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's Flinders Profile

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

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 [email protected]

Leah on Instagram: @bumblebee_yoga

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

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

Lloyd, J., Hickle, K., Owens, R., & Peace, D. (2023). Relationship‐based practice and contextual safeguarding: Approaches to working with young people experiencing extra‐familial risk and harm. Children & Society, https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12787

Contextual Safeguarding & Community Group Conferencing

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

Yang, K., Petersen, K. J., & Qualter, P. (2022).

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.

Find some of his work here:

The Ethical Dimensions of Dialogue Between

Why networks matter in faith-related

Ben on twitter: @⁠⁠lohmeyerben⁠

Ben on ⁠LinkedIn

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

Find his book here.

Contact him here: [email protected]

Ben on LinkedIn