Social Work in Rural Australia

Enabling practice

Jane Maidment

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000247299
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Social work practice in a country town or small remote community several hours' drive from the nearest centre is very different from practice in the city. Social Work in Rural Australia offers an introduction to the challenges and rewards of professional practice in rural and remote areas.The authors explore the practical implications for social workers in non-urban regions, including teamwork with professionals from other fields, working with various sub-groups in communities and across distance with other social work colleagues, the diversity of rural livelihoods and lifestyles, and increasingly pressing environmental issues. Social work theories and case studies demonstrate how enabling practice can promote clients' and communities' ability to deal with some of the challenges of housing, youth unemployment, child protection, ageing, mental health, disability and the obstacles faced by Indigenous, migrant and refugee populations, in specific geographical settings. Social Work in Rural Australia encourages students and practitioners towards a holistic and contextual engagement with rural communities in current and newly developing fields of social work practice.'This accessible text integrates the theory and practice of social work in often overlooked rural and remote regions. The case studies offer students and practitioners practical insights and celebrate rural practice as both unique and enriching.' - Alana Johnson, 2010 Victorian Winner RIRDC Rural Women's Award, Family Therapist and Social Worker

PART I
Introduction

1
UNDERSTANDING RURALITY: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Jane Maidment

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

• To outline the aims and scope of this publication.
• To explore the diverse and complex nature of rurality.
• To examine mythology and discourse related to rural Australia.
• To canvass rural practice and policy implications.

INTRODUCTION

Images of parched land and water towers and of rugged men wearing Akubra hats adorn websites dedicated to portraying rural Australia. Phrases such as the ‘sunburnt country’, made famous in Dorothea MacKellar’s poem ‘My Country’, and the ‘tyranny of distance’, captured in Geoffrey Blainey’s thesis on how distance has shaped Australian history, are some of the most abiding images of the Australian landscape presented in the written literature. Yet a closer examination of rural Australia provides evidence of a population, setting and practice context much more diverse and complex than these iconic representations suggest. In this book, we canvass the varied nature of Australian rural living and working, with particular reference to how this context shapes and informs social work practice.

The first section of this chapter briefly explains how this publication might be used by practitioners, educators and students interested in rural Australia and social work practice. This section provides an outline of the aims and scope of the publication and an overview of the organising framework used to inform the structure and pedagogy of the book. It concludes with a brief explanation of nomenclature used in the text.

The second and more substantive section of the chapter addresses the definitional complexity associated with understanding notions of regional, rural and remote Australia. It examines features of rural Australian demography, noting the nature of diversity encountered in these regions; provides an overview of the abiding mythology and discourse related to these parts of the country; illustrates the role that technology and innovation have played in changing the lived experiences and work practices of those residing in rural and remote communities; and concludes with an overview of how the contextual factors discussed above influence social work practice and policy development in rural Australia.

AIMS, PURPOSE AND LANGUAGE

The principal aim of this book is to provide a counter-story to the ‘normalised’ view of social work education as an urban phenomenon, taught predominantly from city campuses where urban-centric views of practice, policy and ethics prevail. In this text we are seeking to explore how social work practice in rural and remote Australia differs from that found in urban and regional spaces, with a view to equipping students to be more informed about practice issues and policy challenges encountered in rural work.

Previous literature on rural social work has identified that practitioners in this context need to find ways to sustain themselves professionally, manage high visibility and accessibility in a small community, and develop ways to establish and maintain a work–life balance (Lonne & Cheers, 2001; Green, 2003). Earlier studies report that social work practitioners experience poor levels of adjustment when they have not previously lived or worked in a rural area (Zapf, 1993; Lonne, 2003). Together, these findings strengthen the case for increased curriculum content on rural practice, policy and research within social work education, to better prepare graduates for working in this context.

A second aim of this book is to demonstrate the diversity of rural livelihood options and lifestyles found in rural and remote regions of Australia, and examine the subsequent implications for social work practice. Rural living and work options in this country have principally been shaped by features of geography, including topography, climate, and the presence of minerals and other natural resources. Each of these contexts provides different challenges to those living and working close by, and influences the ways in which practice and policy needs are expressed and the subsequent response. As such, the purpose of Part II of this book is to present the key concepts of understanding the notion of rurality, examining the construct of livelihood and engaging with interprofessional education.

