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Some of Australia’s most severe and protracted workforce shortages are in public sector community mental health (CMH) services. Research identifying the factors affecting staff turnover of this workforce has been limited. The purpose of this paper is to identify work factors negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career health professionals working in rural Australia’s public sector CMH services.

In total, 25 health professionals working in rural and remote CMH services in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, for NSW Health participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews.

The study identified five work-related challenges negatively affecting job satisfaction: developing a profession-specific identity; providing quality multidisciplinary care; working in a resource-constrained service environment; working with a demanding client group; and managing personal and professional boundaries.

These findings highlight the need to provide time-critical supports to address the challenges facing rural-based CMH professionals in their early career years in order to maximise job satisfaction and reduce avoidable turnover.

Overall, the study found that the factors negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career rural-based CMH professionals affects all professionals working in rural CMH, and these negative effects increase with service remoteness. For those in early career, having to simultaneously deal with significant rural health and sector-specific constraints and professional challenges has a negative multiplier effect on their job satisfaction. It is this phenomenon that likely explains the high levels of job dissatisfaction and turnover found among Australia’s rural-based early career CMH professionals. By understanding these multiple and simultaneous pressures on rural-based early career CMH professionals, public health services and governments involved in addressing rural mental health workforce issues will be better able to identify and implement time-critical supports for this cohort of workers. These findings and proposed strategies potentially have relevance beyond Australia’s rural CMH workforce to Australia’s broader early career nursing and allied health rural workforce as well as internationally for other countries that have a similar physical geography and health system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons that children migrate without a parent.

The economic components of the answer to this question are considered by examining the correlates of out‐migration for children under 15 whose mothers reside in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India.

In this data 1 million children appear to have migrated away from home. On average 3 per cent of living children aged 5‐14 in the communities are away from home, but the fraction of out‐migrant children ranges between 0 and 29 per cent. The data are found to be consistent with a classical view of migration: children on average appear to migrate out of competitive, rural child labor markets for net financial gain.

The costs of migration are important. Children are less likely to migrate from more remote locations. Children are less likely to migrate from locations where child wages are higher. Overall, patterns of child migration away from their mothers look similar to what other researchers have observed in adult populations in different social and economic contexts.

The paper considers the determinants of child migration

The purpose of this paper is to compare the self‐reported attitudes toward Aboriginal policing of officers in isolated/remote communities with those from accessible Aboriginal communities.

Survey results are reported for 294 officers working in Aboriginal communities throughout Canada.

Officers working in remote jurisdictions tended to be younger, better educated, and had less policing experience than those working in non‐isolated Aboriginal communities. Social problems in these remote communities were thought to be more serious than those reported by officers working in accessible Aboriginal communities. Despite these demographic and contextual differences, self‐reported attitudes toward Aboriginal policing were generally similar, although officers working in isolated communities tended to report more conservative views on enforcement.

The generalizability of the results is limited by the modest (40.7 percent) response rate, and the fact that officers working in Aboriginal agencies were less likely to participate than those working for national or provincial police services.

The results suggest that more effective recruiting, training, and retention strategies should be developed for officers working in Aboriginal communities.

This is the first comprehensive study of the perceptions of officers toward Aboriginal policing. While the police in isolated communities represent a small proportion of all law enforcement officers, their insight sheds light on this often misunderstood and under‐researched aspect of law enforcement.

This paper aims to discuss a pilot in-progress project to promote community-based research (CBR) as a tool for disaster resilience planning in rural, remote and coastal communities. Using trans-disciplinary approaches, this project demonstrates how emergency and foresight planning in five rural Canadian pilot communities can be enhanced through the co-design of a pilot Web 2.0 “virtual community of practice” (VCOP).

The VCOP initiative was designed with pilot and field site communities to facilitate knowledge generation and exchange and to enhance community resilience. Building a culturally appropriate disaster resilience process is an iterative “process of discovery” and community engagement. Through CBR the project supports practitioners and volunteers to share promising practices and lessons-learned for disaster resilience planning.

The VCOP is being developed in five rural, remote, coastal pilot sites across Canada. Additional field site work is also underway in three urban centres sponsored by a project partner. This paper provides an overview of the initial concept, design and “proof of concept” work currently underway. The pilot project will end in the Fall 2012.

Inspired by the work of American adult educator Etienne Wenger, the VCOP entails co-design and co-ownership of a knowledge engagement process; one which enables local “thought leaders” to participate in emergency planning, preparedness, response and recovery. The VCOP provides a communication platform and fosters “foresight” planning and “education for critical awareness”. Through the sharing of theory and practice, i.e. praxis, communities are mobilized and empowered to anticipate future risks and threats and plan for resilient recovery.

The VCOP foresight planning paradigm challenges the status quo design and delivery of emergency management protocols from traditional “centres of knowledge and power”, e.g. governments and universities and fosters “bottom-up” community-driven planning to anticipate risks and threats and help enhance local capacity for resilient disaster recovery.

The novel application of a VCOP to disaster emergency planning is in keeping with the spirit and principles of UNISDR's Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015. VCOP has potential to demonstrate disaster resilience “foresight” planning as evidenced in the adoption of promising ideas and practices developed by communities, for communities. As Louis Pasteur once said “Chance favours the prepared mind”.

School consolidation reforms are underway in regional New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The purpose of this paper is to establish an evidence base of research literature on school consolidation in regional, rural and remote locations.

A scoping study of empirical literature on school consolidation, with a particular focus on regional, rural and remote education, since the year 2000 was undertaken. A corpus of 35 papers were identified and subjected to analysis based on: year of publication, country of origin, unit of analysis, data sources, timeframe and theoretical model.

