10th Australian Institute of
Family Studies
Conference Proceedings
9-11 July 2008 • Melbourne
Families Through LifeCopies of presentations/papers may be made for the purposes of personal, non-commercial use or for research and study in educational institutions, provided the presentation/paper is used in full, with proper attribution to the author(s). Copyright remains with the author(s) or government agency.
Presentations and papers will continue to be added as they are received: Update list
Presentations are only made available to download where the presenter has given permission to do so. Poster presentations have an abstract only.
Abstracts by author A-H (with presentations and papers where available)
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | Abstracts I-Z
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A
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Work and Family reconciliation in OECD countries: an overview^ Author affiliation
Panel discussion: Work & Family
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Living on the Fringes: Women’s Expectations and Experiences of Managing their Children’s Health and Wellbeing in the Outer Suburbs^ Author affiliation
Child health and development outcomes have been linked with residential location. This study aimed to explore families' views and experiences of their residential location and to map how this influenced their children's health using Bronfenbrenner's Social Ecology Model. In depth interviews were conducted with 15 mothers of preschool-age children living in an outer Melbourne municipality. Thematic analysis revealed contrasts between factors that influenced families' choice of residential location (macrosystem affects) and their experiences of raising children in the municipality (exosystem, and microsystem affects). Decisions to live in the municipality were strongly influenced by ideals around family, home-ownership and space. The municipality was perceived to be ‘a good place to raise children'. In reality though, women spoke of the difficulties they experienced in accessing general practitioners, maternal and child health nurses, childcare and kindergartens. Whilst wide open spaces had attracted them to live in the area, they spoke of limited places to go with their children and limited transport options. The distance from the city coupled with long working hours also meant that most fathers were absent for long periods during the week and even on weekends and thus had very little involvement in raising their children. In summary, this study provides an interesting insight into the mismatch between families' perceptions of the how their residential location might influence their children's health and their actual experiences. This suggests another area of complexity to be considered in trying to understand the relationship between children's health outcomes and residential location.
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Partnerships in Early Childhood: A Longitudinal Study of a Relationships Based Approach to Early Intervention in Multiple Children’s Services^ Author affiliation
This paper presents the final results of the two year longitudinal study of the Partnerships in Early Childhood Program (PIEC) program in 14 child care and preschool centres in disadvantaged communities. International and Australian research has shown that quality early childhood programs can foster children's lifetime development and educational attainment, minimise the risk of abuse and neglect, and reduce the likelihood of future criminality (Galinsky, 2006, Heckman & Masterov, 2004, Schonkoff & Phillips; McCain & Mustard, 1999). The PIEC Program is funded by the Commonwealth Government of Australia through the Invest to Grow Initiative of the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy. The PIEC program builds on the existing strengths, skills and resources of early childhood service providers in disadvantaged communities to promote strong, healthy relationships between children, children's services staff, families and communities. PIEC is a relationships-based intervention designed to reduce problem behaviors and has similar aims to established, behavior-based programs such as Triple P Positive Parenting Program (Saunders, 1999) and the Incredible Years). PIEC adopts training, resources and staff supervision models from the Circle of Security intervention (Marvin, Cooper, Hoffman & Powell, 2002), which incorporates the concepts of a ‘secure base' and a ‘haven of safety' Ainsworth et al., 1978; Bowlby, 1988). A child and family worker works in the early childhood centre to train staff in attachment concepts that relate to children's exploratory and security needs. The program also supports families in relationships and parenting by connecting isolated families and linking them to appropriate local services and programs. The results of both the process and impact evaluation will be discussed along with a cost benefit analysis of the intervention. Key learning's and implications for social policy will also be discussed.
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A Cultural Shift: Family Dispute Resolution for Culturally Diverse Families^ Author affiliation
The Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006 promised to bring about a ‘cultural shift in how family separation is managed', largely through mandated family dispute resolution. The Act also overtly identified the importance of culture to the parenting and well being of children. This paper examines the potential for culturally responsive family dispute resolution in the context of Family Relationship Centres. Research suggests that culturally and linguistically diverse families have not generally utilized mediated dispute resolution following separation. How might compulsorily mediated dispute resolution accommodate the needs of these families? What is culturally responsive family dispute resolution? How might family dispute resolution practitioners reconcile the legislative emphasis on shared parenting with cultural expectations? How will they facilitate children maintaining their cultural connections? How might accessible, sensitive and responsive service provision to culturally diverse families be achieved? This paper considers these questions and suggests ways that culturally responsive family dispute resolution might be achieved.
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Getting Research into Practice in the Child Protection and Child and Family Welfare Sector: A Symposium^ Author affiliation
This paper presents the results of an extensive exploration of research use in a sample of Australian child and family welfare professionals (including, practitioners, policy-makers, and other types of professionals). The first phase of the project involved a quantitative survey of 495 child and family welfare professionals. This survey indicated that the majority of professionals in the sector use research and endorse the importance of research in their work. The second phase of the project involved in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of professionals drawn from the first stage of the project. Professionals were asked about the degree to which they accessed and applied research; the way/s in which they accessed and applied research; and facilitators and barriers to research use. The data were analysed according to the “Cultures in Context” research use model developed by the present authors on the basis of existing research use literature. The findings were largely consistent with trends reported in international studies. Organisational factors, pragmatic constraints and individual values and assumptions were found to be influential in relation to a professional’s capacity and/or preparedness to use research. The barriers to research use were less consistent between practitioners, policy-makers and other professionals than were the facilitators of research use. The perceived support of management and colleagues to use research was a particularly important facilitator for practitioners. The paper concludes with suggestions as to how organisations can encourage research use in practice and policy decision-making.
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Developing a Road Map for Research: Identifying the Priorities for a National Child Protection Research Agenda^ Author affiliation
Increasingly in the child protection sector, governments and leaders in the field are talking about the need for ‘evidence-based' or ‘evidence-informed' policy and practice. But does a quality evidence-base exist? Cashmore, Higgins, Bromfield and Scott (2006) concluded that it was not possible to claim an adequate evidence-base for sound policy and practice decisions in child abuse prevention, child protection and out-of-home care, or to be able to single out particular areas as a priority for research. Further, they identified the need for “a ‘road map' to identify priorities and provide some direction and a systematic framework for research and to situate this area of research within a broader context with theoretical underpinnings” (p. 9) as one of the crucial areas for development. In this paper, the authors summarise briefly the findings from national research; and the research priorities identified at national forums and by other Western nations who have similar models of child protection. Findings from a new national survey of policy makers and practitioners regarding their views on the research priorities for child abuse prevention, child protection and out-of-home care are presented. The challenges and opportunities, and the next steps needed for the development of a national child protection research agenda are discussed.
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The Family Life of Academics: Gendered Priorities and Institutional Constraints^ Author affiliation
Since the 1970s, women have formed a growing percentage of university graduates and more female graduates are entering high-level careers and moving into the senior ranks of their chosen careers. However, numerous studies from the English-speaking countries have found that women are more likely than men to make employment concessions for family responsibilities, regardless of their educational attainment or employment aspirations. Using full-time academic staff working in universities as examples of highly educated professionals with strong career commitment, this paper investigates the impact of family circumstances on academic careers. Studies from several countries indicate that the family status, rank, salary and attrition rates of women academics typically differ from their male counterparts. Gender segregation also remains in many university departments, especially at senior ranks. These studies suggest that gendered differences in professional status reflect varying family and personal priorities, the division of labour at home, and a variety of institutional practices that favour those without family responsibilities. Through a review of international research on family life and academic careers, supplemented by qualitative interviews with New Zealand-based academics, this paper explores the choices and constraints involved in personal life and academic work. The paper aims to contribute to the growing body of research on balancing work and family life, as well as the continuing gender gap in academia.
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Public Perceptions and Attitudes to Homelessness in Australia^ Author affiliation
This paper presents findings on community attitudes to homelessness. The aim of this research is to gauge community attitudes so as to enhance advocacy. Most research into public perceptions of homelessness has been conducted in the United States and to a lesser extent in the UK. This is the first attitudinal research of this type to be conducted in Australia. The data presented are drawn from two national large scale omnibus telephone surveys. Questions on attitudes to homelessness were included in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes conducted by Australian National University (ANU). Close to 3000 Australians participated in this survey. A study involving six focus groups validated by a telephone survey of 1000 Australians was also undertaken. Participants were asked about their perceptions of homeless people and their experiences, as well as their attitudes about the causes of homelessness and perceived responsibility for solutions. While many believed individuals factors led to homelessness (e.g. poor decision making, lack of effort), many also identified reasons beyond individual control such as domestic violence, economic problems, family breakdown, and shortages of affordable housing. Government and public services were most commonly, but not solely, seen as responsible for addressing homelessness. Implications of this research for advocacy and influencing public perceptions will be discussed. Hanover Welfare Services is a leading Melbourne-based provider of services to people experiencing homelessness or housing crisis. Public perceptions and attitudes towards homelessness are a prominent component of Hanover’s research agenda.
