Insight 02: Framing the future

VICTORIAN COUNCIL OF SOCIAL SERVICE ISSUE 2

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CONTENTS

INSIGHT

CONTRIBUTORS & PRESENTERS

FRAMING THE FUTURE

Publisher Cath Smith Editor Marie McInerney Art Director Marta Gola Photographer Luke Chang Printer Blueprint

Prof Kate Auty Victorian Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability

04. BEYOND TRAUMA Michael Perusco 06. TRAUMA ON THE STREETS

08. BEYOND TAX BREAKS

Michael Perusco, Peter Ruzyla,

Kristen Hilton 010. SPOTLIGHT ON THE

MALLEE WIMMERA

Alex Gartmann, Dr Lauren Rickards

014. CLEARING THE AIR

016. FINDING WHAT WORKS Anke van der Sterren

017. CHANGING TRAJECTORY 018. WAY OUT IN FRONT 022. REFLECTIONS ON

FRAMING THE FUTURE

Prof Kate Auty

023. TALES OF TWO CITIES IN ONE Louise Johnson

024. BRINGING ABOUT CHANGE

RESEARCH

026. MISSING OUT David Baker

REGULAR FEATURES

Insight is printed on recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks, by an ISO 1400-accredited printer.

Acknowledgements VCOSS is grateful for the support of HESTA, principal sponsor of the 2010 Framing the Future event, and to Anthony Smolic for his support and assistance.

Thanks to VCOSS policy analyst Jess Fritze for organising the Framing the Future forum with Insight in mind; Michael Williams, Programming Director at The Wheeler Centre; to the presenters and panel members; and to all who attended.

Thanks also to Claire Bauska, Michelle Lane, Kate Colvin at VCOSS, and Insight editorial committee members Angela Savage and Sarah Pollock for their support and advice.

Farewell to Jennifer Heaney, with thanks for her help with launching Insight and Noticeboard, the VCOSS monthly e-bulletin.

VICTORIAN COUNCIL OF SOCIAL SERVICE

033. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

128 Exhibition Street Melbourne 3000

John Daley CEO, The Grattan Institute Kristen Hilton Director, Civil Justice, Access and Equity, Legal Aid Victoria Jill Gallagher CEO, Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation ( VACCHO ) Alexandra Gartmann CEO, Birchip Cropping Group.

Sue Hackney Coordinator, WayOut project, run by the Cobaw Community Health Service Louise Johnson Associate Professor, School of History, Heritage and Society. Deakin University John Lawrence CEO UnitingCare Gippsland

Jodie Willmer CEO, Travellers Aid; Chair, Community Sector Futures Task Group

Photo credits Thanks to our presenters and their staff for images used at the VCOSS raises awareness of the existence, Framing the Future forum and in this causes and effects of poverty and issue of Insight, and to artist Kathy inequality, and contributes to initiatives McCormick for image curation. seeking to create a more just society.

03 9654 5050

FEATURES

030. POLES APART 034. MY SISTER CHAOS Lara Fergus

www.vcoss.org.au Join the conversation on VCOSS Voice, our blog for all our latest news, views and analysis.

ACCESSIBLE FORMAT If you would like to receive this publication in an accessible format

INSIGHT 2

David Baker Research Fellow, The Australia Institute

Articles are subject to copyright.

Michael Perusco Apart from dealings under the Copyright CEO, Sacred Heart Mission Act 1968, permission must be obtained Dr Lauren Rickards from both VCOSS and the author.

Thinker in Residence, To contribute ideas and articles or to Birchip Cropping Group discuss advertising, sponsorship and Peter Ruzyla subscriptions, contact VCOSS on 03 CEO, EACH 9654 5050 or vcoss@vcoss.org.au

029. QUICK CHAT Rev Ric Holland

EDITORIAL

please telephone 9654 5050 or email vcoss@vcoss.org.au

EDITORIAL As we go to print with this issue of Insight, Victorian voters are set to cast their votes in the 2010 state election. It’s been a dilemma for the publication – do we wait for the outcome of the election before we publish this issue? Will it seem premature to talk about the future for social policy in the state without knowing who will be in charge?

But in fact that dilemma underlines the questions behind this issue of Insight, which is based on the thoughts and ideas that emerged during the VCOSS Framing the Future forum this year.

The event was planned before we knew we would have a federal election this year, much less one which produced such a new national political landscape, but we were long sensing an appetite for big ideas and the desire for vision, leadership and real change.

The sector’s need to find solutions that go beyond the electoral cycle has directed our campaign work at the state level, particularly in our state election platform call for parties to look at the causes, not the consequences of disadvantage ( see www.vcoss.org.au ).

At the forum we asked our presenters – all leaders in the community sector from different fields across the state – to illustrate the key challenges and opportunities they see in the years ahead, and to do so through a series of images which would bring home their messages in very human ways. Those images and the thoughts they provoked are featured in the pages ahead.

This raised a range of broad and complex issues around the future of communities and the role of the community sector, including: ·· empowering individuals to collective action, to challenge assumptions and change institutions; ·· looking beyond narrow paradigms and ‘the way it’s always been’ to find solutions;

·· challenging the sector to step outside traditional methods of service delivery to provide people with what they actually need; and ·· engaging with issues of environment and community – and the importance of landscape and location.

How then do we press these issues home? Framing the Future raised the important questions for the sector in how we measure success and failure and build evaluation into what we do – finding ways to ‘measure the unmeasurable’. As Kristen Hilton said: “Someone told me: ‘what gets measured, gets valued’.

That doesn’t mean we want our organisations to spend a whole batch of resources to measure every social program, but I think it’s important to try to embed some sort of measurement into what it is we do and then get good at telling the story. The community sector in Australia generates 4 per cent of gross domestic product, that’s an extraordinary contribution and a tremendous story.”

Another interesting part of the debate was on whether we – as a sector, or wider community – need to prioritise more – and, if so, what ‘lesser’ priorities do we jettison for the moment?

That’s a big discussion still to be had, but the key view at VCOSS is the need to shift the focus of every issue to early intervention: building the barriers at the top of the cliff to stop people falling into crisis, rather than just funding the ambulances to rush to the bottom. That’s a big priority we will urge upon our new State Government.

Feed into and keep in touch with our analysis of Victorian social policy through our blog, VCOSS Voice and other features on our website – www.vcoss.org.au.

Cath Smith Chief Executive Officer VCOSS Nov 2010

FRAMING THE FUTURE

AUTHOR MICHAEL PERUSCO

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A NEW APPROACH / J2SI began in November 2009 as a three year pilot program involving 40 people. It aims to demonstrate that a long-term, intensive support model, which includes a component that focuses on resolving the underlying trauma that is both a cause and a consequence of homelessness, can break the cycle of chronic homelessness. The J2SI service model has four key components:

1 / Intensive assistance and co-ordination ( a case load of one to four )

Beyond Trauma

Long term and intensive case management support. Each participant is allocated a key worker who is responsible for coordinating the full response and providing practical and emotional support for the equivalent of eight hours a week over the three year life of the program.

MANY PEOPLE WHO ARE CHRONICALLY HOMELESS EXPERIENCE THE EFFECTS OF PROLONGED AND REPEATED TRAUMAS WHICH OFTEN BEGAN IN EARLY CHILDHOOD. SACRED HEART MISSION CEO MICHAEL PERUSCO REPORTS ON MOVES BY HIS ORGANISATION TO SHIFT THE WAY WORKERS DEAL WITH TRAUMA AND HOMELESSNESS. Research tells us that people who are chronically homeless are likely to have had multiple and repeated experiences of trauma – often beginning from childhood. One Australian study ( see p6 ) recorded an average of six traumatic experiences among a group of chronically homeless adults. Common experiences include physical and sexual assault and witnessing a violent death or assault.

These multiple experiences lead to the development of dysfunctional behaviour as a coping mechanism, often disrupting people’s ability to form positive relationships. This in turn compounds people’s problems – fostering loneliness and isolation, contributing to the development of

mental health and drug and alcohol issues, and often resulting in further experiences of conflict and trauma.

Sandra Bloom, the US psychiatrist who co-founded The Sanctuary Model, an approach to addressing the effects of trauma through changing organisational culture, notes that we, as humans, are particularly ill-suited to having the people we are attached to also being those who violate us.

In response to the profound impact of repeated trauma on people’s ability to build relationships – and its prevalence among people who are long-term homeless, Sacred Heart Mission developed the Journey to Social Inclusion ( J2SI ) program.

In doing so, we were clear that we had to go beyond simply responding to post-traumatic stress disorder.

The combination of early childhood trauma, engagement with the state care and protection system, and homelessness, which characterises the lives of so many long-term homeless people, means we are often also responding to complex substance abuse and mental health problems.

In developing J2SI, we had much to learn from services that support children and young people in outof-home care. Berry Street’s Take Two service and the Lighthouse Foundation are two good local examples of organisations that have implemented trauma informed systems of service delivery and specialised therapeutic programs.

2 / Therapeutic intervention A therapeutic response that aims to resolve underlying trauma.

3 / Building up and developing skills Support to further develop participants’ life skills, enhance their interpersonal skills, and build self confidence to enable active participation and engagement with the broader community.

4 / Linkages to existing services

PHOTO Mark Munro

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Access to specialist services is an essential element and J2SI is working in close partnership with other services in the local community to meet the health, housing and other needs of participants.

In summary, J2SI is investing the time and resources to establish a meaningful relationship with participants and uses this relationship as the platform to address the underlying causes of a person’s homelessness in a way that will lead to permanent outcomes.

In developing the model, our view that trauma would be a key underlying issue has certainly played out in practice. Early data indicates that more than half of the participants in the pilot were sexually molested in their childhood.

Rates of physical abuse and neglect are also significant and more than a third were engaged in the state care and protection system. Nearly half ( 42 per cent ) experienced violence in the six months prior to the program start.

RESPONDING TO TRAUMA / We direct significant training effort toward ensuring that the J2SI Intensive Assistance and Coordination ( IAC ) casework team members thoroughly understand trauma and its impact on a person’s functioning. This training has significantly enhanced our understanding of the circumstances of the people we are supporting and the therapeutic value of the relationships between the case workers and participants.

