Fostering lifelong connections for children in permanent care. The out-of-home care sector in Australia is undergoing transformation to ensure children who cannot be restored to birth families exit care to permanent families. New South Wales is leading the way on these reforms. The emerging Australian policy model, permanency with lifelong connection to birth families, is distinctly different from the policy models in similar Western nations. While the Australian policy goal is clear, practices ....Fostering lifelong connections for children in permanent care. The out-of-home care sector in Australia is undergoing transformation to ensure children who cannot be restored to birth families exit care to permanent families. New South Wales is leading the way on these reforms. The emerging Australian policy model, permanency with lifelong connection to birth families, is distinctly different from the policy models in similar Western nations. While the Australian policy goal is clear, practices for achieving this goal are under-developed. This action research project will engage the New South Wales out-of-home care sector to design and trial relationship-building practices that promote positive relationships between children and their birth families.Read moreRead less
The production, use and effect of social work research. This project aims to reform social work research to improve the quality and effectiveness of human services. The human services industry is vital to many people’s quality of life, but lacks innovation and struggles to demonstrate its effectiveness. Crucially for social work, research expands thinking about how to respond to social disadvantage. This project intends to examine the scope and quality of Australian social work research in child ....The production, use and effect of social work research. This project aims to reform social work research to improve the quality and effectiveness of human services. The human services industry is vital to many people’s quality of life, but lacks innovation and struggles to demonstrate its effectiveness. Crucially for social work, research expands thinking about how to respond to social disadvantage. This project intends to examine the scope and quality of Australian social work research in child protection, disability services, and aged care; assess the use of this research to the human services sector and its effect on generating innovation; and develop strategies to advance the production, uptake, and effect of social work research.Read moreRead less
Aboriginal child restoration from out-of-home care: pathways for success. The soaring rates of Indigenous children living in out-of-home care requires an urgent response. This research aims to considerably advance the knowledge regarding child restoration by investigating the lived experiences and outcomes of Aboriginal parents whose children have been restored from care. The project intends to identify successful child restoration initiatives and produce an empirical roadmap for navigating serv ....Aboriginal child restoration from out-of-home care: pathways for success. The soaring rates of Indigenous children living in out-of-home care requires an urgent response. This research aims to considerably advance the knowledge regarding child restoration by investigating the lived experiences and outcomes of Aboriginal parents whose children have been restored from care. The project intends to identify successful child restoration initiatives and produce an empirical roadmap for navigating service systems with the goal of restoration. The project expects to make a substantial contribution to this largely neglected research area that will benefit birth parents and families, communities, practitioners, policy makers and academics. In doing so, it aspires to reduce the prevalence of Aboriginal children in care.Read moreRead less
Missing girls: From childhood runaways to criminalised women. This study examines the link between girls declared ‘missing’ and their trajectory into the criminal justice system, expanding the Australian knowledge base along with providing a clear, tangible practice framework to prevent the drift into youth and adult criminal justice systems. By addressing concerns of practitioners and policy makers this significant research increases the visibility of a marginalised groups, exploring individual ....Missing girls: From childhood runaways to criminalised women. This study examines the link between girls declared ‘missing’ and their trajectory into the criminal justice system, expanding the Australian knowledge base along with providing a clear, tangible practice framework to prevent the drift into youth and adult criminal justice systems. By addressing concerns of practitioners and policy makers this significant research increases the visibility of a marginalised groups, exploring individual and systemic impacts of missing girls entering the criminal justice and welfare systems. Findings of this research will detail opportunities for early intervention for service providers in addition to rich empirical data to better inform policy makers and service developers targeting at risk young people. Read moreRead less
A home-centred approach to support children and young people in state care. This project aims to determine how conceptions of home can enhance an understanding of and responsiveness to young people’s needs in state care. It expects to generate novel data on home for young people in state care and for the first time develop a home-centred approach to supporting young people across multiple care contexts. Expected outcomes include developing and evaluating home-centred care principles, practice gu ....A home-centred approach to support children and young people in state care. This project aims to determine how conceptions of home can enhance an understanding of and responsiveness to young people’s needs in state care. It expects to generate novel data on home for young people in state care and for the first time develop a home-centred approach to supporting young people across multiple care contexts. Expected outcomes include developing and evaluating home-centred care principles, practice guidelines and an online training module. These should provide benefits including better experiences and placement stability for young people, effective training for carers and evidence-informed strategies guiding the work of service providers and governments, with the potential to improve young people's life chances. Read moreRead less
