As a significant social problem at the foreground of social and political commentary violence, and violence against women (VAW) in particular, is receiving a great deal of local and global attention (Hooker, Kaspiew, & Taft, 2016). Following years of campaigning by women's groups, there appears to be substantial will and determination to redress this social problem both here and abroad. The movement started back in the late 1960s, with Scotland being one of the countries that led the way and ‘Much of this work was undertaken by women's units, equalities units, and later, community safety units.’ Various efforts were made to address violence towards women and sexual abuse; and ‘Undoubtedly the most high profile example of this was the development in 1992/1993 of the Zero Tolerance poster campaign by Edinburgh District Council Women's Unit’ (The Scottish Government, 2005).

Removing a child from parental care is an important and difficult decision to make. There are far reaching consequences for the child and family. Whilst there is a plethora of literature in relation to child protection practice generally, research on decision making is minimal. In this practice paper, I present 12 decision-making criteria to assist practitioners make decisions about child removal. It is important for child protection practitioners to apply the same set of principles and consider the same factors when making these decisions. These criteria are as follows: the severity of the abusive incident; the presence of cumulative harm; whether the perpetrator has access to the child; the functioning of the parent; whether the perpetrator has been responsible for child abuse or intimate partner violence in the past; the cooperation of the parent; the intent of the perpetrator; the age of the child; the functioning of the child; the voice and expressed wishes of the child; protective relationships available to the child and the statutory requirement to cause no further harm. Referring to these criteria will assist practitioners be clear and explicit about how they reach a decision, and result in greater consistency of outcome for children and families.

Grandparents play an important role in families, contributing to the maintenance of intergenerational relationships. Recent literature has identified increased incidence of grandparents raising their grandchildren, often after family breakdown. Less evident is the literature highlighting Australian grandparents’ experiences of reduced or lost contact with their grandchildren. Lost contact can result from many factors including family disputes, separation or divorce of adult children, or children being taken into State care. The primary aim of the Honours research project reported here, a component of a larger project, was to explore the lived experiences of Queensland grandparents who had reduced, lost or denied contact with their grandchildren after contact with child protection services. In recent years, almost 8000 Queensland children have reportedly been living in out-of-home care arrangements annually. In this qualitative study, in-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of seven (7) grandparents. An emerging key theme was that grandchildren were very important to grandparents, but that grandparents struggled to maintain contact with their grandchildren after families came to the attention of child protection authorities. These findings can help inform social work practice with families for the wellbeing of both grandparents and grandchildren.

There are many experiences in working with vulnerable children and families that require reflective practice on the part of the practitioner in order to identify issues of crossover between the personal and the professional, and areas of transference and counter transference. This article suggests a particular challenge is presented in the process of the practitioner becoming a parent themselves. Those who have been working with children and families for much of their careers may find becoming a parent presents a range of conflicting and challenging considerations that need to be unpacked throughout the process of transition. The author has a background of working in child protection for over 20 years and became a parent herself just over 4 years ago. She provides clinical and group supervision to a wide range of practitioners as an external supervisor. This practice-based reflection piece draws on the author's experience, with inputs from supervisees and the examined literature, to identify some key themes. The issues raised suggest a need for more research and greater thoughtfulness around the impact of becoming a parent on practitioners themselves and on their practice.

yourtown's Expressive Therapies Intervention (YETI) is a trauma and attachment informed creative arts and play therapy intervention developed for young children with emotional and behavioural problems stemming from traumatic exposure. YETI aims to improve participants’ emotional and social wellbeing; behavioural adjustment; quality of attachment relationships and self-concept. The intervention is integrated within holistic family support programmes, chiefly a domestic and family violence refuge and a young parents programme. This paper describes YETI's therapeutic model and presents findings of a two-year outcome evaluation. The findings suggest that the intervention can achieve significant positive outcomes for preschool-aged children associated with healing from developmental trauma and attachment difficulties. Analysis of pre/post assessments of participants’ social, emotional and behavioural functioning using the Child Behaviour Checklist revealed significant improvements from intake to exit in children's internalising, externalising and total problems. There were also marked decreases in the proportion of children with symptoms in the clinical or borderline clinical ranges. Thematic analyses of parent/carer surveys and therapists’ end-of-therapy reports similarly indicate widespread improvements in social, emotional and behavioural functioning as well as improvements in children's self-confidence and self-esteem, and in the quality of the parent–child attachment relationship.

This paper reports on the systematic search and review of the literature relating to the health and wellbeing of young children across the transition to school. It identified 56 papers (including empirical studies, reviews, commentaries, and reports) relevant to the research questions and completed an interpretive systematic review to ascertain the current state of the literature. The review employed the Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS) method to allow for a rigorous and systematic review of a disparate literature which stretches across several disciplines. The findings are presented in seven thematic categories: current conceptualisations of health and wellbeing, assessment and measurement, ‘school readiness’, service integration, transition actors, ‘at risk’ children, and child voice. These findings illustrate the ways in which concepts have been constructed, identified, and operationalised in early years research, practice, and policy. Moreover, it highlights that ‘what is known’ can be used to inform the review or implementation of services, practices, and partnerships that support child health and wellbeing during the transition to school.

Military deployment is typically considered a stressful period for families, generally lasting between 3 to 6 months for Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel. To date, insufficient research has been conducted concerning children and families who experience deployment within an Australian context. This study seeks to provide valuable insight into families with young children and explore their experiences of military deployment in an Australian context. Using a socio-constructivist approach, where truth is socially constructed both individually and culturally, ADF parents’ perceptions of their experiences are examined. Using Narrative Research, multiple methods of data collection are combined to gather various insights into families’ experiences. Data analysis was conducted using thematic verification identifying two main themes. Embracing an interpretivist epistemology, the researcher aims to create a shared knowledge around families’ understanding and experiences of deployment. Such knowledge will be helpful for effective support of parents, educators and professionals in their role with these children in the community.

People use reflection and reflective practice for many different reasons, including for self-care and to make sense of their experiences. In this study, social workers spoke about how they learned to be reflective, with many participants describing activities in their childhood that developed their reflective capacity. The aim of this article is to apply these ideas and examine the factors that enhance reflective capacity in children and young people. This research was part of a PhD study that involved interviews with 35 social workers in USA, Canada, UK and Australia. This exploratory study found that activities like story reading and asking children to reflect on their behaviour are early steps in the process of becoming reflective, but this needs to be followed up with conversations that deconstruct assumptions to make sense of experiences and explore multiple perspectives. This research is important for health and human service workers and others who want to develop reflective capacity in children and young people, particularly for children subject to disadvantage who need to overcome trauma and adversities.