The original service model intended for the IAC team to link participants to appropriately skilled and experienced therapists to establish an ongoing therapeutic relationship. However, 11 months into the pilot, uptake has been slow, with only five participants opting for and engaging in individual therapy. Given the extent

of the trauma experienced by the people we are supporting and the additional layers of complexity that characterise their lives, this is not unexpected. We remain optimistic that, as people stabilise in long term housing and receive support for their mental and other health needs, this number will rise. In the meantime, we have employed a part-time psychoanalyst to work alongside the IAC team.

This provides an additional layer of specialised expertise to the J2SI service response.

THE WAY FORWARD / Implementing J2SI has confirmed our belief that trauma plays a powerful role in the lives of people who are chronically homeless and that working to address its corrosive effects is central to achieving long term outcomes. Sacred Heart Mission is now looking to implement a trauma informed framework across all of our programs.

J2SI is a new service model and is being evaluated by RMIT University and the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. The evaluation is a randomised control study running over four years and will track changes in participants’ circumstances across a range of domains including health ( physical and mental ), engagement with the homeless subculture, recovery from trauma, service usage, and economic participation. The evaluation will produce four annual reports which will contribute much to current understandings of chronic homelessness; including the role that trauma plays as both a cause and a consequence. ●

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AUTHOR XXXXXXXXX

TRAUMA ON THE STREETS DR KATHRYN TAYLOR INTERVIEWED 70 PEOPLE AGED 18 TO 73 LIVING ON THE STREET, OR IN DROP-IN CENTRES AND HOSTELS IN SYDNEY IN 2004 AND 2005 TO ASSESS, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AUSTRALIA, THE EXTENT OF POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER ( PTSD ) AMONG HOMELESS ADULTS. ANOTHER AIM WAS TO SEE WHETHER THE SYMPTOMS OF PTSD BEGAN BEFORE OR AFTER THE FIRST EXPERIENCE OF HOMELESSNESS.

All but one participant in Dr Taylor’s random study drawn from eight homeless services had experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives. Trauma in childhood was common, as were multiple traumas.

In fact, participants reported on average over six trauma experiences each, and the mean age of the first trauma was 12 years.

Being seriously physically attacked or assaulted or witnessing someone being badly injured or killed were the most frequently reported traumatic experiences.

Being sexually molested or raped were commonly reported as the most traumatic experiences.

The twelve-month prevalence ( 41 per cent ) of PTSD was 27-fold higher than in the Australian general population ( 1.5 per cent ), with 79 per cent of the sample meeting criteria for PTSD at some time in their life. For some, PTSD developed at the same age the person was first homeless, but on average, PTSD symptoms began 5 years prior to the first homeless episode.

“Generally, I’ve found that people working in the field aren’t surprised by the finding that the experience of trauma is common, but the extent of it is shocking,” she says, two years after publishing her paper: Trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder among homeless adults in Sydney. “Also surprising are the findings related to PTSD. The rates are higher than we had expected and it was very interesting to learn that people had generally developed PTSD before they became homeless.”

In a psychiatric sense, she says, homelessness itself may not be traumatic, although the process of becoming homeless can be, for example, if someone lost everything in a fire. But once people are homeless, they are likely to experience a lot more traumatic experiences, such as physical assaults.

Thus, traumatised individuals find themselves in a ‘re­traumatising’ situation.

Concluding that homeless adults in Sydney frequently experience trauma and PTSD, and that PTSD typically precedes homelessness, Dr Taylor said those involved

in the mental health care of homeless people or those at risk of homelessness should routinely assess for the condition. To that end, she welcomes the Sacred Heart Mission work. “The J2SI model addresses trauma as a core underlying issue in chronic homelessness, which is consistent with the literature,” she says.

“And importantly the approach combines therapeutic intervention with stable housing.”

“PTSD is a treatable condition but it is not possible to provide treatment when a person is homeless and at risk of further trauma,” she said. “Chronically homeless adults with a long history of trauma and multiple mental health needs require long term intensive individual therapy from a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist with expertise in trauma. And this therapy can only be delivered to a person in safe, stable accommodation”. ● EXTENT OF TRAUMA TRAUMA EXPERIENCE ( N=56 ) TRAUMA

% ( n )

DIRECT COMBAT EXPERIENCE IN A WAR

4 ( 2 )

INVOLVED IN A LIFE-THREATENING ACCIDENT

61 ( 34 )

INVOLVED IN A FIRE, FLOOD, OR OTHER NATURAL DISASTER

43 ( 24 )

WITNESSED SOMEONE BEING BADLY INJURED OR KILLED

75 ( 42 )

RAPED

34 ( 19 )

SEXUALLY MOLESTED

45 ( 25 )

SERIOUSLY PHYSICALLY ATTACKED OR ASSAULTED

77 ( 43 )

THREATENED WITH A WEAPON, HELD CAPTIVE, OR KIDNAPPED

65 ( 36 )

TORTURED OR THE VICTIM OF TERRORISTS

12 ( 7 )

ANY OTHER EXTREMELY STRESSFUL OR UPSETTING EVENT

11 ( 6 )

SUFFERED A GREAT SHOCK BECAUSE ONE OF THE EVENTS ABOVE HAPPENED TO SOMEONE CLOSE

45 ( 25 )

Trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder among homeless adults in Sydney, Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 42, No. 3, pages 206-13: Sydney, 2008. Table reprinted with permission of Informa Healthcare.

VCOSS is the peak body for the social and community services sector in Victoria, with more than 450 members working to address poverty, disadvantage and inequality. Our quarterly magazine Insight is distributed to our members as part of their membership benefits.

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FRAMING THE FUTURE

BEYOND TAX BREAKS As well as the critical impact of trauma for chronically homeless people ( see pp4-6 ), the Framing the Future forum raised other key challenges and opportunities in dealing with homelessness.

TARGET THE TAX BENEFITS

TAKING OUT SOCIAL INSURANCE

PETTY PUNISHMENTS

MICHAEL PERUSCO, CEO, SACRED HEART MISSION

PETER RUZYLA, CEO, EACH

KRISTEN HILTON, LEGAL AID VICTORIA

We have to rethink the housing paradigm in Australia. We need to recognise that an increase in house prices does not benefit the overwhelming majority of the community and that housing is more than just an investment vehicle, subject to all the vagaries of the market.

Building developers insure the physical construction of social housing developments against various risks such as fire, water damage, and building flaws. Why would we, as a society, not expect to spend a proportional amount on insuring such projects for social success?

It’s true that there have been significant developments in housing policy in the last three years. My concern, however, is that these policy initiatives were one-off rather than genuine reform. That the changes are not embedded in the taxation system or the National Affordable Housing Agreement ( NAHA ) makes it easy for future governments of either persuasion to ignore them.

Recent Neighbourhood Renewal activities in Victoria have shown that coordinated and integrated place-based strategies can really help highly disadvantaged communities.

When I first started working as a lawyer with people experiencing homelessness, one of my first clients was a guy I’ll call John. He had been living in and around Flinders Street for about six years. He had an acquired brain injury, been made redundant, experienced family dysfunction and was a chronic alcoholic.

EACH believes there should be a similar approach to new social housing developments and has sought funding to support a new Common Equity Housing Ltd project – an eight-storey social housing venture for more than 80 potential residents in Ringwood.

There are two policy initiatives that I believe must be pursued with urgency.

The cost estimate for the Place Manager / Community Development project is less than 1 per cent of the total capital works budget over two years. Without it, we could end up with a long term socially dysfunctional tenement building, which the community will have to manage – and pay for – well into the future.

Firstly, the Federal Government must move to target the tax benefits of negative gearing to investments in affordable housing. This is often dismissed as an impossible political task. I refuse to believe this. Former federal governments have pursued much greater and politically riskier reform than this and those governments have not only survived, they have thrived.

It is poor risk management to undertake these sorts of projects without social investment – or insurance, which is integral to the long term future success of affordable housing.

Secondly, the recent $5.4 billion investment in social housing has reversed the trend and returned social housing to its rightful place as a key social policy lever.

However, this investment must be viewed as a first step.

PHOTO Mark Munro

The Ringwood proposal has so far engaged the housing sector, community health sector and local government. Local employment agencies have shown interest, and many church and community groups have also volunteered their support to welcome the new community when it is established. Facilitating access to health, dental, counselling, family support and other services will also underpin the proposed community development approach.

It’s time to reframe the way the community looks at funding social disadvantage. If the government is willing to pay for fire insurance, surely it’s prepared to pay the same amount of insurance to produce convivial communities?

By the time I met him, he had accrued about $100,000 worth of public space offences or infringements: $100 here for being in the wrong part of the train station, or $100 there for getting a ticket and tearing it up and littering, another $100 for swearing at the police. It was very common for him to receive $500 worth of fines in a day.

He had actually been offered transitional and crisis housing, but he wouldn’t move into any of those services because he knew that, if he did, he would have a stable address and then the sheriff would turn up. He had no assets to cash in to make the debt good, so he would be imprisoned to pay the debt, at $100 a day.

The story goes that he went before a magistrate and, with good advocacy, the debts were waived, he was connected up to a range of social services, and he actually became part of a departmental justice group that looked at changing infringements legislation.

It was a really positive story in the end, but it’s one that highlights the smallness of that type of response to John’s particular problem. We can see similar pettiness if we look at some responses to the law and order and asylum seeker debates.

Turning around the ‘petty punishment’ society to one which has much bigger responses is where we should be thinking about challenges for the future. ●

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AUTHOR ALEXANDRA GARTMANN

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CHALLENGE

CHALLENGE

Light at the end of the tunnel

Isolation

The last ten, hot, dry years have been unprecedented in the history of rural Victoria.

The term ‘drought’, with its implication of an ending, sooner or later, is no longer adequate.

‘Dryness’, the preferred government term, or the more general ‘climate change’, is having a profound social impact on our community. Dryness and climate change, being both more permanent change and unknown, mean the light at the end of the tunnel is quite hard to see. A coping strategy for many is to think of it as drought.

development, conservation and climate issues. Our mission is ‘to improve the prosperity of farmers and agricultural communities through farmer driven innovation’.

Whatever we call them, drought and climate change are threatening our viability and resilience and the capacity of our community to respond and adapt.

In response to a tough drought in 2006, BCG undertook a program of social research which involved interviewing 60 families. We needed to better understand how we could help in future, to discover what people found the toughest and how they were recovering. It turned out that 2007 – naively expected to be our recovery year – was worse than 2006, with the result that we captured people’s experiences as they went through drought, not just retrospectively. The result was the report: ‘Critical Breaking Point?

