Helen Dickinson
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3929051 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Helen Dickinson |
| NOMBRES | Helen |
| APELLIDO | Dickinson |
| FIRMA | DICKINSON H |
| AFILIACIONES | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3852-8815 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 77 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 254 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 76 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2006 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 9 |
The impact of multiple experiences of social exclusion on the mental health of Australians with disability
Background Australians with disability experience significantly poorer mental health outcomes compared to the general population, with inequalities increasingly linked to intersecting forms of socio-economic disadvantage and exclusion. However, research on how multiple experiences of social exclusion impact the mental health of people with disability is nascent. This study aims to address this gap. Methods The IMPACT project is a co-designed mixe…
Increasing Inclusivity in Biological Recording in the United Kingdom
Volunteer biological recording generates valuable data for developing ecological understanding and informing environmental decision making. For volunteers, it offers the chance to build knowledge and skills, connect with nature and each other, and enhance wellbeing. As with other forms of citizen science there are demographic biases, with current participants being predominantly white, well-educated, older and more affluent. Increasing inclusivit…
Navigating complexity
This research note presents preliminary findings from exploratory research examining how Australian public servants understand and use generative AI (GenAI) in government work. Drawing on 37 interviews across 22 agencies, we highlight the importance of a relational view of GenAI adoption, that is, the co‐creation of meanings that emerges from the relations between users, technologies, and organisational contexts. Based on our empirical work, we o…
Sustaining collaborations after a crisis
It is well established within the public management literature that times of crisis can facilitate collaboration across government sectors and external stakeholders due to factors such as a clear task focus and the relaxation of some organisational and institutional constraints. However, what has been less explored are the mechanisms and conditions for sustaining these collaborations in a post-crisis context. In such contexts there is a need to m…
Looking at quality through a systems lens—Applying systems thinking to the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme
It is widely recognised that many policy systems are complex, requiring collaboration across different organisations and sectors to address socioeconomic outcomes and inequalities. Yet, the public policy literature is dominated by rational–technical frameworks that struggle to understand complex systems. This paper applies ideas from the field of applied systems to demonstrate their utility in a public administration context. We do so by applying…
Collaborating With Young People
Vale Gemma Carey
Leveraging system flows for complex change
The Australian Public Service addresses increasingly complex policy problems. There is interest in applying systems theory to such challenges to enable more effective strategies and outcomes. This paper uses examples to offer practical guidance on applying a specific aspect of system thinking: Meadows’ leverage points to shift the system. In doing so, it recommends a revision to the original conceptualisation of leverage points. We argue that fee…
A critical examination of data for market stewardship
Market mechanisms have emerged as a dominant approach in the provision of public welfare services, most notably in sectors such as disability care, aged care, and health care. While this shift promises potential benefits such as improved efficiency, enhanced service quality, and increased consumer support, it also presents significant challenges around equity, access, and the potential for market failure in the absence of effective regulation and…
I've probably risk assessed this myself’
Co‐production is an intrinsic component of disability individualised funding schemes such as Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). In this paper, we argue that an under‐explored facet of co‐production is the role that users of these services play in co‐regulation. We draw on data collected in a qualitative study exploring participants' use of providers who are not registered with the NDIS regulator, the Quality and Safeguards C…
Training and supervision of disability support workers
Training and supervision of disability support workers (DSWs) has, in most developed countries, been the primary means of supporting quality of service, adequate worker skill and prevention of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of both service users and DSWs. However, in Australia, there is no requirement for DSWs to obtain a minimum level qualification. This paper examines service user perception and decision making in relation to trainin…
Most people don’t like a client group that tell you to get fucked
Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is a substantial policy reform aiming to radically transform the design and delivery of disability services. Choice and control are key tenets of the scheme, however challenges and limitations exist with respect to inequities and difficulties posed by boundaries between the NDIS and mainstream services. People with disability who have been incarcerated are particularly at risk of experiencin…
Varieties of governance versatility and institutions
Research on governance often assumes that governance requires combinations of hierarchical, market and network co-ordination. However, governance versatility – understood as the existence of a repertoire of different modes of coordination – is not a characteristic of all instances of governance. The aim of this paper is to offer a more thorough analysis by exploring existing levels of governance versatility and how these are influenced by institu…
Australia’s National Disability Insurance
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is one of the most significant welfare reforms Australia has seen in a century. The reform incorporates several themes that have been gaining traction in other countries, including individual budgets and actuarial (or social investment) approaches. This chapter provides an overview of NDIS’s emergence and first phase of development from 2013-2017 and an analysis of the program’s more unusual attributes wit…
