Research Projects

 

The Research and Program Development team contributes to the work of the Service Group’s Social Justice Unit by:

  1. building the evidence base which underpins our service models and supports high quality practice
  2. facilitating research-based advocacy by establishing the policy frameworks which best support children, young people and families experiencing acute disadvantage
  3. analysis of Minimum Data Set and outcomes measures for all UnitingCare Children, Young People and Families programs.

We have an extensive internal research program and participate in research partnerships with universities, government and other non-government organisations. Our research publications series will be posted shortly.

 

Current research projects include:

  • Exploring processes of change in parenting interventions for high risk parents: ARC Linkage Grant with the Children and Families Research Centre, Macquarie University
  • Understanding School Responses to Students Challenging Behaviour and exploring student experiences of suspension/exclusion in NSW schools
  • Child-led research
  • A critique of conditional welfare and the new paternalism: constructing alternatives visions for the welfare state
  • Educational outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care
  • The application of Bruce Perry's work on the impact of trauma and maltreatment on a child’s developmental capacity to practice in residential care settings
  • Effective practice in working with families effected by, and perpetrators of, domestic violence
  • Evaluation of Newpin Inside: a therapeutic program for parents in prison
  • We are also developing evaluation frameworks for new Burnside services including Yenu Allowah (the Aboriginal Child and Family Centre in Mt Druitt) and a Community Detention model for unaccompanied minors. Later this year we will conduct a clinical trial on the application of the Emotional Freedom Technique in Unifam’s work with families undergoing high conflict separations and study the outcomes for clients of UnitingCare Disability who have been assisted to transition from boarding houses to supported accommodation.

Commissioned research projects for release in 2011 include:

  • Parent and child outcomes for families participating in Burnside’s Child and Family Network at St Marys (Children and Families Research Centre, Macquarie University)
  • An evaluation of the child-led research project (Centre for Children and Young People and the NSW Commission for Children and Young People)
  • Outside School Hours Care: patterns of use for middle years children in low-income families (NATSEM, University of Canberra)