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What Mothers Want: Exploring the Policies Mothers Say Would Help After the Birth of a Child^ Author affiliation
The birth of a child brings enormous changes to families, with mothers usually reducing their involvement in the labour market (at least for a period), with the resultant financial pressures that can ensue. This paper considers the extent to which mothers reported certain employment conditions and policy options that would have helped them during these critical months following the birth of a child, using data from the 2005 Parental Leave in Australia Survey. This survey was nested within Wave 1.5 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, and parents of young children (aged 15 to 29 months at the time of the survey) were asked a range of questions about their use of leave and engagement in the labour market around the birth of these children. The policy options addressed were: access to paid and unpaid maternity or paternity leave, better access to part-time work or family leave options, better breastfeeding facilities at work, higher or some maternity payment, and more accessible, affordable or better quality child care. The paper considers whether mothers with particular characteristics (including those of the families they come from) are more likely to have expressed a wish for particular policies.
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Parental Time with Children and Children’s Activities: An Analysis of Australian Time Use Diaries of 4–5 Year Olds^ Author affiliation
Parental time with children contributes to children’s development and is positively associated with children’s wellbeing. However, the amount of parent-child shared time does not necessarily capture its ‘quality’. Parents, in their time with children, might be teaching them, encouraging and nurturing them and physically caring for them. At other times parent and child may be engaging in less developmentally-focused activities. While this parent-child time is often analysed using adults’ time use data, it is also possible to analyse this time from the child’s perspective. This paper uses just over 5,000 time use diaries of 4-5 year old children, collected in the first wave (2004) of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). These diaries captured details both of the children’s activities and of who was with them in each 15-minute period across a day, with some diaries for weekends and some for weekdays. The ‘who with’ data were used to compile measures of parent-child time, that is, times when the mother or the father was with the child. The activity data were used to describe the nature of the parent-child time. These data were analysed using descriptive techniques to show how the timing of mothers’ and father’s time with the child and children’s activities intersect. Further, these data were analysed to determine whether parents’ and children’s characteristics were associated with more or less parent-child time or the nature of that parent-child time. Throughout, mother-child and father-child time were considered separately, as was weekend and weekday time.
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Experiences of Parents After Court Decisions about Relocation: Some preliminary hypotheses^ Author affiliation
Background: This paper will present the results of a socio-legal project exploring the experiences of parents who have been the subjects of Family Court of Australia or Federal Magistrates Court of Australia decisions about relocation. This is a Discovery Project funded by the Australian Research Council. Australian family courts regularly decide whether to allow a parent to relocate with children despite opposition from the other parent but no published Australian research has looked at the aftermath of these decisions.
Method: This project explores separated parents' experiences in the aftermath of a judicial decision about relocation. Specifically, we examine parents' perceptions of the impact of the decision on themselves, children and other family members and what has happened for the parents since the decision. The data are based on in-depth one-on-one interviews with parents who have been the subject of court orders about relocation between 2002 and mid-2005. We anticipate having data from approximately 40 such interviews. We will also be presenting data from the HILDA survey that shed light on situations where parents live away from their children, whether or not parents are separated from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics Survey.
Results and conclusion: The data collection and preliminary analysis phases of the project will be completed by April, when the analysis will be presented and workshopped at a symposium being organised by the researchers. We will then further develop our analysis, and will be in a position to present that final analysis at the AIFS conference.
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The Health, Financial and Relationship Wellbeing of Australian Couples: Does Marriage Matter?^ Author affiliation
A large body of literature attests to a range of differences between married and unmarried couples. Collectively, the research points to married people being happier, healthier and better off financially than those not married. One conclusion drawn from this data is that marriage in and of itself confers a range of benefits on married couples that the not-married do not enjoy (Waite & Gallagher, 2000). However, there are certain flaws in the way in which much of the research is conducted, in particular the groups against which comparisons are made. Typically, married participants are compared to those who are single (never married), separated, divorced or widowed, and the findings generally support the notion that being in a couple relationship is ‘better' than not being coupled. Since couples in de facto relationships vary from legally married couples in terms of their demographic profile, and from each other with respect to their commitment to their partner (Penman, 2005) treating them as a homogeneous group, or including them with married participants for the purposes of analysis, may confound the findings. As the initial step in the ongoing exploration of the relationships of the couples participating in LSAC, this paper reports on comparisons of married, de facto and single/sole parents with respect to their health, and their financial and (for coupled parents) relationship wellbeing. Aspects of these three domains will be compared for the parents of infants and the parents of kindergarten-aged children.
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Engaging Fathers in Child and Family Services Participation, Perceptions and Good Practice^ Author affiliation
Engaging Fathers in the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy (SFCS) is one component of the national evaluation of the SFCS led by the Social and Policy Research Centre (SPRC) at the University of New South Wales. The study was designed to evaluate the nature and context of father engagement with SFCS programs and services by exploring provider and consumer perspectives on key themes relating to challenges and best practice in engaging fathers as well as client needs and satisfaction. The current paper reports findings from the quantitative research that suggests how well the SFCS, across its diversity, is managing to engage with fathers. Qualitative data is also presented, which provides an account of fathers' lived experience of participation with SFCS programs and services. Contextualisation of fathers' experiences is provided through exploration of the perspectives of service managers and staff in relation to the responsiveness of services and programs to the interests and needs of fathers, as well as to perceived outcomes. The paper concludes with some recommendations that should enhance father engagement in early childhood, early intervention and community development services.
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Capital in Context Profiling the Developmental Contexts of Children Across a Socio-Economic Gradient^ Author affiliation
The link between children’s outcomes and the contexts in and through which they develop, is consistently demonstrated in the research literature. Contexts or environments, such as the family, the community and school, are suggested shape children’s outcomes via the availability of resources central to the tasks of development. Key resources identified as significant influences on child development include: human capital, psychological capital, social capital, time and income. Neither the contexts in which children develop nor the capital available within them are equal across socioeconomic gradients. Social exclusion can occur when the contexts or environments into which babies are born, and children and adolescents grow up, limit their opportunities and eventual outcomes. A preliminary step in understanding populations at risk for social exclusion is to profile developmental contexts across the socio-economic gradient and the factors within these contexts that influence children’s chances. This paper uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to present a preliminary, descriptive overview of the capital and contexts that characterise the development of children across a socio-economic gradient.
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Negotiating welfare to work under Australian’s Working Together: Parents’ struggles for recognition of care^ Author affiliation
In Australia from 2003, parents claiming income support whose youngest child was aged 13 or more were subject to new, compulsory measures. For the first time parents faced mandatory employment requirements while in receipt of state assistance. As a result, the majority of parents who were already managing their family, employment and study lives were required to sign a contract in which they agreed to continue to do so. This paper is based on 33 in-depth interviews with 16 Parenting Payment claimants with teenage children. These parents attended adviser meetings during which they agreed to compulsory employment-oriented activities. I explore reasons why parents might have elected not to disclose information to advisers, the contexts in which they might be comfortable or feel compelled to disclose personal information and the reasons why care responsibilities may not have been adequately explored in adviser meetings. Family and personal care matters were the most difficult to disclose while frequently having the most profound effect on the activities a parent might engage in. Disclosure or non-disclosure affected how the adviser understood their situation and what was accommodated in their agreement. I argue that parents' interactions with personal advisers, the core site of negotiation of the welfare to work experience, is infused with “struggles for recognition”, as Axel Honneth terms it. The framework of recognition is used to examine the asymmetrical conditions for agency and negotiation by parents within this policy regime which in different ways seems to both confirm and deny the autonomy of parent claimants.
Poster presentation (Abstract only)
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The Deal: Gender, Entrepreneurial Business and Family Life^ Author affiliation
Introduction: In the popular imagination, male entrepreneurs are often celebrated as individual heroes of the market. Some also are cast as family men. Popular representations of entrepreneurs' wives tend to cast them as endlessly supportive, waiting patiently in the background. Occasionally, they are portrayed as ‘gold-diggers'. Women as entrepreneurs tend to be lionized as ‘superwomen' who combine market success with family life, while their husbands tend to be understood as unusually progressive.
