Youth Studies Australia articles from December 2004

Youth Studies Australia archives from December 2004

Bullying in the health workplace survey.(Bullying & violence)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A survey reported in the Australian Health Review in October found that 50% of 311 respondents who worked in a NSW health organisation had experienced one or more forms of bullying in the previous 12 months. Only about one in three have...

Reported violence against women increasing.(Bullying & violence)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A study by the Australian Institute of Criminology based on a survey of 6677 women aged 18 to 69 found that 57% of the women had experienced some form of male violence. The survey, taken between December 2002 and June 2003, found that in the...

Cyber bullying common among students.(Bullying & violence)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A Queensland study of Year 8 students found that 13% of students had fallen victim to cyber bullying, 25% knew someone who had and more than half felt the practice was on the rise. Dr Marilyn Campbell, QUT School of Learning and Professional...

Internet child pornography: raids and research.(Child abuse & protection)
December 1, 2004... * A nationwide police operation in late September resulted in charges against at least 191 people involving more than 2000 separate alleged child sex offences. The 'Operation Auxin' raids yielded more than 2 million images of children ranging...

Overlap between child porn and 'teens' obsession.(Child abuse & protection)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Research Fellow with the Australia Institute, Dr Michael Flood, writing in the Canberra Times (14/10/04, p.19) says 'child pornography is not the only kind of sexual media that sexualises children and youth' and points to mainstream, commercial...

Report on abuse of institutionalised children released.(Child abuse & protection)
December 1, 2004... Forgotten Australians, the report detailing the abuse and neglect of children in church and state institutions from 1900 to 1979, was released on 30 August by the Senate's Community Affairs References Committee. The committee spent 17 months...

Children lacking voice in Family Court.(Child abuse & protection)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A three-year study of cases in the Family Court system involving allegations of child abuse found the children's voices were not being heard by judges and court experts. The world-first study, reported in the paper 'The views of children in...

Sexual assault: low rates for reporting and convicting.(Child abuse & protection)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... An Australian Bureau of Statistics report released in September shows: four out of five sexual assault victims do not report offences to police; nearly half of such victims in 2003 were under 15; about one-third of offenders in child cases were...

Abusers most often known by victims.(Child abuse & protection)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... NSW figures compiled by the specialist child protection unit, JIRT, show that of the 4090 reports of the most serious child abuse investigated in 2003: 55% of alleged offenders were family members, relatives or friends; 91% of these abusers...

New department in Queensland.(Child abuse & protection)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Queensland's new Child Safety Department was launched in September and the state is due to introduce new child protection reforms shortly. These will include mandatory reporting by nurses of suspected child abuse and compulsory submission to...

Links with animal cruelty.(Child abuse & protection)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... RSPCA Queensland chief inspector Byron Hall says there is strengthening research showing links between animal cruelty, child abuse and family violence. RSPCA Awareness week in Queensland highlighted these links to show that animal cruelty is...

Profile of young people in custody.(Crime & Justice)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The backgrounds of the inmates of NSW juvenile jails show the decided disadvantage experienced before they reach the justice system. The Young People in Custody Health Survey, which involved the Juvenile Justice Department, Corrections Health...

Drug links to mental health.(Drugs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... * Binge drinking and the wide use of soft drugs is being blamed for a rising number of teenagers presenting to mental health services. Human Rights Commissioner Sev Ozdowski, in an address to the National Press Club, said teenagers were playing...

Substance use in the 12-15 age group.(Drugs)
December 1, 2004... In the late stages of puberty, peers have the greatest influence on whether they drink alcohol, smoke or use cannabis, a study from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute has found. The survey of almost 2900 Victorian children in years 5, 7...

Cannabis smoking related to nicotine addiction.(Drugs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Teenagers who smoke marijuana daily for at least a month are four times more likely to become addicted to nicotine by the time they reach their 20s. Weekly cannabis use raises the likelihood three times, and monthly use doubles it. These...

Australian drinking habits surveyed.(Drugs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A Roy Morgan survey for the Salvation Army found that binge drinking by young women was down, but a worrying 12% still drink nine to 30 drinks on a regular basis and five million Australians regularly drink excessively--6 to 30 drinks in one...

