A new role for social work in remote Australia: Addressing psycho-social needs of farming families identified through financial counselling

Abstract

Farming families in rural and remote parts of the world are often marginalized from social care. This article describes a phenomenological exploration of problems presenting to financial counsellors in remote south-eastern Australia. Individual and family issues, referral processes and professional competencies have been identified, along with suggested changes to service delivery. Complex psycho-social difficulties are revealed. Financial counsellors, working in isolation, are unable to adequately address these. However, no social work service has been accessible to many consumers living in remote farming communities. Social work, within interdisciplinary partnerships, is being piloted as a result of this study.

Keywords

Australia financial counselling remote communities rural social work

Introduction

Delivery of social work services to farming families in rural and remote parts of the world remains extremely challenging. Even relatively well resourced countries, such as Australia, have a social care infrastructure that is minimalist in remote areas. Growing internet-based services, such as telehealth and telepsychiatry, hold promise, but early experience suggests that even these services do not overcome longstanding consumer marginalization (Brownlee et al., 2010; Cheers, 1998; Vinson, 1999). Geographical distance and harsh terrain continue to create significant obstacles to both delivery of and access to services (Turbett, 2009). This article describes a small exploratory study of psycho-social problems presenting to a group of Rural Financial Counsellors (RFCs) practising in a remote area of south-eastern Australia. Once both the nature of need and any gaps in service response are better identified, social care policies and programs for remote communities can hopefully be more comprehensively developed.

Purpose

The aim of this study is to explore, with a small sample of RFCs, the manner in which they interpret their role, their level of satisfaction with this, and any changes they might suggest to effectively address broader psycho-social issues.

Social work in rural and remote Australia

Australia is the most urbanized country in the world. As of June 2009, 68.6 percent of the population resided in Australia’s major cities. In comparison, just 2.3 percent lived in remote or very remote Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009). Population distribution patterns appear to be reflected in disbursement of social resources. Australia’s rural and remote citizens are demonstrably disadvantaged in terms of health, education and employment in comparison with urban Australians; disadvantage appears to increase with remoteness (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2010; Hodgkin, 2002).

Australian social workers are seemingly confronted with many of the same challenges experienced by their rural and remote counterparts in other parts of the world (Halverson and Brownlee, 2010; Turbett, 2009; Zapf, 1993). The most obvious challenge is the professional isolation of the practitioner; this greatly limits access to supervision, professional development and further education (Brown and Green, 2009). There is also a problem of personnel. Rural social work posts (especially lone practice ones) frequently remain unfilled for long periods of time; this is due to reluctance on the part of both new graduates and more experienced practitioners to relocate to ‘the bush’. As social work education programs extend to provincial campuses, this problem will hopefully ameliorate (Brown and Green, 2009; Latrobe University, www.latrobe.edu.au). However, in many parts of Australia, including the remote south-east, social work services remain largely unavailable. Rural and remote social workers in Australia typically confront a wide range of psycho-social problems but have very limited access to referral networks; options become fewer as remoteness increases. A broad base of skills, knowledge and experience is needed to address complex issues, such as child protection (Government of Victoria, 2009; Hodgkin, 2002), family violence (Wendt, 2010), drug and alcohol problems (Phillips, 2009), mental health issues (Judd et al., 2006; National Rural Health Alliance, 2009; Sheahan, 2002), couple and family relationship difficulties (Relationships Australia, 2010) and disability (Hughes, 2009). The complexity of problems presents practitioners with challenges made even more difficult by practice within small communities. Flexibility and accessibility must be carefully balanced with maintenance of boundaries and confidentiality (Halverson and Brownlee, 2010).

It is important to recognize that communities develop their own frames of reference for thinking about their environment and space (Morrissey and Reser, 2007). Self-employed farmers often have different values and help-seeking patterns from others in their locality. Remote farming communities also differ from urban and even regional communities in regard to cultural profile and value base. Exploration of rural sub-cultures and values in Australia and the United States reveals common valuing of a slower pace of life, pride in ‘rugged individualism’, suspicion of both outsiders and tertiary qualifications, equal suspicion of professional jargon and importance placed on weather patterns (Saltman et al., 2002). Such contextual parameters also impact on rural and remote research initiatives, including that described herein. In Australia, recent decades of ‘dryness’, erstwhile described as drought are now widely accepted as climate change (a pessimistic language shift which has negative financial and mental health implications). The associated shift in perception that problems created by dryness may be long-lasting, rather than transitory, has exacerbated the sense of hopelessness; this has heightened mental health issues and other challenges facing consumers and rural and remote social workers (Edwards et al., 2009; Morrissey and Reser, 2007).

