This seminar will report initial findings from a major new study of what Australians think are the essentials of life, and who is missing out on them. The centrepiece of the project is two surveys, one of the general population, the other of welfare service users asking about a range of attitudes to poverty, including views on what items are essential, whether or not people have them and, if not, whether this is because they cannot afford them. The study is funded by the Australian Research Council and is being conducted by a team at SPRC led by Peter Saunders in collaboration with ACOSS, Mission Australia, The Brotherhood of St Laurence and Anglicare, Sydney.

Peter Saunders has been the Director of the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales since 1987. He has worked as a consultant for a range of national and international organisations, including the Economic Planning Advisory Council (EPAC), the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the OECD, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank, the International Social Security Association, and the Royal Commission on Social Policy in New Zealand. His research interests include poverty and income distribution, household needs and living standards, social security reform, comparative social policy and ageing and social protection policy in China. He has published widely in these and related areas and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in 1995. He is currently an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow working on the concepts and measurement of poverty and inequality.

Visit the Social Policy Research Centre website for a list of Peter Saunders' recent books and current research projects.

Dr McIntosh will provide an overview of a prospective study of two groups of separating parents and their children, who followed distinct pathways through family law mediation for the settlement of their parenting disputes. Three specially trained and supervised dispute resolution teams at different locations in Australia provided the interventions to the two groups. The first mediation treatment was a form of 'Child Focused' mediation, and the second was a form of 'Child Inclusive' mediation. Each intervention aimed to reduce parental conflict, and enhance parental awareness of the needs of their children, with the aim of improving children's well-being over time.

Dr Jenn McIntosh is a clinical child psychologist, family therapist and research and training consultant. Her research and clinical practice in Australia, the UK and the USA have focussed on the experiences and needs of children and their parents and carers in the face of family trauma and loss, particularly examining the effects of parental conflict in early childhood, disrupted attachment relationships and the experiences of children in divorce. She has spearheaded a number of training and research initiatives for the Commonwealth Government and Family Court amongst others, including the Children in Focus Program, and since 1998 has developed, refined and taught child-focussed and child-inclusive post-separation processes for parents.

Dr McIntosh's current research includes a comparative analysis of family outcomes from Child Focused and Child Inclusive approaches to Family Law Mediation (funded by the Attorney-General's Department), and an evaluation and review of the impacts on children and postlitigation parenting of the Family Court's Children's Cases Projects at Sydney, Parramatta and Melbourne.

Previous research by Barber and Delfabbro (2004) indicates that approximately 15-20% of young people in Australian out-of-home care have significant emotional and behavioural problems that often condemn them to a life of repeated placement instability and psychosocial harm. In this seminar, Dr Delfabbro will draw on several recent South Australian studies to examine the family background, placement history, and psychosocial needs of children in out-of-home care. The studies on which Dr Delfabbro's seminar will be based include: longitudinal tracking analysis of children in care; a national profile study of children with high support needs; and the preliminary findings of several more recent projects. Dr Delfabbro will examine the possible origins of the multiple and complex needs of children in care and discuss how children who experience unstable care placements differ from those who achieve placement stability. Dr. Delfebbro will conclude by providing a brief overview of appropriate service responses for children in out-of-home care, as well as discussing the implications of his work for current Australian out-of-home care policies.

Dr. Delfabbro is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Adelaide. He is the author of numerous publications in the areas of foster care, gambling, and other issues relevant to social policy. In conjunction with Professor Jim Barber, Dr. Delfabbro completed one of Australia's first detailed longitudinal studies into out-of-home care. The book 'Children in Foster Care', which is based on this research, was recently awarded a North American Pro-humanitate Literary Award for the best book in the area of child welfare. Paul is currently working with the South Australian Department of Families and Communities on several projects relating to the outcomes of infants placed in care, as well as an analysis of children who have experienced different levels of stability in care placements.

See also the paper presented at the AIFS biennial conference 2005 Children with high support needs in Australian out-of-home care: A national comparative study, by Alexandra Osborn and Paul Delfabbro.

In this seminar, Commissioner Goward will describe the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's discussion paper 'Striking the balance: women, men, work and family'. Striking the Balance is an examination of the relationship between the paid and unpaid work and responsibilities of men and women in Australia and the implications for gender equity. The paper is based on public submissions, academic research, and forty-four consultations conducted around Australia with, for example, employers and employer representative groups, unions, non-government organisations, and other interested members of the public. Commissioner Goward will discuss the findings of the final report, which is due to be released later this year. Specifically, she will discuss the chronic shortage of time for unpaid care in many Australian households and her concern for its consequences. Evidence suggests that there are strong reasons of national interest driving the need to re-evaluate unpaid care, including: social and economic sustainability; improved demographic outcomes; and improved gender equity. Thus, Commissioner Goward will argue that policy responses are required across government and tiers of government, as well as in business. However, she will caution that without greater public awareness of the range of choices available to men and women - and the consequences of those choices - public policy changes are of limited use.

Pru Goward became federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner in July 2001. Following the introduction of the Age Discrimination Act in 2004, Ms Goward was also appointed Commissioner Responsible for Age Discrimination. In this role the Commissioner undertakes educational activities to promote the law, which aims to reduce barriers faced by younger and mature age people in public areas of life. Commissioner Goward is an economist by training and a broadcaster by practice, having spent 19 years with ABC TV and Radio as a current affairs journalist and later as a political reporter and commentator. In 1997 she became Executive Director of the Office of the Status of Women in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. During that time the Office became responsible for a $50 million Domestic Violence Prevention Programme. The Office also advised the Government on the fairer division of superannuation assets for divorcing couples. In 2001 Commissioner Goward was awarded a Centenary Medal for her services to journalism and women's rights.

