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The purpose of this paper is to share Victoria Clare’s story.

Victoria wrote a biography of her experiences. Robert then asked a series of questions from the perspective of a mental health academic.

Victoria shared stories from her life, and how her experiences have shaped her life and herself.

Narratives such as this give us an overview of only a single person’s experiences. However, they allow the person with lived experience to explore their story in depth.

What Victoria has written will give readers an insight into her life and experiences.

There is so much to learn from a story like Victoria’s, especially in her approach to creativity.

This is Victoria’s own unique story. The value of this is apparent upon reading it.

This paper provides an insight into the left and career of the sculptress Victoria Claire, told in her own words.

This is a lived experience narrative.

Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at the age of 19, Victoria’s life was turned upside down. Plunged into the depths of despair, it was her love for and practice of sculpture and music which saved her and gave her purpose. Years of therapy have helped her to understand and love herself as beautiful imperfection.

The vast majority of us inhabit a “sighted world”. Victoria helps us to understand how many of the things we take for granted are so much harder for the visually impaired.

We all need to be sensitive to helping those with sensory difficulties navigate our social world.

When you look at the amazing sculptures that Victoria creates, you cannot help but be impressed that she can create such works of art using her hands, her sculpting tools and her imagination. We can gaze at the beauty of her creations. She cannot.

In this chapter, we examine the reflexive interplay of cultural, institutional, organizational, and personal narratives to examine more completely the ways in which successful and normative participation in schooling signals the ability and opportunity to participate in life beyond the institution.

Using narrative analysis techniques, we analyzed the interviews of eight college students who described their experiences with test anxiety.

Each individual story and experience points to the ebb and flow of participation and exclusion in the activities of schooling as well as a full participant in life more broadly. Significantly, we find that what it means to be a successful student in higher education has bearing on what it means to be a productive and worthwhile citizen, daughter, son, and partner.

This research adds needed complexity to the study of test anxiety by highlighting the ways in which higher education settings rely on the medical model of disability to enact their own gatekeeping mechanisms in an effort to “legitimize” disability through acknowledgment and accommodation. Findings point to the ways in which culturally circulating stories of disability can shape organizational responses and how these can shape personal experience.

Originally developed by the Japanese firm Toyota in the 1950s, the core innovation of lean production is to reorient all organizational activity around continuous improvement and the elimination of waste. We use the case of lean production in two healthcare organizations to explore the process of translating management models into new environments (Czarniawska & Sevón, 1996; Mohr, 1998). We draw on insights from organizational sociology and social movement theory to understand the strategies of actors as they attempt to overcome opposition to model transfer (Battilana, Leca, & Boxenbaum, 2009; Friedland & Alford, 1991; Snow, Rochford, Worden, & Benford, 1986). We examine two attempts to export lean production to healthcare organizations: Riverside Hospital, a research and teaching institution, and Lakeview Associations, a managed health provider. We use these cases to illustrate two ways that management models can get lost in the process of institutional translation: model attenuation, and model decoupling.

This article focuses on the qualitative methodologies employed in a research project developed in collaboration with Aboriginal advisors and gaining an in‐depth understanding of Aboriginal Victorian peoples’1 connection to their ancestral lands. It outlines why qualitative methodologies were used and highlights the ethical dimensions of working with Aboriginal Victorian communities. A research partnership was developed between Aboriginal Victorian communities and the non‐Aboriginal researcher and this process was emphasised because in the past Australian Indigenous people have been grossly exploited in health research. The methods of semi‐structured interviews and focus groups were used to gain a better understanding of this topic. The novel point of this article is that it provides an honest reflection of the benefits and limitations of this qualitative research process from the perspectives of a non‐Aboriginal researcher and an Aboriginal participant, when emphasis is placed on a collaborative approach. The paper outlines what a successful qualitative research project looks like in Victorian Aboriginal communities. This can be used as a blueprint not only for working with Aboriginal Victorian communities, who have been marginalised within Australian society, but may also be relevant to other culturally diverse communities throughout the world.

This study aims to examine Victorian primary school parents’ perspectives about a potential school-provided lunch program (LP).

An online cross-sectional survey was conducted in Victoria, Australia, in 2022 to explore parents’ perceptions regarding the lunch menu, funding source, amount willing to pay, frequency of meals and special dietary needs of a school-provided LP.

Over half of parents (57% out of 359) said they would allow their child to participate in a school LP, 34% were unsure and only 9% said they would not. The opportunity for hot cooked lunches at school and the perceived convenience for parents were the top two reasons for favouring such a program. Fifty-eight percent were in favour of hybrid-type funding from both the government and parents. The most preferred amount to pay per meal was AUD5-6 (43%), followed by AUD3-4 (25%). Parents expected meals to be healthy and made from whole food and cater to the special dietary and cultural needs of their children. They also expected enough time to be allocated so children could eat and enjoy the meals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore Victorian parents’ perceptions regarding the above aspects of a school-provided LP. The findings suggest that parents are receptive to a school-provided LP; they, however, did have several expectations regarding the menu and time for eating. These findings provide important directions for designing future school-provided LPs at primary schools in Australia.