who's doing research for ACC

i received a link by email to this article in the sunday star times which covers research by dr felicity goodyear-smith commissioned by ACC, and apparently used to develop the policy implemented last year which restricted access to counselling for victims of sexual abuse. excerpts from the article have been copied below, but i'd strongly recommend reading the whole article. luddite journo wrote about this last year in august, and again i'd recommend reading the post & comments (note that the "julie" commenting there is not our julie).


LAST OCTOBER, ACC changed the rules governing the support available to victims of sex crimes, introducing a heavily criticised new regime that severely restricted access to counselling....

During the eight months following the clinical pathway's introduction, ACC paid out $7 million less to 2889 fewer claimants than it had over the same period a year previous. Approved new claims, running at 1313 in the eight months prior to the pathway's introduction, subsequently dropped to 240 over the same length of time. Among the hundreds to have their claims denied were two women believed to have later committed suicide....

The scheme's many detractors were primarily concerned by a new requirement that, before they could access ACC counselling and support, claimants had to be diagnosed formally with a mental injury as defined by the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV). Whereas previously, ACC might have accepted a GP or counsellor's description of symptoms such as flashbacks, panic attacks or nightmares resulting from a sex crime, now a formal diagnosis of a mental illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder was needed.

It's unclear exactly why. Nowhere was a DSM-IV mental illness diagnosis specified in the so-called "Massey guidelines", the widely accepted 2008 best practice manual which ACC had commissioned from Massey University researchers, and which it cited as having guided the formulation of the pathway....

ACC now admits it got it wrong and earlier this month announced that sexual assault victims are now automatically entitled to 16 sessions of counselling. "We moved too quick, and left a bunch of people with nowhere to go," says ACC spokesman Laurie Edwards....

Like others in the sexual abuse care sector, [Kyle MacDonald & Barri Leslie] fear that Goodyear-Smith's research has fed into the pool of information that guides decision-making around sensitive claims policy, influencing the creation of higher hurdles for victims, and a more disbelieving regime around claims of sexual abuse in general.

ACC denies any link. Asked by the Sunday Star-Times last October about the relation of Goodyear-Smith's research to the newly unveiled clinical pathway, ACC responded in an email that it had not commissioned her 2005 research, and eventually refused to answer further questions. This was untrue. ACC spokesman Laurie Edwards said this month that the public relations staffer responsible had made a mistake, but could not account why.

Earlier this month, after communications staff were directed to evidence that it had commissioned the paper, claims management general manager Denise Cosgrove admitted the corporation had funded the research, but maintained it had played no part in the development of the pathway....

The fact that it appeared in both Goodyear-Smith's paper and the clinical pathway, despite not being found in the Massey guidelines, reflected the fact it was "best practice", although on what authority this was claimed he was unable to clarify.

An ACC-commissioned 2003 review of the sensitive claims process said the corporation had adopted the DSM-IV as a diagnostic tool to establish – as it was required to under the 2001 Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act – whether a mental injury had occured as a result of a sex crime. But there is nothing in the act that specifically mandates the DSM-IV as the necessary diagnostic tool.