After establishing the fact that there is public concern about the possibility that child care may negatively affect child outcomes, Dr Friedman will discuss the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Specifically, Dr Friedman will provide information about the study's methodology and key findings. Dr Friedman will evaluate key findings from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development against criteria for determining if child care is a risk factor for diminished cognitive and social child outcomes. The criteria with which the study's findings will be evaluated against include: statistical significance; the magnitude of the findings; the consistency of findings across time; the consistency of findings across settings; the relative size of the findings; the validity of statistical predictions regarding clinically worrisome behaviour; and the extent to which causality can be inferred. To conclude, Dr Friedman will discuss whether we are, in fact, in a position to link child care with diminished child outcomes.

Dr Friedman is the Director of the Appalachian Regional Educational Laboratory, one of a network of 10 educational laboratories across the United States. She earned her M.A. in Educational Psychology from Cornell University in 1971 and her Ph.D. in Developmental and Experimental Psychology in 1975 from The George Washington University. She has published extensively in the scientific literature and edited 8 books about children's psychological development. From 1989 through March 2006 she was the scientific coordinator as well as one of the primary architects and investigators of a collaborative longitudinal research project on the development of social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and health development of children from birth through adolescence (The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development).

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It is widely assumed that the economic and social costs that unemployment gives rise to must be exacerbated where joblessness is concentrated within families and neighbourhoods. This hypothesis is tested in this paper. Specifically, data from the first three waves of the HILDA Survey are used to test whether jobless individuals score worse on two indicators of wellbeing - a measure of overall life satisfaction and a measure of mental health - when they live in households with other jobless people. Consistent with a wealth of previous research, unemployment is found to be associated with lower levels of well-being, but there appears to be very little additional disadvantage that stems from being both unemployed and living in a jobless household. Females involved in home production and not actively searching for work are the only group for whom it can be confidently concluded that the situation of the household matters.

Dr Scutella's presentation is based on a Melbourne Institute Working Paper - Effects of household joblessness on measures of subjective wellbeing (PDF 479K), by Rosanna Scutella and Mark Wooden.

Until recently there has been little or no empirical data on the nature and extent of intergenerational effects caused by the policies of forced separations of Aboriginal people from their natural family and forced removals from their traditional homeland. The Western Australia Aboriginal Child Health Survey provides some of the first data to document the association between forced separations and relocations and their effects on the social and emotional wellbeing of subsequent generations. This large-scale investigation into the health and wellbeing of 5,289 Western Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 0 to 17 years was undertaken by the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research to build the knowledge for developing preventative strategies that promote and maintain healthy development and social, emotional, academic, and vocational wellbeing. This presentation will outline the survey findings in relation to the intergenerational effects of the past policies of forced removals and forced relocations on the current generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, their parents and carers. These findings have particular relevance to an understanding of the present levels of disadvantage experienced by Indigenous Australians. They also have potential to inform the policy and service directions now being established at the national, state and regional levels in the post-ATSIC period and the way in which these are negotiated and implemented within specific Indigenous Coordinating Centre (ICC) regions.

Sven Silburn is the Director of the Centre for Developmental Health at Curtin University of Technology and the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research. He is one of the chief investigators on the WA Aboriginal Child Health Survey and has been involved in a number of large scale population studies of children's development. He has a practice background as a clinical psychologist and has spent 15 years with the WA Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services before moving into a full-time research position. He has a particular interest in the systematic translation of research into policy and practice for population level enhancement of children's trajectories of development.

View the presentation (PDF 7.7MB) | Agencies that funded the Survey (PDF 420K)

Further information and publications from the Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey website

The Australian Government recently announced that it is introducing significant reforms to the Child Support Scheme. These reforms are based on the recommendations of the Ministerial Task Force on Child Support. This seminar explores the history of the Scheme, identifies some of the recent challenges to it, and the Task Force's response to these challenges. The evidence-base, which the Task Force used in developing its recommendations, will be discussed.

Dr Smyth and Dr Gray were members of the Ministerial Task Force on Child Support. The Report of the Taskforce and information about changes the Government is introducing as a result of the Taskforce can be found on the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs website.

Modern definitions of the 'family' and the way in which definitional issues impact on family benefits - and on the members of the family, especially children whose parents live apart, are the focus of this seminar. The policy and legal contexts will be used to explore the complex interplay between modern definitions of the family and the social benefit system in Sweden.

Eva Ryrstedt, LLD is Associate Professor in private law at Lund University. She has published extensively on social apsects of family law, for example de facto relationships, adoption, custody related issues and the child's right to be heard.

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Preventing sexual violence before it occurs involves a range of strategies including legal sanctions, improved police procedures and education. Anti-violence workers, activists and governments have all made moral and financial investments in education as a major strategy to reduce the incidence of sexual violence in our communities. This paper considers the current state of knowledge about the effectiveness of anti-rape education based on a sample of programs from Australia and the USA. It is contended that ill-conceived programs that target 'at risk' women have unintended consequences and result in limited long-term impact for participants. Alternative approaches that are inclusive of men and the diverse sexual experiences of both young women and men are highlighted as possible future directions for prevention education.

Moira Carmody has been working on the issue of sexual assault prevention since 1983. She has been a sexual assault counsellor and service coordinator and policy advisor on sexual assault service development to several state governments. Moira has published widely on the issue of sexual assault and is currently conducting a 3 year Australian Research Council Grant on promoting ethical non-violent relationships of young women and men in NSW. Her current position is Associate Professor (Social Sciences and Criminology) at the University of Western Sydney where she is also member of the Social Justice and Social Change Research Centre.

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In this address, I will take the audience to a country where children's rights and developmental needs occupy the top level of the political agenda - Sweden. There, child poverty is unacceptable, violence against children is not tolerated, a single child's death is too many - and extensive family support is woven into the fabric of the society. Where other nations have taken a punitive or neglectful approach to families facing challenges, Sweden has taken a proactive, preventive and supportive approach. The results are impressive - child poverty, child abuse fatalities, and child homelessness are virtually non-existent. A foundation has been created for family health and, as a result, children's potential to blossom is not squandered. I will describe Sweden's approach to family policy in order to generate ideas for changes that could be made in our own countries in order that all children can thrive.

