Academic literature on the topic 'Social service, Rural Victoria Gippsland'

Objective This study explored the roles and competencies of Support Facilitators (SFs) engaged in the implementation of the Partners in Recovery initiative in a rural region of Victoria. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 stakeholders involved in the initiative, of which 15 were SFs. Results Two main themes and 10 subthemes emerged from the data: (1) SF competencies (which included an understanding of local services as well as administrative and social skills); and (2) the SF role (which included them being a single point of contact, providing care coordination, assisting the client to become self-reliant, achieving good outcomes for clients with confronting behaviours, judiciously using flexible funding, clearly outlining their role with clients and maintaining boundaries and performing a different role from that of the mental health case manager). Conclusions The roles and competencies of the SF in the Partners in Recovery initiative in Gippsland were congruent with the defined characteristics of a care coordination approach. The results highlight how the SF role differs from that of traditional clinical case managers. These findings are important for future mental health service policy development, education and training of mental health practitioners and recruitment of personnel to care coordination roles. What is known about the topic? There is a growing body of literature highlighting the importance of care coordination in delivery of positive outcomes for people with chronic and complex health problems. However, little is documented about the care coordination role of SFs as part of the Partners in Recovery initiative in Australia. What does this paper add? This paper identifies the roles and competencies of SFs in the Partners in Recovery initiative in a rural region of Victoria. The paper highlights that the emergent competencies and role functions are congruent with the defined characteristics of a care coordination approach but differ from that of mental health case managers. What are the implications for practitioners? These findings are important for future mental health service policy development, education and training of mental health practitioners and recruitment of personnel to care coordination roles.

The Getting It Together Rural Health Promotion project was established by a group of community health providers in Gippsland, Victoria. The overall aim of Getting It Together was to extend and improve health promotion practice amongst participating organisations. This was achieved through collaboration around health promotion training and planning. Complementary strategies addressing Cardio-Vascular Disease (CVD) were developed across four Local Government Areas (LGAs). Central resourcing was provided for coordination of the project, and for marketing and network support tasks. The project was based on an integrated and coordinated health promotion model, which contained overlapping strategies combining to create a broadly based partnership of action. At the commencement of the project, health promotion workers from each LGA were provided with a three-day training course conducted by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT). Participants developed Action Plans based around the three driving strategies of community wide-strategies, targeted strategies and marketing. A special feature of Getting It Together was a common media strategy, to support and reinforce action at the local level. An overall slogan was adopted, 'Slicker Ticker - A Gippsland Healthy Heart Project'. Uniting themes included 'Stress Less Week' and 'Gippsland Get Up and Go'. Latrobe Community Health Service facilitated the project and senior managers from the partnering agencies formed a Steering Committee, which met at key intervals to monitor the project.

Health literacy is a major issue for improving health outcomes of clients. In rural Victoria, Australia, the Gippsland Health Literacy Project (GHLP) educated local health services staff about health literacy and provided tools and techniques for health literacy implementation in services. This paper reports the outcomes of this project. Participants’ change in knowledge was measured through pre- and post-project surveys and interviews. Descriptive analysis of survey data and analysis of interviews using qualitative description enabled exploration of individual and organisational shifts in health literacy perspectives. Healthcare professionals’ knowledge of health literacy has improved as a result of the health literacy education. Health service organisations are also taking greater responsibility for health literacy responsiveness in their services. Systematic changes to policy and procedures that support health literacy are required. Although health literacy education provides more accessible health care for consumers, where projects had executive-level support the changes implemented were more likely to be successful and sustainable. What is known about this topic? Low health literacy is a strong predictor of health status and it is important for health organisations to ensure they provide health care and information in a way that can be understood, interpreted and acted on by all clients, regardless of their health literacy levels. What does this paper add? This paper presents findings on staff training and resources that can effectively support staff to improve health literacy practices. What are the implications for practitioners? Addressing health literacy issues appears to result in more accessible health care for consumers. Executive support and health literacy champions are key requirements to successfully address health literacy issues.