The effects of drought and other pressures on farming families 1.

The Birchip Cropping Group ( BCG ) is a dynamic not-for-profit agricultural research and extension group led by farmers from the Mallee Wimmera region of Victoria.

Formed in 1992 to improve the incomes of its members and of the regional farming community, to bolster broader community vitality, and to provide practical solutions to farm production constraints, BCG has evolved to encompass community

One of the results of the emphasis on the mental health of rural individuals by the government and media seems to be an increased degree of watchfulness within rural communities. ‘Critical Breaking Point?’ pointed out how these events of drought and dryness fracture our communities: people begin ‘social surveillance’. A process of caring, searching, and judging how everyone else is coping, how they’re spending their

1 Birchip Cropping Group, ‘Critical Breaking Point?’

The effects of drought and other pressures on farming families. Final report. May 2008. Accessed at http:// www.bcg.org.au/cb_pages/publications.php#2008.

money and their time. Stemming from a desire to help – as well as an intensified fear about, and sense of responsibility for, the mental health of family and friends – community and family members are now watching each other more carefully.

The report was transformational for us as a team and an organisation.

We reviewed what we were doing strategically. It helped us understand social issues and our role in supporting community; new links with other service providers were created. We appointed Dr Lauren Rickards, the researcher behind ‘Critical Breaking Point?’ as Thinker in Residence and explored further the issues of ongoing rural community resilience and adaptive capacity. We are now using these findings and research to turn the theory of what we learnt into practical actions we can take.

The straight road veering out of the top left of the picture is the road to Melbourne, and gives you an idea of our isolation. We are a small community, about 700 people, but we have 90 volunteer organisations, with 90 presidents, 90 secretaries, 90 treasurers. Funds must be raised, cakes baked, dinners catered for…

Community organisations are created to service a particular need.

Having done this, we tend to hang on to them, even if the need has changed. As a result, we are left with a multitude of organisations, often with the same people supporting them, even meeting on consecutive nights. This amounts to an enormous waste of valuable human time and energy, particularly in a small community. The ‘Critical Breaking Point?’ research highlighted that, when under stress, people feel stretched to focus on both their own heightened needs and that of the community they support. Two inter-connected elements of ‘rural decline’ are demographic changes and loss of services in rural areas. These trends are worsened in various ways by the direct and rippling effects of drought conditions.

Let me give you a very personal example. I work as an Ambulance Community Officer and volunteer with the Community Emergency Response Team. A call-out means five hours out of my workday, evening or night to take someone to Bendigo and return. It means lack of sleep. It means catching up on my work obligations. I must ask the tolerance of the Board and expect my work mates, and funders, to understand.

We constantly lack infrastructure and services: telecommunications aren’t great, transport options are limited – the bus arrives from Melbourne at 1am – and there are no train services. If you don’t have a car or can’t afford one, you are really very isolated.

We are concerned about four demographic changes occurring in our living environment: depopulation, in-place ageing, a growing gender imbalance ( more men than women ), and the ‘in-migration’ of lower socioeconomic groups. Intimately tied to the rationalisation of farm numbers, the depopulation of rural areas is a widely recognised phenomenon in Australia and other countries.

Depopulation is not simply a distant theory or trend. Like the abstracted notion of ‘Australia’s terms of trade’ – or even ‘drought’ – the sterile

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AUTHOR ALEXANDRA GARTMANN

phrase ‘depopulation’ sanitises a key and often distressing part of many farming families’ lived experience. It is about the erosion of local communities as friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances leave to live elsewhere. It is about the ripple effects of having fewer people in the bank, in the café, at the school, and on the football team, with the consequent loss of some of those services and activities. And it is about a sense of being left behind, of being part of a threatened, diminished, and even spurned way of life.

Economically, changes to local communities as a result of the drought have been overwhelmingly negative as the drop in income in the farming sector flows through to other businesses and organisations.

Apart from the fact that some people simply lack the time or energy to contribute to social activities, increased alone time can be an important coping strategy.

Some individuals and families need such space to focus on solving the problems they are facing. Introverted personality types also need time to themselves to restore their energy.

Conversely, problems emerge when there is too much isolation and people become unable to communicate or interact with others.

One finding from ‘Critical Breaking Point?’ was that, while country towns are generally welcoming, we are particularly so to people ‘of our own kind’. Many people from low socio-economic backgrounds have moved into the region from Melbourne and other regional areas, purchasing cheap and run-down housing. We tend to look at them and think we can’t trust them, can’t bring them into our little enclave.

Despite our communities’ struggles with depopulation, we are failing to celebrate their arrival as a means of restoring our precarious community structures. Rather, the new residents are perceived as a further threat to the survival of pre-existing communities because of what is assumed to be their different attitude to the very notion of community. That is, that they don’t value the same things about the community as those already there or, if they do, it is felt that they don’t understand or aren’t prepared to give what is needed to maintain those valued attributes. By speeding up the demographic processes involved and demanding more community spirit and cooperation than ever, the drought is exacerbating the clash of cultures at a number of levels.

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OPPORTUNITY

OPPORTUNITY

Fields of glory

Celebrating life regardless

Despite the challenges, we are not so beaten down that we can’t still get together and think of positive ways to overcome the challenges facing us. Organisations like BCG ( www.bcg.org.au ) have evolved way beyond their beginnings.

We now have five platforms to deliver services and information: Agronomy and Farming Systems, Communication, ‘Making Conservation Pay’, Climate Risk Management and Social and Community Development. It’s about successful partnerships between farmers, researchers, and the industry, delivering the things we want, with the rigour the scientists can bring, the relevance of our own local issues, and the capacity to build relationships so people know they’re not doing it alone.

As a result, we’ve been able to maintain reasonable crop production ( wheat, barley, canola ) despite an almost 30 per cent decline in rainfall. We have improved practices to reduce erosion so the dust storms that hit Melbourne

in the 1980s are now few and far between. At BCG we have succeeded in getting people to talk, to share concerns, to share success and failure. Some of our most successful events have been the ‘stuff up tours’, where we drive around and look at what hasn’t worked and try to understand why and how we can avoid that in future.

We’re creating our own community of knowledge which is not isolated to Birchip or north western Victoria but which spans the globe. These Field Days ( pictured ) service both the 50 per cent of our population who, in times of stress and drought, are seeking technical solutions and information, and the 50 per cent who are looking for social engagement and an opportunity to talk about things rather than simply seeking an answer.

It is important to note the many positives that emerged from ‘drought’. In some areas, community activities multiplied through the early stages, with people turning to them both for distraction and as a means of giving and receiving support.

Anything is possible. Despite ten years of pretty ordinary seasonal conditions, Birchip this year hosted its third annual Quarterhorse Cup; Rupanyup stages an annual Barley Banquet; Sea Lake runs the Mallee Rally. The annual ‘Flatter than the Flatlands’ hang-gliding competition is known across Australia. Nor does culture miss out.

The melodrama Fool’s Gold was a focus for the energy we would normally put into harvesting crops.

People need people in times of stress. Social support helps deal not only with stressors, but with their emotional effects. Some communities seem better placed than others to provide these desired support and social outlets.

We know we have to create our own social opportunities and our own ways to engage with each other. This does put pressure on volunteers, but we are thinking differently in order to get things done and to get through tough times. When little government or structured formal support is available, resilience and willingness to hold a great big party – even in a bowl of dust – prevails.

The depth of the human spirit continues to astound me even after living here for nine years. ● Alexandra Gartmann is CEO of the Birchip Cropping Group.

Her colleague, Dr Lauren Rickards, also contributed to this article.

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AUTHOR MARIE MCINERNEY

As part of its ‘Closing the Gap’ strategy, the Australian Government is now funding the rollout of a national network of regional tobacco coordinators and tobacco action workers to work with Indigenous communities to reduce the number of people smoking. Victoria will have two in the first year. Quit Victoria also has a range of Indigenous-specific programs and recently advertised for Indigenous counsellors on the Victorian Quitline, with the Aboriginal community currently making up less than 2 per cent of received calls each year.

CLEARING THE AIR Victorian Indigenous health leader Jill Gallagher had doubted whether we could really make any serious inroads into ‘Closing the Gap’ on appalling Aboriginal health outcomes. It had all seemed too big. Until she realised she was part of the problem – and of the solution.

Jill Gallagher started smoking when she was 12 years old and, at 55, didn’t expect to stop. Then she heard that really tackling tobacco smoking among Indigenous communities could cut by 17 per cent the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

“That sent a very strong message to me,” she says.

“When you talk about ‘Closing the Gap’, and you’re talking about education, housing, employment, and everything that influences health, it always looked too big to me. But when they put it to me like that about smoking, I thought… you just start convincing people, through leadership and word of mouth, to give up.”

As the CEO of the peak Victorian Aboriginal Controlled Community Health Organisation ( VACCHO ), Jill knew where she had to start – with her own 20-a-day habit.

Being told by her GP that it’s “never too late” to get the health benefits of giving up smoking was the clincher.

1 Barker, B., Lopez, A.D., Stanley, L., Vos, T., The burden of disease and injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, School of Population Health, The University of Queensland: Brisbane, 2003.

As a non-smoker for three years, she’s now trying to spread the word to others – and she can sense some momentum.

Four of the VACCHO team, Jill says, have also quit smoking in the past couple of years, including chair Lyn McInnes; so too a half dozen leaders in regional communities. “Not big numbers, but a start. I guess the message I’m trying to send to the community is: if I can do it, they can do it.”

Certainly it appeared that the message hadn’t been getting through before. Quit smoking campaigns have worked really well in non-Indigenous Australia, cutting smoking down from 34 per cent in 1980 to around 19 per cent now. However they’ve been judged ineffective to date in Indigenous communities, with close to 50 per cent smoking, even 70 per cent in some communities ( see P16 ).

Queensland University’s 2003 Indigenous Burden of Disease1 study estimated that 17 per cent of the health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians was due to smoking, with one in five of all Indigenous deaths due to tobacco. Smoking is the most preventable cause of poor health and early death in Indigenous communities.

2 Thomas, D.P., Smoking prevalence trends in Indigenous Australians, 1994-2004; a typical rather than an exceptional epidemic. International Journal for Equity in Health, Vol. 9, No. 4: October 2009.

