INSPIRE
Engaging Ideas
Engaging Ideas is a unique knowledge sharing initiative of the Department of Communities. At these events, eminent academics and practitioners from Queensland, Australia and overseas present to an audience of key researchers, practitioners and decision makers from the public and private sectors. They share the latest research findings in areas such as social policy, community engagement and community development, and other topics that relate to the Department of Communities core business.
The events are held monthly however there will be a break over the Christmas/New Year period. The next one will be held in February 2007. Dates are still to be set.
Upcoming presenters for 2007 include:
- Professor Collette Taylor: Cost Benefit Analysis of early childhood intervention programs targeted at disadvantaged children.
- Mr Matthew Manning: Methodology for measuring the cost utility of early childhood developmental intervention.
- Dr Annemaree Carroll: Mindfields Project - a program developed to assist young people to change their life path through a self-regulatory intervention.
Recent Seminars included:
Dr Sacha Rombouts, ‘Enhancing Risk Assessment with Juvenile Offenders.’
Dr Sacha Rombouts is a Research Fellow from the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith University. He has a PhD in forensic psychology and his thesis involved the development of a risk assessment instrument for juvenile sex offenders.
Dr Rombouts presented the results of research he conducted into the main risk factors for re-offending of juvenile sex offenders. Specifically, he discussed risk factors for both sexual and non-sexual re-offending and the brief risk assessment checklist for juvenile sex offenders - the Juvenile Risk Assessment Checklist(J-RAC).
Dr Rombouts presented preliminary psychometric properties of this instrument and discussed how it should be used in the context of a holistic risk assessment process. He also discussed the next steps in terms of conducting further research on risk assessment with juvenile sex offenders, including an assessment of the ability of the J-RAC to predict re-offending and the identification of dynamic risk factors to enhance our understanding of the re-offending process.
Dr Clive Williams, Stealing a car to be a man: The importance of cars and driving in the gender identity of adolescent males.
Dr Clive Williams is a graduate of the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety Queensland and a lecturer in adolescent development in the School of Education University of Queensland. Dr Williams’ PhD presentation was concerned with the role of gender in relation to adolescent male offending with particular focus on vehicle theft. A number of key questions were examined in the research and were addressed in this presentation. The questions are: Why is vehicle theft an overwhelmingly adolescent offence? Is it connected to driving? To cars? Or is it something to do with being a particular type of adolescent male? Is it an issue of masculinity? If gender is a salient issue in relation to vehicle theft and offending, how do we examine gender? Does gender need to be considered in programs for these young men? Finally, how do adolescent male offenders and non-offenders compare in relation to their ideas of gender and masculinity?
Summaries of past events can be found at: http://www.getinvolved.qld.gov.au/share_your_knowledge/training/ideas.html
Members of INSPIRE are notified of all forthcoming Engaging Ideas events and these events will also be posted on the Department of Communities Infonet.
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