6.2 V IEWS OF CULTURAL COMMUNITY LEADERS
6.2.2 Views of other community groups
A number of other community organisations relevant to the objectives of this project agreed to be interviewed and provided information on their experience of problem gambling in the ACT.
Oz Help
The research team consulted Oz Help, a building and construction industry charitable organisation that provides a ‘building industry friendly’ support service to apprentices and workers in the construction industry. A component of their ‘Life Skills Program’
includes a focus upon how to manage problem gambling. A ‘Budgeting and Responsible Gambling Module’ is being developed in conjunction with the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission, Lifeline and CARE Inc.
Representatives of Oz Help reported that apprentices in the building industry often gambled as part of the work culture, mainly on EGMs and the TAB. Most of the apprentices are male, although there are a small number of young women. According to Oz Help the women tend to be more willing than men to approach the support staff to discuss issues. Only male apprentices had sought advice for gambling problems which were often linked to low self-esteem. Oz Help expressed the view that that:
loss of control leads to problems. Like suicide, a common factor is loss.
Something is missing in life: loss of income, loss of culture, loss of self-esteem.
Apprentices earn less than a Woolies shelf-filler. That can be pretty hard for a young fellow to accept.
Oz Help reported cases of binge gamblers among the apprentices.
They go to a club every now and then and gamble away a large amount of money. They say it eases the pressure they experience at work.
Normally they seek help for other ‘painful’ issues and during the support sessions gambling is revealed as a problem. One of the apprentices was ‘suicidal’ and went to Gambling Care for help but ‘he didn’t receive the right help. The main thing this man was missing was trust. He didn’t trust the professional counsellors’. Oz Help then referred him to a group with whom he could relate and who helped him return to work and community life.
Oz Help would like to see problem gambling ‘destigmatised’ and an holistic prevention strategy to build resilience. Oz Help is working to build partnerships with numerous organisations in the ACT (eg Carers ACT; Keep Families Connected;
Communities at Work; VYNE, Calvary Health Care) and the Resilience Network in the ACT (ResNet).
Australian Medical Association (AMA) – ACT Branch
In January 1999 the federal AMA developed a Position Statement on the Health Effects of Problem Gambling.264 The ACT Branch of the AMA is aware of that policy but advised this study that there is no formal strategy for implementation of
264 http://www.ama.com.au/web.nsf/doc/SHED-5G7CJM, accessed June 2004.
monitoring of the health effects of problem gambling in the ACT. The AMA therefore does not have information on the extent to which people seek help for problem gambling from general practitioners in the ACT.
However, the ACT branch of the AMA has offered to include an article on problem gambling in an issue of The Canberra Doctor, a newsletter distributed to all medical practitioners in the ACT, and to collate any responses. The research team has accepted this offer, although it will not be possible to publish the article so before this study is finalised.
7 Problem Gamblers, Friends and Families
This section presents the results and findings from face-to-face interviews with people who self-identified as problem gamblers, families and friends, as described in the Methodology section of this report. A thematic analysis of those interviews and consultations identified a number of issues:
• construction of profiles of self-identified ‘problem gamblers’ based on their own accounts of the genesis of the problem and experiences;
• the role that gambling plays in the lives of problem gamblers and their social networks;
• definitions of problem gambling from the perspective of gamblers themselves;
• the main contributing factors that led to development of gambling problems;
• features of the gambling environment that contribute to gambling problems
• factors that prompted people to seek help;
• self-help strategies used by gamblers, families and friends to address the problem;
• whether people have sought help from community agencies and other professionals and the effectiveness of that assistance in reducing gambling problems; and
• barriers preventing access to appropriate gambling help services.
Finding problem gamblers to interview was recognised as the most challenging part of the study. Sixteen participants were recruited for face-to-face interview: four self- identified female problem gamblers, five self-identified male problem gamblers, and seven family members of a person with a gambling problem (six female and one male). This provided an acceptable balance between gamblers and families/friends, and between male and female participants.
Several of the volunteer participants indicated that they had thought for a long time before contacting the Centre and agreeing to an interview. We also received calls from a number of people offering to be involved in the study several weeks after the time allocated for recruitment. Some were responding to the initial recruitment procedures; others had heard about the study by word of mouth. Although the short timeframe for the study prevented us from extending the study to include those ‘late’
volunteers, this response suggests that the study has identified only a small proportion of people affected by problem gambling in the ACT.
Moreover, as previously noted, despite the best efforts and commitment of the research team in the time available, we were unable to recruit gamblers for interview from the nominated cultural groups. Although we provided information for distribution by various community services, only two volunteers were recruited through these agencies; both were members of the indigenous community.
The difficulties recruiting participants from different cultural communities for this study replicates the experience in a similar study conducted in Queensland.265 Over
265 Scull, S. et al. (2003) op. cit., p.60.
eleven months that Queensland study was able to find only eight people from cultural groups (one current gambler, four former problem gamblers and three family/friends) willing to participate.
Gambling Care and Clubcare also agreed to assist the research by informing clients of the study and inviting them to participate in interviews. As with the cultural organisations, however, none of the volunteers who contacted us for interview had done so in response to information provided by the Lifeline services.
The majority of people who volunteered for interview in this ACT study were of Anglo-Celtic background and agreed to be interviewed by the researchers in the university environment. It is worth noting that none of the people who volunteered for interviews were recipients of welfare or pensions, and none were living in public housing. Thus they are not representative of the ACT population; nor can their experiences be assumed to reflect those of people from different cultural backgrounds.
Even so, their detailed personal accounts of the way problem gambling has affected their lives and their experiences in seeking help provide valuable insights into the everyday reality of problem gambling in the ACT.