SARAH

Safety and Resiliency At Home – Voices of children who live with fear

ARC linkage application for a PhD student, led by Kelsey Hegarty and Berry St as the industry partner. Berry Street is the Industry Partner in an interdisciplinary project with Kelsey Hegarty (Department of General Practice) and Cathy Humphreys, Winsome Roberts (Social Work at University of Melbourne) and Neerosh Mudaly (Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia, Monash University).

Children living with family violence are very common in the Australian community and are associated with a wide range of emotional, behavioural, social, academic and physical problems. There has been limited research in this area when compared with other child abuse studies. This project aims to identify protective factors for children living with domestic violence that make them feel safer and more resilient. It involves interviewing children of mothers who have been afraid of their partner.
 
Child-centred responses and interventions by professionals will be the main outcomes. The significance of these findings is that children's missing voices will be heard and the outcomes will inform government policy as well as educational and counselling interventions for health and welfare professionals.