Rural financial counselling in Australia

The Rural Financial Counselling Service (RFCS) Program, established in 1986:

provides grants to state, regional and community level organisations to provide free and impartial rural financial counselling to primary producers, fishers, and small rural businesses which are suffering financial hardship and have no alternative sources of impartial support.

The RFCS program is funded primarily by the Australian Federal Government, with additional support from participating state governments in some instances.

Their guidelines emphasize that:

Rural financial counsellors do not provide family, emotional or social counselling, financial advice or succession planning services – but they can provide referrals and information on these services. (DAFF, 2008: 1)

RFCs often provide an ‘on-farm’ or ‘at-home’ visiting service.

Historically, many RFCs attempted to fill a gap created by a lack of access to psychosocial casework services. Recently, their lack of professional training and expertise in this area has been the subject of increasing scrutiny.

Two distinct approaches to provision of Rural Financial Counselling are in evidence. The first, currently supported by funding bodies, favours focus on financial issues associated with structural adjustment and climate change (DAFF, 2008; Hennessey et al., 2008). A second approach is more holistic, suggesting there is a need to take into account emotional and social issues which extend beyond the financial domain (Morissey and Reser, 2007; Rickards, 2007).

Rationale for the study

Government initiatives to meet the needs of rural and remote Australia have been vigorously critiqued in the past for lack of sensitivity and responsiveness to the complex parameters of cultural, geographical and social context (Cheers, 1998). It is argued that even contemporary attempts to address marginalization and disenfranchisement of rural and remote farming communities – such as family violence responses – often impose ‘urban-centric services’ (Wendt, 2010).

The rationale for this research, therefore, is that RFCs are currently operating in a context of limited, and indeed diminishing, social care infrastructure; in this context they are likely to be regularly confronted with a much wider range of consumer needs than those of a purely financial nature. The social work profession, responsible governments, and other stakeholders need to explore the extent and specific nature of psycho-social needs presenting to RFCs. Do RFCs go outside their official ‘brief’ in an attempt to meet these needs? Are they indeed qualified to do so? How do they feel about the demands of their role and its limitations? Does social work have a role to play in meeting the broader psycho-social needs of consumers currently presenting to RFCs in rural and remote Australia? A small exploratory study to address these issues seemed well justified. The region chosen for the study included dry-land cropping and grazing areas in south-eastern Australia. The areas serviced by the RFCs interviewed can be extremely large and population density very low. It is not unusual for local government areas covered by the RFCs to extend over 20,000 square kilometres, with populations of around 2500. Typically, one RFC may deliver services across a number of these sparsely populated local government areas.

Terminology

Remoteness

The Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) is a commonly used geographical measure of remoteness. However, there are different approaches to defining what constitutes remoteness: there is a geographical approach, of which ARIA is an example, and a sociological approach which includes perceptual, behavioural, and socioeconomic characteristics (Australian Commonwealth Department of Health … Aged Care, 2001). Cheers et al. (2007) and Zapf (2002) suggest that rural is a social construct and what it is depends on ‘how people see it’.

The definition of rural and remote developed by the researcher and applied within this study is:

a community with a population of less than 1000 who considers that it does not have ready access to an urban centre with a population of 5,000 or more. (Adapted from Cheers et al., 2007)

Consumer

The term consumer is used consistently here except where a direct quote requires a different term; for example, client. The term consumer is generally considered an empowering term, implying choice. There is, in fact, ‘cross over’ and duplication between RFCSs and other financial counselling services funded by state governments, charitable organizations and those commercially available (Woods et al., 2009). Services commercially available to some consumers include accounting firms, financial advisers, and agribusiness advisers.

Psycho-social

Psycho-social is utilized here to describe the psychological and social dimensions of person-centred practice, a ‘holistic focus on persons and their environments’ (International Federation of Social Workers, 2000).

