Researchers from the US, the UK and Italy will present findings from several recent studies of child protection issues and/or the role and welfare of the family at a Round Table discussion at the Centre on Wednesday, August 29.
The Round Table will be jointly hosted by La Trobe University School of Social Work and Social Policy and the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, Victoria’s peak body for 95 community-based family, adolescent and children’s welfare organisations.
The forum aims to give Australian practitioners new insights into a diversity of contemporary approaches to child welfare internationally, including intervention, prevention, reunion and rehabilitation of families in which children have been neglected or abused.
Government and voluntary organisation administrators and researchers will hear the results of the latest research in this field from several large studies in the UK, the United States and northern Italy, from foundation members of the International Association for Outcome-based Evaluation and Research in Family and Children’s Services.
Marian Brandon, a Senior Lecturer in Social Work from the School of Social Work and Psychosocial Sciences at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, will present the findings of a recent major study of child death and serious injury in the UK – the first English analysis of a total cohort of reported deaths and serious injury to children and young people from abuse - and the implications of these findings for earlier intervention.
Assistant Professor Robin Spath, from the School of Social Work, University of Connecticut, US, will present the results from a five-year $1.3 million US study of abused children and their families in the US States of Maine and Connecticut – including therevelation that with adequate support and ongoing education, manychildren taken into protective care can be successfully reunited with their biological families.
Professor Tiziano Vecchiato, Vice President of the International Association for Outcome-based Evaluation and Research on Family and Children’s Services, and Director of the Zancan Foundation, Italy, a Centre for Research on Social Health and Educational Issues, will talk about his work for the Italian Ministry for Family Policies and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).
Dr Cinzia Canali, Senior Researcher at the Zancan Foundation, will discuss her research findings from a range of studies of Italian child and family services. (The Zancan Foundation is affiliated with the University of Padua.)
The joint Round Table is one of a series of child and family welfare research events the researchers will attend in Melbourne as guests of La Trobe University, including an international researchers’ Colloquium at the University’s Bundoora campus (from 2pm-4pm Monday, August 27).
The group is visiting Melbourne to continue international research collaborations with Dr Patricia McNamara, a lecturer in the School of Social Work and Social Policy at La Trobe, and a Board member of the International Association for Outcome-based Evaluation and Research in Family and Children’s Services.
They will also visit the northern regional office of Berry Street, Victoria, at 9 am on Tuesday, 28 August, and the Italian researchers will visit the Carlton offices of CO.AS.IT (Comitato.Assistenza.Italiani), Victoria’s Italian migrant welfare agency, at 10 am on Tuesday, 28 August, before continuing to a New Zealand conference on evidence-based research.Tuesday, 28 August 2007La Trobe University - Centre for Excellence Round Table on Child Welfare ResearchPolicy-makers and child and family welfare specialists will hear from four pre-eminent researchers in this field at a high-level research forum at the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare in Melbourne next week.
Interview requests/picture opportunities:
At the Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare, Level 5, 50 Market Street, Melbourne, from 3.30pm to 4.30pm, Wednesday August 29 (prior to the Round Table), and at Co.As.It, 189 Faraday St. Carlton, from 10 am on Tuesday, 28 August.
Contacts
La Trobe University: Dr Patricia McNamara, School of Social Work and Social Policy, La Trobe:
Tel: 61 3 9479 5681 M: 0417 138884 Email: p.mcnamara@latrobe.edu.au
Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare: Sunitha Raman, Director, Social Policy and Wellbeing Unit, or Coleen Clare, CEO, Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare:
Tel: 96141577 Email: coleen.clare@cwav.asn.au
Co.As.It.: Dr Walter Petralia, Manager Health & Community Program/ Co-As-It.
Tel: 9349900 Email: walterp@coasit.com.au