For the past 15 years, Dr Durrant's research has focused on the psychological and cultural factors that contribute to parents' use of corporal punishment. She has lived in Sweden for extended periods to study the context, history and implementation of the world's first corporal punishment ban. Dr Durrant was the principal researcher and co-author of the Joint Statement on Physical Punishment of Children and Youth, an initiative of 6 national Canadian organisations. The Joint Statement has been endorsed, to date, by more than 160 professional organisations across Canada. Dr Durrant is also the author of public education materials, including the brochure Spanking: Should I or Shouldn't I? that has reached a circulation of more than 300,000 in Canada.

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How do we understand the experiences of people where the researcher is 'outside' these social groups? How do we undertake research in ways that does not further colonise or disempower these people?

This seminar aims to explore issues and approaches to research in contexts where the researcher is 'outside' the social/cultural group of the participants. If research is understood as an act of knowledge production, then both the positioning of the researcher and the act of research are inevitably political, where the power over the representation and categorisation of marginalised peoples and their social experiences is with others not of these groups, (usually aligned with dominant epistemologies). The net result of this kind of research and social activity is the catch cry from marginalised groups, summed up by that now in use in the disability field: 'nothing about us without us'. This paper focuses on the central importance of the meaning making process and offers a method for building meanings and understandings that explicitly draw on the located contexts of their production. The paper offers a set of 'ethics of meaning making' that support appropriate work in these contexts, and focuses on articulating one step of the method that supports these.

Erin is currently Research Co-ordinator with Scope (Vic), a major disability organisation. Her postgraduate qualifications include a doctoral degree in Social work in the field of community development, a Masters in Professional Education and Training (Deakin) and a range of other post graduate qualifications in community development and adult education. Erin is an experienced social researcher with a background in research with disadvantaged groups. Erin has held academic positions in a number of universities. Erin is also an experienced community worker and adult educator. In her current position, she co-ordinates research across many disciplines on topics relevant to people with a disability.

This paper outlines a model of how Australians are presently sustained - through forms of private family provisions for the balance of work and family life (which are thinned through greater market work), state regulation and public sector resources (also in retreat, especially in relation to industrial arrangements), and market-based solutions - the purchase of commodified forms of care and sustenance. I argue that the market is expansively engaged in filling the gap left by the 'minimal' family and shrinking public supports for it. This voracious market has important implications for the future of sustainable households.

The paper considers, in particular, the ways in which the labour market - the largest market - feeds us as it eats us. An expansive work/spend cycle employs us, rewards us, but reduces family provisions for the balance of work and family life. Adults like their jobs, plan to have children, but paid work crowds out social life and time, and generates large spillovers onto dependents. Work also feeds parental guilt. The future plans of young people offer no sign that this problem of sustaining work and family into the future is in retreat. Indeed, the growing commodification of childcare, and an early onset 'work/spend cycle' amongst young people, seem likely to accelerate its pace. What is to be done? I conclude by offering some very brief suggestions for strengthening private family capacity, expanding public support and modifying the market to create sustainable futures.

Dr Barbara Pocock is currently a Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide. She has been researching work, employment and industrial relations since 1981. She has worked in many jobs - in shearing sheds, advising politicians, the public service, on farms, in unions, teaching and researching in universities, and for governments. Her latest book, The Work/Life Collision, was published by Federation Press in 2003. Her next book about markets, care, work and consumption in Australia, is to be published by Federation Press in 2006.

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There are two groups on which there has been little research on the use of family-friendly work arrangements. First, there has been little research on the work arrangements used by lone parents to balance paid work and caring, and how they differ from couple parents. Lone parents' level of need and use of family-friendly work arrangements may differ from that of couple parents since lone parents often provide all the parental care of children.

Second, relatively little is know about the extent to which use of family-friendly work arrangements differ according to whether the caring responsibility is for children or for elderly or disabled adults.

In this paper, information on differences between these groups in use of, and unmet need for, family-friendly work arrangements is presented. The analysis is based on data from the Managing Caring Responsibilities and Paid Employment Survey, NSW, 2000. The work arrangements and types of leave examined include: flex time; rostered day off; working from home; time off in lieu; shift work; part-time work; casual work; informal arrangements with employer; paid leave; and unpaid leave. The shift to self-employment or contracting as a way of balancing work and caring responsibilities is also examined. These data provide insight into the strategies used by these groups to balance work and family responsibilities, and how they differ.

Matthew Gray has published widely on economic and social policy issues, including work and family, determinants of labour force status, welfare reform in the United States, and changes in the living arrangements of Australian children since 1946. He has also worked on economic and social policy issues related to Indigenous Australians. Matthew was a member of the Ministerial Taskforce on Child Support.

Victims of controlling domestic violence who also face family law issues continue to have their safety compromised and to suffer the abusive use of the legal system by perpetrators. A range of conditions contribute to this systemic problem, including the fragmentation of the legal 'system' faced by victims, and the emphasis given to contact with fathers and to private dispute resolution. At a more abstract level, unwillingness to look at past conduct and to attribute fault in family law proceedings has led to a failure to pay attention to issues of justice in family law. This presentation explores the possibilities which the use of restorative justice offers to victims of domestic violence with family law issues. It will be argued that, while there are considerable dangers, particularly with a generic model of restorative justice, there is also some potential in processes which are carefully designed for the domestic violence context. In particular, such processes offer the potential to extend an empowering 'justice' rather than a 'dispute resolution' frame to a wider range of cases and to overcome the current fragmentation of the legal system. Our concern should be with how to meet the needs of victims of domestic violence, rather than with the good of restorative justice in theory. We must continue to work on improvements to the formal legal system as alternatives to restorative justice.

Dr Juliet Behrens is a reader in the Faculty of Law, Australian National University, where she specialises in family law. She has a particular interest in gender issues in family law, including relocation disputes and the treatment of violence against women. She is co-author (with Professor Patrick Parkinson) of 'Australian Family Law in Context: Commentary and Materials', which has recently been published in its 3rd edition. She was formerly chair of the ACT's Domestic Violence Prevention Council, and is on the editorial board of the Australian Journal of Family Law.