Implementing AI in the public sector
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced as one of the most prominent technological innovations to push the conversation about the digital transformation of the public sector forward. This special issue focuses on actual implementation approaches or challenges that public managers are facing while they fulfil new policy that asks for the implementation of AI in public administrations. In addition to assessing the contributions of papers in this …
Part-time versus full-time employment and mental health for people with and without disability
The results of this study suggest that both part-time and full-time employment may have beneficial effects on the mental health of people with disability, particularly for younger people. The findings underscore the value of employment for people with disability, given we found much larger beneficial mental health effects in comparison to people without disability
Political legitimacy and vaccine hesitancy
People with disability are an at-risk group in the COVID-19 pandemic for a range of clinical and socioeconomic reasons. In recognition of this, Australians with disability and those who work with them were prioritized in access to vaccination, but the vaccination targets were not met. In this paper, we analyze qualitative data generated from a survey with 368 disability support workers to identify drivers of COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and why…
Opportunities and challenges of using workforce big data
This Practice and Policy paper presents reflections on the opportunities and challenges of using a novel big data set, Microsoft 365 digital activity records, in a mixed method study of flexible working. Our experience identified methodological and ethical considerations for practitioners and researchers in public sector workforce analytics. The benefits include data captured in situ and over time for all employees. The limitations reflect the in…
That was all over the shop’
People with disability are an ‘at‐risk’ group in a pandemic context for various clinical and structural reasons. However, in the early stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic, people with disability were not identified as a priority group, which exacerbated this risk, particularly for those living in congregate settings. This paper examines inter‐organisational issues during the second wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic in disability residential settings gath…
What roles might automation play in the future of public administration journal peer review processes
Publishing in journals is crucial in the creation of knowledge within the public administration field and the career advancements of individuals. Each year, more articles enter journal publishing systems, and it is becoming more difficult and time consuming for editors to secure reviewers. A range of technological applications have been developed that apply automation techniques to various aspects of the peer review process and these are explored…
Exploring integrity in Australian public services
Integrity is an ongoing concern in the public sector. Contemporary examples include fraud incidents, ethical violations, theft, and a disregard of legal advice resulting in significant harms to the public. Public service integrity management systems are interconnected frameworks of legislation and institutions intended to reduce such incidents, including Codes of Conduct (CoCs). A CoC is typically defined as a written set of norms that outline vi…
A decade on
The National Disability Scheme began implementation in 2013 and in this article we reflect on its first decade. We explore why the National Disability Scheme was introduced and key design elements of the scheme before examining significant areas of debates that have emerged over this period, namely: co‐design of the scheme with people with disability; scheme costs; Tier 2 services; administrative burden and its unequal impact on different groups …
We’re Still Struggling a Bit to Actually Figure Out What That Means for Government”
Many countries are experiencing a "care crisis" driven by increasing demand for care services alongside difficulties in recruiting and retaining an appropriate care workforce. One of the solutions offered to this is the use of robotic technologies. While there are several positives produced by robots, they are not without challenges and have the potential to be misused. History shows disruptive technologies require appropriate policy capacity for…
The forgotten prisoners
People with disability represent a significant proportion of Australia’s prison population; however, little is known about their experiences or the institutional barriers they may face. Drawing from 24 in-depth interviews with 28 participants and one written submission, this article explores the impacts, challenges and consequences of imprisonment for people with disability in Australia. By bringing together disability and criminological research…
Where specialist and mainstream service systems collide
The coordination of specialist with mainstream service systems is prone to role delineation and implementation difficulties worldwide. In the case of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), this specialist/mainstream interface is complicated by federalism and funding responsibilities held by different levels of government. People with disability, especially cognitive or intellectual disability, are over‐represented in Australia's prisons…
Towards a General Theory of Collaborative Performance
Much of what has been written about collaboration treats it instrumentally as a means–ends tool of improvement. However, despite considerable collaborative activity there is little evidence that clearly links collaboration to improvements in service‐user outcomes or reduced inequalities. In this article we draw on literature from critical public policy and governance studies to recast collaboration as an expression of cultural performance associa…
The evaluation of health and social care partnerships
At a time when health and social care partnerships are continuing to occupy a central role within the UK government's policy strategy, researchers are increasingly being required to evaluate such organisational entities. This paper looks at a wide range of approaches which have been utilised to evaluate health and social care partnerships, and suggests that theory-led strategies are better able to address the complexities associated with such for…