Background: This paper draws on a study which explored the interrelationship of business and family life. It examined how men and women as entrepreneurs and as the spouses of entrepreneurs account for their business and family lives.
Method: The study was based on qualitative analysis of fifty interviews with entrepreneurs and their spouses. My analysis draws on Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, and habitus which provide a way to make sense of the contradictions and complexities of men's and women's accounts of business and family life.
Conclusions: My findings suggest the persistence of deeply embedded beliefs about what men and women ‘should' do, especially as parents, despite institutional and structural change. These beliefs take the form of a gender-based ‘deal' that frames control and use of resources (money, time, space, and care) that underpin engagement in business and family life. This study suggests new ways of understanding how men and women compete for resources, which, in turn, affects their accumulation of various forms of capital.
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Arresting Policies: Implications of Pro and Mandatory Arrest Policies for Victims of Domestic and Family Violence^ Author affiliation
This presentation will focus on research undertaken to investigate arrest policies designed to better protect victims of family and domestic violence, which limit victim and police discretion in favour of arrest where there has been a violence incident. A review of research from the United States (US), where many jurisdictions have mandatory arrest policies for domestic and family violence, found some negative outcomes. Many US jurisdictions have experienced a rise in the number of arrests of women victims of violence, with devastating implications for them including a reluctance to engage with the criminal justice system in the future. This issue is of increasing concern in Australia where a number of jurisdictions employ pro-arrest policies and where some jurisdictions are moving to limit victim and police discretion further. Already, some Australian services report and police statistics indicate a rise in the number of women arrested for domestic and family violence offences. Does this trend represent a change in women’s behaviour or changing perceptions held by police officers and the broader community? The VicHealth community attitudes survey (2006) found a shift in community attitudes indicating that more people now consider that women are as violent as men in their relationships – a view not borne out by homicide or police statistics, or community crime and violence surveys. Men’s rights groups have similarly advocated that women are as violent as men. This paper will canvass the reasons for moves to limit victim and police discretion, the outcomes of mandatory and pro arrest policies for victims and consider future directions in arrest policies.
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Asset Rich, but Income Poor: Australian Housing Wealth and Retirement in International Context^ Author affiliation
For the last half-century, home ownership has been considered a central pillar of Australian retirement planning. Has led to an excessive amount of wealth being locked up in housing? This paper looks at patterns of own-home wealth across the lifecycle in Australia and across nations. Using data from the three most recent ABS Household Expenditure Surveys, and controlling for rises in average house prices, most cohorts tend to have the same housing wealth as the previous cohort when they were at the same age. The exception is between the currently retired and the ‘babyboomers’. The latter group has houses that are around 10-15 per cent more valuable than the older cohort at the same age. Within the older cohorts, there is no evidence that people are running down their housing wealth. Using data from the Luxembourg Wealth Study, the cross-sectional distribution of own-home wealth is compared across Australia and 8 other rich nations. Australia stands out as having a relatively high level of home ownership and housing wealth among the elderly. Combining this with the relatively low incomes of the Australian elderly, it is shown that Australian consumption patterns are indeed atypical. Among the elderly, own-home wealth is a much greater proportion of disposable income in Australia than in all the other countries.
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When a Divorced Parent Wants to Relocate with the Child^ Author affiliation
When a parent with whom the child primarily lives after divorce wants, for a legitimate and valid reason, to move to a faraway location, and the proposed move is opposed by a highly involved other parent because it clearly would threaten that parent-child relationship, family professionals are confronted with one the “knottiest and most disturbing problems” they ever face. Both in the US and around the world, inconsistent and confused attempts to legislate or set legal standards have prevailed. One judge recently called the legal response to this problem “a mess”. But is there empirical research that can guide less tangled decision processes and outcomes for separated families? This presentation, by the primary author of the most-cited and influential study on the issue in the literature, will discuss his study and related research on the effects of moveaways on children of divorce. This controversial research suggests that children are indelibly and permanently harmed by moves that separate them from one of their parents. Very recent and heretofore unpublished research that investigates public perceptions and norms about moveaways will also be presented. It shows, for example, that overwhelming US majorities agree that moveaways are harmful to divorced children, that the effects do not disappear with time, that good parents refrain from willingly moving their children away from the other parent, and that the modal legal decision, therefore, should be to prohibit the move, even when its purpose is legitimate, for example, to permit the primary parent to remarry.
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Validity of the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI)^ Author affiliation
The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) is an adaptation the Canadian Early Development Instrument originally developed by Janus and Offord (2000). This teacher-completed checklist is used to describe the proportion of children within defined communities who are developmentally vulnerable on entry to primary school. It assesses overall developmental status and functioning in five domains: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive development, communication skills and general knowledge. This paper describes a series of validity studies of the AEDI conducted with a sub-sample of 642 children from the national Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) age 4 cohort. It reports findings regarding the validity of the AEDI as: a) an indicator of early child development outcomes at ages 4-5 years; and b) as a predictor of school learning, behavioural and social outcomes at ages 6-7 years. Comparative measures assessed within the LSAC include the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (Peds-QL), Parents Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Academic Rating Scale (ARS), parent ratings of reading, writing and numeracy, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), and the “Who am I” Developmental Assessment (WAI). The strength of the correlations of the AEDI scores with other independently validated measures of key aspects of early child development shows this teacher reported index to have robust construct and concurrent validity at ages 4-5 years and that it is predictive of children’s school learning and behavioural outcomes at age 6-7 years
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Doing things together: The home and out-of-school activities of children in the first year of school^ Author affiliation
The activities that children participate in and the time spent on them can be considered as experiential niches that of offer distinctive socialization experiences and learning opportunities. A mixed-method collective case study of the out-of-school activities of a group of children in their first year in school provided data on: the categories of activities that children engaged in at home and in the community; the ways in which parents shaped and managed children’s participation in activities; parental and family values regarding activities; children’s activity preferences; and the ways in which the community afforded particular types of activity participation. Results revealed the ways in which activity participation was organised by parents and negotiated with children to take account of children’s developmental status, personal interests, preferences and agency and parental values and perceptions of appropriate and desirable experiences for their children. Some gender differentiation in types of activities was noted. The range of activities reflected cultural and family values which emphasised maintenance of family cohesion and warmth, children’s enjoyment, initiative and skills and building a network of friends. This smallscale study facilitated the consideration of adult and child perspectives on out-of-school activities and the ways these meshed together, and provided insights into the processes at play as children become involved and participate in such experiential niches.
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A balancing act: can competing family policy objectives be met?^ Author affiliation
Family policies across the industrialised world are extremely divergent, with varying emphases on maternity and parental leave, child care subsidies, cash benefits and tax breaks. This paper explores the family policy objectives of several industrialised countries, and assesses to what degree these policies have achieved their set objectives. What can Australia learn from our own experience as well as that of our international counterparts in designing effective family policy? We look specifically at the relationship between labour force participation and expenditure on children’s services, and make recommendations in the key family policy areas of maternity/parental leave, child care and family benefits/tax breaks.
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Social gradient, lifestyle and overweight/obesity in four year old children^ Author affiliation
In recent years there has been growing concern about the increase in the numbers of overweight and obese children. In adults, obesity like other health problems appears to follow a social gradient with occupation, education and income being important predictors of obesity. However, in children the direct association between socio economic status (SES) and obesity is less clear while factors such as maternal weight and children’s patterns of activity dominate. Drawing on sociological theory it can be argued that lifestyle may be an important mediator between SES and obesity because lifestyle is theoretically linked to social class and status. The aim of this study is to consider the associations between measures of parental socioeconomic status (occupation, income, education), and children’s lifestyle and obesity in four-year old children. With children’s lifestyle being predominantly measured in terms of the time children spend in a variety of sedentary (e.g. watching television) or active (e.g. walking or riding bicycles) activities. Analysis in MPLUS was conducted using questionnaire and diary data from Wave 1 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). A path analysis revealed complex associations between parental SES and children’s weight status. Predominantly, there were two pathways. The first appears to work through maternal weight while the second works through the extent to which children engage in the sedentary activities of watching television or using a computer (screen time) (p<0.05). It is concluded that children’s activities may mediate between parental SES and children’s weight status.
