The project seeks to inform the design of an intervention that will support the use of research evidence in Victorian local governments. The first stage will involve an exploration of the complexity of decision-making in Victorian local governments. This will involve an audit of Municipal Public Health Plans, a state-wide survey of all local governments and a series of key informant interviews with individuals working within local governments. Obesity prevention will be used as a case study. This will be paired with a systematic review of the literature on the effectiveness of strategies to support the use of research evidence in policy environments. The results of each of these components will be used to develop the intervention framework.

Cultural Indicators: Measuring social change through community engagement?

This project proposes a community-engaged process for the developments of Cultural Indicators, using Comunity Cultural Development (CCD) methodology. Cultural Indicators measure change in societal beliefs and values by tracking a particular phenomena over time. The practice-led research aims to provide evidence that this process can contribute to social change outcomes on a variety of levels: individual transformation, community strengthening, and potential policy reform. Two studies, Port Phillip (Australia) and Regina (Canada) will test this hypothesis. With particular attention to the contribution of marginalised voices, this model of deliberative democracy engages diverse citizenship to self determine and communicate measure of success.

Marnie (marniebadham@gmail.com) is supervised by Dr Lachlan MacDowall (Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Victorian College of the Arts) and Professor John Wiseman (McCaughey Centre, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne).

Michelle Blanchard is a PhD Candidate at Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, investigating the use of information communication technology by youth health professionals to improve young people?s mental health.  Michelle is supervised by Dr Jane Burns and Professor Helen Herrman from Orygen and Dr Marion Frere from the McCaughey Centre. She also works as a Research Project Manager for the Inspire Foundation (www.inspire.org.au) a national non profit organisation with the mission to help millions of young people lead happier lives.

Refugee Social Inclusion and Health

This project aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the issues impacting on social inclusion for newly-arrived adolescent and young adult refugees in Australia and to inform policy and program development relating to service provision for this at-risk population.The study will explore the experiences of older adolescent and young adult refugees during their first year in Australia.

Tracy Castelino has been working in the field of violence against women for nearly 20 years. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate within the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. Tracy has been successful in receiving an APA scholarship as part of the Gender Local Governance and Violence Prevention Project, which is funded by the Australian Research Council as a three year three year Linkage Project (2006-2009) between the University of Melbourne and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth).

This PhD research aims to build knowledge about the utilisation of Community Indicators in Victoria. It asks: how does the particular Victorian policy context influence the utilisation of Community Indicators in this State? The research draws on 'new institutional' theory in public policy focusing on the interaction between existing institutional arrangements at local, state, and federal levels and the ideas underpinning Community Indicators. The study will be undertaken through interviews of key informants and document study. Completion date is August 2010.

Teeth Tales: Exploring the socio-cultural determinants of children's oral health from refugee and migrant communitees

Elisha Riggs is an NHMRC Post-graduate Scholarship holder at the McCaughey Centre. "Teeth Tales" is a University-community partnership between the McCaughey Centre, Moreland Community Health Service, Arabic Welfare (formerly known as Australian Lebanese Welfare), Victorian Arabic Social Services and Dental Health Services Victoria. It involves working with refugee and migrant communities from Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan. This research is operating within a cultural competency framework and incorporates health promotion and community based participatory research methodologies, which actively involves the community at all stages of the research process. Teeth Tales has used qualitative methodologies including focus groups and interviews to explore the social, cultural and environmental influences of child oral health in these communities.

Supervised by Professor Elizabeth Waters and Dr Lisa Gibbs, both from The McCaughey Centre, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne.

The limits and potential of place based, community led initiatives to reduce disadvantage

This research explores tensions between top down and bottom up activities in efforts to reduce disadvantage using two of the nineteen Neighbourhood Renewal (NR) sites as case studies. The Victorian Government?s NR (modelled on a UK initiative) aims to reduce disadvantage through top down funding and policy direction, and local partnerships of service providers and residents. Specific issues being explored are:

• What is the rationale of place based initiatives to reduce disadvantage and how does this compare to practice? What are some of top down and bottom up tensions, and different perspectives between central state government staff, local service providers, and residents? What are the aspects of place that shape disadvantage, and how amenable are these to change at the local level, and which require wider strategic action?
• How do place effects manifest (& which are amenable to change) in different stages across the life course and in different populations, for example families with young children, teenagers, unemployed, elderly, and migrants?
• What is the rationale for resident (i.e. 'community') participation & how does this compare to what happens in practice? Although ?community ?participation? and ?engagement? are noted in many initiatives, there is typically not much effort placed in conceptualising and operationalising what is to be achieved and how. Is governance or resident empowerment the main focus of the engagement process? Or is it is just about ensuring adequate consultation or representation?

Supervised by Dr Deborah Warr (McCaughey Centre, Melbourne School of Poulation Health, University of Melbourne), Assoc. Prof Margaret Kelaher (Centre for Health, Policy, Programs & Economics, Melbourne School of Poulation Health, University of Melbourne), Dr Therese Riley (Centre for Health & Society, Melbourne School of Poulation Health, University of Melbourne).