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The Play to Connect programme is an ongoing action research project investigating implementation of a parenting programme for families and children living in disadvantaged remote Aboriginal communities in Australia's Northern Territory. The aim of this research was to identify critical skills and supports needed for community staff to deliver family support services in their community. The presented collaborative research project was undertaken by two community-based Aboriginal implementation officers and two visiting practitioners between March 2020 and December 2021. At this time, social service delivery was impacted by COVID-19 lockdown restrictions when visiting staff were temporarily permitted to fly into remote communities. The visiting practitioners interviewed the local Aboriginal community staff after family visits to explore how to build their professional competencies and contribute to the nature of programme delivery. Thematic analysis of the interviews and debriefing notes emphasise three key factors crucial in building professional competencies: experiential and reflective learning; partnership and collaboration; and increased self-efficacy. The promising practices identified have potential for broader application across Aboriginal communities to enhance cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary teamwork for service delivery. These professional development processes can ensure more accessible programmes for Indigenous communities based on cultural relevance and the diverse needs of participating families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This pilot study sought to better understand what can be achieved by an evidence-based classroom social and emotional education programme. Design and Methods: A 10-lesson, classroom-based programme that taught about emotional literacy, personal strengths, coping and problem-solving strategies, stress management, emotional regulation and support seeking was provided to 56 students in Years 7 (13 years) and 8 (14 years) in an Australian middle school. Teachers were trained to deliver the programme, with participatory modelling of each activity. Before and after delivery of the programme, students were surveyed for their social and emotional wellbeing using the Kessler 10 (K10) instrument for non-specific psychological distress; the "Internal Assets, School Resources" and "Cooperation and Communication" questions from the Resilience and Youth Development Module (RYDM) of the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS); and questions developed for this study on class connectedness and social and emotional skills. Subsequent to programme completion, focus groups were conducted with teachers and participating students to gauge programme fidelity, utility and engagement. Results: There was an improvement in psychological distress that approached significance (t = 2, df = 42, p = 0.053), although the symptomatic score remained in the range indicative of medium-level distress. Cooperation and communication improved significantly (t = -2.34, df = 42, p = 0.024) as did class connectedness (t = -2.46, df = 43, p = 0.018). There was no change in individual resilience factors, school protective factors, or social and emotional skills. The focus groups were generally positive about the programme, but indicated fidelity was compromised, mainly because the lesson periods were too short. Conclusion: While this small-scale pilot study has a number of limitations, it does indicate the need to improve the psychological wellbeing of middle school students. The findings also provide evidence that brief social and emotional education programmes can have some positive effects.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of development and the pilot implementation of a preventive life skills curriculum for Indigenous middle school students in a very remote community college in the West Arnhem region of North Australia. The curriculum integrates proven educational and psychological techniques with culturally informed notions of relatedness and was developed as a contribution to efforts to prevent alarming rates of suicide among remote Indigenous youth. In this paper, the term, Indigenous refers to Australians of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Design/methodology/approach: Based on reviews of research literature on school-based suicide prevention and social and emotional learning in both general and Indigenous populations, and following detailed community consultations, a 12 week curriculum was drafted and implemented in two middle school classes (combined years 7-9). Lessons were videotaped and later analyzed and detailed commentary was sought from participating school staff. Findings: The pilot program has yielded important insights into requirements of a curriculum for young people with low English literacy levels and with variable school attendance patterns. It confirmed the need to adjust both pedagogical approach and curriculum content for the program to have resonance with students from this linguistic and cultural background and with varying levels of exposure to multiple stressors in disadvantaged community settings. Practical implications: The project has identified and resolved key questions for sustainable implementation of a preventive curriculum in challenging community circumstances. Originality/value: There are to date no examples of the systematic adaptation and design of a universal preventive intervention specifically for remote Australian Indigenous youth. The project is the first step toward the formal evaluation of the efficacy of a classroom-based approach to suicide prevention in remote community schools.