Research aim and methodology

The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore, with a small sample of five RFCs, the manner in which they interpret their role, their level of satisfaction with this, and any changes they might suggest to effectively address broader psycho-social issues presenting for consumers. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith and Osborne, 2003) was the qualitative method chosen; it allowed respondents and researcher to collaboratively explore key phenomena and provided thick descriptions (Padgett, 1998; Punch, 2004). A semi-structured approach maintained focus without being overly prescriptive; it encouraged storytelling and privileged voices of respondents (Reid et al., 2005). The study was underpinned by the ecological-developmental frame of reference as proposed by Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979). Bronfenbrenner’s framework encompasses the systemic processes (micro-, meso-, exo- and macro-) in which these respondents and their communities take part. The impact of agribusiness policy (macro-level) on the farming family (micro-level) or state government policy shifts resultant in closure of a rural primary school impacting upon children and families (exo-, meso- and micro-levels) exemplify such systemic processes. Developmental processes are also continually subject to growth and change. This is demonstrated in the ageing of farmers; that links to the often complex dynamics associated with trans-generational inheritance of farm ownership (Gilgun, 2005).

With Human Research Ethics Committee approval (2008, Latrobe University, Faculty of Health Sciences), RFCs were identified from a list available at www.rfcs.gov.au (accessed 3 October 2008). There are approximately 110 RFCs in Australia (DAFF, 2008). It was estimated that approximately 25 percent of these RFCs would meet our definition of rural and remote practice. Convenience sampling was utilized to purposively select a small sample of respondents with capacity to address the research aims (McNamara and Neve, 2009). It was necessary to select respondents who both met the study’s definition of rural and remote practice, and were accessible to the researcher. Single face-to-face interviews of approximately one hour’s duration were conducted with five RFCs.

A general inductive approach for analysis of qualitative data was used. Interviews were audio recorded and fully transcribed (Thomas, 2003). Data were categorized according to themes that emerged from conversation content. The two authors developed a number of categories that encapsulated phenomenological themes related to the research aims (Padgett, 1998; Punch, 2004). The process of categorization involved identifying responses that could be located within thematic frames that occurred and recurred (Punch, 2004). New data were moved into electronic documents with transcript excerpts that shared similar emerging themes, or if it did not fit, a new category was created. These themes were then analysed using links both to the literature and to local knowledge of context and the RFCs’ role. Both authors collaborated on these processes and reached a consensus on the relevant factors.

Findings and discussion

Extent of focus on psycho-social issues

The extent to which respondents dealt with psycho-social issues varied. At one end of the spectrum, respondents claimed to deal only with financial issues. At the other extreme, respondents saw financial issues as being intrinsically intertwined with broader psycho-social issues, such as family relationships and mental health issues. Some counsellors actively dealt with these broader issues. Close examination of transcripts of interviews revealed that even those respondents who claimed to focus solely on financial issues, did take into account broader psycho-social issues in formulating an assessment, even superficially.

The following remarks express one counsellor’s view of the interrelationship between financial and psycho-social issues:

Well I don’t think you can sort of do one without the other… . Once you arrive – who knows what kind of problems you could encounter!

This respondent went on to describe extensive practice experience of alcohol misuse, family violence, and child abuse.

Another respondent recounted dealing with grief and loss issues, highlighting the fact that opportunities for referral on to specialist counsellors were severely limited by the remote location of consumers. Apparently, the RFC was often the only professional offering consumers the opportunity to discuss pressing grief and loss issues. This counsellor discussed the close relationship between grief and loss and financial challenges.

One respondent described having the approach ‘lending an empathic ear’ rather than providing ‘psychological’ counselling. This counsellor emphatically denied involvement with broader psycho-social issues, stating that her/his skill and experience lay in financial analysis and agribusiness, ‘I don’t feel qualified to provide emotional support or any of those other things which counsellors, I’ve heard, feel we should provide.’ This was not borne out by other statements made during that interview, which suggested that even this respondent did, at least at a superficial level, take into account some of broader psycho-social issues.

Each respondent in this study indicated that although the major focus of counselling sessions was financial, s/he directly or indirectly addressed broader psycho-social issues to varying degrees. All respondents recognized that a wide range of social issues, depression and family tensions were central to resolution of financial issues. Treatment of depression was considered especially important within a holistic approach to addressing financial difficulties. Psycho-education materials and marriage guidance materials were considered by most RFCs to be essential resources.

