Changing lives : Improving care leaver access to higher education
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Harvey, Andrew , Mendes, Philip
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Oxford Review of Education Vol. 45, no. 4 (2019), p. 573-586
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- Description: Australian and international research documents the limited access of young people transitioning from out-of-home care (OOHC) to further and higher education. This paper examines the processes, outcomes, and key findings of the Raising Expectations project, a collaborative university and industry approach to promote higher education among care leavers at two Australian universities. That approach was informed by the co-authors' previous research, including interviews with enrolled care-leaver students. The paper highlights the relevance of that research in the design and implementation of Raising Expectations. Our findings reiterate the importance of policy and practice reforms informed by rigorous research, particularly involving the voices and agency of care leavers. We outline strategies adopted by the participating universities resulting in a fourfold increase in enrolments, growth in school outreach activities, and significantly improved retention rates. The paper also highlights barriers to higher education access and success, through care-leaver student interviews and policy analysis. These interviews revealed the need for better university outreach and information to prospective care-leaver students, improved support for enrolled care-leaver students, and better capturing of data by universities and governments. The paper also highlights policy barriers to the greater expansion of care-leavers at university, especially in the absence of extended state care.
Young people transitioning from Out-of-home Care and Access to Higher Education: A Critical review of the literature
- Authors: Mendes, Philip , Michell, Dee , Wilson, Jacqueline
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Children Australia Vol. 39, no. 4 (2014), p. 243-252
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- Description: Young people transitioning from out-of-home care are known to have poor educational outcomes compared to their non-care peers. Yet little is known about the experiences or needs of the small numbers of Australian care leavers who enter higher education. This article critically examines existing Australian and international research on the access of care leavers to higher education. A group of pre-care, in-care, transition from care and post-care factors are identified as either hindering or assisting care leavers to maximise their educational opportunities. Some specific policy and practice reforms are recommended to enhance opportunities for Australian care leavers to participate in and complete higher education.
Hope Street : From voice to agency for care-leavers in higher education
- Authors: Wilson, Jacqueline , Mendes, Philip , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Life Writing Vol. 15, no. 4 (2018), p. 597-609
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- Description: In the early 1980s, one of the authors became an adolescent ward of the State of Victoria, Australia, and went into out-of-home care. While in care, repeated encounters with researchers, journalists and policy-makers left her disillusioned as to the efficacy and relevance of their activities, in that although she was sporadically provided with a ‘voice’, this did little to bridge the divide between their world of privilege and the non-privileged world of the subject of their attentions. The article argues that this divide is perpetuated long after people leave care as adults, and that a mere ‘voice’ is not enough–what is needed is agency, in the design and execution of research. This can be achieved through extended education, depending in turn on an inclusive culture shift within institutions of higher learning. The article utilises the author's personal experience as a brief case study.
Weapons of affect : The imperative for transdisciplinary information systems design
- Authors: Rolan, Gregory , Evans, Joanne , Bone, Jane , Lewis, Antonina , Golding, Frank , Wilson, Jacqueline , McKemmish, Sue , Mendes, Philip , Reeves, Keir
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology Vol. 55, no. 1 (2018), p. 420-429
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- Description: Much has been written about ethical and human-centred Information Systems (IS) design, most recently regarding the deleterious outcomes and negative affect of some machine learning applications that embed and perpetuate unethical or even inhumane automation. Terms such as ‘harm’, ‘damage’, and surprisingly, ‘weapon’ have entered the language of this discourse. However, these characteristics are not unique to applications of data science but have long manifested in IS that can also can exhibit opacity and establish tight vicious cycles. These, when coupled with a lack of governance feedback, can perpetuate injustice that has community or sector-wide reach. In this paper, we explore how IS design that sets out with the best of intentions or at least, conceived as a ‘neutral’ system for managing transactional information, can emerge as ‘tools that punish’. We argue that there are crucial principles to be taken from Recordkeeping Informatics, concerned as it is with the entanglement of information and people across space and through time on multi-generational timescales. In particular we discuss how transdisciplinary and critical approaches are necessary to cover more of the design space and surface issues, rights, stakeholders, and, most importantly, values that may be otherwise hidden from a here-and-now, transactional viewpoint.
Child protection hypothetical case studies for a virtual archive : professional perspectives versus the lived experience and expertise of care leavers in Victoria, Australia
- Authors: Mendes, Philip , Wilson, Jacqueline , Golding, Frank
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: British Journal of Social Work Vol. 51, no. 7 (2021), p. 2626-2644
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- Description: For children in out-of-home care (OOHC) and adults who experienced OOHC as children, the records compiled by care workers, social workers and other relevant personnel present multiple ongoing problems. The records often embody deeply contested narratives that may include distortions and misinterpretations of facts, judgemental inferences, moralistic attitudes and other problematic aspects that can leave the care leaver at best ill-served and at worst profoundly distressed and traumatised. This article, an auto-ethnographic collaboration between a social work professional and two care leavers, aims to address these issues by constructing a 'virtual archive' consisting of several hypothetical records compiled in the style typically employed by caseworkers, which are then critiqued by the care leavers. In each case, the record is found to have significant shortcomings in terms of what is included or omitted, the tone, and implied judgements. The article concludes with a discussion that identifies a number of thematic issues and pitfalls intrinsic to the task of record-keeping in the OOHC context and makes recommendations aimed at achieving inclusive, rights-based processes and procedures in the creation and maintenance of records. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.