Child and family safety

Violence, abuse and maltreatment in families is insidious and complex. It affects long-term outcomes for children and is also strongly linked to issues such as substance use, financial distress and homelessness. 

Governments at all levels are focused on addressing different types of violence within families, investing resources and drawing on available evidence to inform policies and programs. Institutions continue to play a critical role in child safety and wellbeing, with various strategies and policies aimed at reforming child protection and out-of-home care systems. 

Our child and family safety research theme supports creating safer environments for children and families across Australia. It focuses on understanding violence, abuse and maltreatment within families, and providing an evidence base to inform policy and practice. We explore how systems, services and communities can better respond to risk and trauma, and how families can be supported through prevention, intervention and recovery.

Key research areas

Under the child and family safety theme, we explore violence and maltreatment within families, including:

• Domestic, family and sexual violence, including gender-based violence, child abuse and neglect, adolescent experiences and use of violence, coercive control and systems abuse, and elder abuse.
• Online safety and how the digital environment effects family safety – especially for children and young people, including safeguarding online spaces, parental support for navigating the ‘digital childhood’, risks and protective factors in online interactions.
• Family law, child support, child safety and out-of-home care systems and how the legal and service systems interact with families experiencing harm, including family law and child support frameworks, child protection and out-of-home care, and tertiary service systems and cross-sector responses.