Christine Bigby
Biographic Data
| ID | 284079 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christine Bigby |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christine |
| FAMILY NAME | Bigby |
| SIGNATURE | BIGBY C |
| AFFILIATIONS | La Trobe University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7001-8976 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 56 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 138 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 55 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Social work research culture in Australian university settings
There has been increased attention on the performance of social work researchers and strategies for strengthening the connection between research and practice. However, little is known about the research culture of social work discipline groups within universities and what contributes to a sustainable high-performance culture. Twenty experienced social work researchers from Australian universities were recruited and participated in qualitative in…
Adults With Intellectual Disability Moving out of the Family Home Using the National Disability Insurance Scheme
For adults with intellectual disability and their families, future planning and moving out of the family home in Australia will increasingly occur within the context of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). As a market‐based, individualised funding system its impact on this transition remains largely unknown. This paper reports on a qualitative study involving 17 family members who supported an adult with intellectual disability to mov…
Because it’s who I am’
Delivering decision making support to people with cognitive disability—What more has been learned from pilot programmes in Australia and internationally from 2016 to 2021
Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been instrumental in driving the development of the concept and practice of supported decision making. An important feature has been the development of “supported decision making pilots.” This paper identifies, describes and analyses pilot programmes providing support for decision making for people with cognitive disabilities in Australia and internationall…
Repairing disability access in competitive environments
In many countries around the world, individualised budgets are replacing ‘block funding’ as the primary way in which disability service provision is funded. These models assume that dynamics of competition improve services for people with disabilities. This article presents the findings of research on the accessibility and inclusiveness of mainstream services for people with intellectual disabilities in four Australian cities in the wake of the r…
Using Focussed Ethnography to Observe and Understand the Actions and Interactions of People With Prader-Willi Syndrome When They Exercise at a Community Gym
Exercise for people with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is important for their health and wellbeing and can provide opportunities for community participation. However, they may find it difficult to participate in some contexts, such as community gyms because social and environmental barriers in these settings may compound difficulties caused by physical impairments or intellectual disability. This study aims to observe and understand the actions and…
Violence Prevention Strategies for People with Intellectual Disabilities
Violence and abuse against people with intellectual disabilities are internationally recognised as a pervasive social problem. Recent years have seen the development and implementation of preventative strategies, yet only few of them have been rigorously evaluated. The present paper aims to identify preventative abuse strategies for people with intellectual disabilities and explore the evidence about their quality and effectiveness. A scoping rev…
Policy and practice issues in making an advance care directive with decision making support
The Medical Treatment Planning and Decisions Act 2016 (Vic) is a step toward law reform to implement supported decision making and the rights of people with disabilities enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Act includes provisions to enable a person, who might otherwise be assessed as being without decision making capacity, to make an advance care directive with support. This case study explor…
Advancing Social Work Research in Australia
While social work research in Australia is in reasonable shape, it requires a strong research culture promoting rigorous research to enhance its credibility and influence on social policy discourses. This study explored proposals to advance social work research, based on interviews with 20 experienced Australian social work researchers. Strategies identified include improving research culture and training, the development of research infrastructu…
Mainstreaming’ Meets ‘Choice and Control’
‘Mainstreaming’ and ‘Choice and control’ agendas have played a dominant role in shaping disability policy and advocacy in many countries since the 1970s, however scholarship is yet to critically explore the tensions and synergies between the two. ‘Mainstreaming’ is the aspiration to move people with disability out of ‘specialist’ spaces designed specifically for them, and into ‘mainstream’ spaces open to people of all abilities. ‘Choice and contr…
Three modes of inclusion of people with intellectual disability in mainstream services
This paper examines the adjustments made to include people with intellectual disabilities in mainstream services. Drawing on in-depth interviews with both people with intellectual disabilities and mainstream service managers in four urban regions in Australia, the paper points to three modes of practice that are operationalised, to different degrees, when people with intellectual disabilities seek access to mainstream services: a commitment and a…
More‐than‐care
This paper offers more-than-care as a framework for analysing how vulnerability emerges in the lives of people with intellectual disability beyond relations of care. More-than-care detaches vulnerability from the identity category of disability. It provides a framework for conceptualising vulnerability in an unequal, neoliberalising, and ableist world and sheds new light on the ever-evolving constitution of vulnerability and disability. This inte…
The temporalities of supported decision-making by people with cognitive disability
In many societies, people with cognitive disability have been pre- sumed to lack reasoned decision-making capacity. Consequently, substituted decision-making laws and practices have traditionally authorised some people such as parents, guardians or medical professionals, to make decisions on their behalf. Several countries are now moving towards an alternative supported decision-making paradigm whereby people with different cognitive abilities ar…
Handbook on Ageing with Disability
Paternalism to empowerment
