From journal articles to Quick Guides and webinars, you will find tools and information to support.
This International Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect study analysed survey data from young people with lived experience of the foster care system about the effects COVID-19 had on many life outcomes. The study highlights the impact on LGBTQIA+ young people with recommendations for extra support while transitioning out of OOHC.
This Australian Educational Researcher journal article provides insights into the experience of primary school educators' capability in supporting their student's mental health in schools. The research indicates an integrated approach across schools and healthcare providers when supporting children's mental health.
This Monash University research article engages qualitative data from service practitioners to help identify factors that can lead out-of-home care leavers to become parents before age 21. Some key themes included feelings of loss and isolation and poor sex education with implications for service practitioners.
This research article uses multiple government departments' data investigating the relationship between out-of-home care leavers and homelessness. This report recommends a multidisciplinary, holistic and collaborative approach to housing pathways for the care-leaving population.
This article, published in Child & Family Social Work, presents the findings of an evaluation of Caring Dads, a Men’s Behaviour Change Program trialled in two Australian locations. The study had a small sample size (40 fathers and 17 mothers) however findings aligned with previous evaluations of the program. The evaluation found positive improvements for mothers in their self-perceived level of safety, experiences of domestic and family violence, and in respectful communication.
This article, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, investigates the relative amount of funded awarded by Australian government research agencies to research focused on parenting interventions. The article found that in the period from 2011 to 2020, only 0.25 per cent of the total research budget allocated by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC) was allocated to parenting intervention research. This low funding commitment is out of step with the high positive impacts of improved parenting for children.
This study, published in BMC Primary Care, sought to understand how GPs and nurses experience the response to child abuse in primary healthcare. The study found that mandatory reporting obligations created significant emotional labour at the internal, organisational and systemic levels as participants struggled to maintain the therapeutic relationship. The article concludes with strategies that can be employed to reduce the labour burden, which can also be applied by other workforces with mandatory reporting obligations.
This article published in Child Abuse and Neglect by researchers from around the world investigates children’s risk for maltreatment during the COVID-19 pandemic by examining child maltreatment reports and child protective services responses across 12 regions. The research found that the pandemic has caused disruption to in-person services which has had substantial negative impacts on the operation of child protective services across all countries included in the study.
This narrative review by researchers from the Centre for Community Child Health and the University of Melbourne synthesises the existing research from previous pandemics and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic about their indirect impacts on children. The research identified 11 impact areas under three broad categories: child-level factors (poorer mental health, poorer child health and development, poorer academic achievement); family-level factors that affect children (poorer parent mental health, reduced family income and job losses, increased household stress, increased abuse and neglect, poorer maternal and newborn health); and service-level factors that affect children (school closures, reduced access to health care, increased use of technology for learning, connection and health care).
