AIFS Research Projects
2006 - 2007

This page presents a brief summary of the research projects in operation at the Institute during 2006-2007. For more information about the projects please view the PDF file for the relevant research theme, from the Annual Report 2006-2007.

The Institute's research projects lie within the following broad themes:

 

Theme 1: Family relationships

Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse

The Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse (AFRC) aims to improve the wellbeing of families and children by supporting practitioners, service providers and policy makers in the development and delivery of family and relationship programs, ranging from prevention and early intervention through to post-separation services.

AFRC website: www.aifs.gov.au/afrc

Family Trends and Transitions

The Family Trends and Transitions project analyses and disseminates information on broad trends in patterns of leaving home, couple and family formation, family stability, and family dissolution and re-formation, along with associated values, attitudes and beliefs.

Building Healthy Couple Relationships

An important aspect of the Institute's work involves the monitoring and evaluation of research and policies on positive family relationships. Various perspectives of relationships are examined, such as, strengthening early relationships, identifying factors that contribute to relationship quality and stability; and, learning lessons from long-lasting marriages.

Family Law Monitoring and Evaluation

Monitoring and contributing to the debate on family law issues are core functions of the Institute. Activities include preparation of submissions to parliamentary committees, preparation of commissioned reports, and a regular 'family law update' column in Family Matters.

Magellan Project Evaluation

In order to better manage residence and contact disputes involving serious allegations of sexual abuse or physical abuse of children the Family Court of Australia established the Magellan case-management system. The Institute was commissioned to examine how Magellan was being conducted, its effectiveness, successful features, and any barriers to successful implementation. A report - Cooperation and coordination: An evaluation of the Family Court of Australia's Magellan case-management model was published in October 2007.

Allegations of Violence in the Context of Family Court Proceedings

Commissioned by the Attorney-General's Department to help inform its Family Law Violence Strategy, this study was designed to estimate how often allegations of family violence and child abuse are raised in family law children's proceedings, how often allegations are denied, who makes the allegations, what form the allegations take, and links between court outcomes and the presence or absence of allegations. The final report Allegations of family violence and child abuse in family law children's proceedings: a pre-reform exploratory study was published in August 2007.

Understanding Contact Disputes

The aim of this project is to gain insight into the prevalence of post-separation parenting disputes about children, and to understand the dynamics that lead to the escalation of these disputes.

Family Law Data Mapping Project

This project is a strategic review of family law data in Australia being conducted in collaboration with the Australian Social Science Data Archive. The project aims to chart and summarise the structure of various databases held by key government and non-government agencies in the family law system.

The Experiences of Parents and Children after Family Court Decisions about Relocation

The Family Court often decides whether to allow a parent to relocate with children despite opposition from the other parent. This project, funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant and being conducted in collaboration with the Australian National University, explores the way families are affected by court decision making in this area by interviewing parents and children who have experienced such disputes.

Caring for Children after Parental Separation

The main aims of this project are: to map the nature, amount and quality of parent-child contact between non-resident parents and their children; to improve understanding or reasons for a significant proportion of non-resident parents having little or no contact with their children; and, to examine the interrelation, if any, between contact and child support.

Family Law Reform Evaluation

Changes to the family law system have been introduced that aim to strengthen family relationships and change the way in which family separations are managed. Under these reforms, parents are being encouraged and assisted through non-adversarial processes to focus on the interests of children and to resolve their disputes outside of the courtroom.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies is undertaking an evaluation of the family law reform package on behalf of the Australian Government. The evaluation will assess how the new family law system is working, and how families are faring under this new system.

The Evaluation will involve three key components:

Each of these components will involve a series of studies, and information will be collected from a variety of sources. This multidimensional research program will entail a comprehensive assessment of the core policy objectives of the reform package.

Families in the Asian Region

The Institute continues to develop an improved understanding of family-related trends and issues shared by, or unique to, countries in different stages of modernisation in the Asian region, and to establish or strengthen connections with countries in the region regarding research on family relationships and wellbeing.

HILDA Survey - Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia

The Institute continues to contribute to the ongoing design of the HILDA survey, the longitudinal survey begun in 2001, and due to embark on its Wave 7 in late 2007. Institute researchers have used HILDA datasets to address a range of research questions, and have published the findings in a number of papers and presentations.

 

Theme 2: Children, youth and patterns of care

Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children

Growing Up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) continues to be a major project for the Institute. The first main wave of the study commenced in 2004 and the second main wave of data collection was completed and made available to researchers and policy makers in August 2007. The first stage of data collection for Wave 3 commenced in August 2007, with the main collection phase beginning early in 2008.

Growing Up in Australia website: www.aifs.gov.au/growingup

Australian Temperament Project

The Australian Temperament Project (ATP) which commenced in 1983, is an ongoing, longitudinal study following young people's psychosocial development from infancy to adulthood, investigating the contribution of personal, family, peer and broader enironmental factors to adjustment and wellbeing. The Institute has led the study since 2000, in conjunction with researchers from the University of Melbourne, Deakin University and the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. Fourteen data collection waves have been completed, the latest in 2006-2007 when the young people were aged 23-24 years.

