Development,
Social change, Transition societies, Role of youth, Entrepreneurship development,
Governance and people strengthening practices, Volunteers development
Asset Based Community
Development Micro credits and finance
Ignorance of Ability Brings Disability
"This is a short film I did in 2005
and it was nominated for
India-International Film Festival on disability
......"
5.4 million
Australians volunteer with that figure representing
approximately 35% of the population. The estimated value
of volunteering is
$70 billion. The complete survey report is available on the
SCOTTIE MCGUINESS STORY OF RESILIENCE -
Scottie McGuiness
Scottie
will share the story of how he made his
dream to be part of a model yacht club, and
to operate his own boat independently, come
true, despite the many challenges he faced
as a person with a disability. For 5 years
Scottie was a passive observer of a local
model yacht club, until one day, when a bit
of bad luck changed his life for the better.
Scottie will talk about the challenges he
faced, which ranged from money, to people
miss-judging his abilities. Scottie will
also talk about how his being part of the
club has changed the perceptions of his
fellow club members. Biodata: Scottie is in his 30s. He
was born with Cerebral Palsy and he
currently lives in a CRU in Box Hill Vic.
Whilst unable to walk, and lacking fine
motor skills in his arms and hands, Scottie
is engaging conversation relates his story
of a man that was just tolerated, to have
become the club "celebrity", much loved by
his fellow club members. Joel Hunter is his
carer at Yooralla, CRU. joel.hunter.@yooralla.com.au
IS RESILIENCE A RENEWABLE RESOURCE? CASE OF
MUMBAIITES AND MENDICANTS OF VARANASI -
Venkat Pulla & Sneh Bharadwaj
The
'Love Thy Neighbor' resilience demonstrated
by Mumbaiites, at least on three occasions-
the dreaded bomb explosions in Mumbai trains
-2006; that claimed 188 lives, the
devastating floods- 2007 when Mumbai halted
for 6 days and the 26/11 terror attacks in
the year 2008 that shook humanity globally,
plots many questions- Is resilience an
expression of mutual generosity, remarkable
heroism in adversity and crisis? Is
resilience historically a public resource of
solace? In a world that links Mumbai,
Kashmir, Karachi, Madrid, Peshawar, London,
Wall Street and Washington it does not
appear to be a source of comfort & solace.
Resilience is a public resource. But, unlike
terror, it may not be indefinitely
renewable. Proverbial resilience of
Mumbaiites finds an echo in the otherwise
nondescript narrow alleys and on the
resonating bathing Ghats of Varanasi- the
religious capital of India. Perennial faith
of Varanasi mendicants extends beyond
theorizing and speculations. These
resplendent spiritually inclined ochre clad
mendicants have set their hearts unerringly
on a different destination i.e.
Self-Realisation. They subsist on alms, lead
minimalist lifestyle, and appear
psychologically better dispositioned to
undertake self purifying acts. The present
paper looks at commonalities, concerns and
the perspectives with which both offer
solace and hope building. Biodata: Dr. Venkat Pulla is
President of the Brisbane Institute of
Strengths Based Practice.
www.strengthsbasedpractice.com.au Biodata: Sneh Bhardwaj, PhD, is a
behavioral trainer that brings wisdom from
Vedas into Management Science. Sneh
participated in Evidence Based Practice and
Resilience Conference in Penang facilitated
by Venkat Pulla, and the LPPKN, Malaysia in
April 2009 www.yajnaa.com
FOCUSING ON YOUNG PEOPLES' STRENGTHS: HOW
CAN THE POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY MOVEMENT BENEFIT
THE YOUTH OF TODAY? - Megan Booth and Jane
Sleeman
“Greatness
lies, not in being strong, but in the right
use of strength” Henry Ward Beecher.
This is an interactive workshop that
introduces people to the principles of
positive psychology and gives them
strategies which will enable them to help
young people identify and explore their
strengths. Everyone can benefit from
exploring, acknowledging and sharing their
strengths. Once people are aware of their
strengths they can begin to use them more
intentionally to help them through
adversity, build successful relationships or
achieve optimal performance in all aspects
of their lives. So often, society focuses on
the things that are going wrong with our
adolescents (including indigenous youth),
rather looking at the things that are going
right. However, positive psychology is
concerned with building the best rather than
focusing on the worst. By helping young
people to focus on their strengths we are
able to move people forward and help them to
achieve optimal well being. Bioadata: Megan Booth is a Secondary
Visual Arts Teacher with a passion for
student welfare and an interest in
psychology. She is a Co-Founder of Hollyhox
Positive Resources and has presented to
numerous groups about youth issues and
positive psychology.