Retention strategies and studies.(Education)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... * Tasmania is to implement a tracking program from next year, which means Year 8 students will have their potential post-Year 10 pathways mapped and reviewed as they make their way through school. Youth learning officers will work one-to-one...

Young, rich and differently educated.(Education)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Of those under-40 Australians on the BRW Young Rich list, 60% do not have a university education. Most pursued their entrepreneurial venture soon after leaving school. BRW deputy editor Robert Skeffington says that in pursuing their own...

Employment disadvantage for early-leaving girls.(Education)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... * Girls who leave school early do not do as well as early-leaver boys, according to a University of Melbourne survey of more than 2700 young people across Australia. Girls are three times more likely to end up working in part-time or casual...

Paperboys on the way out.(Employment)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Changes in child employment laws will make it more difficult for the under-15s to work as paperboys. Victoria is introducing new legislation making it illegal for children under 15 to start work before 6 am. Similar laws are now in effect in...

Too much happiness.(Families)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Parents are placing too much emphasis on keeping their children happy all the time. Dr Helen McGrath, psychology lecturer at Deakin University and co-author of the classroom resiliency program Bounce Back, told an Adelaide forum: 'Over the last...

Lesbian parents no risk.(Families)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A Melbourne study found that the behavioural, psychological, emotional and thought development of children raised in lesbian families is the same as those in heterosexual families. The study, by Melbourne University general practice lecturer Dr...

Benefits of family meals.(Families)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Families who eat meals together can reduce the chances of drug use, suicide and poor school performance, according to research from the University of Minnesota. The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine,...

Grandparents surveyed.(Families)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The survey Grandparents Speak 2004 sought the views of 286 grandparents around Australia on family and community issues. Funded by the Australian Scholarships Group for the lobby group Grandparents Australia, the survey found grandparents want...

Effects of divorce not insurmountable.(Families)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Research presented to the annual conference of Family Services Australia show that while divorce is difficult and painful for children, the effects are not necessarily damaging in the long term. Joan Kelly, head of the California Dispute...

Tackling the youth road toll.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The volume went up on the P-plate regulations debate in September following two more multiple-fatality road accidents involving young drivers one accident in Perth, with four dead and a 15-year-old critically injured, and another accident near...

Young women's drink-driving rate up.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... In Queensland the drink-driving offences recorded for 17-24-year-old women went up by 63% for the period 1997 to 2003. Reasons suggested for the increase included a rise in the consumption of alcohol by young women and the fact that men now...

Childhood adversity and heart disease.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A US study of more than 17,000 people found that childhood experiences of abuse and neglect dramatically increase people's risk of developing heart disease in later life. The research, published in October the journal Circulation, shows that...

Circumcision confusion.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... A study by University of Houston researchers published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that one out of three 15-year-aids in their study of 1500 mainly black and Hispanic boys did not know whether or not they were circumcised....

Antidepressant side-effects.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration advisers are reviewing the warnings in some drug packets following the US Food and Drug Administration's move to place 'black box' warnings on the class of antidepressant drugs that includes Prozac,...

World suicide rates.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... World Health Organisation figures show that more than 1 million people worldwide commit suicide each year, more than those who are murdered or killed in war. The numbers are highest in the Baltic states, about 40 per 100,000. WHO estimates...

Young ignoring skin cancer warnings.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The National Sun Survey, the first nationwide study of Australians' knowledge, attitudes and behaviour regarding sun protection, raises concerns about the many young people who still believe a tan is healthy. The problem was especially...

Soft drinks contributing to obesity.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Obese teenagers are more likely than their normal weight peers to consume soft drink daily, according to a study of about 3000 teenagers in the NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey. The soft drink habit, which peaks at age 13, has...

Obesity is lowering our life expectancy.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... * Research for the NSW Schools Physical Activity and Nutrition Survey indicates that for the first time in 100 years, the life expectancy of Australians will fall unless obesity levels in children are not reversed. Blood tests on about 500...

Global and social forces shaping our mental health.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Epidemiologist Richard Eckersley, in an address to a conference organised by the Centre for Mental Health Research, ANU, discussed our need to see mental health as a societal issue requiring social change rather than approaching it from the...

Depression index initiative.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Plans for a National Depression Index were announced in the October issue of the Medical Journal of Australia. Co-author of the index, Prof. Ian Hickie, clinical adviser to beyondblue, said the index will measure shifts in the prevalence of...