Each of the chapters in Part III introduces readers to a specific type of livelihood context and field of practice. Within these chapters, particular attention is paid to making overt connections between potential practice issues encountered in the field, with macro socio-political concerns emanating from the policy and locational context (mining town, agricultural community, desert settlement). The last chapter, in Part IV, is designed to provide an agenda for future practice and policy development in rural Australian social work. This chapter is written to signal areas for potential growth, innovation, challenge and change for social work as a discipline. With this in mind, Chapter 15 is intended to create a platform for debate and engagement in Australian rural practice policy and development.

RURAL AND REMOTE AUSTRALIA: A DEFINITIONAL CONUNDRUM?

The question of defining rurality is complex. For functional purposes, the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) system has formed the basis for Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) statistical data collection since 1984. The demarcations of measurement for this system are divided into spatial units, with one being dedicated to a calculation of remoteness in order to help inform Australian policy development (ABS, 2007a: 2). This system has recently been reviewed with an updated version renamed the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS), implemented from July 2011 (RDAA, 2010). The ASGC provides a simple measure of geography and is not designed to provide socio-economic data, information about access to vital services or analysis of the types of populations typically living in a given area (RDAA, 2010). Thus using a classification system like the ASGC, which focuses on aspects of physical geography to define rurality, is flawed in terms of helping to gain an understanding of the lived experiences of those residing outside urban centres.

Richard Pugh and Brian Cheers (2010) offer alternative ways to conceptualise rurality. Within the confines of social work practice and policy, these authors distinguish between examining rurality first in terms of setting and context, and second in relation to the type of social work practice and policy initiatives undertaken in the field. In this vein, key features of what rural and remote practice may entail are identified (2010: viii). This delineation is helpful since the notion of context and setting lends itself to inclusion of diverse livelihoods and geographies, while practice and policy modalities speak to the range of knowledge, skills and values that will be necessary for engaging with rural people and their issues. Neither interpretation assumes a universal standard of what ‘rural’ looks like, instead providing space for diverse intervention possibilities that inevitably will be shaped by changing social, economic and political circumstances and influences.

The way in which rurality is understood is also entirely dependent upon the lived experience of an individual or group engaged within this context at a particular point in time. Andrew Gorman-Murray (2009) makes this point particularly well in his examination of how the meaning of ‘Chill Out’, Australia’s largest rural gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) festival, is interpreted quite differently by individuals who attend the festival from rural and urban areas:

While the rurality of the festival is crucial for all, its meanings and experience shift across groups: urbanites invoke the idyllic country setting as a place to ‘chill out’, while rural residents stress the politicised catalysing effect of having a GLBTQ festival in a rural place. (2009: 71)

In this vein, it is clear that the meaning and analysis of what rural is and how it is understood can shift, change and differ in subtle ways, depending upon the positioning of whoever is offering the interpretation.

RURAL DEMOGRAPHY

From a demographic perspective, Australia’s population reached an estimated 21.96 million in June 2009, with significant growth in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. This population increase has occurred predominantly in the inner city, outer suburbs and along the coastline, while population decline is evident in inland, rural and mining regions (ABS, 2010b). Even so, 14 per cent of the Australian population live in settlements of fewer than 1000 people (ABS, 2002), with 22 per cent of the Aboriginal population living in outer regional areas, 10 per cent in remote areas and 16 per cent in very remote areas (HREOC, 2008).

The population decline in inland areas, brought about as a result of drought, bushfires and changes in mining activity, is of particular note in these figures. A significant feature of the internal migration has been the movement of younger people to the coast and city regions to gain education and work opportunities. This pattern has resulted in the growth of an aged cohort among those choosing to remain in rural and remote regions. The uneven distribution of population by age has resulted in labour shortages for farm work, with the ageing farming population living longer and continuing to farm until later in life (Barr, 2010). Meanwhile, this same aged cohort is providing care to grandchildren in order to enable other family members to work off drought-affected farmlands (Alston & Kent, 2004). The multiple demands experienced by this population, in conjunction with declining farm incomes and the need to diversify income sources (Pugh & Cheers, 2010: 15), have led to significant changes in land-management practices, and influenced associated family decision-making and succession planning. This cluster of dynamics impacts greatly upon family livelihood and well-being for those living in rural communities, and has important implications for the ways in which social work services are focused and delivered.