ATP website: www.aifs.gov.au/atp

ATP/TAC/RACV collaboration

The collaboration between the Institute, the Transport Accident Commission of Victoria (TAC) and the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV) has entered a second stage. The first phase of the project collected data in 2002 on young people's learner driving experiences, recent driving experiences, and road safety behaviours. Findings were disseminated in reports, journal articles and conference presnetations and can be accessed on the ATP website. The second phase of the collaboration has involved collection of data in 2006 on the driver history and experiences of the 23-24 year old ATP study members. The data will be analysed in 2007-2008 and a report prepared.

Child Care in Australia: Wave 1 thematic paper

In collaboration with a number of university researchers the Institute was commissioned by the Office for Women, Department of Families, Communities and Indigenous Affairs to analyse the LSAC Wave 1 dataset to examine relations between patterns of child care and early education, family demographics and development of infants and 4-year-old children. A final report was submitted to FaCSIA in April 2007.

Child Care in Cultural Context

The focus of this study is young children's experience of continuity between home and day care and caregiver-parent relationships, with an emphasis on children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who use mainstream child care services. Findings were published in AIFS Research paper 39, Differential parenting of children from diverse cultural backgrounds attending child care in April 2007. Further findings on the effect of discontinuity between home and child care on child adjustment are planned for release in 2007.

Child Care Choices

This study was funded by an Australian Research Council linkage grant for a consortium involving Macquarie University, Charles Sturt University, the NSW Department of Community Services and the Institute to conduct a longitudinal study designed to investigate the use of multiple and changeable child care and the impact of such care on children, families and care providers. Institute involvement is limited to the analysis and presentation of findings from the first three waves.

Children and Family Life

This study is examining the family environment, development and wellbeing of approximately 1,200 children aged between 5 and 12 years growing up in intact-couple, single-parent, step and blended families. It was designed to provide information about family life and development of children reared in non-traditional family forms.

Follow-up of Study of Children Conceived through Donor Insemination

Data were collected on behalf of Professor Gab Kovacs, Monash Medical School using instrumentation developed for the Children and Family Life study. Findings are expected to have implications for families accessing donor insemination technology and children born as a result.

Families Caring for a Person with a Disability

The Institute has been funded by FaCSIA to investigate the perceived impact on carers and their families of caring for a person with a disability. A total of 1,002 carers were interviewed from around Australia using computer-assisted telephone interviews. The final report has been submitted prior to publication and a paper 'The Families Caring for a Person with a Disability Study and the social lives of carers' has been published in Family Matters 76 2007.

National Child Protection Clearinghouse (NCPC)

The NCPC is a research and advisory body that serves as an interchange point for information, research and initiatives supporting work in the fields of child abuse prevention, child protection and out-of-home care. The goal of the Clearinghouse is to inform policy, practice and research in these fields.

NCPC Website: www.aifs.gov.au/nch

 

Theme 3: Families and work

Family and Work Decisions

The Family and Work Decisions project is a study of work decisions of families with dependent children, conducted in partnership with the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. The study comprised a quantitative component (a survey of 2405 partnered and lone mothers) and a qualitative component (in-depth interviews with 61 mothers). AIFS Research paper 40 Employment aspirations of non-working mothers with long-term health problems and an article in Family Matters 75 'Mothers' accounts of work and family decision-making in couple families: an analysis of the Family and Work Decisions Study', have been published.

Parents on Low Income Study

This three-year Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project was undertaken in collaboration with the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Australian National University. The project has built a new 10-year longitudinal database, from FaCSIA administrative records and supplementary surveys, for low-income parents with dependent children.

Work and Family Interactions

This project area contains much of the research (other than the Family and Work Decisions Project) into families and their relationship with the labour market, including work and family issues, family-friendly workplace issues, transitions into and out of the labour market, and analysis of children's time use and of parental time with children.

Mothers, fathers, children and work

The objective of this project was o provide new information about, and improve our understanding of, issues relating to work and family balance for parents of infants and children aged 4-5 years using Wave 1 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

Negotiating the Life Course

Negotiating the Life Course is a longitudinal survey being undertaken by the Centre for Social Research and the Demography and Sociology Program at the Australian National University and the School of Social Science, University of Queensland. The Institute's contribution is through the involvement of a senior research staff member as partner investigator to the project.

 

Theme 4: Families and community life

Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA)

ACSSA is the sole national repository for current information and research on sexual assault. The aim of the Centre is to assist service providers, policy makers and others working in the field to improve responses to, and ultimately reduce the incidence of, sexual assault in the community.

ACSSA Website: www.aifs.gov.au/acssa

Communities and Families Clearinghouse Australia (CAFCA)

CAFCA aims to improve access to current information and resources to inform policy, practice and research in the fields of early intervention and child development. It also aims to provide information and advice to projects funded under the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy (SFCS).

CAFCA Website: www.aifs.gov.au/cafca

Evaluation of the Every Child is Important Program

The Institute was commissioned by the Australian Childhood Foundation to undertake an independent evaluation of the Every Child is Important Program, a national universal primary prevention program, aimed at preventing and reducing child abuse and neglect.

Rural and Regional Families: The Impact of Drought, Economic and Social Change

This research study will provide information on the health, family wellbeing and financial stress of families in rural and regional Australia and their communities. Although there are frequent reports of the negative impact on families of the current drought, relatively little large-scale research into this issue has been undertaken. As part of the study, telephone interviews will be conducted with 8,000 people living in rural and regional areas.

Webpage: Information for participants

Top