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Disability policy in many countries encourages people to self-manage their disability support funds, yet few people do. This is also the case with Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Little is known about who chooses self-management and how they sustain it. This project explored the conditions and resources conducive to self-management in the interests of the person with disability. It used Katzman and Kinsella's typology of self-management work to analyse the current conditions that facilitate or hinder self-management. The research demonstrated unequal take-up of self-management, particularly by location and disability type. Often, a family member self-manages on behalf of the person with disability. Conditions and resources people needed to sustain self-management included prior experience and socio-economic advantage, or resources to fill these gaps. Implications are that resources such as advocates, peers, organisations or support coordination can help fill the gap between people with and without personal and social advantages. In many countries, people with disability have the option to self-manage their disability support funds. But many people do not choose to do so. We asked people who self-manage their funds or who self-manage on behalf of their family member with disability about how they do it and what helps them to make it successful. Their experiences show that self-managing is easier if they have money, education and prior knowledge about managing. People without these advantages can also self-manage. They may need support from peers, organisations, advocates or support coordinators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 vaccination is particularly challenging among populations who have experienced discrimination in healthcare settings. This paper presents qualitative findings from in-depth interviews about COVID-19 vaccination conducted in Australia between October 2020 and November 2021. Data from four different studies are presented; each population has unique experiences of discrimination within the healthcare system: Aboriginal people; people who inject drugs (PWID); people living with HIV (PLHIV); and gay and bisexual men (GBM). Analyses were guided by the behavioural and social determinants model that forms the basis of the World Health Organization's "data for action: achieving high uptake of COVID-19 vaccines" interim guidance. All populations viewed vaccination as necessary for community protection, although narratives of community care were most common among Aboriginal people. Concerns about vaccine safety were expressed by all participant groups, although participants living with HIV and GBM were more trusting of vaccines possibly because of their ongoing and usually positive past experiences with biomedical technologies for HIV management and sexual health. Aboriginal participants reported distrust of mainstream government and participants who inject drugs expressed a more generalised suspicion about COVID-19 and its origins. Practical problems related to transport, booking appointments for vaccination and so forth, were more common among participants living with HIV and GBM, possibly because these specific interviews were conducted throughout 2021 when vaccines were more available, whereas data for the other populations were collected before the vaccine rollout. Findings show that vaccine willingness is shaped by past experiences of discrimination in healthcare setting, but different histories of discrimination can differently impact vaccine willingness. Promotional messaging and delivery must take account of these important differences so to not treat these populations homogenously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meetings between advisers and claimants are central to many welfare-to-work programmes. These ‘street-level’ exchanges between clients and staff are critical to the implementation of policy. When talking to welfare claimants, it becomes clear that contact with welfare bureaucrats is constitutive of their experience of policy and it is not until parent and adviser meet and negotiate that the policy is truly enacted. The policy comes into being through an exchange between advisers and parents, who interact, albeit unequally, to shape the proceedings. This paper examines the experience of parents claiming income support who faced compulsory employment measures. Drawing on research with claimants of teenage children, I examine the adviser meeting as an interpellative interaction. The state addresses mothers as workers and welfare claimants in an interpellation which is mediated by the adviser in dialogue with the mother. This analysis demonstrates how the notion of interpellation can inform research on street-level interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]