Tin drops in to tell us about her research on Workforce Australia and how it measures up as a way to tackle precarity and unemployment in Australia.
We chat about Work for the Dole, Mutual Obligations and the casualisation of work. Honestly, it was a huge chat and we could have talked for ages. Thanks Tin!
Follow:
Tin on Linked In
Ben on LinkedIn
Ben at Flinders
Julia drops in to tell us about her research on what it is really like when people borrow from the bank of Mum and Dad when they want to buy a home... or from their siblings! We then break down the pros and cons of the policies Labor, the Coalition, and the Greens took to the 2025 Federal election.
Follow:
Julia at University of Newcastle
Julia on BlueSky
Ben on LinkedIn
Ben at Flinders
Shona chats about her approach to working with children and young people in Child Protection and Juvenile Justice to raise their voices and insights about legislation that impact their lives. Talking about recently proposed changes to the Children and Young People (Safety and Support) Bill 2024, Shona describes how this approach provided important insight into issues like Child Rights and Privacy.
Follow:
The Office of the Guardian for Children and Young People's Website
OoGCYP LinkedIn OoGCYP Facebook Ben on LinkedIn Ben at Flinders
Other resources:
The OOGCYP submission on the Children and Young People (Safety and Support) Bill 2024
Tharin and Leah share about their PhD projects and the challenges and rewards of competing in the Flinders Uni 3 Minute Thesis competition. Tharin is investigating a solution for Tinnits that involves zapping brains and Leah is investigating the impact on self-compassion in how we act to ourselves and others.
Tharin on LinkedIn or email tharin.sayed@flinders.edu.au
Leah on Instagram: @bumblebee_yoga Leah on LinkedIn
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Ben on LinkedIn
Luke - now an official friend of the Pod ;) - chats about his new paper about Yarning as a culturally protected practice and how it can be used appropriately in social work research.
Luke's Paper: Cantley, L. (2024). Indigenous Data Sovereignty: What Can Yarning Teach Us?. Australian Social Work, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/0312407X.2024.2328169
Luke on Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-cantley-99792a2a8 Luke @ Flinders: https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/luke.cantley
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Ben on LinkedIn
Dr Rachael Owens explains Contextual Safeguarding and how it complements Family Group conferencing in the UK. She also shares about her career in creative arts and how it informs her Social Work practice and scholarship.
More about Rachael here -
https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/rachael-owens/
Find some of her work here:
Contextual Safeguarding & Community Group Conferencing Resources here: https://www.contextualsafeguarding.org.uk/resources/toolkit-overview/community-group-conferences/
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Ben on LinkedIn
A/Prof Keming Yang chats about his research on loneliness among 14 year olds utilising the Millennium Cohort Study. He describes the need to rethink the way we conceptualise loneliness to account for the presence of undesirable connections and relationships (like bullying).
More about Keming here - https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/keming-yang/
Find some of his work here:
Yang, K., Petersen, K. J., & Qualter, P. (2022). Undesirable social relations as risk factors for loneliness among 14-year-olds in the UK: Findings from the Millennium Cohort Study. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46(1), 3-9.
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Ben on LinkedIn
Tiff Downing and Jessie Bennie chat about the youth mentoring program at the Sammy D Foundation and why it makes for good policy (and good practice) with young people. Sammy D recently partnered with the Social Work Innovation Research Living Space at Flinders Uni to conduct an evaluation of this program. The evaluation used an innovative method called ‘friendship as method’ which leveraged the mentoring relationship between the mentor and mentee to gain rich insights into the mentoring experience.
More about the Sammy D Foundation here.
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Ben on LinkedIn
A/Prof Andrew Orton chats about his experience of working with policymakers and practitioners in policy creation through participatory practices. We discuss the opportunities and challenges of participatory practices in this context including the ethical dilemmas, power structures, and building collaborative responses to social issues.
More about Andrew here.
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Ben on LinkedIn
A/Prof Jonathon Wistow chats about how despite the hold of competitive and possessive individualism in neoliberal societies, he thinks the Social Contract is not yet broken.
We discuss his new book Social Policy, Political Economy and the Social Contract and how he uses Complexity theory and Social Contract theory to investigate issues like health inequalities, climate change adaptation, and post-industrialism and class. More about Jonathon here
Find his book here.
Contact him here: jonathan.wistow@durham.ac.uk
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Ben on LinkedIn
This is a special episode about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament.
This episode is a republishing of a Voice to Parliament event organised by the Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement at Flinders University.
The panel includes:
Thank you to Flinders University and the Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement for permission to republish this event.