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VACCHO has introduced a tobacco policy which offers support to staffers who are trying to give up, such as helping them to pay for nicotine patches and is encouraging its 24 member organisations to ‘denormalise’ smoking. VACCHO’s also leading the three year Goreen Narrkwarren Ngrn-toura ( Healthy Family Air ) research project to try to reduce smoking among pregnant Aboriginal women. Its early report notes that Aboriginal health workers are likely to smoke themselves and may therefore feel embarrassed talking to patients about quitting. It says they may be a very important target group, not just in terms of educating them and others about the impact of tobacco, but in becoming ‘quit smoking’ role models 3.

“My philosophy is you lead by example. We’re a small community, we know ‘who’s who at the zoo,” Jill says.

“There’s no point just putting Aboriginal faces into posters with mainstream messages. The answer, I think, for my community is leadership. We need to be part of the solution. That’s one of the biggest issues that VACCHO puts on the table to government.” ● Figure 1. The relative risk of disease burden in Indigenous Australians compared to the total Australian population by broad cause groups

“THE MESSAGE I’M TRYING TO SEND TO THE COMMUNITY IS : IF I CAN DO IT, THEY CAN DO IT.” Table 1. Indigenous Australian burden and health gap attributable to 11 risk factors DISEASE BURDEN DALYs*

% of total

DALYs

% of total

95,976

100

56,455

100

Tobacco

11,633

12

9,816

17

Obesity

10,919

11

8,953

16

Physical inactivity

8,032

8

6,554

12

High blood cholesterol

5,262

5

3,994

7

Alcohol

5,171

5

2,362

4

High blood pressure

4,417

5

3,215

6

Low fruit & vegetable intake

3,344

3

2,873

5

Illicit drugs

3,264

3

2,150

4

Intimate partner violence

2,469

3

1,836

3

Child sexual abuse

1,390

1

869

2

Unsafe sex

1,174

1

926

2

35,908

37

27,383

49

TOTAL BURDEN ATTRIBUTABLE BURDEN

All causes Intentional injuries Unintentional Injuries Cancers Diabetes

HEALTH GAP

Chronic respiratory disease Mental disorders

11 risk factors combined

Cardiovascular disease 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Level of DALYs* in total population * DALY=disability adjusted life years

Source: Barker, B., Lopez, A.D., Stanley, L., Vos, T., The burden of disease and injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: Policy briefs, School of Population Health, The University of Queensland: Brisbane, 2003. p4 3 Goreen Narrkwarren Ngrn-toura Healthy Family Air: A literature review to inform the VACCHO smoking amongst pregnant Aboriginal women research project, Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control (CEITC), University of Melbourne: May 2010.

* DALY = disability adjusted life years Note 1: the estimates for the 11 risk factors combined takes into account the overlap that exists between risk factors and hence is not the same as the sum of estimates for each of the individual risk factors.

Note 2: a component of the contribution for each risk factor to the health gap reflects the higher case fatality rates for almost all diseases in Indigenous Australians; this component would require changes in disease management and would not respond to preventive interventions.

Source: Barker, B., Lopez, A.D., Stanley, L., Vos, T., The burden of disease and injury in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, School of Population Health, The University of Queensland: Brisbane, 2003. p5.

FRAMING THE FUTURE

AUTHOR ANKE VAN DER STERREN

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No-one’s really sure what does or doesn’t encourage Indigenous people to quit smoking, but we may soon begin to find out, says researcher Anke Van Der Sterren.

Many small projects have sought to cut back tobacco use in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, but there hasn’t been a concerted nor strategic effort, nor one supported by major funding as there is now under the $100 million Tackling Smoking measure, by the Federal Government through the Commonwealth of Australian Governments ( COAG ) partnership with the states and territories.

One of the big problems with tobacco in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is the normalisation of smoking – if nearly half the people around you are smoking, it’s quite difficult to break that mould; also the perception that smoking helps with stress, which

is, ironically, the reverse. People perceive it as time out, from the kids or work, a chance to socialise with friends. Sharing is important for Aboriginal communities – sharing smokes is part of sharing stories.

leading the way for her organisation and other health services in Victoria.

It’s much harder to encourage these sorts of groups to support quit programs if their CEO is a smoker.

We don’t know, to a great extent, how to address that. Essentially there has been very little evaluation done of programs in the past, for a variety of reasons: time, priorities, lack of funding, lack of skills. That’s what’s exciting about the injection of money now, because there is a really big push to evaluate all that.

Another strategy we believe may be effective is to talk about the impact of smoking on children, or others in the community. While it’s mostly anecdotal for the moment, many communities appear to be making inroads into stopping smoking indoors, in cars, in cars with children, etc. ●

Some of the initiatives being trialled are using role models, not necessarily a Cathy Freeman, but a local champion who is giving up the smokes. Jill Gallagher ( p14 ) is an excellent example of really

Anke Van Der Sterren is a research fellow from the Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Tobacco Control ( CEITC ) at the University of Melbourne.

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Three years ago John Lawrence got a call from the Department of Education noting there were 34 Aboriginal four year olds in Bairnsdale who did not attend kindergarten.

Kilmany’s Remote Family Services in East Gippsland then conducted local research to find out why Aboriginal families were not using mainstream kindergartens. The barriers were:

The call sparked a strong partnership between Kilmany UnitingCare ( now known as UnitingCare Gippsland ), which John heads, and the Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Cooperative ( GEGAC ) and led to the opening of the Bairnsdale Neighbourhood House Community Kindergarten in February 2008.

·· the payment of kindy fees;

The partnership learnt particularly from a 2006 Australian Government report 1 that found the most significant success factors encouraging Indigenous parents to enrol their children in pre-school were: ·· employing Indigenous staff ·· developing partnerships with health services, schools, and other community services; ·· providing lunch and breakfast programs; and ·· providing a bus service.

Other research highlighted other important elements, including: embracing shared care by extended family, the incorporation of Indigenous ways of knowing and being in the world, and joined up programs that linked early childhood education to broader aspects of the child’s life.

PHOTO John Lawrence

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1 Australian Government, National Report to Parliament on Indigenous Education and Training, 2006.

2 Kaleidoscope Projects and Research, Bairnsdale Neighbourhood Housing Community Kindergarten, Evaluation Report. Oct 2009.

·· transport difficulties; ·· perceived non-acceptance of Koori culture; and ·· complex family issues 2.

A meeting of elders and other stakeholders thus agreed to provide a community kindergarten with low fees, a bus, parent support and training, cultural training for staff and a neutral space, to diffuse family issues.

The Bairnsdale kindy opened in February 2008 with enrolment of 13 local Aboriginal children. That number grew by year end to 24, representing 75 per cent of eligible children.

As a result of this success, Bairnsdale was nominated as the site for one of two Victorian Aboriginal Child and Family Centres. To open next year, it has a budget of over $8 million and is a partnership between the Shire, two community service agencies and the Bairnsdale Aboriginal Co-operative. It will be governed by the co-operative, and will have child care, kindergarten, maternal and child health, playgroups, toy library, education and meeting spaces.

“I guess I have a dream that, through a solid start in life, these Koori children will have much easier transitions in their development and education, and move through to employment or university,” John said about his response to that phone call. “In ten years who knows the successes we will have.” ●

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AUTHOR MARIE MCINERNEY

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A landmark anti-discrimination case launched by a small support group for young same sex attracted Victorians may send ripples across the nation. It was also a very big deal for the staff and young people in the WayOut project.

It was always a bitter irony, Sue Hackney says, that the WayOut project’s first step to show same sex attracted and gender questioning young people in rural and regional Victoria that they can fight homophobia in their home towns was itself met with discrimination.

But the group did fight back, becoming the first community health centre to make a complaint under Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act 1995. In October, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ( VCAT ) found in favour of WayOut, the project run by Cobaw Community Health Service for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex ( GLBTI ) young people.

The tribunal found that the Phillip Island Adventure Resort – managed by the Christian Brethren group Christian Youth Camps ( CYC ) – had breached the Act when it refused to take a booking in 2007 from WayOut for a proposed weekend camp for 60 young people and 12 support workers.

It’s a case that has been closely watched by legal rights and religious groups across Australia for how, as Hugh de Kretser, executive officer of the Federation of Community Legal Centres, says, the law found a balance between two competing and critically important human rights: the right to freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination.

It’s also a particularly sensitive issue for the community sector in Australia, with many community and welfare services run by religious groups.

The finding came as both vindication and relief for WayOut. “Everyone is really thrilled, excited and relieved – it’s been a long, hard process,” Sue Hackney, the project coordinator, said. What was, for her, most heartening was the injection of faith in the system it delivered for the participants in the project.

“A number of our young people have been subjected to appalling years of bullying and harassment and discrimination while attending school and in life generally. If they do try to make a complaint or approach a teacher at school for assistance, it’s not uncommon for them to get brushed off. By the time they graduate, they have very little faith in or are quite cynical about the system being able to respond to their needs or take their complaints seriously.”

In delivering her verdict, Justice Felicity Hampel was clear: “The conduct of the respondents in refusing the booking was clearly based on their objection to homosexuality. They are entitled to their personal and religious beliefs. They are not entitled to impose their beliefs on others in a manner that denies them the “While the ( Equal Opportunity Act ) complaint handling system is far enjoyment of their right to equality and from user friendly… the conclusion freedom from discrimination in respect of a fundamental aspect of their being.” shows that you can get results when you stand up for yourself.”

Still WayOut had not launched the action lightly. It wasn’t worried about losing government funding but it was unsure of the law, and knew it would be a grueling process, for the young people who would have to give evidence ( Judge Hampel noted in her finding the “courage and commitment” needed by a group of vulnerable young people to pursue such a complaint ), and for Sue – who had made the original call to try to book the campsite and whose rendition of the response was key to the case.

“It’s a very demanding process to go through and one that required every ounce of conviction that you can bring both personally and professionally.”

Not surprisingly she and WayOut attracted criticism; not all from obvious quarters. “Inevitably, I got abusive emails and phone calls from people with extreme religious views. I also got one or two from people who identified as part of the GLBTI community and

regarded us as pursuing a matter that was, for them, really trivial, a waste of time and resources.”

read of the legislation and took a good look at who was running the camp.

It was a very astute reading of the case.”