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a low-income country experiencing high rates of family violence and child maltreatment. Child protection services are under-developed, and few tertiary-trained social workers are employed by them. A research team was commissioned to develop a parenting programme for implementation in remote provinces. After development and co-design of the programme, a pre- and post-evaluation was conducted in 10 communities to test the programme's potential to facilitate change. Measures of harsh parenting, family well-being and parental attitudes were translated by experienced academics and administered to parents by a team of staff and students from a local university. Responses were subjected to factor analyses. A series of paired-sample t-tests was conducted to ascertain change in parents' reported family well-being and use of harsh disciplinary practices (sample n = 159). Encouraging numbers of caregivers attended the programme in all sites. The analysis of change between pre- and post-programme scores revealed statistically significant reductions in verbal abuse and corporal punishment, and in harsh parenting overall, with reductions in partner violence and family difficulties contributing to improvements in family well-being. The evaluation indicates that with further development, this programme could be implemented as a primary prevention measure to complement child protection services. To consolidate the programme's future implementation by building the pool of trained personnel, links with social work education should be further developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes challenges met implementing an early intervention programme for Aboriginal parents and their children in the NT (Northern Territory) of Australia in the context of efforts to remediate Aboriginal disadvantage. The intervention is an adaptation of an 8- to 10-week, manualised parenting programme designed for four- to six-year-old children with behavioural difficulties. It was implemented for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in urban Darwin and for Aboriginal children in three communities of the Tiwi Islands, near Darwin. Measured outcomes of the programme were positive overall with different outcomes by gender and Indigenous status. There were marked differences in retention of families from different socio-cultural backgrounds in the programme, with a significant loss of participants from referral through commencement to six-month follow-up. This drop-out was most marked for urban Aboriginal participants, despite highly flexible strategies of engagement and cultural adaptation of the approach pursued in each setting. The research provides lessons for the contextualisation of preventive interventions in diverse community settings and shows that systematic attention to cultural "fit" of the intervention logic and cultural competence in engagement of disadvantaged families with multiple problems are fundamental to sustainability. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

This article explores how transaction information is a fundamental element enabling and fostering global flows of money. Financial systems, constructed around account‐based money, require infrastructure, which is separated into two parts: messaging and settlement, performed via trusted agents. This separation has allowed the geographical expansion of banking, and to this day constitutes a key architecture of increasingly global networks of money. Focusing on the correspondent banking system and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, this article demonstrates the workings of this infrastructure in cross‐border payments and in enacting economic sanctions. This sociotechnical infrastructure is a crucial yet overlooked area of global banking, which makes global economic and financial activity possible in the first place. Importantly, by analysing the organizational architecture of the global payments system and including the actors and agencies within it, we elucidate the (changing) relationships between data/information, geographies and power, contributing to the formation of a literature that conceptualizes financial infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to explore risk factors for suicide in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people following hospital admission for suicidal ideation and self-harm in the Northern Territory, Australia to help clarify opportunities for improved care and intervention for these population groups. Methods: Individuals with at least one hospital admission involving suicidal ideation and/or self-harm between 1 July 2001 and 31 December 2013 were retrospectively recruited and followed up using linked mortality records to 31 December 2014. Survival analyses stratified by Indigenous status identified socio-demographic and clinical characteristics from index hospital admissions associated with suicide. Results: Just over half of the 4391 cohort members identified as Aboriginal (n = 2304; 52.4%). By 2014, 281 deaths were observed comprising 68 suicides, representing a 2.6% and 2.0% probability of suicide for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, respectively. After adjusting for other characteristics, a higher risk of suicide was associated with male sex (Aboriginal adjusted hazard ratio: 4.14; 95% confidence interval: [1.76, 9.75]; non-Aboriginal adjusted hazard ratio: 5.96; 95% confidence interval: [1.98, 17.88]) and repeat hospital admissions involving self-harm (Aboriginal adjusted hazard ratio: 1.37; 95% confidence interval: [1.21, 1.55]; non-Aboriginal adjusted hazard ratio: 1.29; 95% confidence interval: [1.10, 1.51]). Severe mental disorders were associated with a four times higher risk of suicide (adjusted hazard ratio: 4.23; 95% confidence interval: [1.93, 9.27]) in Aboriginal people only. Conclusion: The findings highlight non-clinical risk factors for suicide that suggest the need for comprehensive psychosocial assessment tailored to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people hospitalised with suicidal ideation or self-harm. Implementing appropriate management and aftercare within a broader public health framework is needed to support recovery and reduce long-term suicide risk in the community, especially for Aboriginal people and males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]