Showing items 1 - 15 of 15

Alain Touraine : the politics of collective action

  • Authors: Ottmann, Goetz , Noble, Carolyn
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: The Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work p. 465-476
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  • Description: This chapter takes as its starting point Touraine’s work on new social movements that explains how social change occurs. Touraine’s work focuses on how people come together to challenge and alter cultural and socio-political boundaries of a social, institutional or political system deemed to be discriminatory or oppressive. Becoming involved in social action against social disadvantage and injustice, and struggling for changes in law, public policy and the political culture can empower people to take control of their lives. Linking community development and social action with social movements theory and practice is, we argue, the most effective and salient method for the advancement of a more progressive social work practice. How this analysis influences the teaching and practice of community development and social action to advance a more progressive, transformative social work practice is explored. © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Christine Morley, Phillip Ablett, Carolyn Noble, and Stephen Cowden.

Barriers and enablers to safeguarding children and adults within a disability services context : insights from an Australian delphi study

  • Authors: Ottmann, Goetz , McVilly, Keith , Anderson, Julie , Chapman, Jessica , Karlyawasam, Imalka
  • Date: 2017
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Social Policy and Administration Vol. 51, no. 3 (2017), p. 488-510
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  • Description: Research conducted in the 1990s revealed the tragic irony that exposure to the disability support system, and particularly to its institutional forms, was a major risk factor related to the neglect and abuse of children and adults with a disability. Subsequently, a range of policies have been introduced to minimize risk. However, recurring events of abuse and neglect in the disability services sector in high and middle income countries demonstrate that processes geared to safeguard children and adults with a disability from abuse and neglect remain insufficient. To establish the wider fabric of organizational factors that contribute to effective safeguarding practices within the Australian disability support sector, a modified online Delphi study was conducted, capturing the views of disability services staff and managers (n = 249) regarding barriers and enablers to effective safeguarding. This study identified issues concerning organizational culture, management practice, workforce development, client capacity building and contextual factors. During Round Two of the Delphi, participants were asked to rate the categorized enabler statements according to importance on a 10-point Likert scale, to ascertain the degree of consensus. A total of 262 of the statements were regarded as important or very important. The Delphi result highlighted the considerable gap between the wider systemic and cultural processes that, in the eyes of disability services staff and management, contribute to good safeguarding practice and the safeguarding measures currently in place. The article calls for a holistic approach to safeguarding that addresses procedural issues and to the transformation of the wider systemic and cultural fabric of an organization. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. **Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Goetz Ottmann” is provided in this record**

Examining the experiences of intercultural ambassadors in regional Victoria from 2019 to 2021

Exploring community-based aged care with Aboriginal elders in three regional and remote Australian communities : a qualitative study

  • Authors: Ottmann, Goetz
  • Date: 2018
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Social Work & Policy Studies: Social Justice, Practice and Theory Vol. 1, no. 001 (2018), p.
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  • Description: While a small body of literature focuses on various facets of aged care services delivered to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders, very little is known about the support needs and preferences of Indigenous Elders who ‘return to country’. This article addresses this gap. It explores the support needs of Indigenous Elders who return to their communities after having lived elsewhere for prolonged periods of time. It provides an overview of the key themes emerging from group sessions and semi-structured interviews with 11 Aboriginal Elders and 12 representatives of regional health and social care organisations conducted between 2012 and 2013. The article argues that the quest of Elders to strengthen kinship systems should not be seen as a barrier but as an opportunity to develop aged care services that resonate with the needs of Indigenous Elders and with their kinship network. The findings presented in the article are structured around the themes of empowerment and choice; community-based kinship care; and enhancing program flexibility. The article argues that it is crucial for Aboriginal community care services to be grounded in Indigenous culture. To address the wider socio-cultural project of Aboriginal Elders (i.e. to re-connect with their families, strengthen the kinship system and, re-create their cultural roles) when designing aged care services not only ensures that services are relevant to Indigenous Elders, it also ensures that services are culturally safe and address the psychosocial needs of Elders returning to country as well as their families. The article lends further weight to research that reports that a mainstream approach to the aged care of Indigenous Elder is likely to produce poor care outcomes.

