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.

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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 (75 KB) or RTF (19 KB) for more details about her research.