Remote Australia Online

INTRODUCTION: The geography and logistics of living in remote Australia provide unique challenges in providing dedicated primary healthcare services to tackle the rising incidence of skin cancer. The aim of this study was to ascertain whether the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) skin cancer clinic could improve skin cancer health outcomes for the target population while providing care at a level consistent with that documented for metropolitan skin cancer clinics. METHODS: This retrospective longitudinal report compared historical controls with a dedicated fly-in/fly-out primary care skin cancer outreach clinic provided by the RFDS. The clinic was run concurrently with the regular primary care medical service; the entire focus of this additional service was on skin cancer diagnosis and management. This model was used to minimise the additional costs of providing the service. RESULTS: During the study period a total of 316 people were seen at this skin cancer clinic (29% of the total non-Indigenous population) with 39% of those aged over 50 years seen. There was an average of 1.1 consultations per person (343 consultations in total), with a procedure performed in approximately one-third of consultations. The demographic most likely to have a lesion removed were over 50 year-old males (p<0.0001). The rate of skin cancer detection was 15/1000 adults/year. The number of lesions removed per year increased from 37 to 42 after the intervention, with no statistically significant change in the percentage of excised lesions that were malignant (44%). For over 50 year-old males there was a statistically significant increase in the proportion of excised lesions that were melanomas (chi2 = 6.015; p = 0.013). This corresponded to a four-fold rise in melanoma detection from 0.2/1000 people/year pre-intervention to 2/1000 people/year post-intervention. A comparison of the skin clinic's effectiveness with documented results from other Australian non-specialist skin cancer services demonstrated a low number needed to treat for melanoma which is consistent with high diagnostic accuracy. This is also supported by a relatively high consultation to biopsy ratio. The biopsy treatment ratio and percentage of lesions that were malignant were similar to those seen in other Australian settings. CONCLUSION: The RFDS skin cancer clinic outcomes were not dissimilar to those seen in metropolitan skin cancer clinics. The small population and consequently low statistical power mitigated against certainty in concluding that clinical outcomes were enhanced. Further studies would assist in the future development of models for skin cancer clinics in remote areas.

Summary Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs), are recognised neglected tropical diseases and have been endemic in patients in tropical Northern Australia. We reviewed the temporal trends in detections of STHs and Hymenolepis nana in faecal samples from Northern Territory (NT) Government Health facilities, representing patients with acute illnesses and comorbidities between 2008 and 2018. Ascaris lumbricoides is not detected in patients in the NT. The number of faecal samples examined yearly was relatively constant with a median of 4458 (range 4246–4933). Faecal samples from patients under the age of 5 years declined by 45% over the 11 years of the study. Detections of Trichuris trichiura, Strongyloides spp., and hookworm ova fell significantly by 89% (p<0.001), 71% (p<0.001), and 43% (p<0.01), respectively, over the 11 years. Detections of H. nana declined by 33% absolutely, but not significantly, when assessed relative to the reduction in faecal samples from patients under the age of 5 years. The marked reduction in STH numbers coincided with a 10-fold increase in NT dispensing of ivermectin, predominantly used for scabies control, in widely geographically spaced locations throughout the NT, over the 11 years of the study. Our data support previous findings of the beneficial collateral effects of ivermectin therapy. Ivermectin is not recognised as having anti-cestode activity, hence the continued presence of H. nana endemically in the NT, suggests declines in STHs are not related to other changes in health hardware or existing mass drug administration programs. The reduction in T. trichiura detections may not be explained by this association, as unlike Strongyloides spp., the anti-helminthic effect of ivermectin has been less marked.