By contrast, the support of Cobaw Community Health’s board was clear and significant. Much formal and informal support was also offered in Kyneton, WayOut’s base, and through organisations like the philanthropic Reichstein Foundation, which funded the initial camp and provided additional support for the case. Critical support also came through the pro bono work of leading law firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques, secured through Public Interest Law Clearing House ( PILCH ), which saw up to four barristers acting for the small group.

As well as its declaration that discrimination had occurred, the tribunal awarded $5,000 “for the hurt and distress caused”. Although compensation was by no means the focus of WayOut’s action, Sue says it will be put to good use – probably towards another camp.

It was, says Emily Howie from the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, impressive reading of the law.

“It wouldn’t have surprised me for a lawyer to have seen this case and thought automatically that the religious exceptions to discrimination would apply. But somebody had a very close

In fact, the 2007 camp had gone ahead, ironically at a facility run by the YWCA, which, Sue says, was happy to describe itself as ‘rainbow friendly’.

“It was a brilliant weekend. Even now, three years on, I can remember the comments of one of the young people who went. He said he could never have imagined having such a great weekend. It was the first time in his life he had felt normal and safe.” ●

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FRAMING THE FUTURE

AUTHOR MARIE MCINERNEY

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Beyond the case.

THE WAYOUT CASE WILL FUEL CALLS FOR TIGHTER RESTRICTIONS IN VICTORIA AND NATIONALLY ON WHEN, WHERE, AND WHY RELIGIOUS BODIES CAN BE EXEMPTED FROM ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAWS, PARTICULARLY WHEN IT COMES TO ACTIVITIES JUDGED AS SECULAR.

Cobaw Community Health claimed before Justice Felicity Hampel in the Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal ( VCAT ) that Christian Youth Camps ( CYC ) and its manager Mark Rowe contravened the Equal Opportunity Act 1995 by discriminating against them in the provision of services and accommodation on the basis of their sexual orientation.

CYC and Mr Rowe denied that discrimination occurred but claimed that, if it did, they relied on exemptions in the Act that allow a religious group to discriminate in order to comply with the doctrines of the religion, or to avoid injury to the religious sensitivities of its followers.

According to an analysis 1 of the 83-page judgment by Ashleigh Ellis, a lawyer with Mallesons Stephen Jaques, Justice Hampel came to her decision in favour of WayOut by finding that: ·· CYC had discriminated on the grounds of sexual orientation, with the judge rejecting the manager’s claim that Sue Hackney had said WayOut ‘promoted homosexual lifestyles’. ·· Although CYC’s constitution declared its establishment was inspired by a religious motive, its purposes were not directly and immediately religious and related to the conduct of camping for both secular and religious groups. ·· The beliefs of Christian Brethren about marriage, sexual relationships or homosexuality are not doctrines of the religion. ·· CYC had not restricted bookings to those who conformed to their beliefs on sex and marriage.

1. HRLRC Bulletin, Vol 55, November 2010. Accessed at http://www.hrlrc.org.au/content/ publications-resources/hrlrc-e-bulletin/hrlrc-bulletin-vol-55-november-2010/.

Hugh de Kretser, executive officer of the Federation of Community Legal Centres, says the result is important and highlights the need for further reform after changes to the Equal Opportunity Act in Victoria earlier this year.

The amended Act, to take effect next year, removed nine of the 16 ‘attributes’ on which religious groups can potentially discriminate. Race and age are gone but still on the list are: religious belief or activity, sex, sexual orientation, lawful sexual activity, marital status, parental status and gender identity.

“That really just removed the grounds that were not contentious and has made the communities that possess those remaining attributes feel more targeted,” Hugh said. “It’s created a hierarchy of attributes that is saying there’s no exemption for religious bodies to discriminate around age or race but there is around sexual orientation.”

The case also highlights, says Emily Howie from the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, how “patchy” are discrimination laws across Australia.

“There’s some protection against sexual orientation discrimination in Victoria, but none at a federal level,” she says. “The level of protection from discrimination differs depending on whether you’re in Victoria or New South Wales, and depending on whether your discrimination is on the basis of race or sex or gender identity.”

Last year’s national human rights consultation delivered overwhelming support – 80 per cent of the 35,000 submissions received – for a Human Rights Act, but the Federal Government’s response was that such legislation would be too divisive. Instead it has launched a process to ‘harmonise’ Australia’s non-discrimination laws. Groups like the Human Rights Law Resource Centre are calling for the national grounds to be expanded to include, among others, protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

“We also want the Federal Government to address systemic discrimination. The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission has recently been given power to conduct investigations into widespread problems. This kind of a power at federal level could alleviate the burden on individuals or organisations like Cobaw taking a case to court to vindicate their rights.”

Overall, it’s a big and contentious area of law reform and, Hugh says, will have its own difficult implications for the community sector, with many agencies and services run by religious groups which have argued for the exemptions to be maintained, even strengthened.

“It’s a question of where do you draw the line. Religious groups will argue hard that the delivery of welfare services, religious schools, and hospitals is the manifestation of their belief and the exercise of their religion. But when you’ve got publicly funded hospitals and other services with the right to discriminate against particularly vulnerable groups in society, then you have to question where the balance is held.”

Asked to comment on the WayOut case, Denis Fitzgerald of Catholic Social Services Victoria said: “The judgment in the Cobaw case highlighted some of the complexities of the religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws in Victoria, complexities which

arise in large part due to the nature of the issues under consideration. Issues that were examined in depth included: ·· What is ‘a body established for religious purposes’? ·· What does it mean to conform to the doctrines of a religion? ·· How are competing rights to be assessed in a particular case?

“The judgment does not challenge the right to religious freedom, or the exemption that is provided for religious bodies, in limited cases, from some of the Victorian antidiscrimination requirements. It applies these provisions in a particular case, and finds that they did not justify the action that was taken in denying access to the camping facilities for the WayOut project.

“A consequence of the judgment is that religious bodies are challenged to reflect on their purposes, and the reasons why they might need to discriminate in any way, and to be clear in their articulation of these matters.

Dialogue within the social services sector should assist this process, and enhance the observance of human rights across our community.” ●

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AUTHOR KATE AUTY

FRAMING THE FUTURE

AUTHOR LOUISE JOHNSON

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REFLECTIONS ON FRAMING THE FUTURE

Professor Kate Auty At the Framing the Future forum, presenters were asked to speak to a personalised photo journal.

Six photos were required, depicting major challenges or hopeful outcomes. I assumed the latter would address our ability to adjust and adapt to change and the former to be bleak representations, conflicted and challenging.

In fact, each image of either despair or hope had embedded in it the possibilities and complexities of the other. It got me thinking about the images I would use:

1

This excitement was moderated by an understanding of why we need to reduce our consumption patterns, but the enthusiasm of the Frankston High team for reducing their waste, and energy and water use was contagious.

4 Fragile rope bridge hoisted above the Hume Highway at Violet Town.

2 The newly created Barmah National Park on the Murray River.

The photo shows depleted red gums and the impact of the reduction in water flows. Absent but insistently present are the Aboriginal rangers who now assume a significant role in the co-management of the National Park. Out of a bleak past comes a positive and inclusive present.

Students from Frankston High School’s sustainability team.

My office focused in 2009-10 on sustainability in schools in a study of environmental management practices. We were energised by the commitment of young people, their teachers and school communities to rubbish free days, water and waste audits, energy saving exercises and school and community gardens.

TALES OF TWO CITIES IN ONE

Sustainability Victoria’s Green Light Report suggests young men often lose interest in environmental issues.

Plainly there are places where that depressing scenario is inaccurate.

3 Hindmarsh Shire Mayor Mick Gawith and City of Port Phillip Councillor Janet Bolitho, muddied and standing in the rain after a day’s planting for Project Hindmarsh in Wimmera that has brought together people from the city and the regions for 13 years.

Biodiversity and water issues are not just matters for the bush; climate change and its impact on oceans and coasts not just for the seaboards.

Intergenerational equity is a concern for all who seek shelter, respect, freedom from discrimination, and, physically, a less isolating environment.

The bridge was established for sugar gliders to cross the road.

It’s sited to maximise its potential, data is being collected to determine its success – by means of a solar driven camera – and it provides a biolink above the traffic. It speaks to our ability to innovate. The four wheel drive passing beneath is the metaphor for our continuing consumption.

At Framing the Future, there was a clear mood of optimism arising out of the presentations, which recognised that programs must be fit for purpose, and immersed in community interests and understanding of the importance of place. But there was also frustration at incremental change, of funding discontinuities, ruptures and fragmentation.

A second tension also arose: between taking the time to do things properly in a meaningful, respectful and situated fashion and the need to act quickly, decisively and with clear purpose. I believe we do need timely action but we also need to give the slow, plodding, careful attention to developing relationships that mean something and out of which real, sensitive change grows.

The photos make my point. ●

Regional Australia is living through ‘boom bust’ times, where some areas have never had it so good while their neighbours fall into deeper disadvantage.

Geelong puts a face to this dilemma.

“Driving a Ford drives Geelong”. That was once the proud boast that would have struck a chord with the thousands of workers who poured out of suburbs like Norlane and Corio to fuel the 24 hour assembly shifts at Ford, the Shell Oil Refinery and International Harvester.

Now in what used to be the industrial power house of the city, there are high levels of unemployment, limited educational qualifications, and a concentration of low income households. This is not just the etching of class onto the city, but the exacerbation of such social division by economic restructuring and social stigmatisation.

Thus in Norlane in 2006 only 4.5 per cent of people earned more than $1,000 per week, whereas 14.6 per cent of those in Greater Geelong did. More serious is the proportion of households on low incomes – ( less than $500 per week in 2006 ) – 28 per cent in Corio and 40 per cent in Norlane compared to 16 per cent in the whole of Geelong.

Geelong, Victoria’s second city, just an hour’s drive from Melbourne, is increasingly drawn into the orbit of the metropolis through improved rail and road connections, limited local employment options and diverging house prices. But it is also a city divided, registering on its urban and social fabric some of the more dramatic changes in the economic geography of the nation.

Around its refurbished waterfront, we now have expensive Nonda Kastalides apartments, a Sheraton Hotel and up-market bars and restaurants. It is a boulevard of realised dreams as the city back in the 1980s began the process of re-inventing itself. For this regional city of 200,000 had been hard hit by the demise of Australian manufacturing – first textiles and footwear in the 1970s and then the closure of the International Harvester truck making plant in the 1980s.