Family

Farming is usually a family business. All respondents took into account family relationships where those family relationships interacted with business relationships. One respondent remarked: ‘… it’s a family counselling exercise; you are not normally doing one-on-one counselling’.

Tension as to who is the primary consumer was evident. In most cases, the RFC stated that he or she considered the person who made initial contact to be the consumer and suggested that they would give the interests of that person precedence over other family members. Another stated that in her or his opinion the primary consumer was the farmer, and then went on to define the farmer as the older male in an intergenerational family. It was clear that the latter respondent considered the older male farmer to be ‘the consumer’, even though his female partner had first made contact. Patriarchal relationships are evident in power distribution at a number of ecological systems levels – within families of consumers at the micro-level and in development and delivery of programs at the macro–meso-interface (Hare Mustin, 2004; Luepnitz, 1988; McNamara, 2008). Defining the older male farmer as primary consumer in an intergenerational family reinforces patriarchal power relationships (Pini et al., 2007; Sangeres, 2002). The most obvious source of masculinist approaches to practice derives from the psycho-social developmental experience of respondents. This may have been reinforced by the emphasis of the RFCS program on financial and economic imperatives, such as business viability. A number of respondents suggested an open family discussion as an important part of any financial counselling process. According to one:

… you’re probably playing the role of family mediator as you’re trying to get the four of them around the kitchen table trying to resolve their problems.

Another described the intimate association between financial and family dynamics, referring to commonly arising tensions when the marriage of a younger couple in an intergenerational farming enterprise breaks down and the female partner is sometimes awarded a significant part of the farming assets by the Family Court.

Referrals

Officially RFCs are not permitted to provide direct referrals, but are limited to providing the contact details of suitably qualified professionals (DAFF, 24 October 2008). This may include providing contact details of professionals practicing in the following areas of professional expertise; social work, psychology, accountancy, and agronomy.

It was clear, however, that at least some respondents went further than this and actively referred consumers, with their permission, to other professionals by making direct contacts and sharing information. However, it was reported that referral options are often limited by isolation and are frequently not taken up by consumers.

Competencies

Knowledge and experience of the respondents varied widely. Many RFCs have relevant tertiary qualifications at Bachelor degree level or higher in Business, Commerce and Accounting. None of the respondents held a Bachelor Degree or higher in Social Work that would enable admission to the Australian Association of Social Workers.

Some have experience in banking, whilst others have public and community sector experience. Some of these respondents had direct experience of farming. All respondents held a Diploma of Community Services (Financial Counselling) or equivalent. It would appear that in many instances this qualification was gained entirely through ‘Recognition of Prior Learning’, with little or no direct involvement in the course of study or training in interpersonal helping skills, basic counselling, or psycho-social assessment. No respondent reported drawing on established theory learned as part of her/his formal education when dealing with broader psycho-social issues, relying for the most part on experience and knowledge of rural and remote communities. One respondent reported researching relevant areas of psycho-social helping before addressing non-financial issues.

Implications of the findings for policy and practice

An obvious methodological limitation in this research relates to the small sample size. Five respondents were selected who were accessible to the researcher. Ethical undertakings to protect the identity of respondents and consumers prevent discussion of gender, age and developmental narratives of these respondents. Greater depth and breadth of analysis may be possible in the future, if a further study, involving a larger sample, from a more extensive geographical area, was to be undertaken.

Policy issues

At the macrosystems level, policy objectives of the RFCS are clearly consistent with prevailing international economic ideologies based on globalization, the ‘free market’, and the related concepts of economic rationalism and structural adjustment (Cornish et al., 2006; DAFF, 2005, 2008). Climate change adjustment, within these broader economic concepts, is an emerging challenge for the RFCS. Primary policy responsibility for the RFCS rests within federal and state government portfolios dealing with agriculture and primary industries rather than with community services.

Recent policy directions manifest widespread devolution of government services in Australia; a number of remaining services are contracted to private providers, there is a greater reliance on volunteers, and a general decline in rural service infrastructure. Policies that base service delivery on market-related indicators, such as consumer numbers, have particularly disadvantaged small rural and remote communities facing population drift to larger provincial cities (Alston, 2007).

