From journal articles to Quick Guides and webinars, you will find tools and information to support.
The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) has released this report containing results from the first 12 months of the ei Pulse wellbeing check-in tool. The ei Pulse tool uses an app to track Australian student’s wellbeing in real time. Once a week, students aged 10 years and over are asked how they are feeling and are then asked a selection of five evidence-based questions from a pool of 130 wellbeing questions. The report found that on average, 66 per cent of students felt ‘positive’ or ‘great’ each week, however 42 per cent said they worry a lot about mistakes they make. The tool is intended to improve student’s wellbeing literacy and the findings will allow schools to engage in continuous improvement to better support student wellbeing.
This paper from Child Family Community Australia (CFCA) identifies the common elements of evidence-based parenting programs that support children’s (aged 0–12 years) mental health through parental separation to inform the decisions practitioners make in their practice. The analysis identified 15 common elements. Four elements were related to content provided to parents by programs and included the topics of emotional management in separation, parenting in separation, co-parenting in separation, and the impact of separation on children. The remaining 11 were techniques used in programs and included psychoeducation, group participation, skills practice, personalising content, problem solving, assigning and reviewing homework, encouraging, normalising difficulties, video content, attending to group process, and providing materials.
Economic Justice Australia has released this report investigating the relationship between domestic violence and Centrelink compliance and debt mechanisms, and the impacts of these mechanisms on domestic violence victims/survivors. A key finding was that Centrelink compliance processes are sometimes used by perpetrators as a tool of violence. The report makes 27 recommendations.
This report by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) explores the occurrence, overlap or interrelationships between domestic and family violence, alcohol and other drug issues and mental health issues in Australian families involved in the child protection system. A critical interpretive synthesis of the academic and grey literature found significant weaknesses in the evidence base. The study concluded that further research is needed to understand these interactions in the Australian context.
The Melbourne Institute has released the 16th annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey report. The data and findings are presented using the following topics: households and family life, household economic wellbeing, the labour market, unpaid work, housing mobility, psychological distress, retirement, time stress, self-control, and attitudes towards marriage, parenting and work. A key finding is that women continue to do more unpaid work than men, however the gap has reduced since 2002.
This report from Jesuit Social Services is the fifth in a series of reports measuring indicators of disadvantage in communities across Australia. It examines where disadvantage is concentrated, how various forms of disadvantage overlap and how this multilayered disadvantage becomes persistent. The study found that disadvantage is concentrated in a small number of communities across Australia. In Victoria, 5 per cent of locations accounted for 29 percent of the most disadvantaged positions across all indicators.
Mission Australia has released the 20th annual report in a series exploring the values, aspirations and concerns of young people in Australia. The 2021 survey received 20,207 responses from young people aged 15-19 years. The study found that young people consider COVID-19, the environment, and equity and discrimination as the key issues Australia needs to address.
This report from the Public Service Research Group at the University of New South Wales and Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA) used survey data to investigate the COVID-19 vaccination experiences of children and young people with disability. The study found that 62 per cent of respondents were parents or carers who experienced difficulties and barriers in vaccinating their child or children with disability. The report concludes that support to make sure that children with disability can access an appropriate vaccination experience is crucial to prevent high levels of severe disease.
Griffith University has released this report exploring the benefits, image and workforce of outside school hours care (OSHC) and the partnership between OSHC and schools. The literature review identified that OSHC has a low status in Australian society despite its important role in supporting the development and wellbeing of children. The report makes 13 recommendations.