The 1990s opened with the collapse of the locally based Pyramid Building Society and it was joined

by the long wind-down of Ford, the city’s biggest employer; shifts hit by new technologies as well as international rationalisation.

By 2006 only 14 per cent of the city’s workforce was in manufacturing, compared to 30 per cent 30 years earlier. The new area of Armstrong Creek is being developed on the western edge of the city, down the rolling Waurn Ponds Valley, with an expectation of high quality servicing and relatively affluent residents, many set to commute to work in Melbourne.

In Corio and Norlane, the decline in manufacturing participation is less – more than 20 per cent work in industry – but it’s measured in other ways in an area now identified regularly and clearly as “disadvantaged”, the Bronx of Geelong. As one person noted in a 2000 survey: ‘nobody wants to be here and we haven’t got no choice. Like in LA, they’ve got their trailer park trash and in Geelong you’ve got Corio and Norlane trash…’

But what is rarely reported on in Corio-Norlane are the many local initiatives in civic engagement, those who are working hard to create alternatives – such as housing co-operatives – and cafes where locals can not only meet but where they can re-train. There is also significant whole of government funding and activity being directed into this area, to upgrade schools, to renovate old public housing stock, to improve public transport and parks, to generate inward investment and employment alternatives.

So the two cities remain, exacerbated by recent economic developments and decisions in the 1980s and 90s to sell off public housing and privatise services, but increasingly divided not so much by social indicators and class as by imposed assumptions. ● Dr Louise Johnson is a human geographer and Associate Professor in Australian Studies at Deakin University.

1. D. Warr (2005) “Social networks in a ‘discredited’ neighbourhood”, Journal of Sociology 41 (3): 285-308 2. City of Greater Geelong (2010) Community Profiles Accessed 23.4.210.

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AUTHOR PETER RUZYLA

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BRINGING ABOUT CHANGE WE KNOW THE CHALLENGES AND THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT LIE AHEAD – HOW WE ADDRESS THEM WAS THE BIG DISCUSSION FROM THE FRAMING THE FUTURE PANEL. THE KEY, SAYS EACH CEO PETER RUZYLA, IS IN DRAWING THE DOTS BETWEEN NEEDS AND SERVICES. A couple of years ago I reviewed an important Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s report 1 that detailed a 10 year longitudinal study of social indicators and the health of young Australians.

Its contents prompted me to develop a paper, entitled: Why Mental Health Services are not enough to improve the mental health of young people.

It was clear from the AIHW report that, while the majority of young Australians had grown stronger, healthier, taller and were generally more mentally resilient, those who experienced social disadvantage from an early age were worse off than their peers; and the more disadvantages they had to cope with, the more compounding were the negative effects through life.

Experience of child abuse begat poor education outcomes, alcohol and drugs in the home begat violence

1 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Making Progress – the health, development and wellbeing of Australia’s children and young people. Canberra. 2008.

and experience with the justice system, which begat poorer physical and mental health, sexual abuse, homelessness, unemployment, and teen pregnancy – and so the cycle would start again. In this context, the call to pump more resources into clinical mental health services seemed to me to miss the point.

The report seemed to be Australia’s own study into the social determinants of health. And so, the presentations of Framing the Future recognised that the problems of homelessness, health, education, disability, and others that make up the social determinants model cannot be addressed through piecemeal, reactive, disconnected, uncoordinated strategies.

In fact, we can all think of buckets of funding which have gone to well intended, enthusiastically supported causes and strategies which made good sense at the time and may have made individual lives better, but which delivered very little in terms of addressing the fundamental causes of disadvantage and improved outcomes at a population level.

Too often, when the funding runs out, things go back to ‘normal’. So in this sense, I believe that we know what does NOT work in terms of having real impact on intractable social problems.

There is a growing view that effective social interventions to address these ‘wicked problems’ must be based on strategies that are coordinated across a range of sectors; they must be evidence-based, well resourced and sustained ( beyond the electoral cycle ). So, a homelessness strategy must be connected to a mental health strategy, which is connected to family support, child protection, education, employment, and social inclusion.

Not surprisingly this inter-sectoral, connected-up strategy approach can seem all too hard. Holistic approaches to achieving health and wellbeing may be the equivalent to matrix management structures in organisations – great in theory but just too complex to sustain in practice.

Yet the problems we are trying to address are challenging and inherently complex, so it’s no surprise that the solutions may be of the same order. ●

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FRAMING THE FUTURE

REBUILD

PRIORITIES

HOME

The ( community ) service system has been developed on a piecemeal basis, as additional programs have been developed or extra funding has been made available. This is not the way you would ideally choose to build a system that works with hundreds of thousands of Victorians each year, some of whom are highly disadvantaged and vulnerable.

I think the real trick to large-scale political reform is ultimately about prioritisation and the big opportunity is to start building a consensus towards what are the one or two things that we want to change. Those changes will obviously require a concentration of dollars and of political capital ( which ), like any other type of currency is a limited resource. Then you also have to expend a huge amount of management time.

Reflecting on both the tone and content of the day, one message was clear. There remains an urgent need for any future government to come to terms with and address the concept of ‘home’ and its implications for quality of life – particularly on those who don’t have a home, those who are struggling to pay for one, and those whose home is situated in remote and isolated parts of this state. Of course in 2010, addressing these issues comprehensively must include consideration of the ‘home’ common to us all: our planet Earth.

In order to get the best out of the system, it may be necessary to dismantle it and start again.

While this will result in wins and losses for individual organisations, it could be of great benefit to the people who use their services.

Michael Perusco Sacred Heart Mission

SUSTAINABILITY While sustainability is often understood simply as ‘environmental’, it’s been my experience… that it’s about community, it’s about locale, it’s about people building relationships, taking the time to listen. As a young lawyer, I well remember the only place you would find an Indigenous person in Victoria, probably Australia, who had gone through an apprenticeship was in the Latrobe Valley with the State Electricity Commission.

Kate Auty Sustainability Commissioner

The implication of that is that you have to implicitly choose not to prioritise a whole series of other things, at least this time around.

John Daley The Grattan Institute

LEADERSHIP Rather than trying to pick off the ‘big hot issues’ to prioritise, I’d like to see us reframe our thinking about how and who we develop in our organisations, in our own community activities. Leadership isn’t about being around for a really long time doing the same things. We need to be thinking more about what the future of the community looks like, and how we get there. For some community sector organisations or other not-forprofits, that might mean merging, consolidating, or not existing anymore.

Jodie Willmer VCOSS Community Sector Futures Task Group

Samone McCurdy fourth year Bachelor of Social Work ( Honours ) student, Monash University

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RESEARCH

AUTHOR DAVID BAKER

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RESEARCH

An analysis of just four Centrelink payments revealed that, in 2008, more than 168,000 Australians – p arents, carers, bereaved, and disabled people – missed out on government assistance estimated to be worth $624 million.

We hear all the time about welfare abuse and what it’s costing ‘decent taxpayers’. But what about the million-plus Australians who are actually missing out on payments to which they’re entitled, including some of the most needy? David Baker asks why government doesn’t put as much time and effort into tracking them down compared to those who may be rorting the system.

In 2004, the Australian Government reported that 1.3 million qualified Australians were missing out on some form of government support. Yet, in the six years since, no significant policies have been implemented, or even announced, to find those people and make sure they get that support.

Concession card holders, in particular, appear to be missing out on significant benefits that are available to them, with stigma – shame or embarrassment – presenting as one of the main reasons that the most financially disadvantaged cardholders chose not to use their cards as much as they could.

HOW MANY MISS OUT To address the problem, we need first to quantify it, but this is difficult, in part because of the very complexity that can deter Centrelink applicants in the first place.

The 2009 Harmer review of pensions found that existing concessions are ‘often poorly targeted’ and ‘did not effectively complement the pension system by being responsive to… those with greater needs’.

The Australia Institute examined four Centrelink payments to estimate the numbers of people who, despite qualifying, missed out on support in 2008. The payments were the Parenting Payment, Carer Allowance, Bereavement Allowance, and Disability Support Pension. Except for the Carer Allowance, all are subject to means testing.

Using a combination of government data sources, it was estimated that 168,275 Australians – parents, carers,

bereaved, and people with a disability – missed out on a total of $624 million of financial assistance – or an average of $3,707 1 each. That amounts to one-and-a-half times the amount of ineligible or fraudulent payments identified by Centrelink in 2008-09 2.

Given the Government’s own reported figure of 1.3 million people who fail to apply for benefits, eligible Australians could be missing out on $4.8 billion in support each year, nearly 7 per cent of the total financial assistance provided through Centrelink in 2007-08.

Concession cards issued through Centrelink are also an important way of accessing support, to cheaper prescription medicines, utilities, car registration, and public transport.

In a survey of 642 cardholders conducted by The Australia Institute for this report, 52 per cent reported that it was easy to find out about the availability of concession benefits, but 49 per cent said they were not confident they knew about all of the benefits available.

1 The Australia Institute, Missing out: unclaimed government assistance and concession benefits. Canberra. May 2010.

There was also a mismatch between reported card use and apparent awareness of available concessions.

For example, while three-quarters of cardholders said they ‘always use’ their concession card when they can, two out of three of these same respondents reported using their card only once or twice each month. By comparison, the same rate of use was reported by almost half of the people who said that they did not use their card ‘at every opportunity’. This suggests cardholders are not aware of the range of benefits available and how often they might be able to use the card to access them.

Cardholders were also asked to estimate how much money they saved each week by using their concession card. Most reported saving up to $30 a week ( or $1,560 per year ), which fits with the Australian Government’s estimate that the Pensioner Concession Card is worth $1,600 a year 3. A third estimated their savings to be less than $10 a week and one in ten reported saving no money at all.

2 Centrelink, Annual Report 2008-09, Canberra, 2009, pp.38-41.

WHY MANY MISS OUT Research shows that eligible people are missing out on payments because of three key factors: ·· lack of awareness about available assistance; ·· complexity in applying for support; and ·· stigma associated with claiming assistance.

The language used by Centrelink is informative, using the term ‘eligibility for support’ rather than ‘entitlement of support’, implying that government assistance is something people could be receiving, rather than should be. The Social Security Act 1991, by comparison, uses the terms ‘qualifying’ and ‘payable’ – language that does not rule out a role for government in ensuring that people who ‘qualify’ get the assistance that is ‘payable’.