Strengthening Relationships for Young People in Residential Care. Young people in residential care face major challenges in forming positive relationships, many having experienced adults as a source of threat rather than safety. This project aims to investigate practices within therapeutic residential care that enable or limit young people’s identity formation, positive social connections, safety and wellbeing. This research will generate nuanced knowledge informing interpersonal and institution ....Strengthening Relationships for Young People in Residential Care. Young people in residential care face major challenges in forming positive relationships, many having experienced adults as a source of threat rather than safety. This project aims to investigate practices within therapeutic residential care that enable or limit young people’s identity formation, positive social connections, safety and wellbeing. This research will generate nuanced knowledge informing interpersonal and institutional change. Expected outcomes include improved approaches to therapeutic care and to methods for enabling the participation of young people in care in matters that may change their life trajectory on exiting care. Expected benefits include more responsive policies and frameworks for practice.Read moreRead less
DIsrupting Child Exploitation - the DICE project. Child sexual exploitation is an insidious social problem which impacts the most vulnerable children and young people in Australia. The DICE project (Disrupting Child Sexual Exploitation) aims to develop a multi-agency response which pivots the focus of intervention to the sexual exploitation predators who target vulnerable young people in statutory care. Previous interventions have prioritised protecting (and controlling) the young people, with l ....DIsrupting Child Exploitation - the DICE project. Child sexual exploitation is an insidious social problem which impacts the most vulnerable children and young people in Australia. The DICE project (Disrupting Child Sexual Exploitation) aims to develop a multi-agency response which pivots the focus of intervention to the sexual exploitation predators who target vulnerable young people in statutory care. Previous interventions have prioritised protecting (and controlling) the young people, with limited success. Through a trauma informed approach which supports young people, combined with disruptive police strategies targeting perpetrators, and co-ordinated multiagency working, it is anticipated that there will be measurable changes to the protection of vulnerable young people. Read moreRead less
Understanding the long term impact of childhood emotional abuse. This project will generate new knowledge about the social dimensions of childhood emotional abuse. Experiences of childhood emotional abuse are extremely common, with many affected individuals going on to face long term health problems, social marginalisation, intergenerational family violence and re-victimisation. This project will investigate how different social contexts influence childhood emotional abuse itself and the interco ....Understanding the long term impact of childhood emotional abuse. This project will generate new knowledge about the social dimensions of childhood emotional abuse. Experiences of childhood emotional abuse are extremely common, with many affected individuals going on to face long term health problems, social marginalisation, intergenerational family violence and re-victimisation. This project will investigate how different social contexts influence childhood emotional abuse itself and the interconnected problems flowing from it that often persist over the life course. The findings of this project will increase the evidence base and inform the future development of policy and practice that aims to prevent the intergenerational transmission of violence and abuse, and improve health and social outcomes. Read moreRead less
Researching an all-of-family program in family violence & substance misuse. Family violence services and drug and alcohol services have been inappropriately siloed given co-occurrence of these problems is common. This project aims to evaluate an innovative program which integrates these services, focuses on fathering to ensure recognition of the needs of children (50% of family violence victims) and provides all-of-family support to ensure the safety and well-being of women and children. Expect ....Researching an all-of-family program in family violence & substance misuse. Family violence services and drug and alcohol services have been inappropriately siloed given co-occurrence of these problems is common. This project aims to evaluate an innovative program which integrates these services, focuses on fathering to ensure recognition of the needs of children (50% of family violence victims) and provides all-of-family support to ensure the safety and well-being of women and children. Expected outcomes include better evidence for countering family violence, and policy frameworks for integrated service provision. Changing the behaviour of men who use violence is a significant social challenge and the outcomes of this targeted approach should have ramifications nationally and internationally. Read moreRead less
Screening and responding to domestic violence experienced by refugee women. We will adapt and test an evidence-based intervention to identify and address domestic violence with newly arrived refugee women, partnering with Settlement Services International, one of Australia’s largest providers of settlement programs. Domestic violence is the lead contributor to premature death among Australian women, and costs $22 b each year, with refugee women at heightened risk. This study will compare outcome ....Screening and responding to domestic violence experienced by refugee women. We will adapt and test an evidence-based intervention to identify and address domestic violence with newly arrived refugee women, partnering with Settlement Services International, one of Australia’s largest providers of settlement programs. Domestic violence is the lead contributor to premature death among Australian women, and costs $22 b each year, with refugee women at heightened risk. This study will compare outcomes for women who receive the intervention to controls and culturally sensitive, scaleable tested tools. This intervention should reduce the human and financial cost of domestic violence among refugee and other vulnerable migrant women, providing tools to settlement services to address this complex, hidden problem. Read moreRead less