Stress and burnout for health care professionals have received increasing attention in the literature. Significant administrative, societal and political changes have impacted on the role of workers and the responsibilities they are expected to assume. Most writers suggest that social work is a highly stressful occupation, with stress deriving in particular from role conflict between client advocacy and meeting agency needs. This article reviewed the social work literature with two questions in mind: Are social workers subject to greater stress than other health professionals? What factors contribute to stress and burnout among social workers? We found that most of the literature was either anecdotal or compared social worker stress with general population norms rather than with stress levels of workers in comparable professions. Such empirical research as is available suggests that social workers may experience higher levels of stress and resulting burnout than comparable occupational groups. Factors identified as contributing to stress and burnout included the nature of social work practice, especially tension between philosophy and work demands and the organization of the work environment. There was some evidence that supervision and team support are protective factors.

The results of the study provide valuable insights into the lived experiences of participants and provide evidence to support the existence of a distinct transition phase within the ABI rehabilitation continuum; additional to and closely associated with the acute, post-acute and community integration phases.

Findings indicate that new technologies may advance data collection methods for people with cognitive-linguistic impairments who face participation barriers in face-to-face interviews.

This article presents findings from six focus groups with health care practitioners in an Australian hospital during 2010, which sought to elicit their perspectives on the barriers for people to plan their future health care should they become unwell. Such knowledge is invaluable in overcoming the barriers associated with advance care planning and enhancing the uptake of advance directives and the appointment of an enduring power of attorney for people of all ages. A person's rights to self-determination in health care, including decision making about their wishes for future care in the event they lose cognitive capacity, should not be overlooked against the backdrop of increasing pressure on health care systems. Findings suggest that multiple barriers exist, from practitioners' perspectives, which can be divided into three major categories, namely: patient-centred, practitioner-centred and system-centred barriers. Specifically, patient-centred barriers include lack of knowledge, accessibility concerns, the small 'window of opportunity' to discuss advance care planning, emotional reactions and avoidance when considering one's mortality, and demographic influences. At the practitioner level, barriers relate to a lack of knowledge and uncertainty around advance care planning processes. Systemically, legislative barriers (including a lack of a central registry and conflicting state legislation), procedural issues (particularly in relation to assessing cognitive capacity and making decisions ad hoc) and questions about delegation, roles and responsibilities further compound the barriers to advance care planning.

Women with disabilities typically occupy positions of extreme marginalization and exclusion that make them more vulnerable to violence and abuse than other women. There is a profound silence around the lived experiences of many women with disabilities that has meant that the violence in their lives is largely invisible and unknown. Further, many of our social practices involving women with disabilities appear to be based on contradictory assumptions that give rise to a series of paradoxes. Practices such as overprotection, segregation, the training of women with disabilities to comply with requests from staff, and a prevailing view that women with disabilities are simultaneously asexual and promiscuous all increase the incidence of abuse and violence rather than prevent it. This article examines experiences of a number of Australian women with disabilities, their mothers and other women who work with them, and official reports of several Australian inquiries into violence.

This article reviews current approaches of disability accommodation services to addressing the abuse and neglect of people with intellectual disability who live in them. We review international literature and provide practice examples from accommodation services for people with intellectual disability in Australia to develop a framework of current research, policy and practice in this area. The results of this review show that dominant policy and practice approaches do not give adequate consideration to the prevention and protection of people from harm, focusing primarily on responding to individual instances of maltreatment. Managerial, compliance-based systems may be deflecting attention from recognizing and responding more effectively to abuse and neglect at individual, systemic and structural levels. The current dominant approach fails to develop a culture of prevention and protection for people with intellectual disability. Further, some systemic and structural preconditions are set which make abuse and neglect less likely to be prevented.

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Podcasting is the dissemination of asynchronous, downloadable digital media files. Amateur and professional podcasting have gained considerable popularity since the early 2000s. It is used as an alternate and flexible means of delivering course materials in higher education. Open access podcasting or podcasts available freely on the internet on specific disciplinary topics are gaining prominence but are not well researched. The paper explores the usefulness of a new podcast series for social workers freely available on the internet that aims to: promote the profession of social work and contribute to a social work identity; make connections between theory, research and practice; introduce students to real-life practice issues much earlier than often occurs in undergraduate degrees; and to provide practitioners with opportunities for ongoing professional development. Evaluation provides limited evidence that these aims are being met and concludes that further research is needed.