Data from the first wave of Growing Up in Australia, the longitudinal study of Australian children, were released in May, and users from across Australia and internationally are just starting to analyse this large and powerful data set. Do you want to be one of them? Or are you someone who will want to make use of the analysis undertaken by others? Either way, this seminar will provide you with information that will assist you to make best use of the data.

Growing Up in Australia is a landmark study for Australia that is following 2 cohorts of children over a 7-year period. During 2004, over 10,000 families were recruited to the study, with about half having an infant as the study child, and the other half with a child aged 4-5 years. Interviewers spent on average 2 hours with each family, collecting information from the child's parents and from the child. A wide range of information was collected covering child and family health, education, childcare, family functioning, child functioning and socio-demographic variables. Information was also collected from the child's non-parental carer or teacher. A dataset of over 4,000 variables is now available to government agencies and approved researchers that can help answer many questions about children's development and the families that they live in.

This seminar will cover the conceptual basis for the study, the key research questions that are being addressed, the study methodology, the range of data collected, including some early findings, how you can access the data and what's next for the study.

The seminar will be presented by two members of the Growing Up in Australia Project Operations Team: Carol Soloff is Project Manager and has been involved in the study's development and management for the past 3 years. Carol previously worked with the Australian Bureau of Statistics on household survey development at state and national levels as well as having survey management, operations and interviewing experience; and, Sebastian Misson is Data Administrator and has had prime responsibility for preparing the dataset for release and in developing an outcome index for children's development. Sebastian has extensive experience with large-scale quantitative research at both the Australian Council for Education Research and the Australian Research Centre for Sex, Health and Society.

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Child Support Agency research indicates that a substantial number of newly separated parents are unemployed at the time of separation. The impact of these two life events, relationship separation and unemployment, is significant. In response to this, CSA is implementing a federal government initiative to support newly separated unemployed parents. The premise being tested is that parents will return to work earlier if their post separation emotional and parenting needs are recognised and addressed at the same time as assistance to find employment is provided through the Job Network.

The presentation will focus on the research that has been conducted to date to help inform the development and implementation of the initiative. This includes qualitative market research which involved 10 mini group discussions across Australia. The objectives of this research were to understand how parenting responsibilities and relationships could be activated to motivate a return to work. An action based research pilot was also conducted in the Job Network. Undertaken by Centacare Brisbane, the pilot followed 16 participants over the intervention and reports on subsequent changes in their ability to relate to their ex partner and their children as well as changes in their attitude to gaining employment. The presentation will also touch upon other research from the initiative which includes early findings from qualitative research from 17 participants in a 5 hour face to face intervention in the community sector. An outline will also be provided of quantitative research currently underway into outcomes from telephone support provided to the target audience.

Mary O'Hanlon has extensive public sector experience in project management, action based research, and product development. She is the Director of the Child Support Agency's initiative to support unemployed parents. This initiative is the first of its kind in Australia that seeks to address relationship separation issues for unemployed parents, primarily men, with the aim of increasing their motivation to return to work sooner. Mary has managed the production of several publications including Me and my kids and The financial security booklet, which was recognised with a silver award in the 2003 Prime Minister's Awards for excellence in public sector management. She is also co-author of the Allen and Unwin publication: Job Sharing: Two heads are better than one published in 2003.

View Ms O'Hanlon's presentation PowerPoint as PDF (1.8MG)

Sibling sexual abuse is a problem gaining increasing clinical and research attention. Contemporary research suggests that sibling sexual abuse is more prevalent than first thought, possibly the most prevalent form of intra-familial sexual abuse. The aim of this presentation is to facilitate an in-depth understanding of some of the key issues related to sibling sexual abuse that warrant both research and clinical attention. The existing literature on sibling sexual abuse is synthesised, historically, conceptually, and empirically. Some of the key findings reported to date, and an overview of the important factors and issues that have been highlighted for research attention is provided.

An empirical study was conducted using a clinical sample of 55 adolescent males who had perpetrated sexual abuse and were attending therapeutic programs across three sites in metropolitan Melbourne. The aim of this study was to determine whether adolescents who had sexually abused a sibling differed from adolescents who had sexually abused non-siblings on a host of variables, including: a) family factors (such as relationships, structure, and contact); b) individual characteristics (including history of abuse, other illegal behaviours, and educational and placement history); and c) nature of abuse (such as intrusiveness, victim characteristics, and legal outcome). A summary of the nature of sexual offences against siblings, and legal outcomes for this population, will be provided and preliminary findings in relation to critical factors in the development of sibling sexual abuse and victim selection will be presented. Implications for clinical practice and policy development, and further research, will be discussed.

Jo Hatch is Team Leader of Counselling and Prevention Programs at the Children's Protection Society. Jo is both a qualified Social Worker and Probationary Psychologist. She currently provides clinical interventions to families affected by sibling sexual abuse, and is completing a doctoral thesis on this issue as a component of the Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Child Specialisation). She has worked across several sectors with children and young people (and their families) who are experiencing a range of difficulties including, abuse and trauma, acute and chronic illness, disability, learning and cognitive difficulties, mental health issues, 'high risk' behaviours, substance use, and abusive behaviours (including sexually abusive behaviours). Jo has recently led the development of a pilot project for children who demonstrate cruelty to animals.

Children's contact services facilitate post-separation contact in situations of high parental conflict and/or risk to children. The two main forms of assistance provided are facilitated changeovers (enabling parents to 'exchange' children without meeting each other) and supervised contact (enabling children to be with their contact parent under the supervision of service staff). The establishment of children's contact services in the late 1980s and 1990s has been a world-wide phenomenon. They have assumed a major role in Australia since the enactment of the Family Law Reform Act 1995 (Cth) and have recently attracted a large increase in federal funding.