INTRODUCTION: Culture shock or cultural adaptation is a significant issue confronting non-Indigenous health professionals working in remote Indigenous communities in Australia. This article is presented in two parts. The first part provides a thorough background in the theory of culture shock and cultural adaptation, and a comprehensive analysis of the consequences, causes, and current issues around the phenomenon in the remote Australian healthcare context. Second, the article presents the results of a comprehensive literature review undertaken to determine if existing studies provide tools which may measure the cultural adaptation of remote health professionals. METHODS: A comprehensive literature review was conducted utilising the meta-databases CINAHL and Ovid Medline. RESULTS: While there is a plethora of descriptive literature about culture shock and cultural adaptation, empirical evidence is lacking. In particular, no empirical evidence was found relating to the cultural adaptation of non-Indigenous health professionals working in Indigenous communities in Australia. In all, 15 international articles were found that provided empirical evidence to support the concept of culture shock. Of these, only 2 articles contained tools that met the pre-determined selection criteria to measure the stages of culture shock. The 2 instruments identified were the Culture Shock Profile (CSP) by Zapf and the Culture Shock Adaptation Inventory (CSAI) by Juffer. CONCLUSIONS: There is sufficient evidence to determine that culture shock is a significant issue for non-Indigenous health professionals working in Indigenous communities in Australia. However, further research in this area is needed. The available empirical evidence indicates that a measurement tool is possible but needs further development to be suitable for use in remote Indigenous communities in Australia.

OBJECTIVE: Review and synthesise the literature identifying the stresses experienced by remote area nurses (RANs). Identify interventions implemented to address identified stresses. Explore the use of the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. METHODS: A comprehensive literature review was conducted using the meta-databases Ovid and Informit. SETTING: Remote Australian primary health care centres. RESULTS: The reported demands experienced by RANs can be grouped into four themes: (i) the remote context; (ii) workload and extended scope of practice; (iii) poor management; and (iv) violence in the workplace and community. In this high-demand, low-resource context, the JD-R model of occupational stress is particularly pertinent to examining occupational stress among RANs. The demands on RANs, such as the isolated geographical context, are immutable. However, there are key areas where resources can be enhanced to better meet the high level of need. These are: (i) adequate and appropriate education, training and orientation; (ii) appropriate funding of remote health services; and (iii) improved management practices and systems. CONCLUSION: There is a lack of empirical evidence relating to stresses experienced by RANs. The literature identifies some of the stresses experienced by RANs as unique to the remote context, while some are related to high demands coupled with a deficit of appropriate resources. Use of models, such as the JD-R model of occupational stress, might assist in identifying key areas where resources can be enhanced to better meet the high level of need and reduce RANs' levels of stress.

CONTEXT: Therapy assistants (TAs) are widely used in the delivery of therapy services in rural Western Australia (WA). Appropriate training for TAs is an essential part of their practice; however, to date most TAs are trained 'on-the-job', thus taxing the scarce resources of rural and remote allied health professionals (AHPs). There has been limited recognized training that is suitable to their role and easily accessed by rural and remote TAs. ISSUE: This project report describes the development and evaluation of training for TAs across country WA to address these issues. Sixteen training modules were developed congruent with the requirements of TA work in rural WA. Modules were designed, developed and delivered via videoconference by rural and remote AHPs. A partnership with a registered training provider has allowed TAs to use this training as credit toward a recognized qualification. LESSONS LEARNT: A high level of attendance across all country regions of WA confirmed a need for this training. Modules that focussed on a clinical topic, presenters that were well organized, who supplied resources to support the training, and used interactive case scenarios were received most positively. For AHPs this training reduced the work required for training TAs at individual sites. The training resources developed in this project are relevant to other rural and remote health services utilizing a similar model of allied health service delivery. The model of training developed is based on a 'ground-up' approach to ensure training meets the established need. Developing stand-alone training packages that are also adapted for distance learning improves the sustainability and accessibility to training. Therapy assistants are now able to use on-the-job training to achieve a recognized qualification. Despite this it is not believed feasible for health services to insist that rural and remote TAs have a standardized qualification for their work. This article adds to a growing body of work describing the key features of rural and remote TA models of service delivery.