The study reported in this paper compared data from 20 separate focus groups,representing providers and consumers of health services in the Grampians region,Victoria, on their perceptions of the allied health service issues in that region. Theresults of the study indicated that providers and consumers raised many similar issuesin regard to allied health services ? access to allied health services, service delivery,social and rural issues ? but discussed the issues from different perspectives. Theprovider discussion was concerned with service delivery issues and the consumerdiscussion was focused on broader social issues which affect health.

This program development report describes the birth of ‘Wondering From the Womb’, a self-determined antenatal yarning resource created through a culturally respectful action research project undertaken in rural Victoria with Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members and professionals. The qualitative reviews completed within Community involved 40 participants who shared their wisdom and experiences regarding antenatal health, parenting and child-rearing practise and connection to Country. The resulting yarning resource, written from the perspective of a baby in the womb, has encouraged curiosity and wonder about what antenates can teach adults and community members regarding their life, learning and healing. Future uses for such a resource are identified with an aim to continue self-determined, culturally respectful service delivery for Indigenous babies, children and families across the Loddon Mallee region.

Background: Several childhood stressors related to immigration have been documented, and it is important for clinicians to understand and address the various factors that may lead to or act as maintaining factors of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Aims: To describe the cultural profile of transcultural patients presenting to a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) in regional Victoria and identify the most common disorders and psychosocial stressors they presented with. Method: Descriptive analysis was applied to 101 case records of patients with a transcultural background who attended the CAMHS of Latrobe Regional Hospital in Gippsland Victoria from 2013 to 2017. The Adverse Childhood Experience questionnaire was retrospectively applied to capture psychosocial stressors such as ‘bullying’, ‘racism’ and ‘family conflict’, sexual abuse, physical violence, parents with mental illness and parental substance use. Results: Almost 60% of patients were male and over 46% Aboriginal. Those from a non-Aboriginal background belonged to 19 different cultural entities, the most common of which was a mixed Asian and European heritage. The most common diagnoses were disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (38.6%), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (32.7%) and developmental trauma disorder (26.7%). The most common psychosocial stressors were conflict and death in the family (44.6%), domestic violence (41.6%) and emotional abuse (34.7%). ‘Parent in jail’ and ‘domestic violence’ were associated with having an Aboriginal background ( p < .005). ‘Cultural differences with parent’ was associated with a non-Aboriginal background ( p < .005). Conclusion: This study provides a snapshot of challenges faced by children from different cultural backgrounds while adjusting in a rural area in Australia. A broad-based formulation and cultural awareness by clinicians can enable a better understanding of the complexities, guide management plans and inform public health policies for primary prevention and early intervention.

Objective To date, there are few data on pharmacy-specific placement programs and their impact on students’ work after graduation. The present study evaluated an innovative rural pharmacy placement program targeted at influencing students to work and live in rural areas after graduation. A secondary aim of the study was to explore the students’ intentions to come back and practice in rural areas as a result of their involvement in the rural pharmacy program. Methods A questionnaire was distributed, by hand, to a total of 58 third and fourth (final) year pharmacy students undertaking their rural placement in the Gippsland region, in rural Victoria in 2011 and 2012. Results Fifty-seven responses were returned (response rate = 98%). Students stated that understanding pharmacy practice from a rural perspective, visits to rural health professionals and sites and the attitude of their preceptors were essential to their satisfaction with their rural placements. A significant number of students (72%) intend to seek employment in rural areas if opportunities arise as a result of their increased rural awareness. The key components for a successful rural placement program were described by the surveyed students as social awareness, recognising job opportunities and interprofessional learning. Conclusion The evaluation of the rural placement program revealed that students valued their visits to rural sites and their interaction with other rural health professionals the most. What is known about the topic? Rural undergraduate student programs have been initiated as a result of several Australian government strategies to address shortages in rural health workforce. Subsequently, various rural placement programs have been integral parts of several disciplines, including medicine, dentistry, nursing, occupational therapy and pharmacy among others. To date, there are few data on pharmacy-specific placement programs and their impact on students’ work after graduation What does this paper add? The rural pharmacy program is important in influencing students’ perceptions and interest in a career in rural areas. The key components for a successful rural placement program were described by the surveyed students as social awareness, recognising job opportunities and interprofessional learning. What are the implications for practitioners? Interprofessional learning and collaboration are inevitable due to the shortage of health professionals and the move towards holistic management of patients in healthcare settings. The development of an interprofessional rural education that combines rural medical and pharmacy students together highlights the importance of an interprofessional approach to preparing students to work in rural areas.