Debate over abortion numbers.(Health & safety)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... * While there is new debate over the prevalence of abortion in Australia and a call for review of Medicare funding of abortion, the only comprehensive research on numbers of terminations shows a decline over the past three years. In South...

Black abuse 'bad as Pitcairn'.(Indigenous youth)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Aboriginal women campaigning against child sex abuse expressed dismay at the high interest in the Pitcairn sex abuse trials when they themselves have been trying to get identical problems in remote Indigenous communities addressed for decades....

UK (and NSW) kids screen-addicted loners.(Media)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... * British research among 11-14-year-olds found that three-quarters have a TV in their bedroom, almost two-thirds have their own DVD player or VCR, a quarter have a computer in their room and two-thirds have a game console. Mintel consumer...

Australia wins mobile phone race.(Technology)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Figures from wireless media company iTouch show that 50,000 Australian children aged 5-9 own a mobile phone, and that is expected to rise to 80,000 by 2005. British market research company MobileYouth says companies will soon be creating...

Informing and regulating internet use.(Technology)
December 1, 2004... * A Flinders University study by Mubarak Rahamathulla, School of Social Administration and Social Work, of 114 Adelaide 13-17-year-olds found that more than 60% of them are using internet chat rooms and 60% of them had no parental attention or...

Computer skills essential to break poverty cycle.(Technology)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Research by The Smith Family indicates that computer skills are indispensable and that literacy now extends 'beyond the notion of the three Rs'. Rob Simons, the group's national research and social policy manager, said: 'Without basic computer...

RMIT redesigning program.(Youth work & youth studies)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The undergraduate youth studies program at RMIT is being completely redesigned under the Australia's first professorship in the field. Prof. Judith Bessant says her appointment at RMIT is a 'powerful statement that the university is serious...

Inner-city youth services needed.(Youth work & youth studies)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... Perth youth strategies have made the city boring, according to Bonnie Davis, winner of the under-25s 2004 Premier Citizenship Award. Davies said discouraging young people from coming into the city will have a detrimental economic effect on the...

Program for young people leaving care.(Youth work & youth studies)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... The Victorian government is funding a mentoring program that will assist young people aged 16 to 18 who are moving from the state care system back into the community. The program, to be run by Whitelion, together with MacKillop Family Services...

The problem of values.(Youth Work)
December 1, 2004... Recent research undertaken by Tim Corney suggests that there are specific value frameworks and practices that currently underpin the university training and education of youth workers and that this has ramifications for TAFE-level training and...

The professionalisation dilemma.(Youth Work)
December 1, 2004... Youth work today is at a crossroads. Are the factors that make youth work such a unique and effective service the same ones that will be sacrificed if it is professionalised? Or are the problems besetting the occupation 'untouchable' without a...

The Loch Ness monster and professionalism.(Youth Work)
December 1, 2004... Like the Loch Ness monster, the subject of youth work professionalism raises its head now and then. Judith Bessant outlines the arguments for and against the development of a youth work professional identity in the hope that this will stimulate...

Has it reached its use-by date?(Youth Work)
December 1, 2004... The current Australian youth work sector has a number of characteristics that have to some extent influenced the nature of the youth work training currently provided at TAFE colleges and universities in Australia (Bowie 2003). These...

Challenging the soft cop syndrome.(Youth Work)
December 1, 2004... What is youth work going to look like in the near future? Much the same as it has in the recent past, according to Scott Poynting and Rob White. Youth workers will still have to confront the challenges of dealing with the ambiguity of the label...

Information about degree and graduate courses in Australia.(Want to be a Youth Workers?)
December 1, 2004... Youth work, as a professional discipline, is often taught in Australia at tertiary level as a major component within Bachelor degrees. In some cases, degree courses require that prospective students apply for entry through a diploma course...

Teenage employability: views of employers.
December 1, 2004... While substantial proportions of young people in developed countries continue their education to college and university level and, therefore, do not commence full-time work until their twenties, most teenagers who do not work full-time have...

The Marrickville Mural: raising awareness of Hepatitis C prevention.(Peer Reviewed)
December 1, 2004... Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is a blood borne virus affecting the liver, it is a major public health problem and is the most frequently reported notifiable infection in Australia (National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research 2001). It...