The Vexed Question of Market Stewardship in the Public Sector
Personalized care and market‐based approaches to public service provision have gained prominence in a range of Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries. Australia has recently joined this trend, launching a complex and expansive programme of individualized care funding for disability through the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Public sector markets (i.e. where governments either directly fund a market by way of compe…
Accountability in Public Service Quasi‐markets
Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) represents the latest in a worldwide shift towards individualised funding models for the delivery of care services. However, market‐based models for care deliveries bring new considerations and dilemmas for accountability. Drawing on previous work by Dickinson et al. (2014), we examine a range of accountability dilemmas developing within the early implementation of the NDIS. These relate to …
The ableism elephant in the academy
The academy should be a welcoming environment for people with disability. Across Australia, however, there is a current shortage of programmes supporting people with disability to develop their careers as researchers. This article critically investigates current practice and experiences concerning universities and the employment and career development of people with disability as advised by the literature, and how this practice aligns with the li…
Any one of us could be among that number’
In this article we compare the introduction of individualized budget policies for people with disabilities in Australia and England. Data is drawn from semi‐structured interviews undertaken in Australia with politicians, policymakers, providers, disability rights groups and care planners, along with analysis of policy documents. This data is compared to the authors’ earlier research from England on the personalization narrative. We argue that the…
Individual Funding for Disability Support
A range of different countries have experimented with the concept of individualised funding and self‐directed support, particularly for long term care. With the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, individual funding looks set to be an area of future development in Australia. Individual funding is concerned with making the financial aspects of care more explicit at the level of the individual. Supporters suggest that it has t…
Priority-setting and rationing in healthcare
Personalisation and pandemic
The outbreak of a pandemic provokes fear and risk of ill health for all individuals, however, these events pose even more of a threat to people with disability who often have poorer health outcomes because of underlying conditions, have difficulties in accessing health and other services, and typically fare worse once they are in the healthcare system. The growth of personalisation schemes in disability internationally is now exacerbating those r…
Going It Alone or Playing to the Crowd? A Critique of Individual Budgets and the Personalisation of Health Care in the English National Health Service
The introduction of individual budgets into English health care is a recent example of the pervasive drive towards personalisation in welfare sector organisation and delivery. As a heavily centralised and highly bureaucratic institution, the National Health Service (NHS) is an obvious target for personalisation. On the other hand, as a symbol of solidarity and nationhood it retains a powerful place within the collective psyche, such that radical …
Partnership working in England—where we are now and where we’ve come from
Despite a tendency to focus on structural 'solutions', evidence and experience suggests a series of more important processes, approaches and concepts that might help to promote more effective inter-agency working-including a focus on outcomes, consideration of the depth and breadth of relationship required and the need to work together on different levels
Nearly gave up on it to be honest’
Utilisation of budgets provides important insights into the effectiveness of individualised funding schemes. Significant under‐utilisation by certain cohorts may indicate schemes are not working as intended. People with psychosocial disability have been identified as one such cohort experiencing barriers to effective budget utilisation within Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme. Our mixed‐methods research confirms that while this coh…
What can feminist theory offer policy implementation challenges
Implementation has long been a vexed issue in the mainstream public policy literature. The literature has remained more concerned with the design of policy and evidence of its impact than on the process by which it plays out. While implementation is often portrayed as a simple process of adopting best practice, experiences indicate that it is a far more complex process involving a range of actors translating policy into practice under varying con…
Why is lived experience important for market stewardship? A proposed framework for why and how lived experience should be included in stewarding disability markets
Background: Many countries use market forces to drive reform across disability supports and services. Over the last few decades, many countries have individualised budgets and devolved these to people with disability, so that they can purchase their own choice of supports from an available market of services. Key points for discussion: Such individualised, market-based schemes aim to extend choice and control to people with disability, but this i…
Adapting to a marketised system
As governments worldwide turn to personalised budgets and market-based solutions for the distribution of care services, the care sector is challenged to adapt to new ways of working. The Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is an example of a personalised funding scheme that began full implementation in July 2016. It is presented as providing greater choice and control for people with lifelong disability in Australia. It is argu…
A decade on
