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This research explores parents’ experiences of their child’s treatment in an adolescent mental health service in Sydney, Australia. Select research suggests that parents are pivotal in finding help for their vulnerable child and supporting the consequent mental health treatment. It is surprising however, that there is a gap in the literature in relation to parents’ experience of their involvement in their young person’s treatment. In this study, a qualitative grounded methodological approach provided a framework within which to explore parents’ experiences of their involvement (or lack thereof) in their child’s treatment. A purposive sample of fourteen sets of parents participated in this research. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews at three points including treatment commencement, discharge, and six months following discharge. Data from interviews were thematically analysed. Clinician feedback and case records were also analysed alongside the parent data to provide a comprehensive overview of parental involvement in the treatment. The strongly emergent themes were the relationship between parents’ hope (a sense of achieving the goal of improvements for the child) and agency (a parent’s belief in their capacity to influence their child’s wellbeing). Parents, who remained more passive in expecting expert helpers to fix their child, experienced reduced hope months after finishing the program. When parents positively changed their interaction with their child they felt a more sustained hopefulness (agency-based hope). These findings provide evidence that, if parents are actively involved in changing themselves as part of their child’s treatment (agency), they experience increased effectiveness in dealing with their child, and as a consequence, increased hope for their child’s improvement. A number of intersecting themes emerge under this overarching narrative regarding where parents’ hope is invested and how it develops or diminishes during the cour

This thesis develops a new, mid-range theory of the recognition of prior learning (RPL) with non-traditional learners. It incorporates a practice framework accompanied by good practice principles, to support the implementation of socially just RPL. Formal skills recognition processes, such as RPL, have been used as tools for enhancing social inclusion and social justice within educational institutions across the world. RPL seeks to affirm and accredit skills and knowledges that have evolved from diverse, informal learning experiences and cultural locations and is thought by some to be ‘a powerful tool for bringing people into the learning system’ (Hargreaves 2006, 2). However, in Australia and elsewhere, RPL is largely accessed by those who are already familiar with systems and discourses of formal learning. This excludes the very people who could most benefit from RPL and misses an opportunity to integrate alternative knowledges into professional education curricula. This qualitative, empirical study, explores non-traditional learners’ experiences of RPL for the formal award of Community Services qualifications within the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector. Data are gathered at three points during the RPL process through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nine RPL candidates, their workplace supervisors and the assessors. A total of 22 participants provide data via 54 individual interviews and one assessor focus group. Data analysis was undertaken using constructivist grounded theory methods revealing three key aspects of RPL that operate as ‘vectors’ to guide and stabilise the RPL experience for individual candidates. A strong ‘meta’ theme emerges, indicating ontological purposes of RPL and intersubjective qualities and effects of the assessment. Philosophical and political theories of Recognition (Honneth 1995, Oliver 2001) are used to demonstrate how RPL is an interpersonal exchange that engages bo

The ethics debate in the literature on involuntary treatment for anorexia nervosa (AN) is underpinned by biomedical ethics approaches. Biomedical ethics assigns expert status to professionals to objectively balance ethical principles in patients’ best interests. The debate is centred on the issue of how to respect the autonomy of patients with AN who refuse treatment whilst protecting them from harm. However, in practice, decision making about the ethics of involuntary treatment for AN occurs in a multidisciplinary context. Thus, it is surprising that there are no non-biomedical contributions to the debate. The aim of this research is to address this limitation by making a social work contribution.Social work ethics is compatible with biomedical ethics. However, social work ethics emphasises professional responsibility for promoting client empowerment, participation, and self-determination. Yet, similarly to biomedical ethics principles, social work values are presented as one-dimensional and objective. This obscures the complexity of conceptualising and applying professional values in practice (with persons with AN who refuse treatment). Further, this bypasses the issue that the interpretation of professional values and principles occurs in the context of team dynamics where particular discourses of ‘professionalism’ and ‘good practice’ operate. These discourses affirm particular knowledge and values.Taking a social work approach, it is imperative to reveal the moral dimension of practice and how professional discourses and practice can be disempowering for patients. In order to make this social work contribution to the debate a postmodern ethics approach has been applied. This approach promotes professional moral responsibility for (the hegemony of) professional knowledge. Consistent with this approach, an ethnographic study in the involuntary treatment environment was also conducted. This involved observation of eating disorders team meetings, in-depth interviewi