However it is phrased, it is clear people cannot begin lodging a claim with Centrelink until they actually know what assistance is available.

3 Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), Inquiry into the cost of living pressures on older Australians, p9.

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Government reports have admitted to these hurdles. One stated that ‘the most common access barrier identified by parents was that they did not know what ( assistance ) was available or how to find out what was available’ 4. Another found that many Carer Allowance recipients had been ‘surprised’ to find that they were eligible 5.

Perceived ineligibility has also fuelled low awareness levels, leading potential applicants to not even investigate eligibility criteria.

For those already uncertain whether they are eligible, the complexity of qualifying and payability criteria has been found ‘to reinforce their belief that they were probably not entitled’ 6. Applicants who believed they had a ‘reasonable chance’ of receiving a benefit were more likely to persist. Thus, uncertainty about eligibility adds to the ‘risk of poor outcomes for those who are not well placed to manage complexity’.

Much of the available literature examining means-tested welfare systems like Australia’s argues that, at some point, the costs of applying ( time and effort of finding out about available assistance, understanding complex criteria, filling in the required paperwork, and stigmatisation ) outweigh the benefits potential claimants expect to receive.

Finally, stigma – perceived or real – can hold people back from applying for assistance. In fact, Australia’s welfare system has been designed to exclude the rich, rather than target the poor, and payments are intended to reach 4 ( FaHCSIA ): Getting what we need: Families’ experiences of services, Canberra, September 2009.

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AUTHOR DAVID BAKER

a large portion of the population, yet stigma is alive and well in pejorative descriptions like ‘middle class welfare’.

Our analysis of concession card use by household income shows that non-use increases with household wealth, in all but one category: those people who ‘deliberately don’t use’ their card. Significantly, those earning the least reported the highest rate of deliberate non-use ( 14 per cent ) and their reasons reveal the influence of stigma. More than a quarter said they ‘don’t like’ to always use their card ( 19 per cent ) or are ‘embarrassed’ to ( 7 per cent ), compared to 10 per cent who said it was because they were not sure if they could.

CONCLUSION Social participation is jeopardised if people are missing out on assistance because they have low literacy levels, speak English as a second language, don’t have family and friends to help with applications, or find it difficult to visit a Centrelink office.

The Government could improve on delivery of assistance in a number of ways. ·· It could follow the UK example of a Benefit Simplification Unit in the Department of Work and Pensions, which addresses systemic issues and publishes an annual estimate of people missing out on assistance. ··

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FRAMING THE FUTURE

program could be established to help people complete Centrelink claim processes. ··

··

Centrelink already uses data matching with other departments and agencies, such as the Australian Tax Office, Medicare, schools and ambulances, to identify overpayment and assist with fraud and disqualification. This harmonisation could be used equally to match people with assistance and benefits that they are missing out on.

The establishment of an Entitlements Commission could provide similar representation for welfare recipients as employees get from Fair Work Australia, and shift the responsibility for claiming assistance from individuals onto the government.

The people who are failing to receive these benefits are likely to be amongst the most marginalised in our community. It behoves the Government to ensure that all who are eligible receive the assistance that has been designed to support and enable them to participate fully in society. ● David Baker is a Research Fellow at The Australia Institute, a Canberrabased think tank, www.tai.org.au

It currently pays a fee to welfare organisations that place people in ongoing employment. A similar

5 FaHCSIA, A report on the payment review experiences of Carer Payment and Carer Allowance recipients, Canberra, July 2008, p11.

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6 K Bunt, L Adams and C Leo, Understanding the relationship between the barriers and triggers to claiming the Pension Credit, Research Report No 336, Department for Work and Pensions, London, 2006, p13.

PM for the day – your three first decisions? Standardising concessions and charitable, legal, and corporate status for the not-for-profit sector.

Making it much more attractive to corporations to address corporate social responsibility and to develop partnerships with the not-for-profit sector.

Best advice? The buffer theory : having developed a concept, proposal or submission, it is always a good idea to give yourself at least 24 hours buffer because inevitably there’s something else you want to add or change.

Worst job? Toilet cleaner at ( British chemical company ) ICI.

Inspiration? I’ve had two great Seriously address homelessness mentors. Alec Dickson, founder of by providing fully supported Voluntary Services Overseas ( VSO ), accommodation ( foyer model ).

Community Service Volunteers ( VSV ) and the American Peace Most important areas where we Corps – one could never leave a need to reframe debate in Victoria? conversation with Alec without some ·· Provision of services for and inspirational idea. Another lesser with homeless people. known mentor is Allan Hughes, a ·· A whole-of-government approach. dynamic UK Methodist Minister who founded the Team Ministry concept. ·· Not-for-profit partnerships rather And an historical inspiration is Hugh than competition.

Bourne, founder of the Primitive What was your dream job as a Methodist Church in the 19th century, child? Long distance lorry driver. who interpreted Christianity in a What got you into community strong social and political sense, services? As a young Methodist leading to the birth of trade unionism Minister I came to a quick and the Toll Puddle Martyrs. understanding that a significant What did being involved in setting way to address issues of social up Comic Relief in Australia justice was to work within the teach you – about comedy community services sector and giving? That comedy and rather than parish ministry. fundraising go hand-in-hand and Motto? Illegitimi non carborundum! 1 emotions raised by humour can quickly be converted into emotional responses to people in need.

1 Mock-Latin aphorism meaning “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

What’s your favourite joke?

I quote Jimeoin, “Did you hear about the two television aerials who got married? The wedding was awful but the reception was sensational!”

What makes a great weekend?

Good music, food, company and a log fire.

Three pieces of music for a desert island? ··The Who, Let’s See Action. ·· Bob Dylan, Times They Are a Changing. ·· Handel’s Royal Fireworks Music Books by your bed? ·· Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom. ·· Colin Morris, Include Me Out: Confessions of an Ecclesiastical Coward. ·· John Shelby Spong, Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality. ·· Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison. ·· Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics, the new morality. ·· And the latest $1 op-shop biography!

Something people at work don’t know about you? That I once appeared on stage with Paul McDermott and Ben Elton. ●

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FRONTLINE

life role model for women and the community sector, a 50-year-old mother of two from regional Victoria, inching her way across ice into history.

She does however acknowledge satisfaction in what she’s learnt of her own capacity. “It’s a lot more than I thought it was, in terms of energy and endurance, and of leadership. And one of the big things I learnt early was that when you think you’re tired, you’re really not. You can do a lot more,” she says, adding quickly with a laugh: “But having sleep is good!”

She’d know on both counts after hauling an 80 kilogram sled across a hostile landscape for two months in temperatures as low as -38 degrees Celsius, at times with boots frozen “like lumps of concrete”. Running out of time to meet the last possible helicopter pick up from the North Pole before the summer ice became too thin, the Icecap Journeys team – Linda, husband Rob Rigato, and guide Sarah McNair-Landry – slept only five hours in the last four days of the trek.

Few people who saw Linda Beilharz striding down hot and dusty country roads dragging two car tyres on a rope behind her would have realised she was in training for blizzards, snow drifts, and another epic trek into the record books.

She’s still not sure what drives her to that point, to stand waving a flag on a nondescript piece of ice, 14,000 kilometres from home and the everyday demands of work. “I do love to see what I can do, and that’s where it becomes quite a contrast to work. Because work I find is far more about facilitation of others, whereas this one is really a test of me.”

The journey earnt her the title of Australian Geographic’s 2010 Adventurer of the Year and added to the accolades she won in 2004 when she became the first Australian woman to ski from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole and was inspired to seek to traverse the world’s four largest icecaps – the Antarctic, the Arctic, Greenland and Patagonia.

She has one to go ( Patagonia ), but you won’t hear her beating her own drum – “you don’t do these things for fame and glory”. She leaves others to celebrate the ways she has provided a larger-than-

PHOTO AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHICGeorge Fetting

However it looked, it worked a treat for the trailblazing executive officer of Women’s Health Loddon Mallee based in Bendigo, who went on in April this year to complete a 55-day, 780 kilometre journey from Ward Hut Island, the most northern tip of Canada, to the North Pole.

Her love of the wilderness is also crucial and she points to the concept of sila, held by Canada’s Inuit people to mean both consciousness and weather. “It’s a meaning that crosses between the external and internal experience of being, and I think those sorts of wild environments is where I most closely experience that. If you walk in the bush, but go back to a lodge at night, then you separate yourself back out from the wilderness. If you have to really look after yourself, that’s where you really do pay attention to the wilderness, how you have to work with it and experience the consequences of all it offers.”

AUTHOR MARIE MCINERNEY

That doesn’t of course mean a Bear Grylls TV adventurer type journey, wrestling polar bears, abseiling down icebergs, and living off raw seal.

In reality, much of the success of the trip is in the quiet preparation, including working through a series of ‘what if’s’ with the Victorian alpine search and rescue team and the painstaking daily routines: wake up, pack sleeping bags, slick down the frost from the tent, heat water, make meals, get dressed and get going. “Partly I call it being one step ahead of the cold… I don’t expect to die.

I don’t have that fear, and I wouldn’t go on these trips if I did. But you are working hard all the time and having to be alert and thinking ahead, so you don’t end up with a situation where you’re fearing for your life.”

In fact her biggest fear – apart from that something will happen to someone back home while she’s away – is to do something “silly” and need to be evacuated: “which is very long, tedious and expensive and terrible for everyone involved.”

It’s a healthy fear, no doubt, on a journey that could often look impossible, not least after trudging 14 hours in a day, only to wake up after a few hours sleep to find the ice shelf you’ve made camp on has drifted all the way back to your previous day’s starting point again.

“I do find a lot of expedition stories become quite metaphorical. Just the way a lot of work seems to be two steps forward, one back. Really there’s no choice in how to respond, no point wasting emotional energy, just keep moving forward. And that’s probably something I bring to work from my experiences – the ability to choose what to waste emotional energy on and what not to.”

It’s a two way street, and she believes she takes a lot of the skills she’s developed in the community sector – communication, problem solving, conflict resolution, planning, and collaboration – onto expeditions, where they get “tested to the edge”. Still, coming back can be

INSIGHT 2

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INSIGHT 2

AUTHOR MARIE MCINERNEY

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

“I DO LOVE TO SEE WHAT I CAN DO, AND THAT’S WHERE IT BECOMES QUITE A CONTRAST TO WORK. BECAUSE WORK I FIND IS FAR MORE ABOUT FACILITATION OF OTHERS, WHEREAS THIS ONE IS REALLY A TEST OF ME.” a shock, going from making life or death decisions to managing an overflowing email inbox, “prioritising, ordering, scheduling!”