Another significant demographic trend includes the marked decrease in the number of young women participating in farming activity, who instead are moving to urban areas to pursue career and educational goals. The migration of women from rural areas has led to the masculinisation of the agricultural sector, and a gender imbalance within rural populations (Barr, 2010). Small rural communities throughout Australia have endeavoured to address this social issue by encouraging single women to visit their regions and meet locals through the provision of farm stays and weekend retreats, and hosting social functions such as dances for single people. At the same time, the popular Australian television program The Farmer Wants a Wife has publicised the phenomenon of isolated farmers needing and looking for a life partner. Numerous online websites focused on rural dating opportunities have sprung up in response to the problem of isolation and gender imbalance in the bush. While these activities often result in wry grins from viewers and readers, there is a serious side to attracting women to live outside urban areas, with the sustainability of rural and remote communities throughout Australia being contingent upon population regeneration.

From the late 1990s, new migrants to Australia have also actively been directed by the Department of Immigration to settle in rural areas through the development of new visa pathways. The purpose of this policy initiative has been to help repopulate these regions and provide essential labour and skills (Collins, 2010; Sivamalai & Nsubuga-Kyobe, 2009). Labour shortages of doctors and nurses, welders, mechanics and unskilled people to do fruit picking and other manual work are evident in rural communities. People from diverse cultural backgrounds have a long history of being resident in rural and regional Australia, dating back to the arrival of the Chinese during the gold rush years in the second half of the nineteenth century. Stereotypical assumptions might be made about the redneck nature of rural communities and the potential for migrant populations to experience discrimination (Pugh & Cheers, 2010); however, findings from research into the experience of migrant populations moving into rural areas suggest that recent newcomers have been made to feel welcome, with new Australians reporting high satisfaction levels in relation to lifestyle, climate, environmental physical surrounds, schooling options and work opportunities. Access to public transport and entertainment options in rural Australia was rated by overseas migrants as being less satisfactory (Collins, 2010). A more detailed analysis of the experience of migrants to rural Australia, and the implications for social work policy and practice, can be found in Linda Briskman’s discussion on this topic in Chapter 10.

DIVERSITY

While rural and remote Australia is home to diverse populations, the landmass itself is also characterised by diverse topography, geography, climate and the livelihood options these features support. Australia includes large tracts of desert, mainly located in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia, punctuated by very small towns or settlement populations; rural communities dominated by the presence of the mining industry, such as Mount Isa in Queensland, Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and Coober Pedy in South Australia; farming and cropping districts such as the large Western Australian wheatbelt and the sugar cane plantations in northern New South Wales and Queensland; communities focused on fishing and aquaculture, with this business ranked the fifth most valuable Australian rural industry after wool, beef, wheat and dairy (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, 2010); and small boutique towns such as Bright (Victoria), Mapleton (Queensland) and Richmond (Tasmania), located within striking distance of a city and thus predominantly catering for the ‘tree-changer’ population, those wishing to escape the pressures of city living (Salt, 2009) while remaining within commuter distance of urban workplaces.

The last four decades have witnessed unprecedented change within rural communities. These changes have been prompted by economic and technological shifts with declining terms of trade for Australian agricultural products impacting upon the sustainability of small farm holdings. Pressure to increase farm productivity has resulted in a steady buy-up of land between farming neighbours, resulting in the disappearance of many small family farms. This phenomenon has been observed keenly by social researcher Neil Barr:

Neighbour watches neighbour, assessing which farm will come onto the market and when this might occur. Those businesses that do not increase their productivity and fall behind are likely candidates. Those businesses that lack a successor are likewise potential targets. And so, the business and family life of neighbours is of business interest to the ambitious farming family. Poor farm management, farming or personal misfortune, inability to partner, infertility or descendents with aspirations other than farming—all are potential long term opportunities for neighbours. (Barr, 2010: 10)

The need to increase farm productivity is further acknowledged and encouraged by national farm awards dedicated to diversification, where a recent winner...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Rurality, Topography and Populations
• Part III: Fields of Practice in Rural Settings
• Part IV: Future Agenda for Social Work Practice
• Bibliography
• Index