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Not the 'other' mother: how language constructs lesbian co-parenting relationships^ Author affiliation
While lesbians have been parenting for a long time, it is only relatively recently that they have received public attention and that a language has emerged for lesbian motherhood. Lesbians continue to be marginalised in the absence of legal and social recognition of their families. This is particularly so for lesbian non-birth mothers as evidenced by the lack of widely accepted language to adequately define and describe their roles and relationships with their children. Without legal and social recognition or accepted and recognisable language the lesbian co-parent is rendered invisible. She is forced to continually define her position within the family if she wants to have a legitimate role in her children’s lives in the public world. This paper presents findings from recent Australian qualitative research which used multi-generational family interviews with twenty-five lesbian-parented families in Victoria to explore how parents, children and grandparents, describe and present their families in public contexts. Findings suggest that there are multiple labels used for the lesbian non-birth mother and language changes in different contexts and overtime. The paper will explore how language is used to define, describe and give meaning to roles and relationships of lesbian non-birth mothers within social and kinship networks and wider community. Through claiming language and telling their stories lesbian non-birth mothers give meaning to their lives; affirm their identity; and present their relationships as visible and valid.
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The Social and Demographic Characteristics of Cohabiters in Australia: Towards a Typology of Cohabiting Couples^ Author affiliation
In a twenty year period, from 1982 to 2001, the proportion of couples cohabiting in Australia rose from 4.7 % to 12.4 %. This represents a substantial shift in patterns of family formation. Not only are more people living in cohabiting relationships, it is becoming the norm to live in such a relationship either instead of or before committing to marriage. Over 75% of couples now live together prior to marriage compared to only 16 percent in 1976. We use data from Wave 1 of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey to investigate how de facto (cohabiting) couples differ from people of other marital statuses on a number of demographic measures. We also examine whether there are distinct groups within the category of cohabiting. We find that cohabiting couples differ from married, single and separated, divorced or widowed people on a number of measures, such as age, religiosity, ethnic background, education, income and fertility intentions. Furthermore, our results show that there are different types of cohabiting couples, ranging from younger people who see cohabitation as a ‘trial marriage’, and intend to marry, to older people who have been previously married and who have no intention of re-marrying. The demographic characteristics of these groups also differ substantially. The paper concludes that the recent rise in cohabiting relationships, and diversity amongst these groups, is a reflection of the fundamental changes in patterns of family formation and the changing status of marriage in the life course.
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“Something has changed around here!” – A Family, School and Community Partnership: An integrated model of Restorative Practices and Family and Community Group Conferencing for Promoting Student Engagement and Wellbeing in Rural Victorian Communities.^ Author affiliation
The partners recognise that better educational and health outcomes are achieved for young people when a collaborative partnership exists between families and the broader school community. Using Restorative Practice and Family and Community Group Conferencing this project aims to build new relationships between young people, families, schools and community organisations to break the cycle of disengagement and disadvantage, through early intervention. This presentation will be of interest to policymakers, Juvenile Justice, police, school leaders and others interested in the development of the whole child within strong communities. It will outline the approach taken and present stories of how the schoolcommunity partnership has already created positive outcomes for children, young people and, importantly, for families, schools and community. The partners are currently seeking research funding as this collaboration provides a valuable opportunity to (a) examine the effectiveness and impact of these approaches, and (b) understand the processes needed for community organisations to work together effectively across sectors.
Poster presentation (Abstract only)
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Impact of Community Child Health Engagement: Child Protection Outcomes for Children of Substance Using Mothers^ Author affiliation
Maternal substance use has been associated with a range of ecological risk factors for the child. This paper reports on a study of child protection outcomes for 119 children of substance using mothers. The study focused on the relationship between engagement with child health services and child protection outcomes. Children of mothers who disclosed opiate, amphetamine or methadone use during a maternity admission were included in the study. Information relating to study group involvement with the Department of Child Safety and Community Child Health, during the first two years of life, was obtained from government databases. Statistical analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between type of maternal substance use, child health engagement and child protection outcomes. Over half of the first substantiated child protection notifications were recorded within the first month of the child’s life. Child health engagement was overall associated with better child protection outcomes for children of methadone using mothers, but not for children of illicit substance users. This study provides support for increased attention to the provision of child health services for children of methadone using mothers, as well as optimism for the effectiveness of even one engagement with child health services in reducing child protection risk. Results indicate a need for more intensive interventions that attend to the complex systemic risk factors associated with maternal illicit substance use. Interventions that address the ecological risk factors for both the mother and infant must precede opportunities for child protection risk.
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Sexual Ethics: Building Young Women and Men’s Capacity to Negotiate Sexual Intimacy and Prevent Sexual Violence^ Author affiliation
This paper reports on a three Australian Research Council funded project aimed at finding alternative ways to educate young women and men about sexual assault prevention. The project began with qualitative interviews of a diverse sample of young women and men aged 16- 25 from rural and metropolitan Sydney. The findings of these interviews informed the development of a six session three hours per week education programme based on a sexual ethics framework developed by the author. The programme brought together international research and best practice from the fields of sexuality and sexual assault prevention education. The aim of the programme was to enhance the capacity of young people to make ethical decisions in sexually intimate encounters. A key aspect of the research design was rigorous evaluation of the programme run in rural and suburban Sydney. Pre and post testing was carried out with all 44 participants and most importantly six months after completing the programme. Results indicate significant improvement in participants self confidence to negotiate for their own needs and recognizing the needs of their partner. Most importantly 52% of participants reported changes in their behaviour in sexual and potential sexual encounters or relationships and the continuing application of the sexual ethics framework. An overview of the main findings will be provided and reflections on the project will be discussed which may be of interest to human service workers in the field of sexuality and violence prevention education.
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Children's Participation in parenting disputes^ Author affiliation
The aim of this study was to examine the attitudes of parents, children, mediators, lawyers and judges involved In the family law system to the participation of children in decision-making about parenting arrangements when parents no longer live together. Ninety parents were recruited through family lawyers; 47 children were also interviewed. All had resolved their disputes in the 12 months prior to participating in the study, some through agreement and others through judicial determination. About 80 mediators and lawyers, and 20 judges, were also interviewed. The great majority of parents believed that children should have a say. However, resident parents were more likely to support the active participation of children than non-resident parents who were more likely to be concerned about pressure and manipulation by the resident parent. In practice, older children had considerable influence over the arrangements made in the aftermath of separation and how changes were negotiated over time. Children who had experienced violence, abuse or high conflict were the most insistent that their voices be heard in the process and least satisfied with having their views conveyed through counsellors or lawyers. Most mediators, lawyers and judges supported the idea of children’s voices being heard but were sharply divided on whether judges should talk with children directly.
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Culture, Kids and Health Care: A Multi-Cultural Approach^ Author affiliation
This paper brings together the findings from a recently completed ARC Linkage grant that investigates the range of practices and potential cultural ‘mismatches’ at the interface of health service provision and children/young people’s health care. This study employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods including short and long-term in-depth interviews, focus groups, clinical observations and a large multi-lingual (8 languages) telephone survey that was developed from the previous qualitative research findings. This paper explores what’s at stake when communication breaks down between health professionals and children and their families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are living with a long-term chronic illness. I will illustrate how both positive and negative cultural stereotypes are inscribed onto different children and their families resulting in descriptions such as good/compliant and difficult/non-compliant. This is done with little reflection to the underlying values and ways of communicating that the staff employed. While the rhetoric of both hospitals (SCH & CHW) is for a child and family-centred philosophy, there is some discrepancy when the child and the family do not live up to the expectations, values and practices of the organizational and professional cultures which operate throughout the hospital system.
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Multiple Partnerships: Their Causes and Consequences for Adults and Children^ Author affiliation
Over the past few decades, rising rates of cohabitation, persistent if somewhat lower rates of marriage, and high rates of partnership dissolution have combined to increase greatly the number of cohabiting and marital partnerships over the average adult’s lifetime.
This change has been most noticeable in the United States, where rates of multiple partnerships are probably the highest of any wealthy nation. Comparative data, however, suggest that rates of multiple partnerships in Australia, while not as high as in the U.S., are substantial. Some speculations on the causes of this trend in the United States will be presented.
The implications for the adult life-course will be examined. And the consequences for children’s well-being of experiencing a series of parents’ partners entering and exiting the household will be discussed. The presentation will conclude with some thoughts about the appropriate public policy response.
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Paid and Unpaid Work in Australian Households: Towards an Understanding of the New Gender Division of Labour^ Author affiliation
Recent changes in the labour force participation rates of men and women give rise to new questions regarding the division of labour in Australian families. Over the last few decades we have seen a marked increase in the labour force participation rates of women and a decline in the labour force participation rates of men. In the majority of households both partners are now engaged in paid employment. Our research, and that of others, has shown that these changing labour force participation rates have not automatically led to a radical reorganisation of the domestic division of labour, suggesting that women are adding their paid work hours to their unpaid work hours, effectively doing a ‘second shift’. Therefore, it is timely to consider how couples divide total work for the household, that is, the combination of paid and unpaid work. In this study, we use data collected in a 2005 national Australian survey to examine whether women in dual earner families have higher total workloads than men in dual earner families. We find that in “new traditional” households women continue to undertake a larger proportion of unpaid work. In dual full-time earner households, however the gender gap in men’s and women’s total workload is far less evident. We conclude that the second shift is most apparent in “new traditional” households. In dual full-time earner households on the other hand, there is a new gender division of labour that reflects women’s declining involvement in unpaid work and increased involvement in paid work.
