Our Projects

Research overview

Open Door is conducting pioneering research in veteran and first responder wellbeing, and we are developing curriculum to support mental health and wellbeing. Our research ethos is multidisciplinary, collaborative, and focused engaging with the lived experience of service and first responder personnel and their families to generate the best outcomes for them and the institutions that service them.

Military Academic Pathway Program (MAPP)

Funding from DVA was awarded to develop the Military Academic Pathway Program (MAPP). This is the first veteran entry pathway of its kind in an Australian University. As a four-week foundation course this provides veterans with university skills and exposure to different degree pathways and opportunities.

Open Door supported student veterans to establish the Australian Student Veterans Association (ASVA) Flinders Chapter. We have recently expanded the MAPP to Central Queensland University, and the University of the Sunshine Coast.

This initiative has included student assessments and long interviews with veterans about their experiences when following a higher education transition pathway.

This initiative led to a national study of veteran experiences at university, and university models of student veteran support with the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education.

The project is investigating Aboriginal veteran engagement in higher education and developing a plan to improve Aboriginal veteran access to and participation in post-secondary education leading to positive employment outcomes.

DVA Supporting Younger Veterans Grant - $300,000

Veteran Suicide: Social and Historical Dimensions

Between 1997 and 2020, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare(AIHW) recorded 1,600 suicides for individuals with Australian Defence Force (ADF) service. Suicide rates were 27% higher for male veterans and107% higher for female veterans when compared to the Australian population. This project has conducted interviews with veterans who have attempted to take their live as well as the families of veteran who have. The sociological autopsy approach is used with life history interviews to understand the effects of service and transition, systems and cultures upon veteran wellbeing and trauma and maps an individual’s journey across the life domains of health, housing, education, employment among others.

This project will conduct an historical and cultural analysis of the ways government, the military and the community have understood, governed, and serviced veterans from 1914 to the present. It will generate new knowledge by exploring wider historical, cultural and sociological relations of veteran suicide, including civil military relations, and the influence of the veteran sector and families and community. It will develop an innovative survey forming the foundation for a longitudinal social health and wellbeing dataset on veterans and contribute to policy and service provision to reduce veteran suicide and improve their wellbeing. Collaborating with the University of Alabama to conduct comparative research, the program is supported by an international advisory group across five nations.

The study is dedicating resources to working with Aboriginal veterans and their communities to collect their accounts of the challenges of service and transition in line with Aboriginal cultural protocols.

Australian Research Council (ARC) - $490,000 and Freemasons Centre for Male Health and Wellbeing, Flinders Foundation - $153,000

No-women's-land

Most Australians perceive veterans as male. However, many women also serve. They are often extremely visible and marginalised in this dominant masculine culture of military service. Yet, when they leave the military, they are largely invisible and have significant struggles transitioning to civilian life, with higher suicide rates than male veterans. Our research seeks to better understand women veterans' experiences.

Hospital Research Foundation - $150,000

Veterans in Corrections

This study investigated why veterans became involved in the Australian Criminal Justice System (CJS).This included recommendations on strategies to enhance desistance from crime among that group. The study is taking place in South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.

The project draws upon the international social health and transition literature. A social transition approach considers veteran incarceration as an effect of “the interrelationship of economic, cultural and environmental factors and living and working conditions, including family life, education, employment, healthcare services, housing, lifestyle choices and biological factors” (DVA 2015).

Deteriorations in mental health, the advent of substance abuse, occurrences of family violence and increased social isolation generally signify problems in navigating the domains and thereby the transition from the military service to civilian life.

A key finding was that separation and transition were inadequate and this contributed to social upheaval and disconnection sometimes resulting in engagement with the criminal justice system and incarceration.

Department of Veterans Affairs - $199,000

Mapping Transition and Service to Self Harm

This project provided information on the risk factors leading to suicide including adverse childhood events, service trauma, and engagement with defence and veterans’ affairs systems, transition, and post service life. The project detailed institutional systems and services that generate adverse experiences for serving and post service personnel that create a risk burden or mitigation.

The project drew upon existing research interviews in the areas of institutional abuse (defence abuse), veterans in corrections and veteran suicide. The method aims to identify the causal mechanisms for veteran suicidality. While everyone’s life trajectory is unique – our approach draws out the common experiences, themes and events that lead to harms. This analysis to understand and explain the patterning of data (experience) can then be used to develop protective policies, interventions and change in the ADF and DDVA.

Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide ($154k)

The Pipeline Project

This pilot project, which is in development, will create a pipeline from the supply of Defence personnel and transitioning veterans through education to careers. Pathways will be established into civil construction and data and communications, as well as five university pathways.

Aligning with Joint Transition Authority goals, the pipeline “takes a whole-of-system approach, working to ensure transition services and support mechanisms are in place and working together for the benefit of transitioning Australian Defence Force (ADF) members and their families”. The pipeline generates new or enhanced capability for the ADF by building on the return-of-investment in service personnel training and experience, creating labour-market efficiencies by appropriately matching personnel skills and ambition, with market demand and appropriate education pathways to job outcomes. We will assess each transitioning member’s wellbeing and their experience of transition.

The project aims to be a collaboration between Defence, tertiary education institutions, veteran wellbeing research agencies and industry to generate a holistic, and economically efficient transition-education-employment model.

The pipeline can be tailored to the demands of the South Australian economy and by supporting Defence personnel, the pipeline feeds transition planning, and the Total Workforce System empowering personnel to engage in lifelong learning and lifelong service. TAFE and University pathways may lead to employment within or beyond the defence industries.

We will establish a state-wide tertiary education and industry committee to monitor and strategise effective lines of supply to industry while bringing a united approach to supporting veterans through study and into employment. The pilot will be formatively evaluated.