Professor Leah Bromfield, Director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at UniSA, will lead an advisory group for the State Government tasked with guiding what's being described as long term reform to the child protection system. The new panel responds to observations made in an independent review into the system released last year.
Recent cases of alleged neglect have again thrown the child protection system into the spotlight. ACCP researchers say it’s time for a new approach, where holistic support agencies work in partnership with families and communities to break the intergenerational cycle of harm.
This article is from the University of South Australia’s Enterprise magazine under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence.
ACCP Director, Leah Bromfield, has been appointed as a member of the Independent Steering Group for Children’s Services Research in Scotland.
The purpose of the Steering Group is to provide independent direction and oversight to the Children’s Research conducted by CELCIS, which will be used to inform Ministerial decision-making regarding children’s services in the context of the introduction of the National Care Service.
The annual OPEN Symposium was held online at 9:30am (EST) Wednesday 26 October.
This year’s theme was ‘Maintaining Momentum: Continuing to innovate and build Victoria’s Child and Family Service sector evidence base’. At the Symposium, the child and family services sector discussed the innovative practices that are delivering better outcomes for children and families.
ABC news recently spoke with ACCP’s Director Prof Leah Bromfield about her insights into child protection, highlighting the need for new approaches to give children and families the best chance for success.
>Read more here (scroll down to second half of article) or watch video interview (starts at 1min 14sec)
The ACCP on behalf of the National Office for Child Safety are conducting a baseline analysis of specialist and community services for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. Stakeholders are invited to participate in consultations for this project. Please register your interest in participating in the project consultations here.
ACCP's Deputy Director, Research, Associate Professor Melissa O'Donnell recently presented at the FACSIAR 'Infants entering out-of-home care: health, developmental trajectories and services' webinar.
Director ACCP, Professor Leah Bromfield and Deputy Director Amanda Paton were proud to support the Department of Communities and the Minister for Child Protection, Hon Simone McGurk in launching the WA Framework for understanding and guiding responses to harmful sexual behaviours in children and young people.
This marks a significant step for WA in better understanding and responding to this very complex issue and paves the way for a more consistent and therapeutic response for children, young people and their families.
The Framework can be accessed via WA’s safer WA website.
Recordkeeping researchers at Monash University and the Australian Centre for Child Protection are conducting a research study to understand the barriers to child-centred recordkeeping in child protection contexts.
If you are a social work student, social work curriculum developer, or child protection/family support practitioner or caseworker, then we want to hear from you.
Your participation (in either an interview, focus group or survey) will help improve our understanding of how child protection workers are prepared for case recording in their training and how child-centred recordkeeping could be supported. Participation in the study will be confidential. Findings may lead to better and fairer recordkeeping systems for children involved in child protection systems.
For more information about how you can participate, please contact Dr Martine Hawkes: martine.hawkes@unisa.edu.au or visit https://rights-records.it.monash.edu/research-development-agenda/caring-records/
The study has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee at Monash University (Application ID: 31759) and UniSA (Application ID: 204524).
ACCP’s Deputy Director Amanda Paton and Senior Research Fellow Dr James Herbert recently explored how data can be used to inform therapeutic responses to child sexual abuse in a Child Family Community Australia webinar. Held on 24 November, the webinar had a high level of engagement, with participants learning what influences therapy engagement and completion following a disclosure of child sexual abuse and how data from research and practice can be used to inform program and service model design.
A recording and transcript of the webinar is available here, alongside key resources: Using data to inform therapeutic responses to child sexual abuse
On 19 October, ACCP Deputy Director Associate Professor Tim Moore was interviewed by Sonya Fedlhoff on ABC Radio Adelaide in response to a new report on the needs of children and young people in the SA residential care and youth justice systems*. The discussion also included Penny Wright, of the Guardian for Children and Young People and Training Centre Visitor. Interview with Tim commences at 6mins 05sec into the recording.
> Play audio recording of interview
> *Download the report the interview is referring to "Six Month Snapshot of the South Australian Dual Involved Project: children and young people in South Australia’s child protection and youth justice systems"
Credit: Afternoons with Sonya Fedlhoff, ABC Radio Adelaide.
An Award for Excellence in Child Protection Research has been awarded to UniSA’s ACCP, for its leadership of child protection research across Australia and partnering with jurisdictions to support the design of evidence-based services.
ACCP's Director, Professor Leah Bromfield was the guest speaker for the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare's webinar in May 2021. The topic was "Rethinking the child protection system design assumptions for families with multiple and complex needs."
> Watch the replay here.
As Director at the ACCP and as one of Australia’s foremost child protection researchers, Prof Leah Bromfield's latest appointment to the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings is both vital and deserved.
> Read more here.
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