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Improving the evidence base through evaluation: a DoCS perspective^ Author affiliation
Government agencies need to demonstrate the outcomes achieved for their clients and to show accountability for their funding. The NSW Department of Community Services (DoCS) is the largest child protection agency in Australia and in 2002/03 received an additional $1.2 billion funding package over six years to boost child and family services. A key challenge for DoCS is to allocate funding in order to maximise beneficial outcomes for children and families. At the commencement of the reform, the evidence base for funding decisions was not well developed, and DoCS itself had only a small research capacity, no economic or statistical analysis function, and no in-house evaluation capacity. The Department now undertakes rigorous analyses and relevant process, outcome and economic evaluations to improve policy and practice, and to ensure resources are allocated efficiently and effectively. The Economics, Statistics and Research Directorate (ES&R) coordinates all evaluation activities within DoCS. In this paper, the development of a systematic approach and framework to meet the challenge of co-ordinating the evaluation needs and activities of a large government department, along with some associated tools and processes (such as Evaluation Guidelines, Benefit Estimation Database, Costing Manual, and an annual Evaluation Agenda) are described. The paper will also outline a number of evaluations that DoCS has undertaken - ranging from small in-house ones to large ones undertaken through contracts with external consultants - and will highlight the issues encountered and the approaches used for their resolution in these evaluations.
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Victoria’s Baby Boom^ Author affiliation
The number of births in Victoria has exceeded 70,000 for the first time since the early 1970s. This ‘baby boom’ has taken most by surprise. Data from all three sources of birth notifications in Victoria was examined and analysed to determine the extent of the increase and investigate what we know about the cohort of new children and the families into which they are born. One dataset, the Victoria’s Maternal and Child Health Service (MCH) is the most current source of birth notifications in Victoria. Analysis of the birth notifications to Victoria’s MCH Service shows a significant increase in the number of births in recent years. From 2000-01 to 2006-07 there has been a net increase of 15% in the number of birth notifications. The most significant increase has been observed over the past two years, showing a 10% increase from 2004-05 to 2006-07. Major changes in age-specific fertility rates were observed. These changes that have been more pronounced and occurred more rapidly in Victoria. Our understanding of the sociodemographic characteristics of this new cohort of children and families is limited by the existing data collections. It is not yet clear whether this increase will continue and further work is underway to investigate this. However, the impact of this increase will carry throughout the lifespan of these individuals and service planning and service delivery from early childhood through late adulthood will need to take this into account.
Poster presentation (Abstract only)
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Through the Looking Glass - A Partnership in^ Author affiliation
The ‘Through the Looking Glass’ (TtLG) is an attachment based parenting project based at Lady Gowrie Child Centre Adelaide. In 2005, funding was secured from the Commonwealth Government’s Stronger Families and Communities, Invest to Grow Strategy expanding the project across centres within Adelaide and interstate for a 3-year period. Over this period, it was anticipated that approximately 30 groups would be provided with up to 200 families participating. The project has been a health, education and welfare collaborative early intervention strategy that utilized the existing infrastructure and universality of child care settings to intervene with families where there was an identified compromised attachment relationship between the parent and child/ren (0-5). The program provided intensive psychosocial support, therapeutic intervention and childcare as a package for vulnerable families in order to develop and support secure attachment relationships between parent and child. The program was designed to achieve specific outcomes for parents, children and child care staff and a participatory action research methodology was adopted where a series of pre and post project measurement tools, surveys, interviews and observations were used to collect qualitative and quantitative data from mothers, children and project staff. Specific appropriated standardized instruments that measured a range of psychological and behavioural dimensions were also used. Data from the evaluation study provide evidence that the intervention has achieved the expected outcomes with positive impact demonstrated for mothers, which has been sustained beyond the intervention. Data also demonstrate improvements in children’s wellbeing and involvement.
Poster presentation (Abstract only)
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Understanding service responses to child death by maltreatment^ Author affiliation
Marie will provide a brief summary of the New Zealand child protection context, including frontline indicators and how they have changed over time, and reporting on research relating to child homicide. Drawing together similarities and differences with respect to the Australian experience, she will then discuss the implications of this from a practice perspective. This will include a discussion of the impact of child death reviews and how using child death reviews as the key mechanism for understanding risk for children has unintended consequences – potentially reinforcing riskaverse practices across a whole response system. Developing systemic child death reviews enables us to explore the complex and multi-faceted aspects of casework in these tragic situations, and Marie provides a systemic framework for child death reviewing that extends the examination across a set of related dimensions – the family system, the worker system, the organisational system and the wider system.
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Sole Mothers: Employment and Childcare Time in Contrasting Policy Regimes^ Author affiliation
Balancing the competing time demands of work and family is especially difficult for sole mothers. Given their particular vulnerability to time and money pressures, sole parents are also particularly affected by social policies, which will influence their decisions and actions in relation to paid work, unpaid work and family care. This paper aims to explore the effects of different policy contexts upon sole and couple mothers’ time allocation to paid work and domestic labor, and upon the quantity and composition of care they provide their children. It compares maternal time use in four countries with differing policy approaches to work and family: Australia, USA, France and Sweden. Using multivariate regression analysis of both harmonized multinational time-use data and of the national time use data from each of the countries, it explores differences both between the countries in the time sole and couple mothers spend in work and care, and differences between sole and married mothers within each of the countries. The paper finds that despite broad cross national differences in total maternal time spent in paid work, unpaid work and childcare, within France, Sweden and Australia there was no sole mother child care time penalty. In contrast, within the US sole and married mothers’ child-care time was significantly different. The implication is that in the US sole mothers are limited in their ability to provide their children with the same amount and quality of care that other US children receive.
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Describing families: ABS statistics on aspects of families^ Author affiliation
A range of statistical information recently released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics will enable research in areas covered by major themes of the 2008 Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference. This presentation will highlight recently released statistics which describe family forms; relationship transitions; and exchanges of care and support between family members, whether living in the same household or not. The presentation will focus on the 2006-07 Family Characteristics and Transitions Survey, the 2006 Time Use Survey, and the 2006 General Social Survey. The statistics can be used to explore questions such as:
how many Australian children live with both natural parents, in a one-parent family, or in a step or blended family?
what are children’s visiting arrangements with parents living elsewhere?
how many Australians experienced parental separation or divorce as children?
how do Australians use their time to balance paid and unpaid work responsibilities?
how are families changing over time?
The 2006-07 Family Characteristics and Transitions Survey provides information about family structures, including step, blended and grandparent families and the children living in these families, and family formation, change and dissolution. The 2006 Time Use Survey is a rich source of information on how Australians use their time, including information on how time is allocated to paid and unpaid work and family responsibilities. The 2006 General Social Survey provides information about support provided to family members living elsewhere.
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“How Do I Look?” Links amongst Body Image, Family Functioning and Parent-Child Relationships in Teenage Girls^ Author affiliation
Body image and how it develops and changes during adolescence is a relevant matter to both therapists and researchers in the developmental and family field. This study investigates the longitudinal links between whole family functioning and relationship with parents, and body image in teenage girls. Data for the present study are drawn from the first two Waves (2006 and 2007) of the Youth Connectedness Project (YCP), a New Zealand longitudinal study following young people (in school years 6, 8 and 10) over three years. Participants were young girls who took part in this project and were included either in the youngest (10-11 years old) or the oldest cohort (14-15 years old); their self-reports of family functioning and satisfaction with body image (looks and weight) were collected in 2006 (Time 1) and one year later (Time 2). Two main hypotheses are investigated. First, we expect that family functioning at Time 1 is linked to more positive young girls’ body image at Time 2. Second, we expect that positive relationship with caregivers at Time 1 is linked to more positive body image in young girls at Time 2. We will also examine if these links are different for girls in the two age cohorts but make no specific predictions in this regard. Results are discussed in a developmental and systemic framework, namely how the family’s relational systems (whole family system and the parent-young person dyadic system) are connected to young girls’ perceptions of their body as they grow up.