This article reports findings from the first set of qualitative data from a study aimed to further understand practices of decision support for people with cognitive disabilities and assess the impact of training supporters in an evidence-based practice framework. It poses questions about whether, using the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as the benchmark, it is possible to identify purchase points for assessing the d…
The Types of Scholarly Publications Produced by Australian Social Work Researchers
The publication of social work research and scholarship is integral to generating and disseminating knowledge for the profession and the human services field. Previous research has found a large proportion of nonresearch articles in social work journals, but there has been little exploration of the nature of this scholarship. Using a scoping review method supplemented by analysis of national research assessment output data, this study examined th…
Research End-User Perspectives about Using Social Work Research in Policy and Practice
Research funding and assessment initiatives that foster engagement between researchers and research end-users have been adopted by governments in many countries. They aim to orient research towards achieving measurable impacts that improve economic and social well-being beyond academia. This has long been regarded as important in social work research, as it has in many fields of applied research. This study examined research engagement and impact…
Australian Social Work Research
Internationally, non-academic research impact is assessed by governments as part of evaluating the quality of publicly funded research. A case study method was used to investigate the non-academic impact of Australian social work research. Interviews were conducted with fifteen leading researchers about outputs (research products, such as publications and reports), engagement (interaction between researchers and end-users outside academia to tran…
People with intellectual disability and the digitization of services
The Production and Dissemination of Australian Social Work Scholarship
Understanding the scholarly impact of social work research can inform strategies to strengthen the profession’s research foundations. This study examined research productivity and academic impact using h-indexes for a sample of 112 Australian social work researchers according to the stage of their career. Annual research output was calculated using Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) data. The average h-index for all social work researcher…
Realising ‘will, preferences and rights’
‘Will, preferences and rights’ is the new guiding principle for all support for or exercise of decision-making under the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, but its meaning is disputed and practice implications are poorly understood. This article explores key debates across disciplines and draws on grounded theory fieldwork findings to bring greater clarity to the principle within law, policy and practice settings. It is argued tha…
Analysis of Australian Research Council Grants Awarded for Social Work Projects 2008–2017
The quantity and quality of social work research is central to creating knowledge for the profession and maintaining social work’s presence and status in universities. This study examines Australian Research Council grants awarded for social work projects for the 10-year period 2008–2107. It investigates the quantum of grants and the topics addressed, and compares social work to related social sciences. The field of social work was awarded 84 res…
Social Work Research in the Field of Disability in Australia
Although in Australia disability is receiving unprecedented attention with the rollout of major reforms, the body of research on disability to inform policy and practice has been found “not fit for purpose”. This scoping review of empirical research papers published by Australian social work authors between 2007 and 2015 investigated the quantity, nature, and scope of social work research on disability in Australia. We found a steady growth, an a…
Navigating the complexity of disability support in tertiary education
Access to education is a right for all students. This right is typically realised through the provision of disability support and reasonable adjustments to enable tertiary students with disabilities to participate on an equal footing with their peers. This paper presents perspectives of disability service staff and students about implementing and using reasonable adjustments. Data were collected at 2 tertiary institutions in Australia through int…
Delivering decision making support to people with cognitive disability — What has been learned from pilot programs in Australia from 2010 to 2015
The UNCRPD has generated debate about supported decision making as a way to better enable people with cognitive disability to participate in decision making. In Australia, between 2010–2015, a series of projects have piloted various models of delivering decision making support. A critical review was conducted on the program documents and evaluations of these pilot projects. The pilots were small scale, conducted by both statutory and non‐statutor…
Mainstream, Inclusionary, and Convivial Places
Convivial encounters, where strangers experience temporary shared identification with each other, are valorised in recent literature for their transformative potential. For people with intellectual disabilities, encounters with strangers are an important aspect of social inclusion, and opportunities to become recognised and known within their communities. This paper considers the question of what places are most conducive for convivial encounters…
Navigating the complexity of disability support in tertiary education
Access to education is a right for all students. This right is typically realised through the provision of disability support and reasonable adjustments to enable tertiary students with disabilities to participate on an equal footing with their peers. This paper presents perspectives of disability service staff and students about implementing and using reasonable adjustments. Data were collected at 2 tertiary institutions in Australia through int…
Being Recognised and Becoming Known
The social inclusion of people with intellectual disability has typically been defined and measured in terms of their 'presence' and 'participation' in community life. In this paper we point to a very wide spectrum of social interactions-or 'encounters'-between people with and without intellectual disability which fall into neither category. We offer the concepts of 'being recognised' and 'becoming known' to describe encounters which are neither …
People with intellectual disability and the digitization of services
Tensions between institutional closure and deinstitutionalisation
Deinstitutionalisation must extend beyond the closure of institutions to individualised support to people with intellectual disabilities and societal change. Castellani suggests that closure processes may be incompatible with effective deinstitutionalisation. This article draws on findings from two Australian studies of institutional closures to explore tensions in the closure process that occur in the policy context of applying managerialist pri…
Do You Think I’m Stupid?’
