policies and systems decision making. Second, poverty alleviation should be the responsibility of institutions of society acting in partnership with individuals experiencing poverty. It should not be placed upon individuals alone. Seeing housing as a basic right, and of the need for a universal approach to housing provision, is necessary for poverty eradication. Both shelter and non-shelter housing outcomes need to be understood as valuable to society. This perspective aligns well with housing being reframed and understood as both essential infrastructure and an infrastructure of care

Leaving rehab: enhancing transitions into stable housing

The project will examine the coordination between residential treatment and housing and social support services using international comparisons and linked administrative data followed by testing in the field. It aims to enhance transition planning and reduce the risk of housing instability for individuals leaving treatment for mental health and/or substance use problems

"A more accurate understanding of drug use": A critical analysis of wastewater analysis technology for drug policy.

The idea of identifying and monitoring urinary excretion of illicit drugs and their metabolites in wastewater has been seen by governments and international organisations as 'promising'. It is claimed that such approaches will enable governments to effectively direct resources to priority areas, monitor the progress of demand and supply reduction strategies, as well as identify emerging trends. Drawing on poststructural approaches to policy analysis and insights from science and technology studies, we consider how the technology of wastewater analysis may be seen as a kind of proposal with productive capacity and constitutive effects. Through this analysis, we seek to raise ontopolitical questions about the production of data by interrogating the claims to 'accuracy' promoted in wastewater analysis, and illuminating the assumptions underpinning such pursuits. By taking an approach which sees method as performative rather than as descriptive of a pre-existing reality, we consider how wastewater analysis enacts realities into being in the drugs field. Taking Australia's National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program as a case example, we argue that wastewater analysis constitutes drug use as measurable, countable and comparable and, in doing so, enacts a homogenous drug using population in a bounded geographical space, with implications for drug policy. Furthermore, the claim to 'accuracy' constitutes people who use drugs as lacking in knowledge and unaware, and relates to a range of practices which work to continually re-produce people who use drugs as criminal, untrustworthy and in need of surveillance. Through this analysis, we seek to generate critical discussion about practices of 'evidence-making', the privileging of 'scientific data' in drug policy processes (especially as it relates to population prevalence of drug use), and the hitherto unexamined effects of wastewater analysis for drug policy

Methadone maintenance treatment in New South Wales and Victoria: Takeaways, diversion and other key issues

The project on which this report is based investigated the role takeaways play in MMT in New South Wales and Victoria, and looked closely at the conditions under which methadone is diverted to street sale and to other forms of sharing and circulation. In the process, it also identified a range of other issues of significance to MMT clients, service providers and policy makers in Australia today