That’s what helps to make the trips a very effective way of dealing with work stress – “it is respite, refreshing and regenerating”, and she says she’s been lucky to have worked for organisations – Women’s Health Loddon Mallee and St Luke’s in Bendigo among them, to have allowed her to pursue her goals, and recognise the value of staff having time out.

“I think it’s really easy to get ground down by the needs of others in the community sector and I do think balancing your lifestyle and view of the world is really important. I have observed people whose lives, and even sense of identity is enmeshed in their welfare role and I don’t want to do that. That doesn’t necessarily make us better workers and being able to step out can help. Not that I’d say everyone has to do what I do! You can find other ways.”

Linda Beilharz is also a founder and board member of Journeys for Learning, a not-forprofit company that promotes resilience, team work and environmental sustainability, with a particular focus on schools. See http://www. journeysforlearning.com.au for more information.

For further information about Linda’s icescapades go to www.icecapjourneys.com.au. ●

COLD HARD FACTS Best material comfort when you got back? A chair. It’s tedious sitting on your bum on the floor of the tent for two months.

Who’s your inspiration? Women who’ve gone before me – Freda Du Faur, Brigitte Muir, Sue Fear.

If you could trace your icecap adventures back to one source, what would it be? Spending Easter holidays camping near Mt Howitt.

Chocolate, family, bush and mountains.

Weekly training regime?

10 sessions a week – 2 tyre drags, 5 gym sessions, 1 run, 1 game of basketball, 1 walk with a pack or bike ride.

Main expedition meals? My favourite is freeze dried pasta with a marinara sauce.

Throw in a cube of butter and wash down with cup of hot tea and cordial.

Best moment on the North Pole trek?

Our first sunrise, when the sun appeared for 20 minutes above the horizon. It rose higher in the sky each day until, three weeks later, we had 24 hour sunlight.

Where do you go on holiday?

Expeditions are my holiday. I ski along thinking of tropical islands but usually choose to climb mountains or plod on icecaps.

What’s next? The garden.

And then another go at the South Patagonian icecap.

MENTAL HEALTH STIGMA

Thank you for your brilliant work on Insight though I believe the format could be improved for older readers with more enlarged and darkened text.

I wish to also address the reference to Erving Goffman and his work in Stigma Hits Home by Dr Deborah Warr, p13. Last year in my ( continuing ) studies, I read Goffman’s The Moral Career of the Mental Patient for one of my assignments. I have never felt so maligned and stigmatised, as a mental health services consumer, by a writer.

As a reader who has mental illness, I was called a mental defective and I felt he objectified such people as myself in his generalisations. This rendition of his work was a chapter in Social Deviance: Readings in Theory and Research, edited by Henry N. Pontell, Prentice Hall, New Jersey,1993. I doubt if Goffman ever imagined that one of his readers would be the capable and self-responsible reader such as myself. He only added to my feelings of being stigmatised, so I do not see how you can resurrect him, Dr Warr, as I felt devalued and inferior to him, as he was putting me down. But you know, that was almost 50 years ago, so I think we can forget Goffman.

Jenny Holmes RIGHT MIX

I just had a look at the first issue of the Insight, and I am impressed. I always liked Just Policy, and so was a bit apprehensive seeing the new format.

But I think Insight is really well done, with a good mix of academic articles,

information and stories in an appealing design that takes into account current reading patterns.

Maria Groner Emergency Relief Coordinator Travellers Aid Australia FORWARD THINKING

Insight is terrific. It’s broad, deep, clear, accessible and forward thinking.

Well done to the Insight team and all at VCOSS. Richard Dent Chief Executive Officer EW Tipping Foundation CHALLENGE TO READ

I’m writing to say how great the new magazine Insight is. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it is a much more appropriate publication for the sector and members like me. Can I make one little suggestion though? The combination of very pale print and small font made it a bit challenging to read.

If I hadn’t been enjoying it so much I may have given up.

Merle Mitchell MISNOMER!

Nice to get the new magazine Insight but what an odd title for a magazine that is not readable by the large majority of the adult population who wear glasses!

What were you thinking? ·· tiny font, squashed together ·· pale grey print rather than black ·· grey writing on yellow ·· white writing on yellow

I can see ( just ) that you have suggested we can apply for a copy in accessible format but I would have thought that VCOSS, of all organizations, would know how inappropriate it is to produce a publication or provide a service that means large numbers of people cannot easily access it. For years we have lobbied Federal, State and local governments – and the private sector – to use accessible fonts and printing.

Did we not look in our own backyard?

I am sure the articles are interesting but I cannot read them and I do not want to receive an “accessible” publication when all I do is wear reading glasses – as do most people over 40! This is not classified as a disability but your publication is not accessible to us.

Kath McKay Director Change Unlimited EDITOR’S NOTE

Apologies to all our members who had difficulty reading the first issue of Insight. We have taken on board the comments and criticisms, and hope you all find the new font style and design much easier to read.

We welcome all letters to the editor.

Please email to vcoss@vcoss.org.au or post to Publications Editor, VCOSS, Level 8, 128 Exhibition Street, Melbourne. 3000.

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AUTHOR LARA FERGUS

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FICTION

AUTHOR LARA FERGUS

We were two months off finishing when the war broke out and the borders started collapsing. I told myself it didn’t matter. The shifting borders were merely political; an inconvenience from a practical and logistical standpoint, but one which could be dealt with. The landmass itself would remain constant. I would just need to give the relevant data to scientists in the new countries formed by the war, and request data from those in countries which had, literally, lost ground. I readjusted my timelines and began applications for additional funding.

MY SISTER CHAOS THERE HAD BEEN THAT SURREAL, IN-BETWEEN TIME.

It lasted a week or so after the war was officially declared, as the battles intensified in the northern part of what was then our country. The time when we didn’t know what it meant, how we should prepare, and for what. So people just continued with their routines: they dropped children at school, caught buses, met friends, did whatever it was that defined and delineated the structure and boundaries of their lives. I went to work.

In my unit we were all working, in some way or another, on the Global Map: an international project aiming to provide data for all land areas on the planet in a standardised form. I say ‘my’ unit because I was the manager. I was supposed to say ‘our’ unit, ‘our’ work, ‘our’ projects, to encourage a sense of ownership and belonging. But own what? Belong to what? It was about the work, it was about the mapping, and the responsibility to make it happen was mine.

I was considered a little too young for the position, a little too much from the wrong ethnic group, and a lot too female. I made up for it by smiling less and caring more. For the project, that is, for the quality of the work. I pitched my voice low. I set high standards for

my staff. I was contained, demanding. I sacked people, I scared people; they would go quiet when I walked into a room. I like to think that people forgot about my age, sex and ethnicity after a while, and grew to hate me for who I actually was. But you can never tell.

I could have delegated project management of the Global Map, but I was drawn to the ambition of it. This single, unified map of everything, or at least everything on the planet above sea level, which was a very good start. I liked the idea of controlling that. So I took it on, organised the collation of existing national geospatial data, the design and implementation of cartographic projects to fill in the gaps, and then the production of a digital dataset for the entire landmass of what was then the country, at a scale of one to one million.

I no longer did any actual mapping. I never left my office except for meetings. I conceptualised it, though, I established the methodology, set the timelines, delegated small sections to different teams. It ran smoothly, it ran to time, people did what they were supposed to do, problems were anticipated and managed.

“MY COUNTRY ON A SCALE OF ONE TO ONE MILLION; MY COUNTRY THE WAY IT WAS BEFORE THE WAR ANYWAY. IT HANGS WEIGHTLESS AROUND MY NECK.” On the day that they told us that they were closing up the building and we had to evacuate I was stunned.

I was still working, the project wasn’t finished, there was no way I could leave it. In the end someone got a security guard to stand in my office doorway. That was enough. I didn’t wait for him to come any closer, my horror of being touched by strangers being stronger than my desire to stay. And I could see that it would seem ridiculous to listeners, when told later, as a story.

But I saved it all. I was the only one who possessed the data in its entirety. The people working for me only had access to the small areas for which they were responsible, and the UN agency that funded the project only got the summarised versions I sent them in reports. I took the data without the programs that would enable me to read it, to save space. It took up surprisingly little memory: a single USB stick which I hung around my neck, tucked into my clothes.

I did it for safety’s sake, as a backup, thinking I’d return in a few weeks to continue. I had no sense of heroism, otherwise I would have been more methodical; insisted colleagues save the data on their own projects, made more backups in different forms. We could have emailed

INSIGHT 2

the most important files to each other or ourselves.

But we were all sure we’d be back, and it was all still there on the server, in the basement. It was still there as I tidied my desk, filed away the documents I had been working on, washed my coffee cup in the office kitchen, the security guard shadowing me. It was all still there as I swiped my way out of the building.

It was all still there until I heard, two days later, exiled in my apartment, that the building had been bombed to rubble. The weight of it collapsing in on the basement and its blinking servers, full of irreplaceable data. Lost, of course. Except what I have, still on the USB stick. My country on a scale of one to one million; my country the way it was before the war anyway. It hangs weightless around my neck.

When I lean forward across my desk here at my new job, I feel it press a cool, metallic rectangle into the skin under the upsweep of my ribs. I pull a print out of a dataset towards me but am finding it hard to concentrate knowing my sister is alone in the house. I am disturbed by the recurring mental image of her getting up and moving off her sheet. She will need to change the water in her cup, it’s possible she will knock the draftboard on her way to the kitchen. Worse, the impact might cause her arm to fly up, the dirty water would sweep out of the cup in a brief parabolic arc before splattering down on the map. I should have rolled it up and brought it with me, but there were the pins, holding the triangle in place, and the wire holding the map to the Point of Beginning.

The printout in my hands is a tangle of figures, which I cannot, in this state, decipher. I leave early. ● Excerpt from My Sister Chaos, published

by Spinifex Press, September 2010.

Lara Fergus has worked as a researcher and writer on human rights – particularly violence against women – for over a decade, with organisations such as Amnesty International, White Ribbon, VicHealth and most recently the United Nations. She currently works for the Victorian Government on policy to prevent violence against women. My Sister Chaos is her first novel.