In this paper an overview of the findings of the recently completed Children's Contact Services study will be presented. The study explores empirically the role of Children's Contact Services in Australia and the expectations different parties (including contact services, parents, and children) may have regarding the use of contact services. The study was based on qualitative data from 142 in-depth interviews with representatives from the government, the courts and others in the legal profession who refer families to contact services, service staff and management, as well as the parents and children who use the services. In addition to these interviews, a survey of 396 families who had used a government funded contact service was conducted.

The study was conducted in Queensland by Grania Sheehan, Rosemary Hunter and John Dewar from Griffith University, and in Victoria by Rachel Carson and Belinda Fehlberg from the University of Melbourne and Adam Tomison from the Australian Institute of Family Studies. The study was funded by an ARC Linkage grant which had the Federal Attorney-General's Department as the Industry Partner.

Dr Grania Sheehan is an Australian Research Fellow based at the Socio-Legal Research Centre, Griffith University and the University of Melbourne Law School. Dr Sheehan's published work and research interests extend over a wide range of family law issues including sibling relationships in separated and divorced families, conflict resolution in families, and the financial aspects of the divorce transition including the division of property.

Social policy is often driven by politics and pragmatism. Social research is often driven by individualism and institutional competition. Policy development and research are generally not well integrated, and neither tend to be closely connected with practitioners. The result in many areas of the human services, including child protection, is that policy is not well informed by research, that research does not address the concerns of policy makers or practitioners, and that naturally occurring innovation by practitioners remains very localised.

Currently at both State and Federal levels, we are witnessing a plethora of pilot programs aimed at addressing the needs of vulnerable children and families. In this context, how might policy makers, researchers and practitioners work together to develop a national child protection research agenda and facilitate a process of 'innovation, evaluation, dissemination and replication' which could lead to systemic reform?

Recently appointed as Foundation Chair of Child Protection and Director of the new federally funded Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia, Dorothy Scott has a social work background in child protection research, policy and program development, and practice. Her most recent books are: Confronting cruelty, historical perspectives on child protection in Australia, Melbourne University Press, 2002 (with Shurlee Swain) and Qualitative research in practice, Open University, 2002 (with Yvonne Darlington). She has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and the Centenary Medal for her services to the Australian community.

View Professor Scott's presentation PowerPoint as PDF (224K)

This paper examines the history of attitudes to marriage and divorce in Australia over the past century, as set out in the author's new book To have but not to hold: A history of attitudes to marriage and divorce in Australia 1858-1975, (Federation Press, 2005).

An extraordinary revolution in family relationships took place in between 1857 and 1976. Marriage changed from an institution to be preserved at almost any cost to a union of equal partners to be dissolved when it had irretrievably broken down. This paper explores this transformation, particularly from the eyes of parliamentarians.

Henry Finlay is well-known among academics and family law practitioners in Australia. He is the author of a number of family law textbooks and has published widely on a range of topics, including transgender issues. Aside from lecturing at Monash University for many years, he has also practised as a Barrister in the Family Court in Melbourne. For the past decade he has been researching the history of divorce in Australia.

Research on gender and later life has previously focused mainly on older women. Much of this research has taken a political economy perspective emphasising the disadvantaged position of older women in relation to their pensions, health status and access to carers. From a very different theoretical tradition, there has been expansion of research on masculinities. Hitherto there has been little attempt to integrate these developments in relation to gender and ageing.

The paper argues that a reassessment of the meaning of partnership status in later life is central to understanding the changing contours of gender with advancing age. Recent British survey data is used to illustrate how partnership status is linked to material disadvantage, social networks and access to carers, but in complex and gender-differentiated ways. Older men who are never married or divorced are disadvantaged both socio-economically and in access to support from informal carers, while married men are advantaged. Older divorced and never married men also have more limited involvement in social organisations. The pattern is somewhat different for older women according to partnership status, with divorced women materially disadvantaged and never married women advantaged. There is less effect of women's partnership status on their social relationships and access to carers. (The research was funded by the ESRC as part of the 'Growing Older' programme).

Sara Arber is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director, Centre for Research on Ageing and Gender at the University of Surrey, UK. She is currently conducting EU-funded research on older people and food, on sleep and ageing women, and ESRC research on negotiating sleep among couples. She researches inequalities in health based on secondary analysis of the General Household Survey and other large surveys. She is Vice President of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Sociology of Aging. Sara Arber is currently a Visiting Fellow for two months in the Research School of the Social Sciences at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Read more about Professor Arber's work on the University of Surrey website.

Organisations that promote the rights of children argue that more meaningful social policies will evolve from considering the perspectives of those who are influenced by such policies. However, there are number of issues relating to the participation of children in decision-making processes. How do we find out about the views and perceptions of children? How do we ensure that children's views are effectively incorporated in the policy-making arena? This presentation aims to examine the usefulness of Hart's 'ladder of participation' (1992) for involving children in social research concerning the Eleven Plus system in Northern Ireland. This test is taken by the majority of 10-11 year old children to determine the type of secondary education that they receive. At the time this research was carried out, the government had set up a Review Body to decide whether to retain or abolish the test. One of the primary aims of the research was to allow children's voices to be heard by the policymakers responsible for making this decision. While Hart's model was useful in incorporating children's views into the research project, a number of difficulties were encountered and this presentation explores these and their wider implications for research with children.

Madeleine Leonard is a Reader in Sociology in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at Queen's University Belfast. She is particularly interested in debates concerning appropriate methodologies for research with children and has publications in the field of children and work, and children's qualitative educational experiences. Madeleine is currently on sabbatical at La Trobe University where she is writing up research concerning sectarianism and national identity among Catholic and Protestant teenagers who live alongside 'peace lines' in Belfast.

View Dr Leonard's Presentation PDF (75K) or RTF (19K) for more details about her research.