Purpose – The Gippsland Mental Health Vacation School program has been shown to positively change student participants’ interest and attitudes to living and working in a rural area. A range of factors are impacting on the future viability of the initiative including: limitations on the number of student participants, the reusability of content, staffing, time pressures, a dwindling funding base, and a drop-off in interest in living and working in a rural setting. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A three-phase Delphi Study was employed to engage with expert knowledge of the program’s key stakeholder groups (student participants and service provider staff) in order to inform the initial steps of shifting the program toward a blended model, distributed across space and time. Findings – The results suggest that: first, the current mode of delivery, a week-long intensive face-to-face format, should be transitioned to a more sustainable blended learning approach that includes both on-line content and an in situ component; and second, trailing the use of social media as a mechanism to maintain student interest in rural mental health work following the vacation school. Originality/value – This study highlights how the transition to a sustainable approach to the delivery of a novel rural mental health workforce recruitment strategy was informed through a three-phase Delphi Study that involved the key stakeholders (groups of student participants and service provider staff). The study has important implications for addressing the shortage of mental health practitioners in rural areas. It will and be of interest to educators, administrators, researchers and bureaucrats.

Objective: This paper describes the first phase of a larger project that utilizes participatory action research to examine complex mental health needs across an extensive group of stakeholders in the community. Method: Within an objective qualitative analysis of focus group discussions the social ecological model is utilized to explore how integrative activities can be informed, planned and implemented across multiple elements and levels of a system. Seventy-one primary care workers, managers, policy-makers, consumers and carers from across the southern metropolitan and Gippsland regions of Victoria, Australia took part in seven focus groups. All groups responded to an identical set of focusing questions. Results: Participants produced an explanatory model describing the service system, as it relates to people with complex needs, across the levels of social ecological analysis. Qualitative themes analysis identified four priority areas to be addressed in order to improve the system's capacity for working with complexity. These included: (i) system fragmentation; (ii) integrative case management practices; (iii) community attitudes; and (iv) money and resources. Conclusions: The emergent themes provide clues as to how complexity is constructed and interpreted across the system of involved agencies and interest groups. The implications these findings have for the development and evaluation of this community capacity-building project were examined from the perspective of constructing interventions that address both top-down and bottom-up processes.

Most women use family planning services during their reproductive lifetime, but many lack ready access to such services, particularly in a rural area. The aim of this study was to document and thus develop an understanding of the facilitators and barriers to accessing three types of family planning services (emergency contraception, termination of pregnancy, and options counselling) within a particular rural area of Victoria, Australia, and how these might affect women’s psychosocial health and their ability to make timely decisions about continuation of a pregnancy.