Ship for world youth.
December 1, 2004... The Youth Bureau in the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) works in partnership with the Government of Japan to support the Ship for World Youth (SWY) Program. The SWY program is a unique international cultural exchange program...

Sexual offending adolescents: a challenge for out-of-home care services.(Abuse)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... L. March, Children Australia, v.29, n.3, 2004, pp.30-34. In Victoria, young people who are charged and convicted after displaying sexually abusive behaviours may be ordered to attend the Male Adolescent Program for Positive Sexuality...

Early adolescents' experiences with, and views of, Barbie.(Development)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... T.L Kuther & E. McDonald, Adolescence, v.39, n.153, 2004, pp.77-82. Two qualitative studies of early adolescents' experiences and perspectives of Barbie dolls are reported on in this paper. Focus groups with 20 Grade 6 girls in...

Early adolescent cannabis exposure and positive and negative dimensions of psychosis.(Drugs)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... N.C. Stefanis, P. Delespaul, C. Henquet, C. Bakouia, C.N. Stefanis & J. Van Os, Addiction, v.99, n.10, 2004, pp.1333-41. A subsample of 3,500 19-year-old adolescents (45% male) from the Greek Birth Cohort were surveyed about their use of...

An evaluation of an internet-delivered eating disorder prevention program for adolescents and their parents.(Health)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... J. Bruning Brown, A.J. Winzelberg, L.B. Abascal & C. Barr Taylor, Journal of Adolescent Health, v.35, n.4, 2004, pp.290-96. An eating disorder prevention program was delivered for one hour per week for eight weeks via the internet to 153...

Abolishing the death penalty for juvenile offenders: a background paper.(Legal issues, rights)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... M.C. Morreale & A. English, Journal of Adolescent Health, v. 35, n.4, 2004, pp.335-39. In the USA, between 1973 and 2004, death sentences were imposed on 227 people who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes. Twenty-two...

Adolescent males' view on the use of mental health counseling services.(Mental health)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... J.M. Smith, Adolescence, v.39, n.153, 2004, pp.77-82. To investigate the adolescent male view on mental health counselling, 100 adolescent males from Jesuit schools in Midwestern USA participated in this study, which used a derivative of...

Sexually abstinent adolescents: an 18-month follow-up.(Sexuality)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... L. Blinn-Pike, T.J. Berger, J. Hewett & J. Oleson, Journal of Adolescent Research, v.19, n.5, 2004, pp.495-511. In a 1997 survey of 1,112 early adolescents in 20 schools in Missouri, 697 indicated they were virgins. Eighteen months later,...

Twenty years of student sexual behavior: subcultural adaptations to a changing health environment.(Sexuality)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... N.S. Netting & M.L. Burnett, Adolescence, v.39, n.153, 2004, pp.19-38. Surveys conducted in 1980, 1990 and 2000 of students from a Canadian university have identified three sexual subcultures that have existed in fairly stable proportions...

Opinion: science, suicide and the self.(Suicide)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... R. Eckersley, Dialogue, v.23, n.2, 2004, pp.88-94. Recent analysis of youth suicide rates across rich countries revealed 'a strong positive correlation between male rates and several measures of individualism'. On the face of it, higher...

Developing a residential programme for children in response to trauma-related behaviours.(Young people in care)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... S. Jenkins, Children Australia, v.29, n.3, 2004, pp.22-29. According to the author, therapeutic residential care offers a service of first choice for children who have been victims of severe abuse and neglect, and who need to be in...

Identity, self-esteem, and the use of Life Books for children and young people in care.(Young people in care)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... T. Scott & S. Cameron, developing practice, n.10, winter, 2004, pp.57-64. According to Erikson, adolescents can experience an 'identity crisis' if they have not achieved a stable identity as they approach adulthood. Children and young...

Youth work education and training: from training to professional education.(Youth work training)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2004... C. Christian, Commonwealth Youth and Development, v.1, n.2, 2003, pp.69-86. The author puts forward a new paradigm for youth work education that moves away from skill-based training to education that 'incorporates a rights-based approach...

Youth affairs peak organisations.(Directory)
December 1, 2004... Government Australian Government Youth Bureau Department of Family & Community Services Box 7788, Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2610 Ph: (02) 6212 9117 Fax: (02) 6212 9517 Email: renata.rustowski@facs.gov.au Youth Research and Analysis...