Given the espoused ‘holistic’ policy objectives of the current Australian Federal Government, it seems timely to implement a new policy structure in relation to the RFCS which both incorporates and links economic, agricultural, climate change, health and well-being, and rural development portfolios. As stated earlier, a holistic approach to policy in this sector privileges emotional and social issues which extend well beyond the financial domain (Morrissey and Reser, 2007; Rickards, 2007). This study’s findings would appear to support the adoption of such a paradigm.

Practice issues

At the micro- and meso-systems levels, complex family relationships, both within nuclear family systems and within extended family networks, emerge as problems for farming families experiencing financial difficulties (Gilgun, 2005). Issues commonly identified by RFCs include domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, mental health problems (often involving serious depression and suicidality), marital separation, custody and access to children and conflict in relation to transgenerational inheritance. A variety of professional challenges for RFCs also emerge. Long journeys to remote properties, the need to build trust, maintain boundaries and engage with service users over extensive periods of time, along with a lack of accessible points of referral for specialist services all constitute major challenges. These are exacerbated by the struggle to balance limitations of the DAFF role definition with professional duty of care in isolated practice situations. Skill and competency limitations add further complexity to the delicate balancing act involved. It is apparent that RFCs in rural and remote areas continue to address non-financial psycho-social issues they consider central to the effective resolution of financial issues that are their primary focus. This situation persists, even after a number of restraints, such as organizational re-structuring, more rigorous reporting requirements, and closer administrative supervision have been introduced by funding authorities. The fact that RFCs continue to address psycho-social issues, notwithstanding these limitations, suggests absence of a successful alternative strategy to meet consumer need.

Government has expressed concern about continued involvement of RFCs in addressing psycho-social issues, questioning professional qualifications and competence of the RFCs concerned to deal with these issues (Kenny, 2008). There appear to be three potential options to address these complex and closely interrelated issues.

The first option is to multi-skill RFCs by providing professional level training in psychosocial counselling; this would involve a considerable amount of retraining.

A second option might be to forge closer linkages with agencies providing generalist counselling, including social work services, which are often located in larger provincial towns and cities (Kenny, 2008). However, very few generalist counselling services provide the level of assertive outreach using ‘on farm’ and ‘at home visits’ provided by the RFCS. This assertive outreach has proven to be an effective tool for engaging rural and remote consumers (Maidment and Bay, 2012).

The third option, and that with perhaps greatest potential, is implementation of an interdisciplinary team approach (Baum et al., 2007) to delivery of counselling and other psycho-social services in rural and remote areas, involving RFCs and social workers. Social workers and other qualified psycho-social counsellors involved in such a team need to be able to travel with RFCs where necessary, and engage rural and remote consumers using an outreach model.

The pilot program

Based upon findings of this study, an interdisciplinary partnership approach is being piloted. A rural social work practitioner (the first author) is working collaboratively with RFCs to address psycho-social needs under the auspices of the Mallee Track Health and Community Service in remote Victoria. The pilot is being funded by the Victorian State Government Department of Primary Industries. If the pilot program is found to be successful, this holistic model of service delivery may be generalized to other rural and remote communities in Australia.

Conclusions

This exploratory phenomenological analysis of consumer problems presenting to a small group of rural financial counsellors in a remote area of south-eastern Australia has revealed challenging psycho-social issues confronting farming families. Financial counsellors alone are clearly unable to address these. Professionally qualified and experienced rural social work practitioners do indeed appear to have a role to play in addressing this unmet need. The potential for social work professionals to operate in interdisciplinary partnership with RFCs is currently being piloted as a result of these findings. Careful evaluation of the pilot’s outcomes will offer policy and practice directions for the future.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author biographies

Grant Doxey practises as a rural social worker with the Mallee Track Health and Community Service. His current position was created to meet needs reported upon within this article. The work focuses on psycho-social issues presenting within families in remote communities. Grant had many years experience both as a Rural Financial Counsellor and within rural statutory administration prior to undertaking social work education.

Patricia McNamara is a social worker, family therapist and academic with extensive clinical and research experience in the child and family sector. She currently teaches and conducts research within the School of Social Work and Social Policy at Latrobe University. She supervised the BSW Honours research reported herein (Doxey, 2009).

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