This presentation will address key controversies in parental monitoring literature by reviewing the research and then presenting a theoretical model of the influence of parental monitoring on adolescent independent behaviour. Parental monitoring is the widely accepted hypothetical construct used when explaining parenting behaviours, knowledge, or attitudes that are thought to influence adolescents' use of free time. Research has consistently established a relationship between poor parental monitoring and child problem behaviours in the areas of antisocial behaviour, substance abuse, academic achievement, early sexual behaviour, child safety, and self-esteem. Despite the increasing evidence of the importance of parental monitoring, interventions to improve monitoring are hampered by controversy over the directionality of monitoring behaviours. Some researchers claim monitoring will improve when parents increase their vigilance, while others purport that increased parental questioning will only discourage adolescents' willingness to keep parents informed. The implications for intervention research with adolescents will be discussed.

Dr. Louise Hayes is currently leading a project for the Ballarat Health Service which is examining the effectiveness of community-wide early intervention programs for children with emerging disruptive behaviour disorders. Prior to this, she was a Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies and the Victorian Parenting Centre. Louise's research interests include parenting, adolescent and child development, with a special interest in working with families who are experiencing child behaviour problems or parenting difficulties. Her specialty research area is parental monitoring of adolescent free time activity.

View Dr Hayes' PDF of Power Point presentation for more details about her research.

The Starting School Research Project promotes the involvement of children in research concerning their transition to school. Using many examples of approaches that have been utilised to engage children as part of the research on their transition to school, this presentation explores some of the philosophical and methodological issues involved in this stance. Approaches including conversational interviews, oral and written journals, drawings, reflections and digital photographs have been successfully introduced in order to empower four and five year old children to express what they see as important as they start school. Issues of equity and inclusiveness demand a variety of approaches such as these. However, as with all research approaches, both challenges and advantages are associated with each aspect. The presentation concludes with a more general consideration of the challenges and rewards for both adult and child researchers of engaging young children in researching important aspects of their lives.

Sue Dockett is Associate Professor (Early Childhood Education) at the University of Western Sydney. Sue has taught in both prior-to-school settings as well as the early years of school. Since 1988, Sue has been involved in teacher education programs at the University of Western Sydney. Over a number of years, Sue's research focus has been children's play, children's thinking and the transition to school. Since 1997, Sue has been co-director of the Starting School Research project, based at the University of Western Sydney.

Australians can be divided into three groups according to their relationship to money and material goods. The first two groups define their life goals by external rewards, especially money. Despite their wealth, most Australians believe that they do not have enough money to afford everything they need. This artificial sense of deprivation has a powerful influence over their daily behaviour and their political attitudes. It is expressed in two markedly different approaches to life. Some believe they must accumulate as much as they can, even at the cost of their personal relationships, in the belief that they will at some stage be in a position to live out the perfect life. This predisposition has been dubbed the deferred happiness syndrome. Another group is also driven by money, but they are more inclined to pursue instant gratification. They are the standard bearers of consumerism and their materialism explains the extraordinary growth in consumer credit. A third group consists of those who have decided to reject money as the measure of success in life and focus instead on their relationships and personal fulfilment. These are the downshifters. Although politically ignored and still socially isolated they represent a radical challenge to consumer capitalism and presage far-reaching change to Australian society.

Clive Hamilton is Executive Director of The Australia Institute, a Canberra-based progressive think tank. Trained in economics, he has held permanent or visiting academic positions at ANU, University of Sydney, and the University of Cambridge. His 2003 book Growth Fetish was a best-seller. Further papers and speeches by Clive Hamilton are available on the The Australian Institute website.

This Social Action Research is a partnership between three Stronger Families funded projects: Albion Park Neighbourhood Association working with two low density public housing estates in a semi rural context, Barnardos South Coast working on a high density Radburn style public housing estate, and Shellharbour City Council (Flinders) working with a newly developed private housing estate.

The research has been conducted over the past 24 months to define best practice models, differences and similarities of practice and community need between three vastly differing communities, the impact of housing type on need / capacity and to determine the impact of socioeconomic circumstances on practice strategies and needs. A model of Child and Family Community Development mapping the key differences and similarities between community development strategies and practice between highly vulnerable communities and communities with high capacity/ social capital has been developed. The key learnings to date have been that community development with highly vulnerable communities looks different to mainstream community development in complexity, intensity and practice strategy. The critical difference between communities is the proportion of strengths / pressures within each grouping within these communities, and the power that this has on defining the core practice strategies utilised. The model has great potential in advising policy makers and funding bodies on future community development projects targeting high needs children and families from a community development perspective. The experience of this project has shown that 'One Size Doesn't Fit All'.

Vivienne Cunningham-Smith is Senior Manager of Barnardos South Coast and a social worker with 20 years experience in government and non government services in the areas of health and child welfare. Her expertise and interests lie in community development its practice and research, management and planning. She has also run her own social work planning and management company specialising in working with community development organisations.

Nick Guggisberg, of the Albion Park Neighbourhood Association, NSW has had a broad range of experiences working throughout Australia with people and communities in building their skills and strengths. These experiences range from performing and running music workshops in remote and urban Aboriginal communities in every State and Territory in Australia, through to working in a Crisis Youth Refuge in Alice Springs, and conducting social research in the Illawarra. Nick is also the Chairperson of the Central Illawarra Youth Services and a member of the management committees for the Illawarra Family Support Service and Kiama Community College.

In this seminar, Dr Morehead develops a new framework to better understand how mothers allocate time for, and maintain the relationship between, their household and their workplace. Data was collected from one workplace (a hospital) and multiple households, including interviews with mothers and fathers, managers, union delegates and a range of other employees.

The framework includes a typology of work arrangements for households where the mother is employed and dependent children are present. The three categories in the typology are: gender skewed work arrangement (where the distribution of paid and/or unpaid work is uneven between parents); gender balanced work arrangement (a more or less even distribution of paid and unpaid work); and sole parent work arrangement (where the employed mother is the sole parent in the household).

Three dynamics underpin the typology: supports, pressures and additional labour. Supports and pressures act simultaneously to help maintain or shift a particular work arrangement within a household. The 'additional labour' that mothers do simply to keep their work arrangement intact is revealed by applying the framework to the data. Other new concepts are also developed as part of the framework, including 'synchronised time', 'lived time' and the 'power of absence'.