Jane
Sleeman has been the
Co-Founder of Hollyhox Positive
Resources, with Megan Booth. It
is with great sadness that we
must inform you that Jane
Sleeman passed away on the 30th
of April, 2010.
She was diagnosed with a brain
tumour in August last year and
due to this reason Jane could
not go to the First Global
Conference on Coping and
Resilience held in Dubrovnik,
Croatia, in October 2009. Her
friend, colleague and business
partner Megan Booth, presented
their paper alone at Dubrovnik.
Between late last year and now
Jane's initial tumour was
successfully removed and she
continued her treatments and
also began working and
presenting since December, 2009.
Jane was doing really well and
had great quality of life until
the beginning of April 2010 when
her cancer returned aggressively
in her brain & spine. It was a
month exactly that she was in
hospital as this return of her
illness was unexpected and
sudden. Megan Booth as a
colleague is still coming to
terms with Jane’s death. Jane
continues to inspire Megan’s
work and the work at Hollyhox.
COMBATING CHILD LABOR: STRENGTH BASED
STRATEGIES - Archana Jetti
The
International Labor Organization estimates
that around 218 million children between the
ages of 5-17 were engaged in work-related
activities in the year 2004. A variety of
factors influence a child's need to work, as
such there is no panacea to the problem. In
working towards a response to the issue,
this paper argues that strategies which
harness resources already in place with
minimal help from external parties are
sustainable in the long run, especially for
non-profit organizations which are often
short of resources.
A qualitative study of former child workers
with in-depth interviews and observations
was conducted in two villages of Rangareddy
district, Andhra Pradesh, India, which
showcased potential strength based
strategies which brought about resilience
and hope into the life of former child
workers. Social networks are seen as the
inherent strengths to build resilience and
bring hope. Collaborations amongst a range
of individuals who are connected to these
children's world - such as, parents,
employers, government school teachers and
former-child-workers-turned-volunteers, etc.
made positive and practical solutions
possible for the children to disengage from
paid labour and engage in schools. While
education is not the exact reverse of child
labor, it is surely one of the means to
eradicate it. Biodata: Archana Jetti holds Masters
in Intercultural Studies and Education and
is researching the concept of social capital
and its applicability to poverty related
issues in the Global South, for her PhD in
Social Work at the University of Sydney,
Australia avoola@gmail.com
BUT REALLY, WHAT DOES NEUROSCIENCE TOGETHER
WITH STRENGTH BASED PRACTICE HAVE TO OFFER
TO OUR THINKING ON BUILDING RESILIENCE? -
Mark Lynch
This
workshop will explore what Neuroscience
offers our thinking about supporting
individuals in personal 'capacity building'.
Participants will have the opportunity to
consider new research and its implications
for the way in which we understand how
people think and react during times of
change and stress. The implications for
management practices and how workers are
supported through challenging times will be
considered, whilst utilising traditional
Strength Based practice tools. Biodata: Mark Lynch has an extensive
national and international history as a
trainer/consultant working in the human
services sector within education and social
work. Mark's practical experience includes
working as a Service Manager, Social Work
practitioner and counsellor. In his private
practice work Mark has provided supervision
to teams and individuals as well as
undertaking training and organisational
development work with a variety of
organisations.
Mark is currently consulting on the
development of practice and practice
frameworks for human services organisations.
In this work he is utilising extensively the
research that is being gathered through
emerging field of Neuroscience leadership
and he is a member of the NeuroLeadership
Institute. mark@lighthouseresources.com.au
COPING AND RESILIENCE OF SOUTH AFRICAN
SOCIAL WORKERS - WORKING WITH TRAUMA -
Francine Masson
South
Africa is an extremely violent society with
violent crime having reached pandemic
proportions (Bruce, 2006). Although there is
an established relationship between violence
and trauma (Bowman, 2007), secondary trauma
is often not factored into our
understandings of this relationship. This
research aimed to explore how social workers
experience and cope with secondary trauma.
The research project was conducted in two
phases; the first phase was in the form of a
quantitative research design while the
second stage was qualitative in nature. In
the first phase seven standardized tools
were distributed to 140 social workers who
work with trauma victims. Included in these
tools were tests to measure resilience and
coping strategies. In the second stage, 20
social workers were interviewed to explore
the effects of trauma, resilience, coping
strategies, use of supervision and personal
therapy. Qualitative interviews were
analysed through thematic content analysis.