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The Power of Social Inclusion in Responses to Indigenous Family Violence^ Author affiliation
Community led initiatives responding to violence in Indigenous communities have long advocated for approaches that are socially inclusive and implicitly recognise that Indigenous men, women and children are interconnected through a system of kinship and mutual obligations, and remain so even after violence has occurred. These initiatives recognize and respond in various ways to the multiplicity of factors that prevent Indigenous people from participating fully in social, economic and civic life and which have been identified as being linked to the high incidence of violence within Indigenous communities. The 2007 Social Justice Report provided 19 examples of Indigenous initiatives that have sought to break the cycle of violence. These initiatives whilst tackling the problem from a variety of angles shared some common features and provide insight into how initiatives can be framed in a socially inclusive way. The initiatives detailed by the Social Justice Report were:
developed by and for the community in which they operate;
recognised the diversity of Indigenous people and the importance of community engagement in decision making processes;
built on community knowledge and strengths, valuing in particular Indigenous staff expertise and networks; were based on partnerships with government and nongovernment organisations; and
responded in a flexible and holistic manner to the multiplicity of factors contributing to the occurrence of violence and to the many people affected by it (Calma 2008: 189-192).
These examples illustrated how self determination and empowerment can make a positive difference in Indigenous communities affected by violence. This paper will explore in more detail how social inclusion can be achieved when responding to the complexities inherent in Indigenous experiences of violence.
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The Subjective Wellbeing of Family-Based Carers: A National Disgrace^ Author affiliation
This paper concerns the subjective wellbeing of family-based carers in Australia. The research to be reported is the product of a partnership between Carers Australia, Australian Unity, and Deakin University. It concerns a survey conducted in 2007 in which 10,939 questionnaires were distributed to known carers and 4,107 were returned in time for processing. Two major outcome variables were measured as Subjective Wellbeing and psychopathology. The major result is that Carers have the lowest collective wellbeing of any group we have yet discovered in seven years of studying the Australian population. Consistent with this, they have a median rating of moderate depression. Carers seem to face a double jeopardy in all dimensions of life, in that they are more likely to experience hardship and are more severely affected by such experience. For example, over one third of those who are employed are very worried about losing their job, and their average household income is lower than is normal within the general population. Thus, their ability to pay for household essentials, save money, and have financial security, are all severely comprised. In sum, this is a highly disadvantaged and large group of citizens whose level of wellbeing is so low that it not only compromises their own functioning but also the functioning of the care recipient and the family as a whole. More financial and service resources are desperately needed to allow these families to experience a reasonable level of life quality. The full report is available from www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/index_wellbei ng/Survey_17.1.pdf (PDF 915K)
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Identification, Assessment and Referral of Domestic Violence Cases at an Urban Family Relationship Centre^ Author affiliation
This paper addresses issues of screening for family violence in the context of the increasingly complex cases that are presenting at Family Relationship Centres. It describes the use of assessment tools, history taking and how multiple appointments are arranged. It also examines the role of clinical expertise in assessing for family violence throughout the family dispute resolution process, while continuing to focus on the needs of the children. The paper describes the concept of shuttle mediation and other precautions that are put in place to ensure safety and to address power imbalances. It presents two case examples – one in which referral and support were provided to a woman who had been traumatised by an incident, and the other in which mediation proceeded although violence had been identified.
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Two Studies Evaluating the Contribution of Audio CASI to the Process of Children and Young People’s Participation in Decision Making in Child Protection Practice and with Children Living Away from Home^ Author affiliation
This paper describes two studies evaluating the contribution of audio CASI (computer assisted selfinterviewing) to the process of children and young people’s participation in decision making in child protection practice and with children living away from home. In both studies, children and young people use audio CASI for review meetings. Audio-CASI is known to be effective in collecting data about sensitive subjects 145 children and young people completed questionnaires about their experiences of using audio CASI; social work practitioners and managers involved in the cases also completed questionnaires about the contribution of the methodology to young people’s participation in the review process. Young people are positive about using audio CASI to record their views and feelings; they reported it helped them to think about their feelings and that it was ‘a good way to get people to hear what I think’ Managers and practitioners in both studies felt that using audio CASI and the data obtained led to effective participation and influence by children and young people in care and child protection planning. In conclusion, young people consider that audio CASI contributes in meaningful ways to their experience of participation in the decisions of the planning processes for their care and protection. Managers consider that young people’s participation in meetings and their influence on plans was improved.
Poster presentation (Abstract only)
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Divorce and personal wellbeing of older Australians^ Author affiliation
As the first generation that experienced high rates of divorce reaches retirement age, the number of older Australians who have experienced divorce at some point in their lives will increase dramatically in coming decades. The impact of this is compounded by the structural ageing of the Australian population. Experience of divorce has been shown to have an adverse impact upon living standards in later life (de Vaus, Gray, Qu and Stanton 2007). There are reasons for believing that divorce, in certain circumstances, may also increase the likelihood of experiencing social isolation. There are likely to be gender differences in the consequences of divorce in older age. This paper extends the work into the financial consequences of divorce to examine the connections between divorce, a wide range of measures of wellbeing and the level of support received from families, friends and neighbours. Data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (HILDA) are used. The effects of an ageing population combined with those approaching retirement having much higher rates of divorce than preceding generations will mean that the issues relating to the consequences of divorce for older people will be of high public policy relevance.
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“Still Like A Pebble In My Shoe”: Continuing Stress for Children and Adolescents in this Time of Prolonged Drought^ Author affiliation
Drought can be viewed as an environmental adversity likely to cause distress for residents in the community. This study extends the initial research carried out by the authors in 2004 that explored the emotional impact of drought on children and adolescents in rural NSW. Both studies arose from research conducted with farming communities in the Central West of NSW. Focus groups, survey questionnaires, and self-report measures were used with students and parents throughout the rural and remote southwest region of NSW to gain a better understanding of the social and emotional impacts of drought. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to measure the impact of the drought on emotional distress, peer relationships, behaviour and hyperactivity in the students. Students’ (N = 76) current levels of emotional distress [M=3.1, SD=2.4] were significantly greater than the first study sample [M=2.6, SD=2,5, t=2,62, p<.05] and Australian Norms [M=2.4, SD=2.0, t=3.49, p<.01]). Students discussed the impact the continuing drought had on them, their families and their communities. They revealed the mental health impact of a circumstance that includes many of the effects of other natural disasters. Responses from students and parents indicated increased difficulties since the 2004 study. The authors conclude that the impact of such a severe and prolonged drought is best understood as outcomes of a natural disaster. The unique relationship between farming families and their land increases the impact of drought and its many associated stresses to the point where, for many, their normal coping skills fail.
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Are We There Yet? Relocation and the Changes to the Family Law Act^ Author affiliation
Family law is riddled with controversy; however no case type generates more polarity in the community and is more difficult for adjudicators to resolve than decisions involving relocation. These are matters in which the parent (usually the mother) with whom the child(ren) spends the most time wishes to move and the other parent objects. First in 1995 and then in 2006 major reforms to the Family Law Act legislated for continued contact and shared responsibility by both parents. To those ends, the 2006 changes include a new two-tiered test (s 60C) for determining a child’s best interests and a presumption of shared parental responsibility (s 61D) which, if not displaced, requires the court to consider the child spending equal or significant time with both parents (s 65DAA). We look at what effects these amendments have had upon relocation decisions. We find that there does appear to be a shift in outcome. Significantly, the proportion of males who successfully sought an injunction to prevent a move grew whilst the number of females successfully seeking to move dropped. We examine which best interest factors are considered and whether variables such as allegations of spousal violence and child abuse, the amount of time the child spent with the contact parent prior to the relocation application, the distance of the move and expert reports appear to be influential in affecting outcome. We conclude that there is no consistent approach with judges having different methods of applying the new sections. The majority address the considerations in s 65DAA at the same time as determining whether relocation is in the child’s best interest. The Full Court Appeal decision in December 2007 does not appear to clarify the approach to be taken by judges.
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Carers' mental health: National data on families caring for a person with a disability^ Author affiliation
Carers for a person with a disability have higher levels of depression and stress than non-carers. In Australia, it is estimated that there were 474,600 primary carers to a person with a disability in 2003. In 2007 there were 116,614 people receiving Carer Payment and 393,263 receiving Carer Allowance, a 145% and 102% increase since 2000. With population ageing the number of carers is projected to increase even more in coming decades. In this study, data were compared from a representative survey of 1,002 carers who receive government payments to care for a person with a disability with data from a survey of 9,442 people from the general population. Logistic and multiple regressions were used to compare rates of mental health problems and vitality between carers and the general population while controlling for demographic characteristics. In addition, logistic and multiple regressions were performed on data from the survey of carers to identify risk factors for poor mental health and vitality that were particular to caregiving. Compared to the general population, carers were at significantly greater risk of a mental health problem and had lower levels of vitality even after controlling for demographic characteristics. For carers, the risk factors for poor mental health and lower levels of vitality were: caring for a person with a disability with greater care needs, experiencing greater levels of financial stress, having lower levels of support and reporting more problems in family functioning. Carers are at greater risk of mental health problems and lower energy levels than the general population.