The research extends the literature on work and family and on women in paid work. Dr Morehead argues that the gendered dynamics within households are a key contributor to the different labour market experiences of mothers and fathers, and that the household beats the workplace hands down as a site where gender matters and where gender determines what you do.

Dr Alison Morehead is Deputy Director - Research, at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. Before coming to the Institute she was Director of Evaluations and Surveys in the federal Department of Education, Science and Training and prior to that, Director of the Work and Family Unit in the federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. In 2001 she spent five months working with the International Labour Office in Geneva on their work and family program. The research presented in this paper was conducted at Sydney University as part of Dr Morehead's PhD studies.

Between 1993 and 1996, the seminar presenter spoke with hundreds of people who were then living and working in the public housing estates of three suburbs commonly regarded as among the most disadvantaged in Australia: Brisbane's Inala, Melbourne's Broadmeadows and Sydney's Mount Druitt. A frequent theme, best expressed by a western Sydney priest who spoke of witnessing 'places of prophecy', was that impoverished families were already living in a future other Australians had begun to fear but not yet know: a future of casualised, insecure employment for men, fading opportunities for the young, and a more and more difficult struggle to find and fund private solutions for common problems. They also spoke of the great challenges to family life that stemmed from men's redundancy and sense of loss, women's overwork, and children's growing sense of hopelessness. At the same time, people spoke of activism and hope, and were exploring solutions to those dilemmas. Mark Peel argues that the assumptions of dependency and inadequacy that inform plans for 'community building' or the rejuvenation of 'social capital' ignore the fact that those who have long known the problems are not only best placed to begin the conversation about solutions and about justice but have already begun the work. Taking the care of children as an example, the ways in which the emphasis on shared parenting and common responsibilities that characterised these communities were explored and the findings offer an interesting perspective on wider dilemmas of parenting and work-family balances.

Dr Mark Peel teaches in the School of Historical Studies at Monash University. His first book, Good Times, Hard Times, told the story of Elizabeth, the working-class outer suburb of Adelaide in which he was born and went to school. His second, A Little History of Australia, told the nation's story in 9,987 words. His latest book, The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty, was published by Cambridge University Press in late 2003.

In her quest to understand parental socialization of emotion, Halberstadt has begun a multi-study investigation of parental beliefs about emotion and how parental beliefs and behaviors predict children's affective social competence. This talk will describe several theoretical dimensions of parental beliefs about emotion and how theory meets with the realities of parents' reported beliefs in three subcultures in the United States. The major data set discussed in the talk will be a qualitative study involving 74 parents who self-identified as African-American, European-American, and Lumbee Native-American. Parents participated in two small focus group sessions and discussed their beliefs at length. Both similarities and differences across the ethnicities emerged, as well as enhancements to the theoretical structure.

Prof. Halberstadt's research interests include emotion experience and expression; family relationships through the lifespan; affective social competence and gender issues through the lifespan. She is co-author (with Ellyson, S.L.) of two books on Explorations in Social Psychology and Social psychology readings: A century of research and is author of many journal articles. Further details and publications.

The average hours worked by full-time employees in Australia have increased since the late 1970s. This, combined with increases in female labour force participation, has led to concerns about the impact of long work hours on family life. This paper explores the relationship between fathers' work hours, their own wellbeing and that of their families using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The analysis is restricted to full-time employed fathers with a partner and dependent children. Overall, satisfaction with work hours decreases as the number of hours worked increases. However, long work hours are not necessarily, or even on average associated with pervasively lower wellbeing. Work hours are negatively related to only two of the thirteen measures of wellbeing examined. For fathers working very long hours, their satisfaction with their work hours is found to be very important to the relationship between work hours and wellbeing.

Lixia Qu is a Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. Her current research work includes demographic trends analysis; the living arrangements of older people and personal wellbeing; couple formation issues including links between premarital cohabitation and marital stability; changes in and determinants of labour force participation of lone and couple mothers; and factors contributing to fertility decision making. Ms Ruth Weston is a Principal Research Fellow at AIFS; Dr Matthew Gray was Principal Research Fellow at AIFS until May 2004 while Mr David Stanton was the Director of AIFS from May 1999 to January 2003.

It should not be assumed that parental drug misuse necessarily leads to negative outcomes for children. However, the presence of biological and family environmental risk factors increases the likelihood that children exposed to parental drug misuse will develop their own psychosocial or substance abuse problems. Such children commonly experience neglect, family violence or abuse, and lead disrupted and unpredictable lives. It is estimated that over 60,000 Australian children have a parent in drug treatment. Despite treatment being a time when parents are often highly motivated to make broad changes that will impact on their whole family, drug and alcohol agencies are seldom resourced or trained to address parenting or children's needs. Consequently, an opportunity for preventative or early intervention work is missed. Unless these children come to the attention of child protection services, many will remain nobody's clients.

The 'Nobody's Clients' Project was a targeted prevention and early intervention program for 4-13 year old children whose parents accessed treatment for their substance misuse. Supported by a $200,000 grant from the R E Ross Trust, the two year project aimed to identify and then address the needs of these children. Over 220 individuals were involved in the project, either as clients, or as part of the consultation process. Using an action research model, project staff members worked intensively with more than 48 children and over 70 members of their extended families for between 3 and 12 months. Results from the project highlight the experiences of these children, as well as the views of their parents, other carers, and workers. Recommendations include more child inclusive services, family support, and parenting training within the drug and alcohol sector, and improved collaboration with the child and family welfare and education sectors.

Dr. Stefan Gruenert was the Project Manager for the Nobody's Clients Project which recently won a National Drug and Alcohol Award for excellence in serving a special target population. Stefan has worked as a clinical supervisor, senior counsellor, and youth worker in a range of settings including generalist and student counselling services, and at Odyssey's residential Therapeutic Community. He has conducted research on men's issues, intimacy, and family work, especially the needs of children and the role of fathers. Stefan has also lectured and run tutorial sessions for Psychology courses in counselling, statistics, drug and alcohol work, family work, personality disorders and communication and has presented his work at several National and International conferences. Menka Tsantefski and Samantha Ratnam were co-authors and project officers for the Nobody's Clients Project.

