08 May 2025
UniSA’s Australian Centre for Child Protection (ACCP) will lead research into the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary and child friendly response to child sexual abuse in Europe.
ACCP has been awarded a $910,000 Oak Foundation grant to help evaluate the impact of the Barnahus response to child abuse.
The Barnahus model (translates to ‘Children’s House’ in Icelandic) is a multidisciplinary and child friendly response to child sexual abuse in Europe that aims to bring together all relevant professionals under one roof, creating a safe and child-centred environment for investigation and support.
Dr James Herbert will lead the million-dollar research project with partners in the United Kingdom and Germany to better understand the variations in how countries implement Barnahus and how to measure the impact of these different models for children.
“The project will evaluate the impact of Barnahus in Europe and look at the evidence,” says Dr Herbert.
“An Australian being awarded this grant for a project in Europe is a really important recognition of the work that ACCP has done to date in advancing research into multidisciplinary responses like Children’s Advocacy Centres (CAC) and Barnahus.”
Along with research into multi-disciplinary models in Australia, Dr Herbert has a strong track record of international collaboration.
This has included a national survey of CACs in the United States to identify the scale of resources they had to support children, contributing to a review of medical services at the Chicago CAC, supervising a research project in Canada into the alignment of multi-disciplinary teams, and serving on the international evaluation advisory committee for the Scottish ‘Bairns Hoose’.
The research team will work closely with the Barnahus Network and their membership on the project across 28 countries in Europe.
“The Barnahus approach is an excellent example of what systems change can look like and what’s possible when we put children at the centre of our considerations,” Dr Herbert says. “Long term, I’m hoping that we will be able to bring the learning and experience from this work back to Australia.”
The ACCP has received the Oak Foundation grant under their Prevent Child Sexual Abuse Programme.
The ACCP is Australia’s premier research centre for the prevention of child abuse and neglect; the Director is currently Professor Leah Bromfield (2025 Australian of the Year for SA). It was established by the Commonwealth Government in partnership with the University of South Australia in 2004 to better prevent and respond to child abuse and neglect by helping to not only grow the evidence base but also translate it into practice.
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Contact for interview: Dr James Herbert M: +61 402 298 734 E: james.herbert@unisa.edu.au
Media contact: Candy Gibson M: +61 434 605 142 E: candy.gibson@unisa.edu.au
