Child protection and prevention of child mistreatment
Professor
Leonie Segal and
Kim Dalziel,
in the Health Economics and Policy Group, are in the process of building a
major work program on the economics of child protection. This is being
pursued in collaboration with Professor Dorothy Scott, Director of the
Australian Centre for Child Protection at UniSA.
The objective of this research program is to work with government to develop an evidence-based strategy for investing in the protection of children. A work program is underway to compare the performance of some 30 distinct intervention options for preventing child abuse and neglect and ameliorating harms. It is planned to analyse a wide range of interventions including:
- Programs to support pregnant women at risk
- Nurse home visits for new babies
- Early childhood interventions (such as universal 3 year-old kindergarten programs)
- Selected alcohol and drug interventions
- Mental heath programs for persons subject to previous abuse (to improve their health and wellbeing and reduce risk of intergenerational abuse)
- Intensive support programs for children in out of home care
- Parenting programs
- Community-based ‘urban renewal’ programs
- Juvenile offender programs
The aim is to establish where to invest to maximise gains, through reduction in cases of abuse and neglect and moderation of associated harms. This will be the first research in this field to include the quality of life of victims of child abuse in the estimates of program performance.
Professor Segal is also working with clinicians and service providers to gather evidence of the performance of selected Australian-based child protection initiatives; including;
- an intensive Parent Attachment Therapy for children with severe behavioural problems (who are found to have been subject to abuse;
- a mental health liaison worker located within the child protection services;
- a play group parenting program for parents of children in care to replace ‘supervised access’ visits.
This research is proceeding in collaboration with government officers from
Families and Communities SA, the Department of Health SA, Child Youth and
Women’s Health Service, the Social Inclusion Unit (P&C) and the Department
of Education.