Consortium Members

Director:

Professor Thea Brown

Department of Social Work, Monash University

Professor Brown's most recent research focus has been on separating parents and their children, on family violence and parental separation and divorce and on services supporting separating parents. She has served on a number of governmental committees in the family law policy area. Her work has been published in Australian journals, Children Australia, Family Matters, Trends and Issues in Criminology and overseas journals, Social Services Journal (Singapore), Child Abuse Review, (UK), Kinder Mishandling, (the Netherlands), Family Court Review, (USA) and Child Abuse and Neglect: the International Journal (USA). 

Professor Brown's most recent book publications are a chapter inNew Interventions in Child Abuse and Domestic Violence, edited by Catherine Humphreys and Nicky Stanley, Jessica Kingsley, 2005, and her book co-authored with Renata Alexander,Child Abuse and Family Law, Allen and Unwin, 2007.

Members:

Associate Professor Dale Bagshaw

Leader, Centre for Peace, Conflict & Mediation, Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Socities  
Director, Postgraduate Studies and Research Portfolio Leader
Program Director, Grad. Cert. in Mediation, Grad. Dip. and Master of Conflict Management & Doctor of Human Service Research, School of Social Work & Social Policy  
University of South Australia

Click here to view Assoc. Prof. Bagshaw's homepage

Dr Becky Batagol

Lecturer, Law Faculty,  Monash University

Dr Alan Campbell

Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, University of South Australia

Click here to view Dr Campbell's homepage

Recent publications include:

• Campbell, A., (2008). 'For their own good: recruiting children for research.' Childhood, 15(1), 30-49.
• Campbell, A., (2008). 'The right to be heard: Australian children’s views bout their involvement in decision-making following parental separation.' Child Care in Practice, 14(3), 237-255.

Ms Jo Cavanagh

CEO Family Life

Ms Cavanagh has over 30 years experience in the social sector, including government, business and community organisations. She promotes community involvement in the prevention of child abuse and family violence in order to assist vulnerable young people and strengthen families. Ms Cavanagh was awarded the Australian Violence Prevention Award 1999 for “Families and Violence – a holistic, family centred approach”. She won a 1990 Churchill Fellowship to undertake a child abuse prevention study in America. Ms Cavanagh's current interests include social enterprise as mission driven strategy for organisational financial self-sufficiency and social and economic participation for the marginalised members of the community, and corporate social responsibility programs which deliver measurable social outcomes.

Dr Jan Coles

Senior Lecturer, Department of General Practice, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University

Mr Simon Curran

Senior Manager Family Services, Relationships Australia South Australia

Associate Professor Margarita Frederico

Head School of Social Work and Social Policy, La Trobe University

Dr Daryl Higgins

General Manager - Research, Australian Institute of Family Studies

Recent publications include:

• Higgins, D. J., & Kaspiew, R. (2008). '‘Mind the gap…’: Protecting children in family law cases.' Australian Journal of Family Law, 22(3), 235-258.
• Higgins, D. J. (2007). 'Cooperation and Coordination: An evaluation of the Family Court of Australia’s Magellan case-management model.' Canberra: Family Court of Australia. Click here to view

Ms Miriam Locke

Assistant Director, Psycho social Services, Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland

Dr Elspeth McInnes AM

Senior Lecturer, School of Education
Director, deLissa Institute of Early Childhood and Family Studies Research Group,
University of South Australia

Click here  to view Dr McInnes' homepage

Recent publications include:

• McInnes, E. 2008 'System Failure and Children at Risk: When Family Law, Mental Illness and Family Law Come Together,' Paper given at the Shared Parental Responsibility in Australian Family Law and the Impact on Children Seminar, Centre for Peace, Conflict and Mediation, University of South Australia, April 13-15. Click here  to view
• McInnes, E. 2007,'The attitudes of separated resident mothers in Australia to children spending time with fathers,' Australian Journal of Family Law, Vol. 21, No. 1, April, pp. 20-36.  Click here to view

Ms Samantha Page

Executive Director, Family Relationship Services Australia (FRSA )

Key publications include:

• 'Resilient Relationships - Supporting Australian Families through Tough Times' FRSA Submission to the Federal Budget 2009 (Jan 09). Click here to view
• 'FRSA National Conference Proceedings', (Nov 08). Click here to view
• 'National Leadership, Local Initiative - Turning the curve on child safety and wellbeing' FRSA Response to the Australian Government's Discussion Paper 'Australia's Children Safe and Well: Towards a National Child Protection Framework' (July 2008). Click here to view
• 'Strategies for Reducing Family Violence' FRSA Response to the Australian Government call for submissions on Developing a National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and Children. Click here to view

Professor Leon Piterman

Professor of General Practice, Head School of Primary Health Care, Deputy Dean Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University

Professor Piterman is responsible for establishing Australia’s largest and most successful University based Diploma/Masters program for general practitioners. He is a member of the Board of Examiners of the Australian Medical Council, an examiner with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and sits on numerous university, professional and government expert committees. He has published widely on clinical and educational issues related to general practice. In 1994, he shared the Hong Kong College of GP prize for best research project based on Study of Attitudes to institutional care of aged in Hong Kong, and in 1995 developed Clinical Audit Methodologies and established links between audit and continuing education. He is also a forerunner to the RACGP CME and Audit program. Professor Piterman received funding from Andrology Australia to implement and evaluate the GP education project for years 2002-2003, and has almost completed an NHMRC project titled “A randomised trial of telephone support for chronic health failure patients at high risk of hospitalisation”. Professor Piterman is currently a chief investigator on one other NHMRC grant "Mass disseminable approaches to smoking cessation in general practice”.

Dr Adiva Sifris

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Monash University

Dr Sifris practiced for many years as a practitioner in the area of family law. She joined the Faculty of Law at Monash University after completing her LLM in the area of de facto relationships. She recently completed her PhD thesis in lesbian parenting and has published widely in this area. Her publications have appeared in prestigious journals including the Australian Journal of Family Law, the Monash Law Review and the Journal of Law and Medicine.

Recent publications include:

•  Sifris, A. and Sifris, R. ‘Two by Two: Victoria’s Relationship Register’ (2009) 83 Law Institute Journal 50 – 53
• Sifris, A. and Hyams, R. ‘Australia’ in L Garb (ed) International Kidnapping (Koninklijke Brill NV of Leiden, the Netherlands, 2008) 1 - 15

Dr Danielle Tyson

Lecturer, School of Social and Political Enquiry, Monash University

Danielle's recent research interests focus on child homicide in the context of parental separation and divorce and the links to the perpetrator's mental health. Her on-going and past research examines changing social and legal responses to pleas of provocation in cases of intimate partner homicide.

Click here to view Dr Tyson's homepage.

Recent publications/papers include:

• Tyson, D. and Brown, T. (2008) 'He's no killer; he was a "loving doting dad": Preliminary findings from a study of filicide in the context of parental separation and divorce in Victoria, 1997 – 2007', paper presented at the AIC International Conference on Homicide-Domestic related Homicide, 3-5 December, Holiday Inn, Gold Coast.
• Tyson, D. (forthcoming) 'Incriminating Images: Audio/Visual Evidence in the Police Investigation and Trial of Robert Farquharson', Current Issues in Criminal Justice.