Summary Impetigo, scabies, cellulitis and abscesses are common in Australian Aboriginal children. These conditions adversely affect wellbeing and are associated with serious long term sequelae, including invasive infection and post-infectious complications, such as acute post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis and acute rheumatic fever, which occurs at the highest documented rates in the world in remote Aboriginal communities. Observational research in remote communities in northern Australia has demonstrated a high concurrent burden of scabies and impetigo and their post-infectious complications. Few data are available for other Australian states, especially for urban Aboriginal children; however, nationwide hospital data indicate that the disparity between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in skin infection prevalence also exists in urban settings. The Australian National Healthy Skin Guideline summarises evidence-based treatment of impetigo, scabies and fungal infections in high burden settings such as remote Aboriginal communities. It recommends systemic antibiotics for children with impetigo, and either topical permethrin or oral ivermectin (second line) for the individual and their contacts as equally efficacious treatments for scabies. β-Lactams are the treatment of choice and trimethoprim–sulfamethoxazole and clindamycin are effective alternatives for treatment of paediatric cellulitis. Abscesses require incision and drainage and a 5-day course of trimethoprim–sulfamethoxazole or clindamycin. Addressing normalisation of skin infections and the social determinants of skin health are key challenges for the clinician. Research is underway on community-wide skin health programs and the role for mass drug administration which will guide future management of these common, treatable diseases.

Australian Aboriginal communities experience a high burden of sexually transmissible infections (STIs). Since 2009, a comprehensive sexual health program has been implemented at nine Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services in South Australia. This study assessed trends in STI testing and positivity using deidentified diagnostic data from this period (2008-16). Methods: Testing data for Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) and Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) from one urban, three regional and five remote Aboriginal health services were analysed using logistic regression. Results: From 2008 to 2016, testing increased for CT (twofold), NG (threefold) and TV (sixfold). On average, 30% of testing occurred during an annual 6-week screen. Fewer males were tested (range 27-38% annually). Mean annual STI testing coverage was 28% for 16- to 30-year-old clients attending regional or remote services (2013-16). Positivity at first testing episode for all three infections declined during the study period. From 2013 to 2016, when testing was stable and changes in positivity were more likely to indicate changes in prevalence, there were significant reductions in CT positivity (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.4; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.2-0.5) and TV positivity (aOR 0.6, 95% CI 0.4-0.9), although declines were statistically significant for females only. There was no significant decrease in NG positivity (aOR 0.9; 95% CI 0.5-1.5). Conclusions: Since the sexual health program began, STI testing increased and STI positivity declined, but significant reductions observed in CT and TV positivity were confined to females. These findings suggest evidence of benefit from sustained, comprehensive sexual health programs in Aboriginal communities with a high STI prevalence, but highlight the need to increase STI testing among men in these communities.

Introduction: The delivery of specialist health services to people living in Indigenous communities is an important challenge. Specialist diabetes outpatient clinics may be delivered via a patient travelling to a metropolitan hospital, during an outreach clinic, or by telehealth. The aim of this study was to compare the costs and consequences of different service models for delivering specialist diabetes clinics for a remote Indigenous community. Method: Patient travel, outreach and telehealth clinic models were compared using a cost-consequence analysis principles. The setting was Cunnamulla, a remote Indigenous community in Western Queensland. Costs were calculated by quantifying the staff resources and travel costs for each clinic model. Costs were reported in Australian dollars and reported from the health service perspective. Results: The marginal cost per patient for each clinic were $692 for patient travel, $482 for the outreach and $284 for telehealth. If a patient travel appointment was replaced with telehealth, approximately $517 in costs for patient travel reimbursement would be avoided. While replacing an entire outreach clinic with a telehealth clinic would reduce costs by approximately $3961. Conclusion: The marginal cost of patient travel to a metropolitan clinic and outreach clinic appointments was greater than telehealth. Telehealth is unlikely to completely replace the need for patient travel or outreach clinics. However, replacing a proportion of these appointments with telehealth may reduce the overall costs of providing specialist diabetes care in remote communities. Telehealth may have advantages beyond economic as it reduces the time away from usual activities for both the patient and endocrinologist.

Aboriginal Australians have an intrinsic relationship to Country, kinship and community. The processes related to colonisation have decimated traditional lifestyles, ecology and even families. The challenge for energy engineers lies in the ability to reconcile the profession of engineering with the contemporary and traditional cultural and physical needs of Aboriginal people. A discussion around Aboriginal peoples’ most deeply held values will be linked to both global and professional ethical canons. This discussion has implications for Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples globally. A fictitious case study—the ‘Warrigal Downs Energy Hub’—provides us with a hypothetical project to which we can link both examples and frameworks. Our team of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educators and engineers provides us with a right, wrong and even better way to work sensitively, meaningfully and reciprocally with Aboriginal people in Australia and, indeed, globally.

