This report is part of a project by the Yarra Institute for Religion and Social Policy, funded by the Good Shepherd Australia and New Zealand.
The project aims at developing mechanisms to assist the processing of asylum seekers, and to improve the ease of transition into Australian society for successful asylum claimants.
Please click HERE to read the report by Dr Tony Ward.
Caz Coleman: Best practice in settlement for asylum seekers and refugees
Until recently director of
Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project and a current member of a
government advisory committee, Caz Coleman has taken over this research
into how to resettle asylum seekers and refugees in the most humane and
effective way. Drawing on her extensive experience, she is outlining
what has worked well in the past, and how to extend the community
settlement schemes in Australia. The project intends to help shape
government policy and inform public opinion
about better policies for asylum seekers.
With
funding from the Good Shepherd Foundation, the Yarra Institute has
commissioned research on how to transform Australia’s treatment of
asylum seekers so that they avoid lengthy periods of detention, and to
ensure adequate support for settlement in the community.
The initial researchers were Dr Erin Wilson from RMIT, who has
considerable expertise in this area, and Dr Tony Ward, an economist and
director of Milbur consulting, who has also done relevant project
costing. Dr Ward's report,
Long-term health costs of extended mandatory detention of asylum seekers, was launched in October 2011. The costings are important in showing that screening of asylum
seekers for health and security checks can be done much more cheaply,
with much better outcomes for refugees and Australian taxpayers.
In late 2011 Dr Erin Wilson relocated overseas and Caz Coleman took over
the writing of the project on best practice models for community
detention and resettlement policies for refugees and asylum seekers. The
project will be finished in late 2012 and we intend to publish the report with a
mainstream publisher. The project is being supervised by Drs Rowan Ireland and Bruce Duncan.
Photo 'ianmackenz', flickr CC