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"Her beauty and her terror - the wide brown land for me!": The individual and family wellbeing of Australian rural and regional families in drought^ Author affiliation
The most recent drought has been one of the most severe on record with large parts of southern and eastern Australia experiencing dry conditions since 1996. Moreover, “For the agriculturally important Murray-Darling Basin, however, October 2007 marks the sixth anniversary of lower than average rainfall totals, with the November 2001 to October 2007 period being its equal driest such six-year period on record.” While there have been many studies of the impacts of drought, these have mostly focused on the macroeconomic impact or the impacts in very specific sectors or geographic locations. There are very few large-scale surveys that provide a focus on the impact of droughts on the wellbeing of families and communities in rural areas of Australia. It is also important to consider people who are not directly involved in primary production but are potentially negatively impacted upon by the drought. To improve our understanding of the impact of drought on families and communities in rural and regional Australia and the implications for policy, 8000 rural and regional individuals were surveyed between September to December 2007, stratified according to the level of drought in the area. In this paper we describe our study, outline our definition of drought and then examine the association between drought and individual and family wellbeing. Specifically, we test whether there is an association between drought and financial hardship, employment, mental health problems and the quality of couple and family relationships for three groups: farming families, families with a person employed in agriculture and families where no individual is employed in agriculture. We then discuss the implications of these findings.
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For the Want of a Nail: ‘Parenting’ the Overlooked Policy in Australia’s Social Policy Agenda?^ Author affiliation
It is what parents ‘do’, more than who they are, that makes the difference to child outcomes. Australian social policy encompasses many areas that impinge on children and families: women, youth, children, marriage and divorce, ageing, but overlooks ‘parenting’.
Using documentary analysis relating to families, income support, parenting and child wellbeing, as well as evidence from LSAC and ATP, this paper will explore the significance of parenting in child outcomes and the need for parent-centered policies in Australia’s social policy framework. Although parenting is the most important influence on outcomes for children and young people, most governments associate parenting support with crisis interventions, and overlook the need to provide parenting support throughout a child’s life. Times are changing however. The UK Government’s Every Child Matters: The Next Steps recognizes that Parenting Support should be universal and accessible and include a focus on key transition points in a child’s or parent’s life. In Victoria, the Government has prioritized investment in children and undertaken significant reforms through the Every Child Every Chance process, but overarching policy affirming parenting and providing accessible timely support for all parents, not just bad parents or parents of little children, is lacking. Parenting should be designated as a domain of public policy and all necessary measures adopted for supporting parenting and creating the conditions necessary for positive parenting. It is time to put away the concern that ‘parenting’ is a private matter alone.
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Parenting and Children’s Rights: Implications for Parents and Governments of the Children’s Convention^ Author affiliation
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) contains provisions that have direct repercussions for parenting – but in no way undermine the central role of parenting in child outcomes. UNCRC reinforces and endorses the primary role of parents in raising children. Children’s rights are first and foremost protected within the context of the family and the state giving proper support to families. Through an analysis of UNCRC, and Government actions to give effect to UNCRC, this paper will explore the significance of Australia’s ratification of UNCRC for its support of families and parenting. UNCRC clearly sets out what parents should do in the best interests of the child. It also prescribes a two-fold role for Governments: to recognise and support parent’s role in brining up children and to intervene to protect children where neglect or abuse is occurring. To date, most Governments worldwide have concentrated on the second role and endeavoured to respond to the first with fiscal solutions. While financial support is an essential aspect of family support, parents are increasingly calling for information and assistance with parenting. In the best interests of the child, the right of parents to appropriate support from Governments to fulfil their parenting responsibilities is not only consistent with UNCRC, but must be given prominence. The view underlying UNCRC is that Governments have a responsibility to ensure that parents have access to the resources and conditions that enable them to exercise their parenting role in a positive manner.
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Different Histories, Similar Stories: Separated Mothers Speak About Disputes Over the Care of their Children^ Author affiliation
The study upon which this paper is based examines separated mothers’ experiences of disputes over care and contact. The context for this research project is a cultural and legal shift in the way mothers and fathers are positioned in relation to their children; over the last 10-20 years fathers have been increasingly defined as essential to the social and material well-being of their children. In this paper, we present findings from indepth interviews with separated mothers and show that there are remarkable similarities, as well as differences, in the experiences of two groups of mothers: mothers whose former partners have a history of being violent and mothers whose former partners do not have such a history. The similarities in mothers’ experiences pose two interconnected challenges that we address here. First, the similarities challenge the way in which separated parents are constructed within custody law and practice. Second, and relatedly, it raises questions about how we conceptualize the power relations that structure post-separation parenting. On this basis of this work, we argue it is time to move beyond a dichotomized viewpoint of post-separation parenting that juxtaposes those that are ‘normal’, egalitarian and co-operative with those that are ‘pathological’, conflictual, and violent. We suggest that such a model not only disguises the similarities in the experiences of separated mothers, but it also disguises the way in which separated fathers use a variety of nonviolent tactics of power over separated mothers in struggles over care and contact arrangements for their children.
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Recognising moral dimensions in relationship violence prevention education^ Author affiliation
What values should or could human service workers working in violence prevention promote about what is desirable in human relationships? What moral-ethical frameworks or authorities should or could inform these values? Many human service scholars concerned with ethics would agree human services professionals have a responsibility to understand and articulate adequate grounds when they name ‘wrongs’ in human relationships. It seems important, also, that human service workers understand the grounds that inform their promotions of desirable ways to be in relationships. In this paper, I argue that promoting desirable relationships for the purposes of primary violence prevention has a patent moral and ethical dimension. This dimension of violence prevention work is underrecognised in the literature, however it can be shown that educative-type violence prevention work actively promotes ‘good’ and desirable relationships. The important question then is: what makes relationships ‘good’? Based on qualitative interviews with thirteen Australian violence prevention workers, this paper will demonstrate that workers draw from an array of moralethical authorities to shape promotions of the ‘good’ relationship in prevention work. These moral-ethical authorities are often individually or subjectively derived; and sometimes fit uncomfortably with (secular) worldviews in the prevention field, or, contrast dominant ethical frameworks featured in the human services’ ethics tradition. If it is recognised that promoting desirable relationships in violence prevention work involves promoting moral-ethical visions, I consider the field must engage in (inter-disciplinary) conversation about the question of proper grounds when promoting ‘good’ alternatives to violence in relationships.
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25 Years of Child Abuse and Neglect Data from the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane: Abuse Trends and Associated Demographic Variables^ Author affiliation
This study reviews 25 years of data collected by the Brisbane Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team. Forming in 1980, the SCAN team was designed to provide an inter-agency forum for the discussion of complex cases of suspected and recognised child abuse. Records of 6669 children’s cases reviewed by the SCAN team from the years of 1980 to 2005 were coded for analysis within the study. The analysis of this data was undertaken with a focus on examining demographic features of children presenting to the SCAN team, and in addition tracking general trends within the data throughout the 25 years under investigation. Results indicated that overall, children presenting with concerns of abuse were more likely to be female, to be from a single-parent household and to have suffered the abuse from an alleged perpetrator who was of intra-familial origin. The most common presenting concerns over the 25 year period were found to relate to physical abuse, closely followed by neglect and sexual abuse respectively. Both child gender and perpetrator relationship to the child within each abuse category was also examined, and is reported upon in further detail within the body of the report. Likewise, trends over the 25 year period in terms of presenting concern types are also presented. This data provides a visual display of both the demographic features of children who came to the attention of the RCH SCAN team over this period, and the abuse and neglect trends evident within this period.