Barrett, M.D. Triodia veniciae (Poaceae), a new species from the Pilbara region, Western Australia. Nuytsia 30: 221–228 (2019). The Australian hummock grass genus Triodia R.Br. is currently undergoing taxonomic revision following increased botanical survey in remote Australia. This paper describes a recently discovered species of ‘soft’ Triodia from the Pilbara region, T. veniciae M.D.Barrett. The lemma lobes of the new species are narrow and produced into a short awnlet, intermediate between the old, and now united, generic concepts of Plectrachne Henrard with awned lemmas and Triodiawith lobed lemmas. Triodiaveniciae M.D.Barrett is only known from rocky shale slopes of the eastern Chichester Range, and has priority conservation status. Diagnostic character combinations for T. veniciae are given to allow discrimination from all other Triodia.

In this chapter we explore how teacher and student talk, as well as written text, helped to build meaning in a series of mathematics lessons in a remote Indigenous school. The topic of the lessons was telling the time using an analogue clock. In recording and analysing the lessons we identified three overarching purposes for language. First, the teachers used whole-class dialogue to establish shared understandings with their students about the purposes of telling the time and to orient the students to the relevant mathematical thinking. Second, they used language intentionally, in conjunction with symbolic and visual representations, to support the students in developing mathematical concepts. And third, they supported the students to use language, both spoken and written, as a mnemonic to help them remember how to carry out the mathematical processes involved in telling the time. Using writing as a mnemonic is a very basic function of literacy, but our research suggests it is nonetheless a valuable way of helping to make the learning more concrete, particularly when working with students who struggle with both literacy and numeracy. We suggest that, if used within a carefully devised teaching sequence, written text can be a critical resource that contributes to the overall meanings created through the interaction of linguistic, symbolic and visual systems in the classroom.

Engaging and empowering Indigenous families and their young children in quality early learning experiences through increasing parent knowledge and skill is critical to bridging the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous disadvantage. To do this, there must be evidence-based programs and approaches that achieve positive child outcomes and meet the needs of families in a myriad of ways. The systematic implementation of the Abecedarian Approach Australia (3a) within the Families as First Teachers (FaFT) program and other Indigenous contexts aims to do exactly this. This chapter outlines why high-quality evidenced-based approaches are necessary in the context of Indigenous academic and social disadvantage. It will also examine early literacy experiences necessary for school learning, linking these to 3a in the FaFT context. Implementation history will be explored and challenges discussed, demonstrating the complexity of systematically implementing an evidenced-based approach in a remote Indigenous parenting support program in the Northern Territory.

The Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy (CYAAA) is a partnership between the Queensland Department of Education and Training (DET) and Good to Great Schools Australia (GGSA). The CYAAA has operated in the remote Queensland communities of Coen, Aurukun and Hope Vale. While Aurukun is no longer a campus, the CYAAA continues to operate at Coen and Hope Vale, where it uses Direct Instruction (DI), a standardised pedagogical and curriculum program. This chapter addresses the questions: What is the nature of the CYAAA reform? How has its implementation played out? What is the evidence of its success/failure? What conclusions should be drawn from the CYAAA experience? All of these questions have had significant relevance to literacy education in the three communities discussed here. Because the CYAAA is a high-profile, contested reform that embodies a particular approach to remote Indigenous education, these questions are important, not only to the communities involved but in considerations concerning literacy education for Indigenous communities in general.

