Risk assessments by expert witnesses appointed by the Family Court of Australia (FCA), and as informed by findings of any investigations by police and child protection agencies, play a critical role in the adjudication of custody disputes involving allegations of child sex abuse. This study focuses on the contribution made by these independent advisors as documented in the FCA trial transcripts of a sample of 62 such cases in the period 2012–2016. Analysis reveals that those responsible for assessing risk shared a concern for an emerging pattern of applicant responsibility for systems abuse, in conjunction with emotional abuse, as a significant child protection issue. It also raises issues for the Court when there are multiple risk assessments coming from experts who bring different disciplinary and organisational perspectives. As an exploratory study, the implications of these findings need to be viewed through the lens of protecting the best interests of the child.

Young people’s well-being has attracted significant policy and research attention in Australia and internationally for at least three decades. Despite this, there is no consensus about what it means, how it can be measured or, most importantly, what supports young people’s well-being. This paper adopts a definition of well-being as a multidimensional process, comprising subjective, material and relational factors. Drawing on self-report data collected at two time points from young people (aged 9–14 years) living in rural and regional New South Wales (N = 342 at baseline and N = 217 Wave 2), this paper seeks to identify the salience of these factors to well-being, measured through Perceived Self-Efficacy. Our analysis suggests that a sense of belonging, safety and the presence of supportive adults all appear to support enhanced well-being. The paper concludes with recommendations for policy makers and communities wishing to better support the development of young people’s well-being.

This article reports on the development of the Facial Emotion Recognition and Empathy Test (FERET) as a reliable and valid tool for assessing facial emotion recognition and empathy skills in primary school-aged children. Pictures of human faces developed by the researcher were used as response options for the children. The range of response options and their associated scores were constructed based on the Two Factorial Consensual Mood Structure, which indicates dimensions of emotions. Four hundred and twenty-two primary school children participated in the research. The children were asked to recognise emotions and display the appropriate empathetic response. Data were analysed through item analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and Item Response Theory (IRT). As a result of item analysis, FERET has been designed to include 6 items related to facial expressions of key emotions and has been found to have an internal consistency coefficient of .82 and be unidimensional. Results from the IRT indicated that all the items in FERET discriminate better responders from poor responders. It was concluded that FERET can produce reliable and valid results in measuring facial emotion recognition and empathy skills among primary school children.

The relationship between alcohol and other drugs (AOD) misuse and intimate partner violence (IPV) is well established. However, there is a pressing need for knowledge translation in relation to the association between AOD, IPV and child abuse and neglect. A substantial number of research studies and literature reviews on the relationship between AOD and IPV have appeared over the past several decades. However, heterogeneity across the literature reviews and findings, as well as in methodological differences and limitations, may contribute to interpretive difficulties that confound conclusions and/or create confusion among the researchers, practitioners and policy makers who turn to this literature for guidance in their research, treatment and policy decisions. To address this issue, this paper examines the evidence on the topic of AOD and IPV through a focused review-of-reviews methodology to compare and synthesise the overall patterns of findings derived from several reviews that have investigated the literature on the relationship between AOD and IPV. The results derived from the review-of-reviews are synthesised and integrated to present an understanding of the association between AOD and IPV in reference to child abuse and neglect. The limitations for research and practice are discussed, placing particular focus on knowledge translation in relation to child welfare policy and parents and children involved with child protection authorities.

Racial trauma describes the emotional trauma and associated psychiatric reactions, such as distress and compromised well-being, which arise from perceived incidences of racism. It is an emerging psychological paradigm that is intimately linked to state-based policy measures such as child removal. Racial trauma is also deeply institutionalised in Australia’s education system as a consequence of the focus on dominant (white Standard Australian English speaking) culture, language, literacy and numeracy standards. Despite receiving little recognition in mental health work or the education sector, the effects of such trauma are profound and can account for the high rates of suicide and social dysfunction that we see in remote Indigenous communities as well as the low academic achievement and English language acquisition rates in Aboriginal students. This paper presents a literature review related to publications that scrutinise the relationship between racism in policy and schools and racial trauma, drawing on some research findings by one of the authors. It suggests alternative Indigenous pedagogies that can both mitigate and remove racial trauma from the school environment and lead to successful academic outcomes and well-being for Aboriginal students.