There remains a limited evidence base for the success of school consolidation reforms for turning around student outcomes. In addition, a number of social implications are experienced by communities losing their local school. These issues are amplified in regional, rural and remote locations.

School consolidation reforms are used by governments/systems wanting to reduce costs and address issues of student disengagement and under-achievement. Despite a lengthy history internationally, there is at best mixed evidence regarding these reforms. With a consider disparity gap between urban and regional, rural and remote school outcomes, robust evidence on the success of reforms has major policy implications for government, systems, educators and communities.

With reforms already underway in NSW (and elsewhere), the need for a rigorous and robust evidence base, such as this scoping study, is timely and significant.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss, in-depth, how solar electricity can be developed and used to tackle grid electricity-related problems in African countries suffering from unreliable and inadequate grid electricity.

The paper discusses in depth the current status of grid electricity in Africa continent and suggested solar electricity as an alternative cost-effective method to the existing grid electricity problem in remote areas. An extensive analysis of the major contribution of solar electricity in various sectors such as economic, health, communication, social and environmental benefits is provided. The paper concludes with a discussion on how solar power generation can be developed.

The paper shows that in developed countries where ICT has been applied extensively, ICT offers increased opportunities for sustainable economic development and plays a critical role in rapid economic growth, productive capacity improvements, education, government, agriculture and international competitiveness enhancement. The paper has pointed out that ICT has yet to make significant impact in most African countries due to lack of reliable and adequate electricity. Solar electricity has been seen as the most cost-effective way of generating electricity, especially in remote rural areas, for ICT devices. For the widespread of solar power generation in Africa, various strategies have been identified which include training of qualified solar engineers and technicians, establishing PV markets and business modes, introduction of solar energy education in schools and universities, political leaders appreciating solar electricity as one of the major energy component, lowering initial cost of the PV technology, availability of finance mechanisms for rural communities, import tax exemption and African countries regarding rural electricity as one of the basic needs.

The paper shows that the problems of lack of qualified solar technicians and established PV markets and business modes (especially in remote areas), lack of solar energy education in schools have to be addressed before the benefits of ICT in Africa can be seen. Other issues include African countries appreciating solar electricity as one of the major energy component, lowering initial cost of the PV technology, availability of finance mechanisms for customers, import tax exemption and African countries regarding rural electricity as one of the basic needs like food, shelter and clothing. Overhaul of existing systems needs to take place in order to provide the means to deal with some of these issues.

Availability of reliable electrical energy remains crucial for development of ICT in rural African countries. Solar electricity is clearly one of the most promising prospects to the grid electricity problem in African countries because most African countries lie in the sunshine belt. The paper raises awareness about this in a unique way and suggests some novel measures about increasing the availability of solar systems for solar power generation. It is anticipated that the increases in solar power generation, especially in remote areas, will increase the use and application of ICT in various sectors.

This study investigated the role of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, by concentrating on the obstacles that hinder effective governance of community infrastructure planning.

The qualitative approach via case study design was adopted in this study. The Song District, located in the State of Sarawak, Malaysia, was selected as the case study area. Semi-structured interview sessions were conducted with 21 respondents who belonged to the government agencies involved in rural community infrastructure planning and village community representatives to capture their views on community infrastructure development planning in the selected district. The gathered responses were analysed thematically and the outcomes are discussed.

The findings revealed that although the development of community infrastructure in Song District has progressed and has exerted transformative impacts on rural livelihood, several challenges were identified in the delivery of community infrastructure. The four main themes of challenges that emerged from the data were location factors, financial resources, cooperation and collaboration of stakeholders, as well as community involvement. The outcomes disclosed that, in terms of governance, the institutional roles of the community, stakeholders and government agencies must be integrated throughout the rural community infrastructure planning process to resolve the emerging challenges effectively so that the demands of the rural community are met meritoriously.

An effective and efficient community infrastructure planning approach ascertains that the community infrastructure development gaps in rural areas are bridged and brings fruition to the rural communities for their livelihood transformation.

This paper delineates a view on the governance aspect of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, that is largely untapped. The study outcomes may facilitate practitioners and academics to move forward and recommend improvements in the approach to rural community infrastructure planning.

Many Canadians presume their universal health care system provides equitable opportunity and access to health, yet this is not necessarily the case, especially for marginalized populations. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize how marginalized, yet resilient, communities are able to build capacity and contribute to their own learning about health.

Environmental scan, state of the field review and community consultations on a national scale.

For adults living in rural and remote areas that fall below health norms, health knowledge and care is often not enough to build capacity and support resilient communities. More learning needs to be done by all members of community and government.

Consultations with selected members of marginalized populations and their service providers reveal a cross‐community, cross‐sector and cross‐government focus on addressing the social determinants of health is needed to increase individual capacity.

Consultations with community members and their service providers reveal rich information about the state of health and learning in selected areas across Canada. Using literature on health and learning as a framework, this paper discusses challenges and promising practices in terms of participants' abilities to sustain their own and their communities' health and learning.

This chapter examines the extent to which place based and research oriented university-community engagement (UCE) models can sustain UCE in “non-campus” rural settings. It examines how effective partnerships function in non-campus rural settings, and their contributions to achieving the reciprocal aims of communities and universities. It highlights the key successes, challenges, and opportunities experienced through case studies in non-campus locations in rural Australia (Flinders University Rural Clinical School), rural Sweden (Centre for Rural Health, Storuman), and rural Canada (Northern Ontario School of Medicine). Information provided about the discussed case studies has been provided by the organizations themselves, and the chapter authors are heads of these organizations. The authors share their knowledge of the history, the challenges, the opportunities, and the mechanisms through which the models interact with the partners.