Dr Janette Young

I am currently Program Director for the Bachelor of Health Sciences. This program is a great program for anyone with a general interest in health, particularly health as a societal issue - why are some groups of people more likely to become ill or undertake health risking behaviour? And how might we go about creating a healthy society for all? Graduates can progress to a number of pathways including Health Promotion, Research, Health Administration, and post graduate health professions (study). The program is only a few years old however, so who knows what creative and engaged graduates might pursue!

I teach in the area of health promotion and health as a political and politicised field. Ideas and the way we think about things are incredibly powerful; for me "health promotion" offers creative edges on thinking about health; beyond merely aiming to increase length of life to how we think of health as justice, creativity and thriving. I have a particular interest in mental health and wellbeing and the human:animal intersection. 

In my past life I was a social worker working in aged care, and a Senior Project Officer for the state government working on issues such as domestic violence, homelessness, prisoner health, primary health care, education pathways, community capacity, and whatever else came my way. This breadth of experiences shapes my interests in health as a complex outcome of individual and societal factors; and it was very early on in my social work career that I learnt that caring about people might mean caring about the animals that they lived their lives with. I am interested in the relationship between pets and mental health with my aim being to identify how/if we can better integrate pets into Australian society as a means of promoting mental health for those people for whom this is health promoting. More recently this focus has honed in on the area of pets and older people, and an emerging possibility is around the intersection of pets, disability,  and assistance animals (watch this space with this one as very new). I have been writing and presenting in the field of animals, leisure and cricial thinking (do/should animals such as those in captivity have leisure?) and often I use history and historical changes to reflect on this intersection. Who could believe nowadays that animal welfare trumped child welfare in the not so distant past? And what might this reality offer in terms of predicting and maybe even guiding future changes - in particular re the position of animals in human societies. It is an exciting space to be exploring at this time both academically but also practically as the way we think of animals seems to be shifting yet again. 

Australian Health Promotion Association (SA Branch) - President  2014 to 2016; Committee member 2009 to present

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy University of South Australia

• Master of Public Management Flinders University

• Graduate Diploma in Public Policy and Management Flinders University

• Bachelor of Social Work South Australian Institute of Technology