Exploring lived experiences of participants in the Intercultural Employment Pathways (IEP) program from 2019 to 2022

  • Authors: Cooper, Kimberlea , Patil, Tejaswini , Ottmann, Goetz , Williams, Dominic , Mummery, Jane
  • Date: 2022
  • Type: Text , Technical report
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  • Description: This report documents research conducted by Federation University in relation to the City of Ballarat Intercultural Employment Pathways (IEP) program from 2019 - 2022. The IEP program aims to enhance social inclusion, employment, and education pathways for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) migrants in the Ballarat region. The purpose of the research was to explore the lived experiences of migrants who participated in the IEP program to better understand the strengths of the program and propose recommendations for its future. The research was a qualitative study that used a survey, interviews, and a focus group to explore the perspectives of IEP participants and encourage them to share deep and rich accounts of their lived experiences. Overall, 39 migrants involved with the IEP program participated in the research. The findings are grouped into four themes: Connection: The communal nature of the IEP program enabled participants to establish social and professional connections which increased their networking capacity to find gainful employment. Participants valued the networking opportunities created by the IEP program as many felt as though they were ‘starting again’ after migrating to Australia. Culture: The IEP program assisted participants to adapt to Australian norms of job-hunting and workplace culture and to learn practical strategies to utilise in their job application and interview techniques. The IEP program created a broader platform for cultural exchange within the community and can contribute to wider changes in representation and appreciation of diversity. Confidence: The IEP program assisted participants to improve their levels of confidence and feelings of self-worth. The tailored support that is available to each participant enabled them to develop confidence in their abilities and focus upon their strengths. Context: Participants shared experiences of the many challenges and barriers they have faced when looking for meaningful and secure employment in Australia. Understanding these wider experiences provide the context in which the IEP program operates and emphasises its importance in providing valuable assistance to migrants settling in the City of Ballarat.

Giorgio Agamben : sovereign power, bio-politics and the totalitarian tendencies within societies

  • Authors: Ottmann, Goetz , Brito, Iris
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: The Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work p. 223-232
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  • Description: This chapter focuses on Giorgio Agamben’s work on power, sovereignty, bare life, and bio-politics. Agamben argues that the state of exception (where the state no longer orders forms of life, creating a kind of no-man’s-land where rules are made by those in charge) is the original political relation that continues to define the workings of the modern state. An example of this state of exception is the concentration camp, a place where human beings whose political rights are for some reason forfeited (e.g. ethnic or religious minorities, refugees, militant Islamists) are being stored and often destroyed. The structure of the camp, Agamben states, exists and endures in many other forms. He urges us that ‘it is this structure of the camp that we must learn to recognise in all its metamorphoses’. How Agamben’s work is relevant to social work and how his analysis is valuable in critical social work education and practice is explored in this chapter. © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Christine Morley, Phillip Ablett, Carolyn Noble, and Stephen Cowden.

Key design considerations using a cohort stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial in evaluating community-based interventions : lessons learnt from an Australian domiciliary aged care intervention evaluation

  • Authors: Mohebbi,Mohammadreza , Sanagou, Masoumeh , Ottmann, Goetz
  • Date: 2017
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: International journal of statistics in medical research Vol. 6, no. 3 (2017), p. 123-133
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  • Description: The ‘stepped-wedge cluster randomised trial’ (SW-CRT) harbours promise when for ethical or practical reasons the recruitment of a control group is not possible or when a staggered implementation of an intervention is required. Yet SW-CRT designs can create considerable challenges in terms of methodological integration, implementation, and analysis. While cross-sectional methods in participants recruitment of the SW-CRT have been discussed in the literature the cohort method is a novel feature that has not been considered yet. This paper provides a succinct overview of the methodological, analytical, and practical aspects of cohort SW-CRTs.We discuss five issues that are of special relevance to SW-CRTs. First, issues relating to the design, secondly size of clusters and sample size; thirdly, dealing with missing data in the fourth place analysis; and finally, the advantages and disadvantages of SW-CRTs are considered. An Australian study employing a cohort SW-CRT to evaluate a domiciliary aged care intervention is used as case study. The paper concludes that the main advantage of the cohort SW-CRT is that the intervention rolls out to all participants. There are concerns about missing a whole cluster, and difficulty of completing clusters in a given time frame due to involvement frail older people. Cohort SW-CRT designs can be successfully used within public health and health promotion context. However, careful planning is required to accommodate methodological, analytical, and practical challenges.