The widespread social and economic inequality between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia is unlikely to change unless the people who are most marginalised themselves become more able to intervene effectively in the economic, social and political processes and practices which continue to reproduce this situation. For a number of reasons, this requires a level of English language literacy which a large proportion of those most in need have so far been unable to acquire. While the current focus in Indigenous education policy is almost solely on children’s literacy, this chapter suggests a different approach. Yes, I Can! (Yo, Si Puedo) is a Cuban mass literacy campaign model that is currently being deployed for the first time in Australia in north-western NSW in the Murdi Paaki Region. We report on the first 4 years of the campaign, which is led by an Aboriginal organisation, the Literacy for Life Foundation (LFLF). Between 2012 and 2015, four communities joined the campaign, enrolling 150 participants in 6 months of literacy instruction and practice provided by locally recruited facilitators, who were supported by a small team of professional advisers. Having achieved a successful completion rate of 69%, which is several times greater than comparable formal courses, the campaign has now extended into three more communities. Through our analysis of qualitative data gained through interviews with participants, staff and local agencies who took part between 2012 and 2015, we highlight two aspects of the campaign model which help explain this success, namely, a pedagogy of contingency and an ethic of solidarity.

Exercise capacity is a powerful predictor of all-cause mortality. However, its association with Indigenous populations in Central Australia, who face disproportionate health burdens, is unclear. Given the isolation from tertiary centers, exercise testing could provide useful local risk-stratification.To characterize the association of exercise capacity with all-cause mortality in Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals in remote Central Australia.Demographic, medication, and all-cause mortality data were prospectively collected from patients undergoing exercise stress tests from 2007–2017.A total of 3,414 patients (34% Indigenous) were included. At 4.8±2.9 years of follow-up, 86 (2.5%) deaths had occurred. Each 1-MET increase in exercise capacity conferred a 14% lower risk for mortality among Indigenous individuals (HR 0.86, 95% CI 0.79–0.94) and 20% lower risk for mortality among non-Indigenous individuals (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.73–0.89) after adjusting for age, comorbidities, and medications. Mortality risk reduction for each 1-MET increase in exercise capacity was similar (p=0.32) for Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals.Exercise capacity is a significant predictor of all-cause mortality in Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals. These findings have important clinical implications towards exercise capacity for risk-stratification and preventative importance of physical activity.

Annually, the results released from the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy testing Australia-wide confirm the huge gaps in literacy performance between students from Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian backgrounds, particularly for those students living in remote communities. Recent research has shown promising results, indicating that one of the major changes that is likely to show positive effects on Indigenous students’ literacy levels is the provision of scientific, evidence-based, best-practice reading instruction.

This book brings together diverse perspectives about Australian literacy education for Indigenous peoples. The editors of this volume share a long history of working in Indigenous education, both as classroom teachers and as academics, and in school and tertiary settings. As non-Indigenous (Settler) academics, we acknowledge that Indigenous educational priorities ultimately need to be driven by Indigenous people, and we must enter this space respectfully. As educators we are aware of the disparate voices in literacy education generally, but the more so in the multiplicity of Indigenous contexts. We are motivated by the need to keep nudging the conversations along, as Indigenous people determine their own ways of being literate, and as educators continue to tackle the unfinished business of growing their institutions into places where Indigenous people can come to learn successfully. For any Australian teachers and researchers in the field of education, the topic of Indigenous literacy education should be particularly significant because it concerns many of our most marginalised students. It brings our attention to one of our deepest national educational dilemmas, namely, who gets to participate fully in which education.

Remote Indigenous communities are often seen as challenging places in which to teach for a range of reasons. Student attendance is erratic, and teachers can feel that their work is not effective. Additionally, remote communities are culturally as well as geographically very isolated, with limited access to services (Price K, Teacher education for high poverty schools. Springer, New York, 2016). Hence, it is often difficult to attract and retain teachers, and those teachers who do take up jobs in remote schools may not feel they have been adequately prepared to work in those settings. In recent years, universities and education departments have put in place a number of initiatives to attract and retain “good” teachers in these communities. For example, several universities offer placement experiences for pre-service teachers to help them develop some understanding of what it means to work and live in remote communities and for them to develop their pedagogical skills to work effectively with Indigenous learners. In this chapter we examine the kinds of knowledge and skills that pre-service teachers need in order to work in the literacy space in remote schools. Our study refers to data from interviews with pre-service teachers, community members and school personnel. It focuses on preparedness for teaching literacy in remote settings, the disconnects between the pre-service curriculum and the expectations of schools and departments and pre-service teachers’ expectations versus the realities of their lived experience on community. Data is drawn from a broader study which sought to understand how we might better plan, implement and prepare pre-service teachers for remote teaching placements so that we might provide guidance for universities, jurisdictions and policy-makers.