Community interventions are a recent development in the field of prevention. This study sought to address the current gap in this area, between scientific knowledge and community practice, through an understanding of practitioners’ experiences of implementation. A case study was undertaken to explore the context and complexity of implementation processes. Data was collected concurrently with the implementation of a community intervention located in rural Victoria, Australia, which aimed to reduce early school leaving. Implementers’ perspectives on a guide to best practice, developed from the academic literature, were sought. Concepts from systems theory and ecological approaches were combined to create a framework suitable for the analysis of the data. The intervention was viewed as an open system. Its progression from being a subsystem of the funded organization to a subsystem of both the funded organization and the community was examined. Factors such as meeting community needs and community members as program staff were found to facilitate community acceptance. The interactions within and between the subsystems of the intervention and the community were also explored. School retention rates were suggestive of some level of impact on school leaving. Additional positive outcomes were the facilitation and/or strengthening of links between community subsystems, and a perceived change within the funded organization. This thesis goes some way towards bridging the gap between science and practice in this field. Findings contribute to the debate regarding flexibility versus fidelity and a greater understanding of the unique challenges faced by rural interventions.

Abstract The Mallee Climate Oral History Collection is the product of a four-year research partnership with Museum Victoria. From 2004 to 2007, a series of annual recordings were conducted on the experience of drought with people in wheat-belt communities dotted across the semiarid Mallee. The timing of the project during the millennium drought coincided with a momentous shift in Australian public awareness of climate change, prompting reflexive discussion of the meaning of drought. Interviewees wore several “hats” in life—farming to health work, public service to parenting, local business to education, government science to community advocacy for rural social and environmental sustainability. These stories bear the mark of rural endurance: as the drought wore on, just one interviewee left the Mallee; the rest were determined to continue making a living here, at the inland edge of the Australian cropping zone.

Information communications technology (ICT) has been identified as a key enabler in the achievement of regional and rural success, particularly in terms of economic and business development. The potential of achieving equity of service through improved communications infrastructure and enhanced access to government, health, education, and other services has been identified. ICT has also been linked to the aspiration of community empowerment, where dimensions include revitalizing a sense of community, building regional capacity, enhancing democracy, and increasing social capital. In Australia, there has been a vision for online services to be used to open up regional communities to the rest of the world. Government support has been seen “as enhancing the competence levels of local economies and communities so they become strong enough to deal equitably in an increasingly open marketplace” (McGrath & More, 2002, p. 40). In a regional and rural context, the availability of practical assistance is often limited. Identification of the most appropriate online services for a particular community is sometimes difficult (Ashford, 1999; Papandrea & Wade, 2000; Pattulock & Albury Wodonga Area Consultative Committee, 2000). Calls, however, continue for regional communities to join the globalized, online world. These are supported by the view that success today is based less and less on natural resource wealth, labor costs, and relative exchange rates, and more and more on individual knowledge, skills, and innovation. But how can regional communities “grab their share of this wealth” and use it to strengthen local communities (Simpson 1999, p. 6)? Should communities be moving, as Porter (2001, p. 18) recommends (for business), away from the rhetoric about “Internet industries,” “e-business strategies,” and the “new economy,” to see the Internet as “an enabling technology—a powerful set of tools that can be used, wisely or unwisely, in almost any industry and as part of almost any strategy?” Recent Australian literature (particularly government literature) does indeed demonstrate somewhat of a shift in terms of the expectations of ICT and e-commerce (National Office for the Information Economy, 2001; Multimedia Victoria, 2002; National Office for the Information Economy, 2002). Consistent with reflections on international industry experience, there is now a greater emphasis on identifying locally appropriate initiatives, exploring opportunities for improving existing communication and service quality, and for using the Internet and ICT to support more efficient community processes and relationships (Hunter, 1999; Municipal Association of Victoria and ETC Electronic Trading Concepts Pty Ltd., 2000; National Office for the Information Economy, 2002). The objective of this article is to explore whether welldeveloped and well-implemented online services can make a positive contribution to the future of regional and rural communities. This will be achieved by disseminating some of the learning from the implementation of the MainStreet Regional Portal project (www.mainstreet.net.au). To provide a context for this case study, the next section introduces some theory relevant to virtual communities and portals. The concept of online communities is introduced and then literature is reviewed to identify factors that have been acknowledged as important in the success of online community and portal initiatives.