Nationalist Populism and Social Work

  • Authors: Noble, Carolyn , Ottmann, Goetz
  • Date: 2018
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Journal of Human Rights and Social Work Vol. 3, no. 3 (2018), p. 112-120
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  • Description: This article outlines how the current rise in right-wing populism poses a threat to social work’s humanist positioning within western democracy and what strategies are needed to restore faith in the liberal democratic institutions that are committed to human rights and a polity that provides for all its citizens despite their diversity and often opposing interests. Using the example of the rise of ethnic-nationalist populism in the twentieth century in Europe, we forget at our peril how easily human rights can be both compromised and undermined. Today’s social works can learn from social work’s role in supporting the ethnic practices of Nazi Germany and be forewarned. The article highlights how a culture of hyper-productivity, anti-humanist populism, and authoritarian welfare can erode the human rights framework underpinning social work. By focussing on contemporary social work’s more progressive stance with its commitment to anti-oppressive practice, its linkages with civil society and community activism, and its commitment to carve out a prominent political space for advancing a human rights agenda, we hope to learn lessons from the past and act collectively to protect and return confidence to a universal human rights agenda for a progressive social work practice. © 2018, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Placement interviews at the interface of cultural diversity and standardised requirements

  • Authors: Koeck, Clara-Maria , Ottmann, Goetz
  • Date: 2018
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Advances in social work and welfare education Vol. 20, no. 1 (2018), p. 108-121
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  • Description: Field education placements permit social work students to gain practical experience employing the knowledge and skills they acquired in the classroom. Access to field education placements is dependent upon placement interviews during which candidates have to display their professional and personal suitability. Placement interviews are challenging for all students. For international students, they are particularly challenging as they represent a litmus test as to whether they have achieved a sufficient degree of cultural adaptation. To date, little attention has been paid to the way placement interviews are experienced by international students. This article addresses this gap. The article is based on a qualitative study involving semi-structured, in-depth interviews with five international students focusing on the way placement interviews were experienced, how students felt prepared for them, and the degree to which language proficiency, cultural difference, social connectedness, discrimination, and Australian workplace culture represented a challenge. The findings suggest that international students need be to better informed about opportunities associated with field placement and the often implicit requirements and expectations associated with it. The authors argue that they would benefit from targeted educational resources ranging from English language tuition to interview role play.

Refractory interventions : the incubation of Rival epistemologies in the margins of Brazilian social work

  • Authors: Brito, Iris , Ottmann, Goetz
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: Disrupting Whiteness in Social Work p. 139-155
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  • Description: In Epistemologies of the South, Boaventura Sousa Santos argues that the most important struggle of our time is the struggle against ‘epistemicide’ and to break free from the epistemological poverty resulting from the dominance of neoliberal ideology that has become the hallmark of the early 21st century. In this chapter, we are arguing that social imaginaries are shaped and reshaped in the margins of the direct sphere of influence of the state, giving rise to ground-breaking experiments that can challenge the epistemological closure that often takes place within institutional spaces. Drawing on three Brazilian case studies, we illustrate the following: how Indigenous people appropriate a segment of the tourist industry commodifying a part of their culture in order to translate the economic capital derived from it into new Indigenous cultural capital to be used in a larger struggle against colonisation how Afro-Brazilian activists built community organisations in order to generate a pathway for disenfranchised Black Brazilians into higher education and how a Black Brazilian pastor managed to survive in a staunchly conservative and often racist Pentecostal church to ensure access to quality education and welfare for slum dwellers. In this chapter, we argue that this informal activist social work is central to the struggle for social alternatives and for social justice. This chapter focuses on some examples of how social work practice is being re-defined from the margins of the profession. The case studies exemplify how community initiatives are often decolonising key aspects of Brazilian society by approaching social issues from a grassroots perspective. The chapter provides inspiring and rich examples of localised action which reposition and reinvigorate epistemologies of the ‘south’, illustrating the liberating potential sourced in the margins. It presents a brief summary of emergent epistemological alternatives in everyday life in the southern Bahia, a state in the northeast of Brazil. Brazilian social work emerged during the first decades of the 20th century at the interstice of two powers that sought to extend their sphere of influence: the post-colonial state and the Catholic church. The underpinning epistemicide of global-scale coloniality is a compelling reason why social work in the margins should be more wholly embraced.

