Message from the Director

I am pleased to present the corporate plan for the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS), which will guide our work over the next four years.

We are the Australian Government's key independent research body and advisor in matters to do with family wellbeing, including the harms caused by gambling. Our purpose is to create and communicate knowledge to inform government policy and accelerate positive outcomes for children, families and their communities. We are experts in identifying and measuring the impact of established and emerging factors that help or hinder Australian families in all their diversity.

In June, we welcomed the new Minister for Social Services, the Hon. Amanda Rishworth to the AIFS Conference where she outlined the government's agenda and priorities for families. AIFS' evidence about family breakdown, gambling harm, elder abuse and family violence can help inform government policy in these and other issue areas. Coupled with the insights from our 10- and 20-year longitudinal studies of children, men, and humanitarian migrants - our research can help identify solutions to some of the government's action priorities; for example, overcoming social fragmentation, the eradication of family violence and the promotion of social inclusion and equity.

We are now one of the seven agencies authorised to link administrative data. This year we will deepen our analyses by linkages across datasets, enabling new insights from qualitative data.

Some of the research priorities in 2022/23 include:

• increasing our understanding of new trends and impacts on the development of children and their life trajectories by revisiting for the 10th time (since 2004) a sample of some 7,500 children, now adults, and 12,000 parents in Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children
• improving our knowledge about the health of some 7,000 men and boys by undertaking the next wave of data collection and analysis for the 10-year-old study, Ten to Men: The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health
• tracking the settlement experience of refugee families by undertaking the 10th year of data collection and analysis for Building a New Life in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Humanitarian Migrants
• evaluating the effectiveness of Children's Contact Centres to assess whether they provide a safe venue to enable contact between children and their separated parents
• new research on families of current and ex-serving Defence Force members to better understand experiences of service life, wellbeing and service and support needs
• developing understanding of the harms caused by the relationship between gambling and drinking among young people aged 16-35 years.

Our four-year outlook includes research leadership harnessing the power of administrative and other data and converting this into meaningful recommendations for government. We will also continue to magnify the impact of our research through publishing and other best practice guidance for the family services sector.

Hon. Dr Sharman Stone
Director, Australian Institute of Family Studies