Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association

Partnership at a glance

• La Trobe University and Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA) have partnered on a three-year study to identify critical junctures in the lives of children affected by family drug and alcohol misuse
• The research tracks outcomes, like school completion and emergency department visits, to uncover when, and how, interventions can make a meaningful difference
• The collaboration combines academic rigour with on-the-ground experience, helping services and policymakers better support vulnerable young people
• Insights from both research and practice aim to break down service silos and build more effective, coordinated care systems.

Case study

Which moments shape a child’s future? A new partnership between La Trobe University and the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA) aims to uncover crucial events that can change a young person’s life trajectory, especially in the context of family drug and alcohol misuse.

Children living in families affected by alcohol and other drug (AOD) use are at heightened risk of harm. Yet little is known about which children are identified by police, child protection, health services, or the justice system – and when. Even less is understood about potential moments that could shift a child’s path for the better.

These are the burning questions that VAADA CEO Chris Christoforou wants answers to. Which is why the peak body has partnered with La Trobe University’s Centre for Alcohol Policy Research for a three-year study designed to reveal these crucial moments, and create targets for policymakers and services to act on.

“It’s an exciting project,” Mr Christoforou says. “Hopefully the research will shine a light on how those different parts of the service system could better engage to identify risk early, and what the best interventions are to mitigate that risk and support young people in creating more positive futures.”

Mapping the moments that matter

The multi-stage project will first identify positive and negative outcomes tied to family alcohol and other drug use, such as school completion rates, ED visits, service referrals and reunification, and then track these in a cohort of young people.

La Trobe researchers will interview participants to explore their personal experiences. Using this information, the researchers will evaluate the benefits and costs associated with various service pathways, and make recommendations for how systems can better support vulnerable children.

“We're not a research institute,” Mr Christoforou explains. “So having this partnership allows us to draw on La Trobe’s capability, knowledge, and expertise to address the real-world questions that we want answered and make sure we’re joining the dots in the right way.”

The team at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research have deep and ongoing relationships with treatment services and advocacy groups here and abroad, and plenty of success procuring grant funding for research projects.

For example, study lead Professor Anne-Marie Laslett, a senior researcher at the centre, has been a co-investigator and technical advisor on alcohol harms to the World Health Organization. Prof Laslett developed the critical moments study with VAADA and other organisations, securing an ARC Linkage Project grant of around $350,000.

Their research team includes experts from Northern Ireland to the USA, who bring a wealth of knowledge on how to study the effects of others’ drinking habits in countries abroad, and in analysing huge data sets from the child protection and family violence sector.

This isn’t the first time VAADA and La Trobe have worked together. The organisations have long collaborated, with the peak body playing an advisory role on multiple projects.

“We've also partnered on an industry research project looking at the prevalence of bottle shops in the context of family violence incidents around the state,” says Mr Christoforou. “That's been quite an important piece of work that we've really been excited to co-author.”

Real-world experience meets research rigour

The partnership is mutually beneficial. While Mr Christoforou and his colleagues gain access to trained researchers and evidence-based insights, La Trobe staff and students gain practical experience and a direct line to issues at the coalface.

VAADA is hosting higher education social work students through internships that teach them about alcohol and other drug practices and service delivery. These students, supervised by academics, can also support small research projects within the organisation.

Prof Laslett says VAADA is “great to work with”. Thanks to their collaboration, her team has been introduced to people in the industry, such as family violence and alcohol and other drug advisors.

And as they speak to young people and assess outcomes for children within the child protection system when families are experiencing alcohol and other drug problems and family violence, VAADA can give their insights on why systems operate the way they do.

“There are lots of subtleties around data that we don’t know about when we just get a big lot of statistics, for example,” Prof Laslett says.

It helps the research team to understand why data is recorded in certain ways by certain services, or sometimes not at all. Which is important to understanding whether children will get flagged by some connections, or why the alcohol and other drug factor may be ignored or under recognised.

And conversely, their findings can give VAADA an idea of what’s happening on a bigger scale than what Mr Christoforou and his colleagues see in their practice.

“We want to make a difference,” says Prof Laslett. “We don't want to be academics sitting in ivory towers. We want to understand problems – real world problems that need solutions.”