$150,000

Westpac Safer Children, Safer Communities Grant

2022-2023

 Advancing organisational child-safe practices using contextual safeguarding strategies

In partnership with the Institute of Child Protection Studies, ACU, the Children’s Safety and Safeguarding Capabilities Surveys will be used to evaluate contextual prevention strategies being implemented in youth-serving organisations to safeguard children from abuse.

Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University

$16,809

University of Newcastle

2021

This project will evaluate the Name Narrate Navigate program, developed by the University of Newcastle to address youth perpetrated family and domestic violence in the Hunter Region of New South Wales.

USC Australia

$12,000

Lucy Faithfull Foundation & Stop It Now! U.S.

2021

USC Australia

$56,008

Daniel Morcombe Foundation

2020-2023

Evaluation of Changing Futures project

This project will evaluate the Changing Futures program, which is designed to build the national knowledge base regarding children's harmful sexual behaviour.

USC Australia

$142,764

Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women

2020-2022

Cairns Youth Sexual Violence Support Services – Evaluation

This research project evaluates the implementation and delivery of the Cairns-based Youth Sexual Violence Prevention Service and Youth Sexual Violence Counselling and Case Management Support Service. It will consider the efficiency and effectiveness of the service response in preventing and reducing harms caused by perpetration of youth sexual violence to drive continuous improvement in service delivery.

USC Australia

$50,000

Save the Children Australia

2020-2021

Informing Child-Safe Practice from a Contextual Lens

This mixed-methods project measures current organisational safety climate and practices in Australia. Data from this project will be used to inform an online professional development training package focused on contextual prevention frameworks to support and enhance child-safe practice. The secondary aim is to further validate Kaufman’s Organisational Safety Climate Survey, and assess the psychometric properties the newly developed short-form survey (McKillop, Rayment-McHugh, Kaufman, Ransley, & Gardiner, 2020) for measuring organisational change.

USC Australia

$337,886

Queensland Corrective Services

2020-2021

Developing an evidence-informed and culturally safe treatment program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Males convicted of sexual offences.

This applied research project involves the design and development of a new therapeutic program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men who have been adjudicated for sexual offences. A comprehensive literature and interviews with key stakeholders will be undertaken to inform the design and development of the new program. Training will be provided for QCS staff in program implementation. Pilot evaluation will be undertaken to inform program refinements.

USC Australia

$10,451

Life Without Barriers

2019-2021

Enhancing risk assessment for preventing child sexual abuse: An evaluation of Life Without Barriers 'train-the-trainer' program

The aims of the project are to evaluate the implementation of new foster carer recruitment tools, designed to enhance the prevention of child sexual abuse in out-of-home care settings.

USC Australia

$68,860

Australian Institute of Criminology

2019-2020

'LEADing evidence-informed Child Exploitation Material (CEM) Reduction.'

Effective CEM reduction requires policy and practice to be evidence informed. This project synthesises the current evidence across a range of disciplines that contribute to CEM reduction and presents it in an accessible format for use by academic, government, and practice professionals. This synthesis will ascertain what is most effective (i.e., ‘what works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects and how’) as well as ‘what looks promising’. To enhance knowledge-to-practice transfer, the research team will disseminate these findings via an accessible, interactive, and consumable online toolkit (website).

USC Australia 

$17,625

Queensland Police Service

'What Works' in Policing: Managing Child Sex Offenders in the Community

This project aims to provide a systematic review and synthesis of current empirical and practice literature on the management of chid sex offenders in the community, to identify ‘what works’, particularly with regard to community-based policing practices. The review will target risk assessment and management, intelligence, supervision and monitoring, situational management strategies, and prioritisation of resources to enhance community safety.

$22,271

Queensland Corrective Services Grant Scheme

The effectiveness of sexual and violent offender rehabilitation and reintegration programs: integrating global and local perspectives to enhance correctional outcomes

This project aims to identify the most successful pathways from rehabilitation to reintegration for sexual and violent offenders. The impact of individual-level (e.g., cultural heritage, gender, age) and program-level (e.g., type, design, delivery, dosage) factors on outcomes will be examined. Significant to QCS, this project will identify key strengths and areas for enhancement to guide future policy and practice, consistent with international best-practice standards and in line with recent Queensland review recommendations.

$33,700

Queensland Corrective Services

Evaluation framework for therapeutic interventions delivered within a forensic context

This project developed an evaluation framework to measure therapeutic progress and other associated outcomes at the individual, practitioner and system levels for adult clients undertaking individual or group therapeutic programs across custodial and community correctional settings. The proposed framework recommended for adoption by QCS is based on realist approach (Pawson & Tilley, 1997), operationalised through the EMMIE Framework (Johnson, Tilley & Bowers, 2015). This is recommended on the basis that it accommodates the complexities inherent in correctional programming and is adaptable to group and individual modalities, and custodial and community settings.

McKillop

$40,000

The Benevolent Society

Examination of the Benevolent Society’s ‘child-safe, child-friendly’ risk management framework: Recommendations for enhanced practice

The aims of this project are to systematically review current workplace culture, policies and practices and to provide recommendations for augmenting current prevention strategies at an individual, situational and systemic level, to mitigate risks associated with abuses occurring in the first place, and for appropriate responses, when abuses do occur. Guidance for developing locally-tailored, place-based prevention strategies that address the unique settings (e.g., out-of-home care, residential settings, day-care) served by the organisation will be a key focus of the final report and recommendations.

USC Australia 

McKillop

$50,000

Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women

A short-term outcome evaluation of the Bravehearts Turning Corners program

The purpose of this project is to evaluate the short-term outcomes and effectiveness of the Bravehearts Turning Corners program for addressing sexually harmful behaviour by youth. Turning Corners program was developed to fill a perceived service gap in responding to and preventing harmful sexual behaviours by youth within the community. The program provides a comprehensive, integrated and multi-systemic response to this issue through support and counselling, to address these problematic behaviours and prevent future harms. Turning Corners is unique in that clients do not need to be currently engaged in the juvenile justice system and the program has a strong focus on early intervention and improved outcomes for the young person, their family and the community. Findings and recommendations stemming from this research will help inform decision-making regarding service expansion. Learnings will help to improve and refine the Program and its service delivery as part of a broader ongoing program development strategy.

USC Australia