AIFS seminar series
2008
- 11 December 2008
Corporal punishment of children – Reforming the law: The whys and the wherefores?
Judy Cashmore holds a PhD in developmental psychology and a Masters degree in education. She is currently Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney (part-time), as well as Honorary Research Associate, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW, and Adjunct Professor at Southern Cross University. She has a history of research related to children's involvement in legal proceedings related to child protection, child sexual assault, and family law. The special focus of this research has been on children's perceptions of the process and the implications for social policy and the application of research to policy and practice.
ABSTRACT
Hitting children as a means of punishment is a complex, emotive and contentious issue. Various countries, including Australia, have been criticised by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for maintaining the defence in law for parents and others in authority over children to use “reasonable chastisement”. An increasing number of countries, including New Zealand, have abolished the defence. In this presentation, Judy will consider what we can learn from the New Zealand law reform experience and from recent research regarding the impact of physical punishment on children.
At the conclusion of Judy's presentation, two further speakers will consider the issue of physical punishment. Dr Bernadette Saunders (lecturer, Monash University) will discuss children's views of physical punishment. Bernadette's presentation will be based on her PhD research, which focuses on legally sanctioned physical punishment of children, children's rights, and the intergenerational transmission of family violence. Bernadette will draw on the direct quotes of children to illustrate their thoughts and views on this issue.
Ms Diana Smart, General Manager Research at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, will conclude the seminar with a discussion of the prevalence of physical punishment and harsh parenting in two longitudinal research projects: (1) Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children; and (2) the Australian Temperament Project.
The Child Abuse Prevention Newsletter 17(1) provides more information.
View presentations: Cashmore (PDF 422 KB) | Saunders (PDF 5.7 MB) | Smart (PDF 1.6 MB)
- 23 October 2008
"Her beauty and her terror - the wide brown land for me!" - The individual and family wellbeing of Australian rural and regional families in drought
ABSTRACT
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 the Rural and Regional Families 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, the quality of couple and family relationships, community social cohesion and participation in community organisations, and the availability of key services in the area. Differences in levels of financial hardship and mental health across three groups are also tested: 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.
View Edwards/Gray presentation (PDF 8.8 MB)
Listen to Edwards/Gray presentation (MP3 7.1MB)
Read transcript of Edwards/Gray presentation
AIFS submissions to the Inquiry into Government Drought Support, Social and economic impacts of drought on farm families and rural communities:
Productivity Commission (PDF 2.3 MB)
Social Impacts Panel (PDF 1.9 MB) - 24 September 2008
Social Mobility as the Engine of Inclusion
ABSTRACT
After considering definitions of social exclusion, the presentation examines international approaches, with particular reference to the UK and the EU. International experience provides a useful perspective on the kinds of approaches to social inclusion that Australia can undertake. However, insights from other countries cannot replace the process of identifying the needs and challenges that are specific to the Australian context. To examine social exclusion in Australia, the presentation explores gradients in developmental and educational characteristics of children as a function of the social position of their families using analyses of the results of Growing up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) and comparative analyses of OECD data. It is important that Australia builds its social inclusion agendas on what has worked and avoids the problems that others have encountered. To be socially inclusive, fair and open societies need to strongly support families, value their diversity, provide high quality opportunities for all and maintain the means of mobility, irrespective of social address.
ViewHayes presentation (PDF 2.3 MB)
- 11 September 2008
"Think Child, Think Family, Think Community:
Building the Capacity of Adult Services to Respond to the Needs of Vulnerable Children"ABSTRACT
One of the major challenges in protecting children from abuse and neglect is to build the capacity of adult-focussed services such as mental health, alcohol and drug treatment services, disability, family violence, corrections, homelessness and resettlement services so that they can see, hear and respond to the needs of vulnerable children in the families they serve. In the light of the draft National Child Protection Framework, there is now a window of opportunity to pursue new strategies. The obstacles to achieving this are well known – political, philosophical and practical. But there are new possibilities emerging as “whole of government approaches” gain ascendancy in several jurisdictions and ideas and initiatives begin to transcend the conventional focus to date which has been on improving co-ordination and collaboration. Drawing on a recent visit to the UK, an overview will be given of the “Think Family” initiative released by the Social Exclusion Taskforce in Cabinet Office. Australian exemplars of family centred approaches in responding to the needs of vulnerable children and parents will be explored for their potential to be transplanted from the context in which they first developed to other settings, with the emphasis being on the transfer of principles rather than programs.
