Neville Cunningham : Communist rebel, radical, activist and intellectual

Neville Cunningham (1927-2013) is an important part of a long historyof radical Newcastle

Back from the brink: The experience of hospital after a suicide attempt and what happens when you go home

Key proponents of suicide prevention have been calling for “Lived experience” research with people who have attempted suicide. Consequently, this research uncovered people’s experience after a suicide attempt, and what they go through at this critical time. Information was obtained from interviewing eight, adult volunteers and analysed using Colaizzi’s descriptive phenomenological framework. This paper describes the experiences of being hospitalized, discharged, and returning home to struggle with suicidality and mental illness, difficulties with other people, and with medication. It contains new findings on the way patients’ help each other recover, and the experience of returning home after a suicide attempt

Words of wisdom from those who lived to tell the tale

This dataset was compiled for the Masters Research Project: Words of wisdom from those who lived to tell the tale. The research question asked people with the experience of attempting suicide how they re-engaged with life after the event. It has been used to derive the publication Back from the Brink: the experience of hospital after a suicide attempt and what happens when you go home

Global segmentation and the liveability response : an Australian regional challenge

Globalisation research draws attention to spatial identities. Globalizing processes are nevertheless influential in the formation of regional identity. Global changes in the way economic activities are organised and well documented. Understanding and predicting these changes and the interplay with regional identity is not easy. As such improved regional competitiveness and with it increased liveability is a much sought after property of most economies. There does however remain little agreement either on what regional competitiveness or liveability means or on how regions can generate interventions to enhance it. The range of factors influencing the liveability of regions is potentially very wide, with many areas collectively capable of providing for the 'right business environment'. This paper discusses the concern over the liveability of regions and its relationship with fundamental shifts in 21st century capitalist economies. The drivers behind what is essentially a complex re-focusing onto regions manifest in two main areas; a redefining of the importance and role of regions in the global economy and with this redefinition a focus on the competitiveness between not only regions but also within localities in regions. The paper draws on a recent study of the performance of liveability within the ‘Mackay-Whitsunday-Isaac’ region in Australia. It discusses the challenges presented by localised responses to the global segmentation of regions and the capacity of such responses to alleviate developmental pressures within communities and to ensure the liveability of regions

The Transition of Nigerian-educated Nurses to the Australian Healthcare System: An Exploratory Qualitative Study in Work-Life Learning

Internationally qualified nurses' flow to Australia is not new and has increased over recent decades. Immigrant nurses working in Australia come from diverse source countries. The immigrant nurses that require the Overseas Qualified Nurses Program (OQNP) or more recently introduced outcomes-based assessment (OBA) vary from one country to another, depending on the country of initial nursing registration. Numerous research studies have explored the experiences of these immigrant nurses in Australia. Still, there is a shortage of studies on the work-life learning of Nigerian educated nurses working in the Australian healthcare system. The current research focuses on the Nigerian educated nurses in Australia (NENs) given the cultural, technological, educational, social, and legal differences in the new practice environment, especially in the recently introduced National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurse (NCLEX-RN).</p

Learning from the floods : lessons for understanding community resilience in the town of Theodore

Much of the literature around engagement in Australia focuses on service learning and how this contributes towards student learning. To date, not much attention has been paid to community learning or to the benefits and challenges for community partners. This paper reflects on an engaged research journey aimed at better understanding how the community of Theodore responded to the recent floods of 2010-2011. It highlights the contribution made to learning from both a community and researchers’ perspective, and outlines the lessons taken from this project along the way. The paper demonstrates learning from both the community and researchers’ perspectives reflected each other in many ways. These include learning patience, social connectivity, mutuality and considering the research as part of community learning as a way of looking toward the future

Shareholder preferences for the future direction of Mackay Sugar Limited: Final report (Confidential)

This research report is about the identification of stakeholders' preference related to the future direction of Mackay Sugar Limited

Showing and growing community resilience in Theodore: Community based participatory research project into community resilience in the wake of the 2010/11 floods project

In recent years, a number of small and large communities around Australia and internationally, have had to learn to deal with the trauma associated with natural disasters. This Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project explores community resilience after flooding in the township of Theodore, a small rural town in Queensland that was evacuated twice during the 2010-2011 summer. Community resilience is now emerging as a key factor in determining how people deal with stressful situations both in the short and long term. While much of the research to date has considered community resilience from the perspective of a collective of individuals’ resilience, it is becoming evident that collective community resilience is more than a sum of the resilience of individuals (Hegney et al 2007; Mukota & Muhajarine 2005; Bava et al 2010). Colten, Kates and Laska (2008, p. 38) define community resilience as the ability of communities to ‘rebound from disaster and reduce long-term vulnerability, thus moving toward more sustainable footing’. Community resilience can only be developed as a whole of community learning activity through active citizenry and solid social networks of community groups (Bourgon 2010). The ‘Showing and Growing Community Resilience in Theodore’ project uses photovoice to gather the first stage of data which focuses on the meaning the floods had for residents in regards to community resilience, associated aspects of vulnerability and risk perception. Residents provide photographs as a means of telling their stories. Consistent with CBPR, researchers work with participants to analyse these photographs to draw out a collective meaning for the community, as well as to collaboratively identify ways forward for the residents of Theodore to build a stronger community. As a CBPR project, the researchers and community work together at all stages of the data collection and analysis in a process whereby each learns from one another (Minkler & Wallerstein 2008). Using an adaptation of Mukota and Muhajarine’s (2005) conceptual framework, the researchers and community members can systematically work through the contextual, structural, social and interpersonal factors that promote and inhibit community resilience. The aim is to better understand how to grow community resilience to natural disasters and to enable a stronger community into the future