School Welfare Provision in Australia: The Problem of Coordination

Abstract

In a first attempt to map the overall pattern of school welfare provision in Australia, I recently visited the Departments of education, social welfare and health, and also the Commonwealth Department of Labour, in each of the States. I talked to administrators, teachers and social workers, doctors and nurses, youth employment officers, and also Federal officials and staff associated with the various Commissions in Canberra and Melbourne. This was one of a number of studies commissioned by the Australian Government Commission of Enquiry into Poverty, and the full report is published elsewhere (Craft, 1977). This paper seeks to focus on what appeared to be the most important of the findings—the problem of coordination.