What counts as bilingual education for Australian Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory (NT) has varied significantly depending on geographical location and temporal context, Indigenous community involvement and the prevailing political environment. This chapter discusses NT bilingual education in relation to national and international cultural ethics, legislative acts and public policies and proclamations and declarations, alongside the effects of value differences and ideologies. It emerges that Indigenous social agents have mostly enhanced literacy education in communities and have been instrumental in the evolution of culturally informed pedagogy and team-teaching practices over the last 40 years. The chapter discusses the educational effects (assessed outcomes and school persistence rates) among Indigenous children through bilingual/biliteracy programming and exposes the recurring failure of bilingual and culturally appropriate pedagogies to attract mainstream legitimacy or consistent funding. Finally, the chapter discusses human rights questions entailed in this pervasive and continuous neglect of Indigenous languages in Australian education.

Background In November 2017, the Australian government approved reimbursement for psychology consultations conducted by videoconference under the Better Access initiative to address inequitable access of mental health services across regions in Australia. Objective This project uses publically available activity data from the Medicare Benefits Scheme to quantify the uptake of videoconference for psychology resulting from the initiative change. Methods Data were extracted from the Medicare Benefits Schedule item reports using the item codes for standard consultations and the new item codes for videoconference consultations. Activity data from 2 years before and the first year of the change to the Better Access initiative were compared to examine the uptake of videoconference for psychology. Data were stratified by allied health profession, sex, age and state jurisdiction. Results In the 1-year period after the introduction of reimbursed videoconference consultations, approximately 5.7 million in-person consultations and 4141 videoconference consultations were funded by Medicare in Australia. Videoconference consultations comprised 0.07% of the total consultations performed in that 1-year period and showed an increased trajectory. The results can guide future research into evaluating the clinical outcomes of patients via both in-person and videoconference delivery modes. Conclusions Videoconference mental health services were used in the first year that they were available, although they only accounted for a small percentage of all mental health consultations provided by allied health professionals. This finding lays the foundation for future work which could examine the effectiveness of the scheme in reducing inequity and investigating the economic benefits of the expanded initiative to the government and society.

I am a city type. Yet, as I sit here writing this article on my laptop alongside my kombucha and poke bowl, I wish this were not true, but it is. I think this is important to state up front, because it virtually disqualifies me from offering any kind of advice for people living in regional, rural and remote areas of the country. In fact, I will share with you an embarrassing story. I was recently having a conversation with my brother (discovered during a five-hour trip out to visit him in the New England region of New South Wales) about how I had forgotten how to put my car headlights on high beam. I had never done it in my new car, or for five-plus years for that matter, and I had actually forgotten for a moment that such a thing existed. He gave me this dumbfounded look as though I was an alien. It occurred to me that, when I drive at night, everything is already illuminated for me. Even if I drive a long, long way down the freeway to another city, I can go a long distance without need for high beam. What a tiny, almost imperceptible example of regional privilege.

Managing water demand by reducing water consumption and improving water use efficiency has become essential for ensuring water security. This research aimed to identify the primary determinants of household water consumption in an Australian Indigenous community to develop evidence-based water demand management policies and strategies that might be implemented by the water service provider. A behavior change framework was applied to investigate the opportunity, ability, and motivational determinants affecting household water consumption and conservation in an Australian Indigenous community. The lack of water conservation knowledge and skills of high water users could be barriers to saving water. Low water users have positive attitudes towards water conservation and a higher level of awareness about their own water use. While there is a lack of a belief that water shortages will occur, low water users do have concerns of vulnerability to droughts, and that could be a driver for their sense of obligation to engage in water conservation practices. The research recommended communication messages and tools to address identified barriers to enabling positive changes to water use behaviors, which have wider applications in remote Australian Indigenous communities.

