Pioneering a public health approach.
The Australian Centre for Child Protection is pioneering the development of a pubic health approach to child abuse and neglect.
Just as Australia has tackled problems such as skin cancer with a range of strategies – from primary prevention to early identification and tertiary treatment services, child abuse and neglect needs a similar multi-tiered approach. We are working with others from a broad range of disciplines to develop the knowledge base on which successful strategies can be built.
This includes social marketing and health promotion strategies to change childrearing attitudes and behaviours, reducing community level risk factors, undertaking cost effectiveness studies and developing interventions that strengthen vulnerable families and reduce the impact of child abuse and neglect where it has already occurred.
To achieve this, the capacity of the current and future workforce across a broad range of services needs to be developed, including health, education and social services. To this end, we are working in close partnership with national professional accreditation bodies, tertiary education institutions and employers.
The Centre plays a vital role in working with state and territory governments in the development of knowledge-based public policy. More broadly, the Centre also engages the wider community in informed discussion about child abuse and neglect and the whole of society changes that are necessary. Part of this strategy entails proactive involvement with the media, ensuring that important messages are understood by the community.
There are no immediate solutions to the complex problem of child abuse and neglect; our work needs to be sustained into the future, over the long term. Our multi faceted approach is already making important in-roads in developing and promoting policies and programs which strengthen families and communities in protecting and nurturing their children.
For recent publications on a public health approach to child protection please see
- Scott, D.A. (2006) "Towards a Public Health Model of Child Protection in Australia" (pdf 1.7Mb) Communities, Families and Children Australia, 1(1) 9-16.
- O’Donnell M., Scott D A., & Stanley, F., (2008) "Child Abuse and Neglect – is it time for a public health approach?" Australian and NZ Journal of Public Health, Vol 32, No. 4, pp 325-330.