Being amongst strangers is a definitive aspect of life in the modern city. To understand social inclusion in cities, it is necessary to consider not only the strength and extent of social networks of familiarity, but also the role of interactions with strangers in the public realm. People with intellectual disability are considered one of the most marginalised groups in society and the study applies the concept of encounter to offer a new perspec…
The temporalities of supported decision-making by people with cognitive disability
In many societies, people with cognitive disability have been pre- sumed to lack reasoned decision-making capacity. Consequently, substituted decision-making laws and practices have traditionally authorised some people such as parents, guardians or medical professionals, to make decisions on their behalf. Several countries are now moving towards an alternative supported decision-making paradigm whereby people with different cognitive abilities ar…
Paternalism to empowerment
This article reports findings from the first set of qualitative data from a study aimed to further understand practices of decision support for people with cognitive disabilities and assess the impact of training supporters in an evidence-based practice framework. It poses questions about whether, using the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as the benchmark, it is possible to identify purchase points for assessing the d…
Sibling Roles in the Lives of Older Group Home Residents with Intellectual Disability
When parents die, siblings of older people with intellectual disability are likely to take responsibility for oversight of their wellbeing and negotiation with formal support services. This study explored the roles siblings played in the lives of older people with intellectual disability who live in group homes, and the relationships between residents’ siblings and group home staff. The siblings of 13 group home residents and the 17 supervisory s…
Social Work and Disability
People with disabilities remain one of the most marginalised groups in society with poverty, exclusion, and constant struggle to be seen as equal, valued citizens often characterising their lives
Critical Realism in Social Work Research
Critical realism has not been taken up readily within social work research and this may be due to the difficulty of the language and lack of practice examples of its applicability. This paper outlines the basic precepts of critical realism, the implications of these for methodology, and then offers a practical example of its application to social work research in the area of intellectual disability using some of the techniques of more familiar qu…
A National Disability Insurance Scheme—Challenges for Social Work
Over the last two or three years, issues of social inclusion and participation of people with disability have moved into public and political arenas. The disadvantage and discrimination they experi
Ethical challenges in researching in group homes for people with severe learning difficulties
Our aim in this paper is to open up debate about informed consent. We do this by presenting stories from group homes where staff have frustrated our research efforts and marginalised the interests of people with severe learning difficulties. We problematise normative ethics and argue that in some circumstances the basic principle of informed consent should be waived for employees of human service organisations. We maintain that, in such circumsta…
Advancing Social Work Research in Australia
While social work research in Australia is in reasonable shape, it requires a strong research culture promoting rigorous research to enhance its credibility and influence on social policy discourses. This study explored proposals to advance social work research, based on interviews with 20 experienced Australian social work researchers. Strategies identified include improving research culture and training, the development of research infrastructu…
More‐than‐care
This paper offers more-than-care as a framework for analysing how vulnerability emerges in the lives of people with intellectual disability beyond relations of care. More-than-care detaches vulnerability from the identity category of disability. It provides a framework for conceptualising vulnerability in an unequal, neoliberalising, and ableist world and sheds new light on the ever-evolving constitution of vulnerability and disability. This inte…
Delivering decision making support to people with cognitive disability — What has been learned from pilot programs in Australia from 2010 to 2015
The UNCRPD has generated debate about supported decision making as a way to better enable people with cognitive disability to participate in decision making. In Australia, between 2010–2015, a series of projects have piloted various models of delivering decision making support. A critical review was conducted on the program documents and evaluations of these pilot projects. The pilots were small scale, conducted by both statutory and non‐statutor…
Mainstreaming’ Meets ‘Choice and Control’
‘Mainstreaming’ and ‘Choice and control’ agendas have played a dominant role in shaping disability policy and advocacy in many countries since the 1970s, however scholarship is yet to critically explore the tensions and synergies between the two. ‘Mainstreaming’ is the aspiration to move people with disability out of ‘specialist’ spaces designed specifically for them, and into ‘mainstream’ spaces open to people of all abilities. ‘Choice and contr…