Flinders University: Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement Website
Kit Lian talks about the opportunities and challenges of managing a prison as a social worker. Kit Lian is one of the first social workers to manage a prison in South Australia. We chat about the tensions when implementing government policy in a prison while maintaining social work values such as the goal of rehabilitation.
More about Kit Lian here Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Dr Alhassan chats with us about his work on child protection and a recent project investigating the welfare of refugee children in Ghana.
Alhassan talks about the importance of engaging with multiple stakeholders (refugees, professionals and community) to gain a holistic understanding of the barriers to child protection.
Find Alhassan here: www.flinders.edu.au/people/alhassan.abdullah
and here: @DrAlhassanAbdul
Alhassan's Paper on Safeguarding the welfare of refugee children in Ghana
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
This episode focuses on school bullying as an issue that is tied to the social experiences of being young, as well as the spaces and times (spatiotemporal) when and where school bullying happens.
This episode is a recording from Flinders Uni’s Fearless Minds Series, in which I am interviewed about my research on School Bullying and Youth Violence.
Thank you to Flinders Uni for permission to use the audio.
Find more info on these papers here: https://researchnow.flinders.edu.au/en/persons/ben-lohmeyer-2/publications/
Find Ben on Twitter here: @lohmeyerben
Isabelle Hermes (PhD candidate at Flinders University) comes to chat about Addictions and Drug Policy in Australia. She has a practice background in Social Work as a drug and alcohol counsellor with homeless, criminalised, and at-risk young people. Isabelle unpacks the key pillars in the National Drug Strategy as well as international approaches to decriminalisation, legalisation and regulation of drugs.
Isabelle on twitter: @IsabelleHermes1
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Australia’s NATIONAL DRUG STRATEGY 2017–2026
Kylie (CEO of Community Centres SA) chats about the findings of a research project on what Community Centres are doing to tackle loneliness and build social connection. We discuss the importance of physical and social ‘bumping spaces’ that encourage interaction and building connection. Kylie also tells us why she loves community development and advocacy.
Find Community Centres SA here: https://communitycentressa.asn.au
Find the report here: https://www.flinders.edu.au/swirls/what-we-do/resources
Ben on twitter: @lohmeyerben
Erin tells us about the findings from an in-depth national investigation of Australian young people’s attitudes and understanding of domestic violence from her work with ANROWS. Erin describes the implications for policy and practice design of discovering a gender-ignoring lens – utopian gender-free assumptions – in young people’s attitudes and how these insights were uncovered through research that facilitated young people ‘filling in the gaps’.
Find Erin on Twitter: @dr_ecarlisle
Learn more about ANROWS: https://www.anrows.org.au/
Erin also mentions:
Research report - “It depends on what the definition of domestic violence is”: How young Australians conceptualise domestic violence and abuse - https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/it-depends-on-what-the-definition-of-domestic-violence-is-how-young-people-conceptualise-domestic-violence-and-abuse/
ANROWS National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS) - https://www.anrows.org.au/research-program/ncas/
R4Respect: A youth-led respectful relationships program http://r4respect.org/
Nat talks to us about what is and will be done about the skyrocketing housing market locking young people out of homeownership, the backlog of social housing need and the policy choices that produce homelessness. She plans to put homefulness on the policy agenda and lived experience at the heart of policymaking in SA.
Nat also mentions:
Homestart: https://www.homestart.com.au/
Home Seeker SA: https://www.homeseeker.sa.gov.au/
The Department of Human Services https://dhs.sa.gov.au/
Contact Nat via: minsterhumanservices@sa.gov.au
In this episode, Lexi talks to us about her experience of growing up in out of home care. She is an advocate for the Make it 21 campaign championed by the CREATE Foundation.
More about the Make it 21 campaign: https://create.org.au/make-it-21/
More about CREATE: https://create.org.au/
Hosted by Ben Lohmeyer
Edited by Ryan Manhire
Music by Anthem of Rain
In this episode, Dr Sarah Moulds from Uni SA gives us a realistic but hopeful account of her experience and research on getting the community involved in legislation and policy creation. She talks us through the various mechanism governments use to consult with the public and give us some hot tips and tricks about how to use them most effectively.
Find Sarah here:
https://people.unisa.edu.au/Sarah.Moulds
Ph: +61 8 830 27382
email Sarah.Moulds@unisa.edu.au
Twitter: @rightsnetworksa
Resources:
Rights Resource Network: https://www.rightsnetworksa.com/
Moulds, S. (2016). Committees of influence: Parliamentary committees with the capacity to change Australia's counter-terrorism laws. Australasian Parliamentary Review, 31(2), 46-66.