Issues for the safety and wellbeing of children in families with multiple and complex problems
Issues for the safety and wellbeing of children in families with multiple and complex problems
The co-occurrence of domestic violence, parental substance misuse, and mental health problems
Leah Bromfield, Alister Lamont, Robyn Parker and Briony Horsfall
Families with multiple and complex problems are no longer a marginal group in service delivery. In fact, they have become the primary client group of modern child protection services. The challenge for child protection services is to respond holistically to address inter-related problems, in order to better support families to make and sustain changes to better meet the needs of children.
Authors and Acknowledgements
Dr Leah Bromfield is an Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia.
Alister Lamont is a Research Officer for the National Child Protection Clearinghouse at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Robyn Parker is a Senior Research Officer for the Australian Family Relationships Clearinghouse at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Briony Horsfall is a Research Officer at the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the feedback and advice provided by Dr Robyn Mildon, Robyn Miller, Elly Robinson and Daryl Higgins who reviewed this paper. The authors also acknowledge the Parenting Research Centre who gave the authors permission to include their “Effective strategies for responding to trauma in adults” developed by the Parenting Research Centre in association with the Australian Centre for Post-traumatic Mental Health.
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