Three modes of inclusion of people with intellectual disability in mainstream services
This paper examines the adjustments made to include people with intellectual disabilities in mainstream services. Drawing on in-depth interviews with both people with intellectual disabilities and mainstream service managers in four urban regions in Australia, the paper points to three modes of practice that are operationalised, to different degrees, when people with intellectual disabilities seek access to mainstream services: a commitment and a…
A Comparative Study of Australian Social Work Research
The quality and quantity of social work research are not simply a matter of academic inquiry; they have real-world implications for practitioners, policy makers and the community. Internationally, research assessment exercises being undertaken in university sectors are shaping notions of research productivity, quality and impact. This paper advances empirical understandings of the nature of social work research in Australia, through an inter-disc…
Preparing Manuscripts that Report Qualitative Research
The growing scholarship about qualitative inquiry means it has become an umbrella term for a diverse range of studies with differing theoretical underpinnings and methods. Nevertheless qualitative studies share a common purpose of representing or interpreting complex and situated social processes and experiences and continue to be the most common type of manuscript published by Australian Social Work. Telling a clear and concise story in a 6,000 …
Diversity and Ageing
Despite the large number of social workers working every day with older people in a wide range of settings—from hospitals to Centrelink to neighbourhood centres—social work practice with older peop
Building Social Work Scholarship
Comparison of specialist and mainstream programs for older carers of adults with intellectual disability
Older carers of adults with intellectual disabilities experience unique challenges. Outreach initiatives identify a high number who are unknown to support services and a case is made to proactively engage them to assist in future planning for their adult children. An earlier study by the authors suggested that, in Victoria, specialist case management programs for older carers occupied a unique place within the service system. The present paper di…
Because it’s who I am’
Delivering decision making support to people with cognitive disability—What more has been learned from pilot programmes in Australia and internationally from 2016 to 2021
Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been instrumental in driving the development of the concept and practice of supported decision making. An important feature has been the development of “supported decision making pilots.” This paper identifies, describes and analyses pilot programmes providing support for decision making for people with cognitive disabilities in Australia and internationall…
Comparison of specialist and mainstream programs for older carers of adults with intellectual disability
Older carers of adults with intellectual disabilities experience unique challenges. Outreach initiatives identify a high number who are unknown to support services and a case is made to proactively engage them to assist in future planning for their adult children. An earlier study by the authors suggested that, in Victoria, specialist case management programs for older carers occupied a unique place within the service system. The present paper di…
Disability, Citizenship and Community Care. A Case for Welfare rights
A Tribute to Professor Norman Smith
Tensions between institutional closure and deinstitutionalisation
Deinstitutionalisation must extend beyond the closure of institutions to individualised support to people with intellectual disabilities and societal change. Castellani suggests that closure processes may be incompatible with effective deinstitutionalisation. This article draws on findings from two Australian studies of institutional closures to explore tensions in the closure process that occur in the policy context of applying managerialist pri…
Social Work in Higher Education
Reflecting on 60 Years of Australian Social Work
This edition marks the 60th anniversary of Australian Social Work. For 60 years, the journal has been a “means of communicating the standing and progress of Australian social work positively, proud
The Quality and Integrity of Australian Social Work
Diversity and Ageing
Despite the large number of social workers working every day with older people in a wide range of settings—from hospitals to Centrelink to neighbourhood centres—social work practice with older peop
I Want to See the Queen”
People with intellectual disability are a relatively new but growing minority group within Australia's ageing population. Disability policies point to the equal right of people with disabilities to a quality of life similar to that of other citizens. Disability services are increasingly required to provide individualised and responsive services, irrespective of age, for people with lifelong disabilities. The present study explored the everyday li…
Building Social Work Scholarship
Social Work and Disability
People with disabilities remain one of the most marginalised groups in society with poverty, exclusion, and constant struggle to be seen as equal, valued citizens often characterising their lives
Written out of History