14 August 2008
Family payments: Australia's quiet achiever
Peter Davidson, Senior Policy Officer with the Australian Council of Social Service
Australia was the first country to introduce child endowment - a key goal of the early women's movement. Today's Family Tax Benefit (FTB) bears the stamp of its history. It has been assigned the same roles set out for child endowment: to reduce poverty among children, assist with the direct costs of children generally and supplement minimum wages for families. Australia's family payment system has achieved much: the 1988 child poverty package and subsequent increases in payments have reduced child poverty without seriously undermining incentives to move from welfare to work. As well as supporting jobless families, FTB provides a higher level of in-work support for low paid working families than in any other OECD country. In contrast, the poorest families have not fared so well in the United States, which splits its family assistance into tax based support for those with earnings and welfare for jobless families. The current UK Government at first adopted this approach, but has since moved towards an integrated system of family payments similar to Australia's. Economic theory suggests that it should make little difference whether family assistance is delivered through a single cash payment or via the tax and welfare systems (technically, FTB does both). However, FTB is one of the few working examples of the 'trickle down effect', where improvements in support directed towards middle-income families flow down to the poorest. In this seminar, Peter will argue that the integration of family support into a single payment that enjoys wide public support is a key factor in its success. However, FTB has its critics. Some argue that FTB: (a) undermines work incentives; (b) constitutes 'middle class welfare'; (c) is biased towards single income families; (d) does not provide enough support for parents to care for preschool age children at home; and (e) does not adequately support families with teenage children, who cost more to raise. Peter will address these issues in turn, and conclude that overall, along with adequate minimum wages, our family payments system is among Australia's quiet achievers.
Peter Davidson is a Senior Policy Officer with the Australian Council of Social Service. Peter is also a Member of the New South Wales Housing Appeals Committee, which is the appeals tribunal for public and social housing tenants. Between 2005 to 2007, Peter was an investigator in an ARC funded research project conducted by the Social Policy Research Centre to directly measure deprivation and social exclusion - the ‘New measures of disadvantage project’. Peter’s research interests and publications span a range of policy relevant issues, including: (a) poverty and inequality and their measurement; (b) reform of income taxation and superannuation; (c) employment assistance for disadvantaged job seekers; (d) reform of social security systems; and (e) comparative labour market policies.
11 June 2008
Work and conflict at home: some aspects of how work affects employees’ personal relationships and partners
Professor David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Griffith Business School, Griffith University
Modern working patterns can directly and adversely affect family lives and personal relationships, increasing the challenges people face to balance the demand to be at work and the demand to be at home. Research into policies that can assist workers to meet these competing demands has made important progress, however, more information is needed about organisational influences on the emotional aspects of this conflict. In this seminar, Professor Peetz will draw on data from a matched employee-partner survey conducted in Queensland earlier this decade. In so doing, Professor Peetz will confirm qualitative evidence that long hours of work, weekend work, irregular starting times, and high-pressure work cultures all contribute to deteriorating home relationships and dissatisfaction among partners. Professor Peetz will also discuss how the Howard government's Work Choices legislation and the Rudd government's 'Forward with Fairness' industrial relations plan are likely to affect some of these issues.
David Peetz is Professor of Employment Relations at Griffith University, where he has worked for eleven years. His current teaching areas include workplace industrial relations, employment relations, organisation of employment, foundations of industrial relations thought, and labour economic issues. Professor Peetz previously worked at the Australian National University and in the then Commonwealth Department of Industrial Relations, spending over five years in its Senior Executive Service. He has been a consultant for the International Labour Organisation in Thailand, Malaysia and China, and undertaken work for unions, employers and governments of both political persuasions. His research expertise is in the areas of collective bargaining and individual contracting, public policy, voting and electoral behaviour, asian employment relations, union membership and reform, work intensification and labour adjustment, and wages policy.