Right-wing nationalist populism and social work : some definitions and features

  • Authors: Noble, Carolyn , Ottmann, Goetz
  • Date: 2020
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: The Challenge of Right-wing Nationalist Populism for Social Work : a Human Rights Approach p. 1-14
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  • Description: The rise of right-wing nationalist populism in our increasingly uncertain world poses serious threats to already marginalised groups such as women, migrants, asylum seekers, Indigenous people, and members of ethnic and minority communities. This chapter explores some definitions of right-wing nationalist populism and describes many of its features. We argue that the rise of right-wing populism poses a major challenge to social work’s practice foundations and professional stake in promoting human and democratic rights for all. If unaddressed, populist nationalism has the potential to erode even further the humanist fabric of our societies, making welfare contingent upon ethnicity, social status and level of economic ‘activation’. The challenge for social work is to oppose right-wing populist policies and practices wherever they manifest, and to promote effective, non-violent alternatives that can capture the popular political imaginary. While the threat to human rights-based social work is serious, it also harbours the possibility that the ensuing confrontations will renew and strengthen the profession’s commitment to non-violent, inclusive, socially just practice.

Surveillance, sanctions, and behaviour modification in the name of far-right nationalism : the rise of authoritarian ‘welfare’ in Australia

The first year : the support needs of parents caring for a child with an intellectual disability

The need to know : the information needs of parents of infants with an intellectual disability-a qualitative study

  • Authors: Douglas, Tracy , Redley, Bernice , Ottmann, Goetz
  • Date: 2017
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Journal of Advanced Nursing Vol. 73, no. 11 (Nov 2017), p. 2600-2608
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  • Description: Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the information needs of parents of infants with an intellectual disability in the first year of life. Background: Parents whose infant has an intellectual disability need access to information if they are to facilitate optimal care for their child. A lack of timely, accurate information provision by health professionals, particularly nurses and midwives, can increase parental stress and hinder access to the supports they and their infant require. Design: A qualitative descriptive methodology was used for the study. Methods: Qualitative interviews were undertaken with parents of 11 children with intellectual disabilities in Victoria, Australia in 2014. Data were analysed using descriptive thematic analysis. Findings: Parents experienced challenges accessing quality information during the first year of their child's life. Parents required incremental information provision to build a strong knowledge base to facilitate optimal care for their infants. Three types of knowledge were identified as crucial for parents: knowledge about (1) the infant's condition; (2) the infant's specific needs and (3) available supports and services. Health professionals were the key resource to access this information. Conclusion: Health professionals’ responsibilities include providing relevant, timely information to parents of infants with intellectual disabilities. This study conceptualises three types of information parents need to develop a strong knowledge base to guide their infant's care and provides guidance concerning the optimal timing for the delivery of information. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

‘I walk from trouble’ : exploring safeguards with adults with intellectual disabilities – an Australian qualitative study

  • Authors: Ottmann, Goetz , McVilly, Keith , Maragoudaki, Margarita
  • Date: 2016
  • Type: Text , Journal article
  • Relation: Disability and Society Vol. 31, no. 1 (2016), p. 47-63
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  • Description: People living with intellectual disabilities have a right to be safe from abuse and neglect and have a right to be included in the decision-making process determining safeguards that will affect them. However, the research evidence that could underpin good professional practice in terms of co-producing safeguards against abuse and neglect directly involving people with intellectual disabilities is largely missing. This article, based on qualitative research involving semi-structured interviews conducted during the first half of 2014, seeks to strengthen this evidence base. It reports on the prevention strategies identified by 12 adults with intellectual disabilities about how to stay safe and compares these with the findings of similar research. The article suggests that a comprehensive safeguarding approach comprises both life course-focused safety training and access to assisted decision-making. The article argues that given the plethora of risk situations encountered by people living with intellectual disability, assisted decision-making should take the form of a co-creation process that is situation specific and grounded in everyday life. © 2016 Taylor & Francis.
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