The National Disability Scheme began implementation in 2013 and in this article we reflect on its first decade. We explore why the National Disability Scheme was introduced and key design elements of the scheme before examining significant areas of debates that have emerged over this period, namely: co‐design of the scheme with people with disability; scheme costs; Tier 2 services; administrative burden and its unequal impact on different groups …
Gender in Public Administration
In an online virtual issue, we explore the history of gender and feminism since AJPA. It is clear that two major silences exist in public administration concerning gender. The first is the place of women and gender equity within public service workforces. The second silence is the role that feminist theories could play in tackling contemporary public management challenges. We argue that there are particular contributions that feminist theories co…
Integrated Health and Social Care in England
The experience of England suggests that greatest progress is made when integrated care focusses on tangible issues and when there is a clear understanding of how success will be measured. Even with considerable investment and intent progress should be expected to be slow and difficult. Layering of numerous policy initiatives provides confusion and can distract from the important work of relationship building. And ultimately, integrated care canno…
Burdensome Administration and Its Risks
Australia is currently undergoing significant social policy reform under the introduction of a personalized scheme for disability services: the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). This article explores the growing administrative burdens placed on disability providers operating under the new scheme, using an Australia-wide survey of the disability sector. The 2018 National Disability Services survey of the disability sector reveals that a…
Being Interprofessional
Performing Leadership
The notion that leadership involves performance is not new, but there has been little detailed exploration of the implications of theories of performance for contemporary leadership practice. This article differentiates between leadership `is' performance and leadership `as 'performance as one means of investigating contemporary leadership. We suggest that this distinction allows for more sustainable accounts of the relationships between leaders,…
The future of working from home in the public sector
The COVID‐19 pandemic created a working from home experiment for the public sector. This paper examines what might happen next as countries move towards a COVID‐normal environment. Since the academic literature on public sector agencies and working from home since the onset of the pandemic is scant, we focus on the non‐peer‐reviewed literature as our evidence base. This paper identifies the main issues public sector agencies need to consider as n…
Barriers to policy action on social determinants of health for people with disability in Australia
It is well established that social determinants are crucial to health outcomes. However, the link between how social determinants contribute to health inequalities for people with disability has often failed to be acknowledged. For example, Australian disability policy has paid little attention to social determinants of health, despite people with disability faring particularly badly on a range of outcomes. This paper identifies barriers to polic…
Evaluating collaboration
The continued prevalence of different forms of collaborative working within public policy requires adaption in evaluation practices. In recent years evaluation toolkits, audits and guides have migrated online, but with varying success. At their worst, such tools can offer a disengaging user experience, limited coverage of issues or normative bias. This article outlines POETQ, designed to be engaging, comprehensive and methodologically robust. An …
Greater than the sum of our parts? Emerging lessons for UK health and social care
Rather than assume that integration is automatically a 'good thing', the frameworks presented in this paper suggest a more critical approach in which policy makers, managers and practitioners focus in more detail on what they are trying to achieve for the people they serve, viewing integration as a means to an end and never an end in itself
The evaluation of health and social care partnerships
At a time when health and social care partnerships are continuing to occupy a central role within the UK government's policy strategy, researchers are increasingly being required to evaluate such organisational entities. This paper looks at a wide range of approaches which have been utilised to evaluate health and social care partnerships, and suggests that theory-led strategies are better able to address the complexities associated with such for…
Interprofessional Working in Health and Social Care
Relationship competence for healthcare management
Is leadership and management in inter-agency settings really that different? Perspectives from the literature
Introduction: Health and social care collaboration is currently a key feature of improvement efforts internationally. Moreover, leadership is increasingly considered an important driver in terms of organisational performance, in particular in relation to the implementation of policy designed to solve the wicked issues of society. Yet, despite leadership being viewed as an essential component of integrative public sector performance, there is rela…
Greater than the sum of our parts? Emerging lessons for UK health and social care
Rather than assume that integration is automatically a 'good thing', the frameworks presented in this paper suggest a more critical approach in which policy makers, managers and practitioners focus in more detail on what they are trying to achieve for the people they serve, viewing integration as a means to an end and never an end in itself
International Perspectives on Health and Social Care
Performing Leadership
The notion that leadership involves performance is not new, but there has been little detailed exploration of the implications of theories of performance for contemporary leadership practice. This article differentiates between leadership `is' performance and leadership `as 'performance as one means of investigating contemporary leadership. We suggest that this distinction allows for more sustainable accounts of the relationships between leaders,…
Is leading and managing in inter-agency settings really that different
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Evaluating Sure Start - By Nigel Malin and Gillian Morrow
Can knowledge management enhance technology adoption in healthcare? A review of the literature
