Brotherhood of St Laurence

Abstract A suite of ‘place‐based’ Commonwealth policy frameworks to address geographically concentrated socio‐economic disadvantage foreground local knowledge and devolve some decisions to multi‐government and local agent governance bodies. We analyse these policies with reference to Dewey's theory of democratic experimentalism, focussing on how publics are constituted in place and enrolled in processes of deliberation and problematisation, and on how policy success is framed. We categorise ‘place‐based’ policies into three groups. Statutory collaboration policies enable coordinated intergovernmental investment in regional economic regeneration and enact broad publics through a concern with economic growth. Collective impact policies commission for social service integration and figure the users and providers of social services as their publics. Indigenous partnership policies are concerned with ‘self‐reliance’, economic participation, and empowerment among Indigenous people. We find that only the policies in the latter type clearly provide their publics with epistemic or decision‐making power. Further research on the implementation of collective impact policies would be necessary to determine their participatory scope, and statutory collaboration policies provide little opportunity for input from their publics. Our aim is to highlight the democratic significance of who is included in place‐based deliberations and what is deemed to be valuable.

For low‐income or precariously employed households in Australia, the re‐allocation of risk over the past forty years has four crucial economic dimensions: the fraying of the social security net; changes in labour market dynamics; heightened uncertainty arising from income volatilities; and new hazards generated by the financialisation of daily life. Household financial capabilities are negatively influenced by the compounding impacts of each of these risks. Case examples from a BSL study illustrate each impact and their interactions. The dominant idea that individual capabilities are malleable (and thus can be optimised) whilst circumstances and norms are fixed is countered by an expanded view of Sen’s/Nussbaum’s capability approach (CA) that includes collective capabilities. Collective capabilities can change norms, and so, the concept provides a needed link between the political and macroeconomic movement of risk re‐allocation and individual or household financial capabilities. The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union is used as an example to show how collective action can challenge structural conditions, and expand or protect the capabilities of individuals.

Different perspectives on dementia, held by people with dementia, carers and professionals working in helping service industries, were examined in 111 interviews across Australia in 2017 to add a recipients’ view on what public health campaigning should address. Contrasts were found between the priorities of the different perspectives, plus a common feeling that dementia should become a normal part of social life. Rather than reflecting stigmatising behaviour, all groups expressed a need for knowledge on how to communicate and interact with people with dementia. In contrast to current campaigns, information on prevention and health-care systems were a low priority.

ABSTRACTIn Australia, nearly 30,000 asylum seekers have the legal right to work, but their temporary and conditional migration status exposes them to work-related precarity. This article draws on a small qualitative study that examined asylum seekers’ experiences of seeking work and achieving economic security. Over an 18-month period, 29 semi-structured interviews with asylum seekers who had work rights in Australia were conducted. It provides insights into how restrictive immigration policies manufacture precarity through short-term, conditional visas, resulting in employer risk aversion, segmentation into insecure work, and in-work instability and mistreatment. Asylum seekers manage their experiences and feelings of pervasive insecurity through individual coping and survival strategies.

This article assesses the quality of 15 primary studies that examined the effectiveness of youth foyer or foyer-like programs on the lives of young homeless people. The youth foyer model provides an integrated approach to tackling youth homelessness, connecting affordable accommodation to training and employment. In Australia, there is growing support from government for the development and funding of foyer programs. However to date, there has been very limited development and investment in the evidence base on the effectiveness of this model in Australia or internationally. Following an extensive literature search, we argue that there is a need to lift the standard of the evidence base of youth foyer effectiveness. We discuss two main issues: the difficulty studies had validating claims of foyer effectiveness, and limitations of research design and methodology. The implications of the lack of rigour in the research reviewed are three-fold. Firstly, youth foyer evaluation study quality could be improved by: clearer methodological and model documentation; post intervention follow-up design; comparison of data to non-randomised comparison groups; and a pre-publication peer-review process. This would be supported with clearer expectations from the research community regarding the production and assessment of grey literature. Secondly, while the standard of reporting needs to be raised, the ‘gold standard’ (i.e. randomised controlled trials) of research design in the scientific community is not a relevant benchmark in the field of homelessness research. This is due to the complexity of homelessness interventions and the inadequate funding of the homelessness research field. Greater investment in robust research and evaluation should accompany the substantial investment in youth foyer programs in order to accurately appraise the effectiveness of the youth foyer model. Thirdly, the lack of rigour in the studies reviewed suggests gaps in the service development of the youth foyers that were evaluated in the articles considered in this evidence review. The research reviewed was mostly unable to report key program mechanisms, pointing to a lack of program documentation. Ideally, strong service development practices would enable evaluative studies to explore the link between foyer model mechanisms and outcomes. Policy implications include putting in place a system for ensuring adequate program documentation with robust research design and methods, using a theoretical framework for the interpretation of findings, and adopting a peer-review process. To achieve this, public sector commissioners of youth foyers need to tighten the evaluation and research components when funding new foyers, recognising the critical relationship between service development and research.

As someone who is interested in urban design, the public domain and social encounter, I find a book like The Street most appealing. It is not that the urban designers’ interest in the street is new...