Bulletin

Issue: August 2004

News

Help for abused youngsters

A multi-disciplinary team from La Trobe University is playing a leading role in the State Government's new $20 million program to help abused children.

The University assisted in the development of the program and has an on-going role in researching and evaluating the program of intensive therapeutic services.

Called 'Take Two' and conducted by Berry St Victoria (BSV), the program was launched early this year by Community Services Minister, Ms Sherryl Garbutt. Ms Garbutt said the new state-wide service would help children and young people cope with the trauma of severe abuse and neglect.

Each year, the service will provide intensive treatment to 710 children and young people. There were more than 7,000 substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect in Victoria in 2002.

The program will help young people most severely affected to cope with the trauma of abuse, and to manage longer-term behavioural and emotional problems.

La Trobe Associate Professors in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Margarita Frederico and David Green, spent six months helping develop the program. Since the program began, the University has stepped into an even larger role - to evaluate continuously the work of Take Two's 37 full-time clinical staff working from four Melbourne and five rural centres.

Ms Frederico has been joined in the continuing assessment program by other La Trobe School of Social Work and Social Policy academic staff including Professor Alan Borowski and Dr Martin Ryan. Professor Shane Thomas of the School of Public Health is another member of the team, as are two BSV staff members, Ms Annette Jackson, research manager, and Ms Carly Black, research assistant.

In addition, Ms Robyn Miller, a senior clinician with La Trobe's Bouverie Centre, has won a postgraduate scholarship attached to Take Two. She will conduct research on the program for her PhD thesis.

Other organisations in the consortium include the lead partner BSV, Austin Hospital Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, and Mindful (formerly Victorian Child Psychiatry Training Unit).

Professor Borowski and Ms Frederico are also members of the Partnership Management Group which will oversee and steer the entire operation.

La Trobe's major task will be to research, evaluate and assess each component of Take Two and to provide continuous feed back so that changes can be made where necessary.

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