The overarching aim of this research was to evaluate the NAPCAN project of developing and disseminating a trauma-based approach to RRE in the NT. In order to contribute to the further development of the project the evaluation strategy was designed to focus on •identifying the specific needs of the Northern Territory youth sector in relation to RRE and trauma-informed practice •investigating the perceived effectiveness of specific training in trauma-based practice associated with Love Bites for youth service agencies•reviewing the resources developed for this project in light of current research literature •investigating the extent to which the training and resources are effective in meeting the particular social and cultural needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community organisations working in the youth sector and •providing recommendations for the further development of both the resources and the project. A major outcome of the project was the development of the individualised, trauma-informed RRE modules. These modules, adapted from the school-based Love Bites program and developed in conjunction with some of the experienced practitioner-participants, were constructed for flexible use in informal settings. This pilot has provided a successful proof of concept opportunity. Further development and clarification in light of theoretical concepts and practice guidelines is needed to provide a thorough evidence base and establish the program logic for this approach.The report provides further specific recommendations to•Clearly differentiate Love Bites, which is intended for school-based implementation, from the newly developing modularised out-of-school program•Develop key themes for the new modularised package based on up to date research •Review learning goals for the trauma-informed module in light of current literature and evidence based practice guidelines for the local context •Establish collaborative relationships with local Aboriginal community organisations to develop culturally sensitive and respectful resources and implementation processes•Modularise the training to improve accessibility •Establish an online hub for materials and support resources.

Recent theoretical and empirical work suggests that coordinating offspring provisioning plays a significant role in stabilizing cooperative care systems, with benefits to developing young. However, a warming and increasingly extreme climate might be expected to make contributions to, and so coordination of, care more challenging, particularly in cooperative breeding systems comprising multiple carers of varying age and pairwise relatedness. Here we investigated the interplay between breeding phenology, meteorological conditions and carer number on the individual rates and group-level coordination of nestling care in the cooperatively breeding chestnut-crowned babbler (Pomatostomus ruficeps) in outback south-eastern Australia. From 3 months since the last meaningful rain event, dominant male breeders and—to a lesser extent—related helpers showed reductions in their provisioning rates and increases in their day-to-day variation. Further, on days with high mean wind speed, dominant males contributed less and helpers were less likely to visit the nest on such days. Helpers also showed reduced visitation rates on days with high mean temperature. Provisioning rates were independent of the number of carers, and increasing numbers of carers failed to mitigate the detrimental effects of challenging environment on patterns of provisioning. Those helpers that were unrelated to broods often failed to help on a given day and tended to help at a low rate when they did contribute, with socio-environmental predictors having limited explanatory power. Given the marked variation in individual contributions to offspring care and the variable explanatory power of the socio-environmental predictors tested, babblers unsurprisingly had low levels of nest visitation synchrony. Large groups visited the nest more asynchronously on days of high mean temperature, suggesting that meteorological impacts on individual provisioning have consequences for group-level coordination. Our study has implications for the consequences of climate change on patterns of provisioning, the minimal role of group size in buffering against these challenges and the stabilization of cooperative care.

The Adani mine controversy is a significant new space of contestation in conflicts over coal mining and climate change in Australia. Proposed as one of the largest new coal mines in the world, the Adani (or “Carmichael”) mine has become a flashpoint between two broad coalitions—the pro-mine coalition, consisting of governments, elements of the media, and mining interests, and the anti-mine coalition, consisting of community groups, environmental non-government organisations, activists, Indigenous communities, and farmers. Based on thematic analysis of news media articles and interviews with environmental actors in the Adani mine controversy, this article demonstrates how each coalition employs discursive scale frames and counter-scale frames to represent and contest the controversy. We find that the pro-mine coalition remains situated within a topographical spatiality, with a backwards oriented temporality, that obscures emergent topologies from their view. In contrast, while retaining capacity for operating within traditional scalar topographies, the anti-mine coalition is more adept at negotiating topologies that increasingly define our social worlds. It is oriented towards a deep future horizon in which the Adani mine controversy represents an opportunity to reshape existing social and political orders. The sorts of scalar tactics documented here are likely at work in other resource extraction controversies, highlighting the need to attend to how scale may be being used to obscure irrationalities and injustices in extraction projects, and the potential for counter-scale frames to help destabilise fossil fuel regimes.