Helen McKernan

BSc (Monash), Dip Ed (Monash), Masters of Organisational Dynamics (Applied Science) (RMIT)

Helen is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Social Research. She is currently working on an ARC funded research project Exploring the experience of security in the Australian Vietnamese community: practical implications for policing. The four-year study explores practical solutions to improve the effectiveness of community policing strategies with Vietnamese Australians through understanding the role of trust, risk, security and crime in the community. Helen’s current research interests include the sociology of gender, race, ethnicity and identity.

Helen has a special interest in applied research projects that explore how difference, particularly ethnicity, race and gender are interpreted in work practices. Helen implemented two major projects for the Department of Human Services on food safety in a multicultural food industry. The projects explored the challenges and conflicts of the regulatory and educative roles for Environmental Health Officers in implementing food safety with diverse food proprietors. She has implemented many innovative action research education programs. A recent project Smart Water Mobile Phones linked secondary students to Swinburne undergraduate gaming students to design a water-saving mobile phone game. In 2007 she designed and implemented a community partnership model Making a Difference, to impact on youth under-achievement. The project, linked Swinburne undergraduates as coaches to peri-urban secondary school students to conduct social action projects. Another project, More Bytes, built an interactive IT learning model that linked girls in a remote Indigenous WA school, Victorian schools and Swinburne ICT undergraduates.

Publications (reports)

McKernan, H & Langworthy A (2008). University partnerships with secondary schools: community projects
McKernan, H. (2005). Communication of food safety to culturally and linguistically diverse food businesses’. DHS website
McKernan, H. (2005). Cross-cultural competencies for Environmental Health Officers to communicate food safety to Vietnamese and Somali proprietors
McKernan, H. and Dunn, L. (2004). ‘Development and delivery of a training program to local government Environmental Health Officers in dealing with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) food businesses.’ DHS website
McKernan, H. (2004). ‘IBL at Swinburne’. Report commissioned by Industry Liaison Office. Swinburne Press

Office: EW109
Telephone: +61 3 9214 8660
Mobile: 0414 310 438
Email: hmckernan@swin.edu.au