PO Box 347, NEWTOWN NSW 2042

Oncology Social Work Australia PO Box 347, NEWTOWN NSW 2042 Em: [email protected] Web: www.oswa.net.au ABN: 25 332 146 091

OSWA Committee – Minutes

9th February 2016 Commenced: 2:30pm (EST Daylight savings) Completed: 3:34 pm (EST)

Attendance: Nick Hobbs, Victoria Jones, Maureen McInerney, Deb Ball, Shirley Witko, Sue Wragg, Tim Rogers, Cas McIntyre, Toni Ashmore, Alison Hocking, Olga Gountras

Apologies: Ray Araullo, Jeanie O’Connor, Marie-Claire Cheron-Sauer, Kim Hobbs, Iris Barten, Andreea Ardeleanu, Cas McIntyre, Angela Viola, , Anna Lovitt, Terori Hareko-Samios

1.0 Minutes from Previous Meeting: December minutes: amendments made and then accepted – 1st Deb, 2nd Sue

2.0 Correspondence 2.1 Incoming: nil 2.2 Outgoing: No outgoing correspondence

3.0 Ratification of Members: Member payments received 9/12/15 to 08/02/16 Lori Hobbs Yvonne Bisiker Michelle Ruchin Felicity Smith Christina Gargoura Elizabeth Wright Kerlina George Nicholas Hobbs Accepted: 1st Deb, 2nd Maureen

4.0 Business Carried Over 4.1 VIC & NSW relationship with AASW as a special interest group –Ray absent so no report re NSW. Maureen: CSWV are in the process of dissolving as a SIG and applying to the AASW to become a practice group called OSWA VIC. Olga asked if WA and SA were considering applying to the AASW to become PGs as well given the have established groups. Shirley and Deb confirmed they had no plans. The committee agreed they would like to see a copy of Olga’s discussion paper on the options available to OSWA National, SWOG and CSWV as there may come a time in the future when other state based groups would like to become state based OSWA PGs. Olga and Maureen confirmed that this discussion paper is NOT suitable to put on the OSWA website as it was not written for a wider audience.

1 4.2 Social Worker of the Year – (Review this link prior to the meeting http://www.socialworkeroftheyear.com.au/) Item on hold indefinitely. 4.3 OSWA Mentoring Program – Victoria is waiting to speak to Alison so hopes to report back at the March meeting. 4.4 OSWA and Advocacy Opportunities – Alison and Ray are meeting with Stephen Brand from the AASW on the 18th February re partnering in a number of ways so will raise this issue then and report back at the March meeting.

5.0 General Business

5.1 OSWA website – Toni reported that she and Jeanine met in person and also spoke to Edson. They are reviewing the front page of the website and also the issue that the website cannot be accessed via internet explorer and not everyone has access to Google Chrome. Currently if someone gets their login incorrect 3 times the lockout period if one week and Edson will change this to 48 hours. The map now has TAS but does not have NZ on it so needs to change (sue was concerned about the cost for adding in NZ) . People have the option to pay their membership by credit card or cheque, however, they are unaware they have those options available.

Toni and Jeanie would like to change the discussion board to make it user friendly. They plan to contact the State Leaders and SIG convenors and ask them to review their website pages and advise of updates or changes. Jeanie will review the resource links. The conference presentation shave been uploaded. AGM minutes to be sent to Toni to put on the website.

The Committee were unsure if the committee meeting minutes should be posted on the website and Olga will seek clarification from Alison.

As Alison was not present during this discussion, unable to clarify the Secretary and Communications Chair roles.

Action: Olga to keep sending information emails to members until roles clarified in March meeting. Olga to clarify with Alison re posting Committee meeting minutes on the website. Also clarify who information should be sent to put on the website. Jeanie and Toni to keep working on website improvements.

5.2 Feedback from OSWA State Reps ACT – Andreea - had first OSWA ACT networking meeting today. Identified 14 oncology social workers in the ACT and 6 came to the meeting. The group want 4 networking meetings through the year plus some PD sessions. Through the ACU there is a psychologist who can present on family therapy with coupes when men have prostate cancer.

NSW – Angela - no report

QLD – Tim – will send a letter to QLD OSWA members and other oncology social workers by the end of February. The Paediatric Oncology Psychosocial Support Standards have been released in the USA. Tim has discussed these with Alison. Need to consider whether they can be modified for Australia. May be an opportunity to run a half day workshop with the OSWA conference on this?

SA –Deb –10 social workers attended the Xmas breakfast meeting and people were encouraged to join OSWA so good to see a number of SA new members in the list. First PD session planned, 2 ‘Forgiveness and End of Life Care’ – this workshop will be held next week at the SA CC. Victoria suggested that the workshop presenter may want to present at the conference.

Tasmania –Nick – he and Anna yet to meet post the November education day to plan for 2016. Noticed there is no info on the TAS state page on the website so need to send through information.

