This includes 3 projects with Flinders University’s Social Work Innovation Research Living Space (SWIRLS), 2 of which look at the intersection between child protection and family and domestic violence (funded by the Early Intervention Research Directorate and delivered in partnership with the Department of Human Services).

These projects recognise that families entering the child protection system often experience a broad and complex range of challenges, requiring coordinated supports and interventions.

In 2019 SWIRLS held a series of collaboration workshops that brought together partners from child protection, women’s domestic violence services, and Aboriginal family violence services to share knowledge and find better ways to support practitioners to recognise and respond to domestic and family violence in the context of child protection.

We are now working alongside each other to trial and test 2 prototypes to improve collaborative practice in the Southern Metropolitan Region – one with Women’s Safety Services SA and the other with Konar Winmil Yunti, Aboriginal Family Services. You can read a Project update on the intersections of domestic and family violence and child protection on the SWIRL blog.

Other research collaborations currently underway include:

• 3 PhD studies relating to cumulative harm, practice through a reform lens and communication in the courts
• 2 large data projects looking at the Early Childhood Data Project (BetterStart group - University of Adelaide) and the economic consequences of child protection (iCAN – University SA), both using linked administrative data from many government departments
• an evaluation of the TAFE child interviewing course (Deakin University)
• an investigation of the characteristics of people involved with the department and their flow through the child protection system, including outcomes and contact patterns for children who are screened-in and screened-out (BetterStart group - University of Adelaide), using linked data from health, education, human services and many other government resources
• a data linkage project with the Australian Government to explore care leavers welfare payments and dependence.