17 April 2008
Cooperation and coordination: An evaluation of the Family Court of Australia’s Magellan case-management model
Dr Daryl Higgins, General Manager (Research), Australian Institute of Family Studies
Where allegations of child abuse are raised in the context of parenting disputes, police, criminal courts, the state/territory statutory child protection departments, juvenile courts, and family courts have overlapping interests, yet distinct responsibilities. Research in the social sciences shows the frequency with which child abuse occurs, as well as the private nature of the alleged behaviours, which often means that it is difficult to produce clear evidence, regardless of the jurisdiction in which the matters are raised—particularly in relation to child sexual abuse. Coordinated approaches are needed to bringing the information from each of these relevant agencies together to ensure that private family law disputes are resolved in a way that works to reduce trauma for children and that keenly focuses the evidence-gathering and trial processes on ensuring the best outcomes for children who may have been abused or may be at risk of abuse. The Family Court of Australia’s innovative response to this issue – the “Magellan” case-management model for responding to cases where one (or both) parties have raised serious allegations of sexual abuse or physical abuse of children in a parenting dispute is discussed in this seminar. Further, quantitative and qualitative evaluation data of the Magellan case-management model are presented. Results showed that although there were areas for improvement, Magellan was largely successful in meeting its aim of providing a better and more coordinated response.
Dr Daryl Higgins is a General Manager (Research) at the Australian Institute of Family Studies. He is a Registered Psychologist, and has been conducting research in child and family welfare—particularly child maltreatment—for the past 15 years. He has responsibility for overseeing the management of a range of projects at the Institute focused on child protection, childcare, children and parenting, family life, caring for a family member with a disability, and research ultilisation in the child and family welfare sector. He was responsible for evaluating the Family Court of Australia’s Magellan case-management system for responding to serious allegations of sexual abuse or physical abuse of children that are raised in parenting matters.
View Higgins presentation (PDF 2.5 MB)
13 March 2008
Subjective wellbeing and families: Issues of measurement and data interpretation
Professor Robert A. Cummins, Professor of Psychology, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Happiness Studies, Deakin University
Since April 2001 we have been monitoring the Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) of the Australian population using the Personal Wellbeing Index. Our aims are to establish normative values and to identify people with abnormally low SWB. Each of 18 surveys has involved a new sample of 2,000 people, randomly chosen but representing the geographical distribution of the population. The data are remarkable for their stability, with the variation in population mean scores being just 3.2 percentage points. The cause of such high reliability is Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis. Here, in a manner analogous to the management of body temperature, the SWB for each person is normally held positive and within a narrow set-point range. However, all homeostatic systems have a limited capacity to absorb challenge and when aversive experiences are both strong and sustained, homeostasis fails. If this occurs, people lose their normal positive view of themselves and become depressed. Therefore, the second aim of these studies is to reveal the demographic character of families in distress, who are in need of additional resources. Our data reveal the extent to which family structure and responsibilities impact on wellbeing. They also yield important diagnostic information about individuals, and point to SWB as a crucial measure of intervention outcome. In sum, the Personal Wellbeing Index is a simple, reliable and valid measure of SWB. The measures it yields are theoretically embedded, they can be compared against solid normative data, and their interpretation is enhanced through an understanding of SWB homeostasis.
Professor Robert A. Cummins has held a Personal Chair in Psychology at Deakin University since 1997. He has published widely on the topic of Quality of Life and is regarded as an international authority in this area. He is a Fellow of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies and the Australian Psychological Society. He is on the editorial board of eight Journals and is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Happiness Studies. His current research program is directed towards theory development concerning the quality of life construct, and how such understanding can be used to improve the life experience of people who are medically or socially disadvantaged.
View Cummins presentation (PDF 4.1 MB)
14 February 2008
Engagement, analysis and reflectiveness: Developing a Framework for the
Assessment of Vulnerable Children and Their Families
Dr Helen Buckley, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
In this seminar, Dr Helen Buckley will discuss a recent project, conducted in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, to develop an assessment tool for use with vulnerable children and families. The development of the Framework for the Assessment of Vulnerable Children and Their Families consisted of a three year phased action research project, comprised of consultation, preparation of materials, piloting and evaluation of draft materials, final revision and publication. The project was completed in December 2004, and was published by the Children's Research Centre in 2006. The Framework is currently being piloted in five local health areas in Ireland. Throughout this seminar, Dr Buckley will focus on the qualitative aspects of engagement, analysis and reflectiveness that were considered central in the development of the Framework. Dr Buckley will also review current research on the use of frameworks, and identify key issues to be addressed.
Dr. Buckley is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, where she coordinates the Postgraduate Diploma in Child Protection and Welfare. She is also a Senior Research Fellow in the Children's Research Centre. Dr Buckley provides a consultancy service to the Office of the Minister for Children and was a member of the Ferns Inquiry, which investigated sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the diocese of Ferns, Co. Wexford. She has been involved in the development of child protection procedures for voluntary and statutory agencies.
View Buckley presentation (PDF 232 KB)