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Awards & Grants

Linda Harrison from the School of Teacher Education is part of a team which was successful in obtaining an ARC Linkage Grant, An exploratory cluster trial of a sustainable capacity building intervention to promote positive child mental health in Family Day Care.

Rarely is solution-oriented intervention research built and conducted with rigorous research designs in communities of extreme disadvantage. This study builds on the enthusiasm of a leading child welfare organisation in its commitment to contribute to evidence for practice-oriented solutions. The research will serve as a model for the Family Day Care and childcare sectors. The study is an essential step in the development of an intervention prior to a large-scale evaluation. With a strong evidence base, this program may be implemented widely within the sector nationally, thus addressing a key area of children's health inequalities - mental health.

Australian Research Council Future Fellowship
Congratulations to Sharynne McLeod on receiving a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship. This is wonderful news for Sharynne (and for RIPPLE), and acknowledges the quality and impact of her work. Sharynne’s project, ‘Speaking my language: International speech acquisition in Australia’, will be funded for five years. It will allow Sharynne to conduct research into communication impairment in multilingual children, which is currently both undiagnosed and over‐diagnosed due to a lack of culturally‐sensitive measurement tools. Sharynne will work with people around the world to develop the International Speech Assessment designed to identify children, and to specify holistic early intervention goals. This well‐targeted early intervention can ameliorate communication impairment in children and improve their subsequent educational, social and occupational outcomes.

American Speech‐Language‐Hearing Association Diversity Champion
Congratulations also to Sharynne McLeod on her selection as the American Speech‐Language‐Hearing Association (ASHA) Diversity Champion for 2009. The award recognises members who have worked to advance understanding of, and respect for, multicultural issues in AHSA and its related professions. Sharynne will receive her award as part of ASHA’s 40th anniversary celebrations in New Orleans during November.

Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Research Scholarship
Congratulations to Jane McCormack on being awarded a Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Research Scholarship in the Allied Health Sciences for 2010‐11. Jane’s PhD is titled ‘The experience and impact of childhood speech impairment’, and she is supervised by Sharynne McLeod, Linda Harrison and Lindy McAllister (from the University of Queensland). The scholarship will allow Jane to undertake her PhD full time.

Integrated Services research tender
The Professional Support Coordinators’ Alliance (PSCA) has offered Jennifer Sumsion and Fran Press, from IQECEC, the contract for the Integrated Services research tender. This research tender is strategic, as it helps to consolidate Charles Sturt University’s position as a national leader in early childhood policy and practice. It also gives the early childhood team the opportunity to consolidate the collegial model of gathering together experts from around the country that was established with the Early Years Learning Framework.

Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth/National Health and Medical Research Council funding
The ARACY/NHMR selection committee has awarded funding to Jennifer Sumsion and Linda Harrison, for their project ‘Program evaluation of the national Early Years Learning Framework’, as part of the fifth round of seed funding support for new collaborations. In the anticipated absence of major government evaluation, Jennifer and Linda plan to construct a network to provide different perspectives on the EYLF. It is hoped that the funding will attract support from the government to complete the program to its fullest potential.

Journal of Early Childhood Research most frequently read and cited articles
Well done to Jennifer Sumsion, Marianne Fenech, Sue Dockett, and Bob Perry, for their work being in the top five most frequently read, and most frequently cited, in the Journal of Early Childhood Research, as at June/July 2009.

Charles Sturt University Round 2 Competitive Grant
Congratulations to Franziska Trede and Megan Smith on their successful application for CSU Competitive Grant funding for Round 2, 2009. Franziska and Megan were awarded funding for their project ‘Assessment practices for clinical educators’.

Charles Sturt University Discovery Grant Development Scheme
Congratulations to Jane Mitchell on her successful Discovery Grant Development Scheme application. Jane’s project is titled ‘Towards better teaching of mathematics: Improving pre‐service teachers’ mathematics knowledge, confidence and pedagogy’.

Honorary Doctorates
Double congratulations to Stephen Kemmis, who will receive honorary doctoral degrees at two institutions this year. In April, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Education honoris causa of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. Stephen will visit Sweden in October to receive the award of an Honorary Doctorate at the University of Gothenburg. Well done, Stephen, on these remarkable acknowledgements of an outstanding academic career.

Global Alliances
CRGT recently funded two RIPPLE-related applications via the Global Alliance Development Scheme:

International Interdisciplinary Scholarship of Professional Education
This global alliance between CSU and INSPiRE at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, aims to foster an intellectual community and interdisciplinary network for the scholarship of professional education.

Pedagogies of Educational Transition
This global alliance between CSU, the University of Strathchlyde in Glasgow, and the University of Iceland in Reykjavik aims to explore theoretical and conceptual notions of educational transitions, and their impact.

Erasumus Mundas Award
Congratulations to Annemaree Lloyd on being awarded the Erasumus Mundas Award, which is funded by the European Commission. This scholarship will allow Annemaree to join the Institute of Information Studies at Tallinn University, Estonia, as a visiting scholar for three months. Annemaree is looking forward to strengthening international research links, and teaching in an international digital Master program.

The Vice-Chancellor's Awards for Excellence
A number of RIPPLE's key researchers and general staff were presented with Excellence Awards at the Vice-Chancellor's ceremony held in early July. Noteworthy was the fact that all of the Faculty of Education's Academic Excellence awards went to RIPPLE members. Congratulations to Ian Hardy, Linda Harrison, Brian Hemmings, Noella Mackenzie, Bob Perry and Jane Wilkinson. Of special note was the fact that two general staff received Performance Excellence Awards for their outstanding contribution to administration: Janet Wilks, and research: Tracy Logan.

ARC Funding Success
Congratulations to Professor Tom Lowrie and Professor Robyn Zevenbergen (Griffith University) on their success in the recent Australian Research Council (ARC) funding round. They have been awarded $170, 000 for the ARC Discovery project "Mathematics in the digital age: Reframing learning opportunities for disadvantaged Indigenous and rural students". Tom and Robyn were also one of only 12 research teams who were invited to showcase their research project at the ARC major grant announcment at Parliament House in Canberra on October 15.

Faculty Research Development Fund
Jane Mitchell, for "Developing research partnerships to document emerging pedagogical and curricular practices assoicated with cross-school initiatives in rural secondary schools."
Sue Saltmarsh, for "Rethinking school violence: Context, gender and theory".