The rate of adoption of new technologies into healthcare systems is considered to be slower than in other settings. A range of knowledge-based facilitators of adoption exist, including: technology specification and assessment; dissemination tools (including electronic decision support tools); networks and facilitated interaction; and skills and leadership development. A review of the evidence relating to each of these is reported in this paper. T…
The importance of being efficacious
The need for health and social care agencies and their professionals to work in partnership is a central component of contemporary English health and social care policy. Partnership is predicated on the notion that this way of working improves services and outcomes for service users. However, as there is little evidence that partnerships improve service user outcomes, some commentators suggest that this indicates either a failure of the policy or…
Being Interprofessional
Creating NHS Local’
Following recent reforms of both local government and the National Health Service, there is significant emphasis in both services on improving inter-agency collaboration, user involvement and strategic commissioning. In response, this article reviews historical debates about the relationship between local government and health care, before arguing that these two ‘partners’ need each other now more than ever. If local government is to be a ‘place-…
Wolves of the Atlantic
him. He runs farther, following an invis ible line that cuts the village in two. Suddenly he hesitates, takes one step to the right, one to the left, stumbles, falls, pivots abruptly, measures the distance between himself and the crowd chasing him, and gets up. But to do what? To live! Yes, to try and live. His eyes tell him he has no choice. So he resumes his race toward nowhere, toward life. I'm afraid of his harried look, of the burning and ga…
Partnership working in England—where we are now and where we’ve come from
Despite a tendency to focus on structural 'solutions', evidence and experience suggests a series of more important processes, approaches and concepts that might help to promote more effective inter-agency working-including a focus on outcomes, consideration of the depth and breadth of relationship required and the need to work together on different levels
Priority-setting and rationing in healthcare
How effective is joint commissioning? An exploration of processes, practices and outcomes in five English localities
Purpose: This paper investigates the issue of joint commissioning in the context of English health and social care, evaluating its purposes, processes and outcomes
Towards a General Theory of Collaborative Performance
Much of what has been written about collaboration treats it instrumentally as a means–ends tool of improvement. However, despite considerable collaborative activity there is little evidence that clearly links collaboration to improvements in service‐user outcomes or reduced inequalities. In this article we draw on literature from critical public policy and governance studies to recast collaboration as an expression of cultural performance associa…
Public Service Commissioning
Individual Funding for Disability Support
A range of different countries have experimented with the concept of individualised funding and self‐directed support, particularly for long term care. With the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, individual funding looks set to be an area of future development in Australia. Individual funding is concerned with making the financial aspects of care more explicit at the level of the individual. Supporters suggest that it has t…
The Future of the Public Service Workforce
It has been widely suggested that public service delivery of the future will be different to that of today. Added to this, we are currently witnessing significant changes in terms of the nature of work. Taken together these developments signal that we will see transformation in terms of the role of public servants and the public service workforce. Against this background, this paper presents a dialogue on the future of the public service workforc…
The Promises and Pitfalls of Prime Provider Models in Service Delivery
At a time of fiscal restraint and reductions in the size of the public sector, governments in Australia are exploring new approaches to delivering public services. One model receiving attention is the prime provider approach. This is an approach where government contracts a lead or prime provider who in turn organizes and manages a group of sub‐contractors. In prime provider approaches, non‐government organizations take on a quasi‐government role…
Going It Alone or Playing to the Crowd? A Critique of Individual Budgets and the Personalisation of Health Care in the English National Health Service
The introduction of individual budgets into English health care is a recent example of the pervasive drive towards personalisation in welfare sector organisation and delivery. As a heavily centralised and highly bureaucratic institution, the National Health Service (NHS) is an obvious target for personalisation. On the other hand, as a symbol of solidarity and nationhood it retains a powerful place within the collective psyche, such that radical …
Looking to the Past and the Future of the Australian Journal of Public Administration
The first issue of the Australian Journal of Public Administration (AJPA) was published in December 1937 and contained just two articles. The first was by Sir Herbert Gepp K.B.E.,1 a metallurgist and manager, who joined the public service in 1926. One of his roles in the Australian Public Service was as the chairman of the Development and Migration Commission that was created to ‘apply scientific methods to economic and politics problems in the i…
Gender in Public Administration
In an online virtual issue, we explore the history of gender and feminism since AJPA. It is clear that two major silences exist in public administration concerning gender. The first is the place of women and gender equity within public service workforces. The second silence is the role that feminist theories could play in tackling contemporary public management challenges. We argue that there are particular contributions that feminist theories co…
Political science (60 obras) · Public relations (41 obras) · Business (38 obras) · Healthcare innovation and challenges (38 obras) · Sociology (37 obras) · Computer Science (26 obras) · Medicine (26 obras) · Economics (23 obras) · Psychology (23 obras) · Law (21 obras)