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Conversations between Judges and Children in Family Law Proceedings^ Author affiliation
Why do judges in children’s proceedings hear from every interested party, except the child who is the subject of the hearing? This paper looks at why examples of judges speaking directly with children are so limited, despite specific acknowledgment of the practice in the Family Law Rules 2004. The paper highlights the benefits of such conversations taking place in appropriate circumstances, especially given the Family Court’s duty to take the views of children into account and Australia’s obligations pursuant to Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Research has shown that many children want to speak with judges and feel involved in the decision-making process. It is my argument that this practice has benefits for the family law system, as well as children and their families. The paper discusses the three main criticisms of the practice, arguing that such criticisms are outdated, unfounded or outweighed by the potential benefits. The Family Court’s less adversarial trial system which commenced in 2006 has created the ideal environment in which conversations between judges and children can occur. My argument is that increased dialogue between them will lead to an empowerment of children in a situation where they otherwise have little control, and decisions being made which are truly in children’s best interests. The biggest hurdle remains, however; persuading judges to embrace the practice when the majority have adhered to a traditional reluctance to speak with children. Until an attitudinal shift occurs, little is likely to change.
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Preparing Victims of Violence for Family Dispute Resolution in the New Family Law System^ Author affiliation
In the new family law system, which now effectively mandates pre-filing family dispute resolution (mediation), increasing numbers of women will find themselves representing their own interests in disputes relating to children. We know that gender issues can impact on mediation outcomes and that, for example, victims of family violence can face significant disadvantages in the process. However, despite some exemptions from participation in family dispute resolution for victims of family violence, many victims will now find themselves negotiating without legal representation in mediation processes, particularly those delivered through Family Relationship Centres. This paper explains why that is the case and explores some implications for the justice of family dispute outcomes reached in this way. The paper also considers how lawyers and workers in community legal organisations, amongst others, can assist clients who are victims of violence to achieve better, and more appropriate, outcomes in family dispute resolution by helping them to prepare for the mediation process.
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Children Tell us About ‘Having a Say’ in Family Law Decision Making^ Author affiliation
This paper reports on a recent research project which explored children’s understandings and experiences of supervised contact and of their participation in the decision making processes that surround supervised contact. The paper begins with an overview of the study and a summary of the findings in relation to the key research questions: What are children’s experiences of having a say? What are children’s views and understandings of having a say? Did children want a say in the decision for them to have supervised contact? How did having (or not having) a say feel? The discussion then focuses on a key finding from the study that suggests children’s understandings of participation are often expressed in dialogical terms. In other words, the children in this study perceived participation as taking place in and through particular forms of dialogue or conversation that provides for them, and for what they have to say, to be acknowledged, recognised and respected. With these findings in mind, we suggest that when we talk about ‘children’s participation’ in the difficult and complex context of supervised contact, we need to focus more closely on the ways in which we invite, engage and interpret dialogue and conversations with children. The paper concludes by exploring some of the implications for both researchers and practitioners when we assign conversation to a central role in the conceptualisation and practice of participation.
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The right to request flexible working in the United Kingdom: A review of the evidence and lessons for Australian policymakers^ Author affiliation
Work-life balance has moved from margin to mainstream of policy making in the United Kingdom over the past decade, with politicians from all parties eager to signal their support for working parents and a desire for further reforms. This paper examines that experience, with particular attention to the introduction in 2003 of the right of working parents with young children to request working flexibly. The paper analyses a wide range of primary and secondary data, including the Third Work-Life Balance Employer and Employee Surveys, commissioned by the author. Since 2003 there has been a marked acceleration in employer provision of flexible working arrangements in the UK, and some increase in take-up. Flexible working is now more the norm than the exception; 56 per cent of British employees say they’ve worked flexibly in the past year. As a result, requests are increasingly handled informally by employers. Employees working flexibly are more likely to be ‘very satisfied’ with their working hours. There is also evidence flexible working has encouraged women returners to stay with their existing employer. However, some areas of concern were identified. Awareness of the detail of the right appears quite low. Second, there is a gendered employer provision of flexible working arrangements, and high refusal rates encountered by male private sector requests to work flexibly. We conclude that flexible working provides greater choice – particularly for working women – but may also reinforce existing gender relations in the care of children. Some potential policy implications of these findings are discussed.
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Defining Priorities for Fatherhood Research in Australia^ Author affiliation
A one day seminar “Developing Fatherhood Research In Australia” sponsored by the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth was attended by experienced researchers and policy makers in April 2008. The aims of the seminar were to clarify priorities in regard to fatherhood research and to establish an Australian Fatherhood Research Network to progress research on fatherhood in Australia. Four topics were presented as candidates for a short list of priorities: (1) Existing parenting programs: What are the benefits (if any) of including fathers into parenting programs? What competencies are required for practitioners to engage with fathers? (2) Research methods in the area of fatherhood: Can we combine disciplines such as endocrinology and psychiatry with social science methods and approaches? (3) Policy-related research on fathers: What sort of research will advance policy supporting fathers and make policy advisors more aware of the implications for fathers’ role in policy? and (4) Basic processes in fatherhood which attitudes, behaviours and knowledge among fathers impact favourably on mothers and babies/children? This interactive presentation aims to continue the process by presenting the results of the April seminar and inviting discussion and debate on the draft priorities and on the scope and operation of the Australian Fatherhood Research Network.
Poster presentation (Abstract only)
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Practitioners' understanding of father engagement in the context of family dispute resolution^ Author affiliation
Introduction: Recent policy reforms in the family law area highlight the need for equal parental engagement in resolving separation disputes to ensure the best outcome for children. However, fathers and mothers attending the new Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) for dispute resolution may have different approaches to mediation and counselling and service providers’ beliefs and stereotypes about men’s emotions may inhibit fathers’ involvement.
Methods: Focus groups with counsellors and mediation consultants from regional and urban centres examined ‘father engagement’ in the context of family dispute resolution. Notes and transcripts from the groups were analysed to identify practitioners’ understanding of ‘father engagement’ and methods of ensuring that fathers were fully engaged in the dispute resolution processes.
Results: Practitioners were sensitive to differences between men and women and to the stereotypical beliefs that may be held by community members. The most important ways in which fathers could be engaged in the mediation process involved two steps: one involved showing the father he was respected by the service, validating his role as father, and the second involved ‘reframing’ his beliefs about fathering in the context of the new legislative climate.
Conclusion: Practitioners’ competencies at engaging fathers in the context of shared parenting may be described in terms of three types of professional knowledge – empirical, self and ethical.
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Reviewing the Research Literature to Inform Family Policy: Undertaking a Realist Review^ Author affiliation
This presentation uses a case study of a Realist Review addressing the benefits of father-involvement to reflect on evidence-based policy and service delivery for families. It is widely accepted that interventions in the areas of health and welfare should be “evidence based”. Randomised control trials (RCTs) have become accepted as the gold standard for evidence and there are established protocols for researchers conducting systematic reviews of evidence pertaining to treatments and interventions. However, there is also growing recognition that interventions addressing complex social issues cannot be properly evaluated by RCTs, which, by their nature, minimize complexity and, even when taken together, cannot explain why the intervention worked or under what circumstances it is likely to work again. Policy analysts have recently begun commissioning reviews to address precisely the question of ‘what works for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects, and how?’ One form of such a review, a Realist Review, seeks to unpack the multiple assumptions that are implied in complex social interventions to allow each element to be tested by reference to evidence. In this paper the processes involved in a Realist Review will be described. A proposed intervention to involve fathers in Children’s Centres (where multiple services for children are located) in order to improve family wellbeing was assessed through a Realist Review. The example reveals how a realist review can steer policy to question widely held assumptions and to address key aspects of complex interventions. The case also provides insight into the larger question of evidence-based practice.
Poster presentation (Abstract only)
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Informal Solutions: The Diverse Experience of Caring^ Author affiliation
Family members and friends provide a substantial amount of on-going care for children, parents, siblings and spouses with disability and long-term health conditions. The estimated 2.6 million informal carers in Australia do not represent a homogenous group of people—the experience of caring is affected by factors such as the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the carer and the care recipient, the relationship between carer and care recipient, the level and type of care provided, and the nature and amount of support available for both carers and care recipients. This in turn affects the personal wellbeing of the carer and their capacity to effectively undertake the caring role. Research and anecdotal evidence from advocacy groups has shown that carers face more challenges in personal wellbeing than the general population (Cummins et al, 2007:2). Provision of appropriate support has the potential to greatly improve wellbeing outcomes for carers. However, to provide appropriate support, it is important to understand the nature and diversity of needs among carer sub-populations. For example, poor English proficiency may make older people from culturally diverse backgrounds hesitant about utilising formal support services such as respite care. However, regular respite care would be a high priority for carers of young children with disability, as many of these carers are active in the work force. This paper explores the extent to which current survey, census and administrative data can quantify the experiences and wellbeing of carer sub-groups, highlighting the gaps and limitations in available largepopulation collections containing carer data.
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Family Diversific