VIC - Maureen – focus is on organising conference and applying to become an AASW PG.

WA – Shirley – Hiatus for January. Meeting tomorrow to brainstorm presenters and theme for the 2017 conference.

New Zealand – Sue – lots of interest in the conference. Lots of PD work on high complex needs patients. Cancer Society has financial restrictions so there are limited professional grants available for PD. Action: Maureen to send a Save the Date to Sue for the Melbourne OSWA conference so it can be promoted

5.3 COSA PoCoG update - Kim – PoCoG As part of the large grant PoCoG received from Cancer Institute NSW to develop referral pathways in psycho-oncology, they are developing education packages to roll out across the state (and perhaps nationally, in due course) to improve understanding of the roles within psycho-oncology. There isn't a social worker on the grant team (in fact precious few clinicians at all), but I was asked to be the social work representative to describe the role of social work. I was interviewed and then a script was developed and the filming took place last week. Other people to be interviewed and filmed are a nurse, clinical psychologist and psychiatrist. I'll distribute further information as it becomes available.

The next PoCoG Concept Development Workshop will be held in Sydney on 5th or 6th May. An expression of interest will soon go out inviting submission of potential research projects. These workshops are becoming increasingly competitive. Whilst I would encourage social workers to apply, I would suggest only submitting projects that are quite well developed. Those that are collaborative efforts with academic partners and/or other disciplines, are more likely to be successful.

PoCoG has now opened the call for submissions for the Concept Development Workshop in Sydney and has confirmed the date as Thursday 6th May. Submissions close on 21st March.

We've now opened the call for concept submissions for the May 2016 Concept Development Workshop http://www.pocog.org.au/content.aspx?pagetype=private&page=cdw&version=31&search=*

COSA The next COSA Council meeting will be held on Friday 4th March. I will report back at the next meeting. A report from OSWA has been submitted for the COSA Annual Report - see Appendix 1.

COSA's 2016 meeting will be at the Gold Coast from 15-17 November. Last year the Hobart organising committee circulated the draft program very early and called for input to the development of the program. OSWA was successful in having 3 invited speakers. Thus far I have not seen the draft program for this year. I don't feel optimistic about the prospect of having the same level of input, but will try to investigate this at the Council meeting.

Some of the presentations from Hobart are now uploaded to the COSA website and are accessible to COSA members.

3 Research

Dr Rosalie Pockett from the University of Sydney and I have been continuing to work on a body of research to define oncology social work in Australia. This work started with an online survey in 2012 (presented at COSA/IPOS in Brisbane) and is now moving on to a clinical data mining project involving six sites across three states.

Thus far, we have been successful with our ethics application at Royal North Shore and this is now our "lead institution". Ray Araullo and his team are in the process of data collection. Our next site is Coffs Harbour in regional NSW and the ethics application process has begun there.

Next up will be our Queensland partners: Cas McIntyre in Cairns and Ngaire TeMoananui in Rockhampton. We are in the very early stages of beginning the ethics process at those two sites.

Then we will be ready to move on to Victoria: St Vincent's Melbourne and Yarra Ranges.

Thus far there have been two journal publications from the study. The first appeared last year in Social Work in Health Care (Social Work Intervention Research With Adult Cancer Patients: A Literature Review and Reflection on Knowledge-Building for Practice, 54:7, 582-614) and we have just been advised that the second article has been accepted for publication in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Kim will keep everyone up to date as the project proceeds.

5.4 COSA Rural and Regional Executive – Cas McIntyre – not much has happened for a few months now. The Workforce Working Party has come to a standstill as has the Rural and regional Sub- Committee.

5.5 OSWA Melbourne 2016 – Maureen – conference dates are 6 – 8th October. Venue to be confirmed. Dinner will be the Friday night, welcome drinks and the AGM on Thursday. The theme is Diapers to Dentures – Ethical Dilemmas Across the Lifespan. The Save the Date needs to be done and Ray will attend the next meeting to share his insights from the Sydney conference.

6.0 OSWA Strategic Plan 2016 – Alison – Alison, Ray and Olga will review the current document and discuss at the March meeting.

7.0 Business without Notice 7. 1 Disability Support Pension – Cas queried whether OSWA should be lobbying regarding the problems people were having trying to obtain the DSP. Centrelink have made it much harder to get the DSP – eg. extensive need for medical information. Maureen said they have noticed issues as well. Inpatients cannot leave the hospital to attend Centrelink arranged medical assessments so are disadvantaged. Nick is also noticing issues, it is taking months for decisions to be made. Some people are dying before their applications are processed eg Carers Payments. Should we lobby to local MPs and Senators? Alison said that following her and Ray’s meeting with the AASW there should be a clearer understanding of OSWA’s advocacy role.

7.2 Standards for Oncology Social Workers – Sue – cannot find anything on this when doing research for KPIs/Measurement for Workforce review.

4 Signature Signature

OSWA President: Alison Hocking OSWA Secretary: Olga Gountras