Using a theatre-based programme to prevent gender-based violence: evidence from Australia.

Bystander interventions play an important contribution to efforts to prevent violence against women and arts-based interventions have been effective as part of a range of health promotion programmes. You the Man is a theatre-based programme, which contributes to violence prevention efforts in community settings. Requiring a single actor and minimal props, the programme consists of a 30-35 min play about intimate partner violence and sexual assault followed by a moderated post-performance panel discussion including staff from local support agencies. Although it has received positive feedback in a range of settings, the only previously published evaluation involved establishing short and long-term impacts on American high school students. This article examines the short-term impacts from attending You the Man events on a different audience, i.e. Australian adults. Anonymous online surveys conducted prior and 4 weeks after events were completed by 41 participants of whom 29 were female and 12 were male, three-quarters of whom were aged between 18 and 49, and who attended events at university campuses (46.3%), in workplaces (34.1%), at sporting clubs (12.2%) and community centres (7.3%). At follow up, participants regarded the severity of abusive and coercive behaviours as being higher than at baseline, their capacity to intervene as a bystander had increased, as had the number of sources of support they would recommend to someone experiencing gender-based violence. Hence, theatre-based programmes can positively affect attitudes in relation to gender-based violence, increase bystander knowledge about safe ways to intervene and positively affect intended bystander intervention.

Educating Australia's Jewish Communities about Child Sexual Abuse.

It has been claimed that effective responses to child sexual abuse (CSA) must engage with the specific cultural, social, and religious contexts of the target communities. For Jewish communities in Australia, the program J-Safe was established to raise awareness, create cultural change, and empower the Jewish community to be able to prevent, recognize, and address child sexual assault within the school setting. This paper reports on the experiences of teachers in two Jewish-day schools who had participated in the J-Safe Project's protective behaviors teacher training program. Participants' accounts of the training indicate the Project builds teachers' knowledge and supports teachers' skill development in the areas of incidence, behavioral indicators and responding to disclosure suggest the training has relevance for the Jewish teaching context. However, the extent to which the training was successful at engaging with culturally specific norms within the Jewish community seems to have been limited, although it may be that the participants were not atypical from the wider group who participated in the J-Safe Project training.

Occupational health and safety among commercial sex workers.

The concept of occupational health and safety (OHS) for commercial sex workers has rarely been investigated, perhaps because of the often informal nature of the workplace, the associated stigma, and the frequently illegal nature of the activity. We reviewed the literature on health, occupational risks, and safety among commercial sex workers. Cultural and local variations and commonalities were identified. Dimensions of OHS that emerged included legal and policing risks, risks associated with particular business settings such as streets and brothels, violence from clients, mental health risks and protective factors, alcohol and drug use, repetitive strain injuries, sexually transmissible infections, risks associated with particular classes of clients, issues associated with male and transgender commercial sex workers, and issues of risk reduction that in many cases are associated with lack of agency or control, stigma, and legal barriers. We further discuss the impact and potential of OHS interventions for commercial sex workers. The OHS of commercial sex workers covers a range of domains, some potentially modifiable by OHS programs and workplace safety interventions targeted at this population. We argue that commercial sex work should be considered as an occupation overdue for interventions to reduce workplace risks and enhance worker safety.

The sustainability of health promotion interventions for different levels of social organization.

In health promotion, enthusiasm for sustainability has frequently overshadowed critical reflection with regard to whether this aim is warranted, let alone feasible. Consequently, the not insubstantial body of literature on sustainability in health promotion is not particularly helpful to decision makers. In this paper we seek to provide some guidance for the development of sustainability for health promotion interventions, arguing that it is necessary to be able to differentiate between (i). levels of social organization which are the focus of change, (ii). the programmes and agencies which are the means employed to achieve change, and (iii). the outcomes or effects that are achieved. Furthermore, funding allocations need to be congruent with programme characteristics if one is serious about achieving sustainability.

Child protection and public health: nurses' responsibilities.

BACKGROUND: Health care workers have been recognized as having a key role in the protection and care of Scotland's children, particularly in respect of identification and detection of child abuse. Nurses, especially health visitors, are often the first professionals to suspect that child abuse has taken place. While previous research has found that health visitors have primarily perceived their role as that of providing support and advice to vulnerable families, there are pressures on them to fulfil a more narrow surveillance role. Concurrent with a lack of clarity about the role of health visitors in child protection, there has been increasing recognition that other nurses can also make an important contribution, including those who do not work directly with children. AIMS: The aim of the study was to explore nurses' understanding of their professional responsibilities in relation to child protection, and the potential for nurses to be involved in the protection of children from abuse. METHODS: A qualitative interview-based design was used, and 99 nurses working in an National Health Service trust in a Scottish city were interviewed, either individually or in groups, about their professional involvements in child protection issues. Interview data were subjected to thematic analysis. FINDINGS: There was lack of consensus among interviewees about the nursing remit in child protection issues, particularly with respect to the extent to which nurses should actively seek to detect cases of child abuse. An emphasis on identification and detection was not easily accepted by many nurses, and was perceived by some to be a change from their more traditional role of supporting families, as well as being potentially in conflict with some public health responsibilities. CONCLUSION: In spite of the perception of some nurses that there is a sharp divide between child protection work and public health interventions, many of the child protection roles identified by nurses, such as supporting families, parenting education and service development, are clearly within the ambit of contemporary notions of public health. Furthermore, it is clear that there is a role in child protection for a much wider group of nurses than health visitors.