The report from the project titled 'The Nobody's Clients Project Identifying and Addressing the Needs of Children with Substance Dependent Parents' is on the Odyssey website: http://www.odyssey.org.au/institute/projects/full_report.pdf (PDF 2.1 MG)

The report is co-authored by Bruce Smyth and Elly Robinson

Mental health issues permeate the family law system - at least according to anecdote. Yet such issues are rarely mentioned in family law research, policy and practice. This presentation brings a population health approach to this area. It outlines the prevalence of mental disorders in the general population, their contribution to disability and their impact on quality of life. The interaction of mental health problems with family separation is then discussed. Short-term (acute) effects of separation and long-term (chronic) consequences are described, including the increased rates of suicide in divorced men and women. We argue that the family law system can make a contribution to improving the mental health of adults during and after marital separation and, through this, can help improve the long-term outcomes of children affected by parental separation. The system has an important role to play in mental health promotion and prevention.

Practical suggestions are made for how organisations and professionals in the family law system can help clients with mental health problems, including minimizing their stressful experiences in the system, providing information, encouraging clients to deal with mental health problems, assisting with problem solving, referral to specialist services, and dealing with clients who are suicidal. The family law system as a whole can support such initiatives through helping to build better information resources, developing best practice guidelines and staff training, and lobbying for the necessary resources for these initiatives.

Bryan Rodgers is a Senior Fellow at the Family and Community Health Research Unit, Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University, and a NHMRC Research Fellow. Bryan's research interests include the personal and social antecedents of mental health problems. Much of this research adopts a life-span developmental approach using data from prospective longitudinal studies. Several projects on childhood adversity focus on parental divorce/separation. Recently, he has examined the interface between the Family Law System and mental health problems. With Jan Pryor, he is author of the book Children in Changing Families: Life after Parental Separation (Blackwell, 2001).

Additional information about the project, Mental Health and Changing Families, run by Ms Elly Robinson and Dr Bryan Rodgers, is available at: http://www.anu.edu.au/cmhr/changingfamilies.php. The article by Bryan Rodgers, Bruce M Smyth and Elly Robinson 'Mental health and the family law system' has been published in the Journal of Family Studies, v.10 no.1 Apr 2004: 50-70. Information about the journal is available at: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/publichealth/family_studies/jfs_home.htm

The Columbus Pilot project (Columbus) conducted in the Family Court of Western Australia (FCWA) during 2001-2003, was established to deal with cases that are characterized by violence. Within the context of Columbus, the Family Court of Western Australia, and in particular the counselling service of the Family Court (FCCS) are in a unique position to identify the needs of parents in terms of the most appropriate interventions to address issues ranging from anger management, dealing with a violent partner, or 'customising' parenting skills for a parent who has been living with an abusive partner. The role of the social scientists in assessing risks and needs, developing appropriate interventions and assisting clients, be they the perpetrator or the victim (adult or child) to develop new skills, is central to the concept of the individualised case management approach inherent in Columbus.

The Columbus Pilot project has not only acted as a catalyst for a number of changes in the Court including an emerging culture of reflective practice as both the judicial officers and the counselling service staff develop new skills and knowledge, and refine their joint practice in this very difficult area of family litigation and dispute resolution. This seminar discusses how the Columbus process of jointly chaired interdisciplinary conferences in the FCWA has influenced the evolution of such a model of reflective practice.

Dr Lisbeth Pike is Associate Professor of Community Psychology at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. Dr Paul Murphy is a postdoctoral scholar in the Centre for Psychological Research at ECU. The authors have been assisting the Family Court of Western Australia with the evaluation of the Columbus Pilot project for the past two years. They are presenting their findings at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Conference in Texas next month.

This paper attempts to account for the existence of parallel systems of values in families where grandparents condemn divorce, yet act to support their adult children when they face relationship breakdown. Rather than dismissing this as hypocrisy, the paper seeks to understand the context in which values are formed and how they can gradually become more complex and contradictory as social and personal contexts change. It also seeks to understand how the idea of divorce can change over time from shameful secret to a modern rite of passage. The paper explores change across two generations of family relationships in order to add to the debate on whether commitments within families are in decline.

Carol Smart is currently researching the influence of divorce on wider kin relationships, transnational kinship, gay and lesbian 'marriage', and contact and residence disputes concerning children. Some of her most recent publications include: The Changing Experience of Childhood: Families and Divorce, (2001) with B. Neale and A. Wade, Cambridge: Polity Press; Family Fragments? (1999) with B. Neale, Cambridge: Polity Press; and The 'New' Family? (1999) edited with E. Silva, London: Sage.

In 1979 and 1980, I undertook fieldwork with Kuninjku people in central Arnhem Land who live at small remote communities called outstations on Aboriginal-owned land. In this region people continued to live off the land, maintaining many elements of their customary economy. This initial research was published in a book Hunter-Gatherers Today: An Aboriginal Economy in North Australia (1987) that highlights the family-based residence and relations of production of these people. In 2002 and 2003, in collaboration with a team of natural scientists and another anthropologist, I replicated elements of this earlier research and found that the customary economy remained dominant and sustainable.

This seminar examines continuity and change over the 25 year period that I have worked in Arnhem Land. While much of my comparative research aims to focus on economic issues, and especially the nature of the hybrid economy (with customary, market and state sectors), in this seminar I focus on social and cultural issues, especially family and gender relations, and seek to explain the sustainability of this very unusual economy in modern Australia, the social relations that underpin it, and its future prospects.

Jon Altman is Professor and Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) at the Australian National University. He has an academic background in economics and anthropology and has undertaken research on a range of Indigenous economic development and social policy issues in Australia. More information about Professor Altman and a detailed listing of his research output is available at: http://www.anu.edu.au/caepr/StaffProfiles/altman.php.