A theoretical model of trauma and coping was
derived from an analysis of the findings. Biodata: Francine Masson is a
lecturer in Social Work at the University of
the Witwatersrand, South Africa and
coordinates the Masters in Occupational
Social Work. Currently she is completing her
PHD which explores how social workers cope
with secondary trauma. She has fifteen years
experience in working in the fields of
trauma and occupational social work.
fran.j.masson@gmail.com
PSYCHOLOGICAL PREPAREDNESS FOR NATURAL
DISASTERS - Hannah Zulch, Shirley Morrissey,
Joseph Reser and Peter Creed
Natural
disasters are common recurrences in
Australia and elsewhere in the world, with
developing countries suffering in recent
years from major disasters such as
earthquakes, floods and tsunamis and severe
storms. These natural disasters during the
recent past highlight what is likely to be
the norm over the next several decades, with
climate change and its consequences a stark
reality. Those weather-related events of
particular relevance to community
preparedness and adaptation initiatives in
Northern Australia are cyclones and floods.
While substantial disaster mitigation
infrastructure, including the services of
multiple agencies and professionals in times
of need, exists, there remains much to be
done to more fully understand and achieve
disaster preparedness and resilience in
individuals and communities for recurrent
natural disasters. Previous research in
North Queensland has provided promising
findings with respect to the use of
psychological preparedness interventions in
fostering community preparedness. The aim of
this paper is to present an overview of
psychological preparedness for disaster and
review the initial results of the first
stage of the development and validation of a
new scale i.e., the Psychological
Preparedness for Disaster Threat Scale (PPDTS) Biodata: Hannah R. Zulch currently is
completing her MPhil at Griffith University
Gold Coast campus. Hannah has worked at the
University of Sussex (UK), at the Disaster
Research Unit of the University of Kiel
(Germany). h.zulch@griffith.edu.au Biodata: Dr.Shirley Morrissey is
Associate Professor and Deputy Head of
School of Psychology, (Gold Coast campus),
Griffith University. s.morrissey@griffith.edu.au
MANAGING FOR SOCIAL RESILIENCE: COMBINING
ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND ABORIGINAL ROLES
TO ENHANCE RESILIENCE IN NORTH QUEENSLAND -
Prof. Helen Ross, Michael Cuthill, Kirsten
Maclean and Bradd Witt
There
is little communication between the
environmental management and social science
bodies of literature on resilience, yet each
offers insights that could enrich the other.
Our research with in far north Queensland
has identified six key social and
institutional characteristics as helping the
region and its communities to be resilient:
peopleplace connections, knowledge, skills
and learning; community networks; engaged
governance; a diverse and innovative
economy; and community infrastructure. We
propose that environmental management,
Aboriginal and social development
organisations with regional responsibilities
can choose to incorporate the social
dimensions of resilience thinking in three
ways. Their first option is to pursue
existing mandates in consciousness of social
characteristics, without trying to intervene
although social knowledge may prompt some
adaptation of existing management
strategies. For instance, understanding
local variations in people-place connections
may influence communication strategies. A
second option is to take advantage of
resilience characteristics in management
strategies, for instance to invoke strong
people-place connections and recruit and
support existing community networks towards
stewardship behaviour. The third is to
pursue organisational mandates in a new way
that enhances social resilience
simultaneously, for instance explicitly
building a more diverse and innovative
economy through new employment and business
structures in environmental management. Biodata: Professor Helen Ross
specializes in social science & community
roles in resilience, social-ecological
systems & Indigenous natural resource
management. Helen in the School of
Integrative Systems, the University of
Queensland, Co editor Australasian Journal
of Environmental Management. Helen.Ross@uq.edu.au
RESILIENCE AND TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE? THE
CASE STUDY OF JAGUARIBARA: A BRAZILIAN
COMMUNITY - Isabelle Amorim
Can
resilience contribute to factors that
transform isolated individuals into a
powerful integrated group, combine their
forces, and defend their common interests?
This paper examines the displacement of the
inhabitants of Jaguaribara, (Northeast of
Brazil) and their resettlement due to
construction of the dam “Castanhao”. While a
new city was planned by the Government to
shelter the inhabitants from “Old
Jaguaribara” that was overflow by the dam,
the case yields consequences that arising
out with the resettlement of the community,
elucidating besides the impoverishment risks
the protective factors that came up during
the process of resistance against the
construction of the dam, in the light of the
concept of Resilience. In order to capture
the various dimensions of this process,
qualitative primary data were used as the
main source: documentation made by NGO's and
professionals involved during the process of
resistance against the construction of the
dam as well as semi-structured interviews.
Therefore the case of resilience enhancement
in Jaguaribara elucidates a community that
perceives an adversity situation in a
different way, combining forces they could
enhance their capabilities and overcome the
hardships, catalyze collective gains as well
as articulate and defend common interests. Biodata: E. Isabelle Amorim is a
Psychologist with a background in
Psychoanalysis Theory (University
Complutense of Madrid, Spain) and in
Humanitarian Action (University of
Groningen, Holland). Currently she is a
Lecturer at Bangkok University, Thailand.
iamorim@yahoo.com