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Research

‘Can you sleep tonight knowing that child is going to be safe?’: Australian community organisation risk work in child protection practice

Risk averse practice has dominated the child protection field for decades, with high-profile child deaths, ever-tightening surveillance, and regulation of families. In this context, the practice of social work as ‘risk work’ including the use of risk assessment tools has been subject to substantial scholarly investigation. Less attention has been paid to the community organisations that play a central role in supporting child protection-involved parents. Based on interviews with Australian community workers, we examine their negotiation of the parent support/parent risk dichotomy.

Research

“If you don't speak from the heart, the young mob aren't going to listen at all”: An invitation for youth mental health services to engage in new ways of working

Building Bridges demonstrates the centrality of trusting relationships for systemic change and the way in which meaningful engagement is at the core of both the process and the outcome

Research

CRE in Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing (CREAHW)

CREAHW is a program of intervention research focused on achieving sustainable change for the Aboriginal community & improving the lives of Aboriginal people.

Research

Research as intervention: Engaging silenced voices

The emergence of Indigenous researchers into the public health research sector presents a challenge to what have traditionally been Western-based research...

Research

Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL): Australian research network in human health and environmental change

The HEAL Network aims to strengthen the Australian health system and community resilience to climate change, extreme events, and environmental degradation.

Research

Redressing ‘unwinnable battles’: Towards institutional justice capital in Australian child protection

Australia’s history of negative child protection outcomes for children in state care highlights the sustained, systemic nature of serious harm. Situated in emerging conversations on structural challenges and state violence for parents involved in child protection systems, we trace the resources and barriers to responsive and ‘just’ child protection practice, highlighting how institutions can serve to compound disadvantage and injustice. We argue that addressing challenges such as access to advocacy at the level of the individual is to miss the underlying politics of oppression that serves to keep families marginalised.