Upcoming community engagement/education events

The Foundation Course provides an introduction to gambling-related harm in Victoria. Hosted by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the 3.5-hour online course covers a range of topics, including types of gambling products, laws and regulations, effects of gambling harm, and risk factors. It also provides an overview of prevention programs and support services funded by the Foundation across Victoria.

The course is ideal for new staff members from the Foundation-funded gambling harm prevention and support sector, and associated community organisations.

NOTE: Participants must complete seven online modules (30 minutes each) before attending the Foundation Course webinar. Instructions to access the online modules will be shared after registration.

Topics covered include:

Gambling in Victoria: products, participation, costs, and regulation

Gambling harm prevention: public health approach and partnership programs

Marketing campaigns and strategic communication: strategies for education and behaviour change

Clinical perspective of gambling harm: understanding gambling harm, risk factors, causes, and treatment approaches

Gambler’s Help: overview of service model and support options available

Intake and assessment of clients to Gambler’s Help: navigating the process

Mental health and gambling harm: assessment, treatment and support options for co-occurring mental health and gambling harm issues.

Dr Stephanie Merkouris is a Lecturer in the School of Psychology at Deakin University. A researcher in the gambling field for over 12 years, her main research interests relate to how advances in technology can be used for assessment, intervention, and dissemination purposes. She is currently the recipient of a New South Wales Postdoctoral Research Fellowship focusing on the development and evaluation of an online intervention for individuals impacted by someone else’s gambling.

This presentation will focus on the way the advances in technology have allowed unprecedented access to large textual datasets that cannot feasibly be extracted and analysed using traditional qualitative approaches. She adopts an innovative approach to analysing patterns in written text, to explore the experiences and perceptions of gambling forums users, across Australia, the UK and the US.