The field of intellectual disability is an important field of social work practice in both Britain and Australia. Yet this is also a multidisciplinary field in which the role of social workers, particularly women, in contributing to the lives of people with intellectual disability and their families has largely gone unnoticed. Focusing on England and Victoria, Australia in particular, this paper uses oral history interviews with long-standing soc…
Rankings, Ratings, and Reviews
The Toronto declaration on bridging knowledge, policy and practice in aging and disability
The International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC) is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original articles in the field of integrated care on a continuous basis.IJIC has an Impact Factor of 2.913 (2021 JCR, received in June 2022)The IJIC 20th Anniversary Issue was published in 2021
Key issues and research priorities affecting social outcomes for an older population
The International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC) is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original articles in the field of integrated care on a continuous basis.IJIC has an Impact Factor of 5.120 (2020 JCR, received in June 2021)The IJIC 20th Anniversary Issue was published in 2021
Ethical challenges in researching in group homes for people with severe learning difficulties
Our aim in this paper is to open up debate about informed consent. We do this by presenting stories from group homes where staff have frustrated our research efforts and marginalised the interests of people with severe learning difficulties. We problematise normative ethics and argue that in some circumstances the basic principle of informed consent should be waived for employees of human service organisations. We maintain that, in such circumsta…
Maintaining Quality and Withstanding Challenges
Norma Parker Addresses
The first Norma Parker address was delivered in 1969, at the Eleventh Biennial Conference of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW), by the then President, Professor John Lawrence. Sin
A building blocks strategy for developing bridging and knowledge transfer between ageing and disability care and policy
The need for bridging between disability and ageing is significant for two primary reasons: 1) the growing population of persons aging with long-term chronic conditions and disabilities who have not been part of most traditional long-term care supports and service programs for older adults, and 2) the increasing trends towards both integrated health and social care systems and merged care systems for older and younger adults with disabilities
A National Disability Insurance Scheme—Challenges for Social Work
Over the last two or three years, issues of social inclusion and participation of people with disability have moved into public and political arenas. The disadvantage and discrimination they experi
Do You Think I’m Stupid?’
Being amongst strangers is a definitive aspect of life in the modern city. To understand social inclusion in cities, it is necessary to consider not only the strength and extent of social networks of familiarity, but also the role of interactions with strangers in the public realm. People with intellectual disability are considered one of the most marginalised groups in society and the study applies the concept of encounter to offer a new perspec…
Conceptualizing Inclusive Research with People with Intellectual Disability
BACKGROUND: The inclusion of people with intellectual disability in research is a common requirement of research funding. Little conceptual clarity is available to guide the conduct of inclusive research or judge its fidelity, there is minimal evidence of its impact, and questions remain about its feasibility and rigour. METHOD: A comprehensive review of the peer reviewed literature and key texts was undertaken to more clearly conceptualize inclu…
Sibling Roles in the Lives of Older Group Home Residents with Intellectual Disability
When parents die, siblings of older people with intellectual disability are likely to take responsibility for oversight of their wellbeing and negotiation with formal support services. This study explored the roles siblings played in the lives of older people with intellectual disability who live in group homes, and the relationships between residents’ siblings and group home staff. The siblings of 13 group home residents and the 17 supervisory s…
Being Recognised and Becoming Known
The social inclusion of people with intellectual disability has typically been defined and measured in terms of their 'presence' and 'participation' in community life. In this paper we point to a very wide spectrum of social interactions-or 'encounters'-between people with and without intellectual disability which fall into neither category. We offer the concepts of 'being recognised' and 'becoming known' to describe encounters which are neither …
Critical Realism in Social Work Research
Critical realism has not been taken up readily within social work research and this may be due to the difficulty of the language and lack of practice examples of its applicability. This paper outlines the basic precepts of critical realism, the implications of these for methodology, and then offers a practical example of its application to social work research in the area of intellectual disability using some of the techniques of more familiar qu…
Political science (44 works) · Sociology (44 works) · Psychology (32 works) · Public relations (29 works) · Law (25 works) · Healthcare innovation and challenges (23 works) · Law (23 works) · Social Work (20 works) · Social science (19 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (19 works)