Research at the Department of Social Work

Research Strengths

Professor Margaret Alston
Head of Department

Projects for which funding has been received:

• Social impacts of the water crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin.
• Experiences of rural birthing for women in remote areas.
• Experiences of people living in rural and remote areas with a brain injury.
• Gender analysis of the 2020 Summit recommendations for the Office for Women.

Projects for which funding is being sought:

• Gendered impacts of climate change in Australia (DAFF)
• Second stage funding for social impacts work in the Murray-Darling Basin (Monash internal grant)
• Social impacts of declining economic viability for fishing families and communities across Australia (FRDC)
• Leadership development for women in agriculture in Papua New Guinea (Ausaid)

Professor Thea Brown

Professor Brown became Professor of Social Work in 1987, serving as Head of Department for almost seven years.

Earlier she worked as a social worker and social work manager in NSW as well as Victoria prior to being appointed as a lecturer in Social Work at the University of Melbourne. Thea was the second social worker in Australia to graduate with a PhD in Social Work and during her candidature she won a grant to review social welfare planning policies in the USA.

Her research interests include social work education and she was editor of Advances in Social Work and Welfare Education, 1990 - 93.  She has undertaken accreditation of overseas social work courses, for example in Hong Kong and Malaysia.  Her most recent research interests are in social work and social services management, family violence and child protection in the context of parental separation and divorce.  She was a member of the federal government committee, the Family Law Pathways Advisory Group, 1999 - 2001, and the Child Abuse Advisory Committee of the Family  Court, 1998 - 2002.  She has published in Australia and overseas in the area of career achievements and in social work, employment in social work, social work management, child protection and the family court.

Associate Professor Max Liddell

Associate Professor Liddell is a highly experienced practitioner and manager of family and children's services in both Australia and North America, with extensive practice in casework, family work, group work, management, community development and lobbying.

Prior to joining Monash in 1989 he had many years experience in planning and leading successful lobbies in the human services, and a number of years as a private consultant, specialising in program planning and evaluation and management issues.

His research interests currently are into the functioning of the child welfare and protection systems, and local citizens' roles in community development. He is most recently a co-author of Young People Leaving Care and Protection, published by the Australian Clearing House for Youth Studies and Developing Human Service Organisations, published by Pearsons. He is one of Australia's most experienced human service program evaluators.

Dr Philip Mendes

Dr Mendes joined the Department of Social Work in 1995 after a number of years of practice in the areas of child protection and income security. He is an acknowledged expert on community welfare lobby groups, having completed his PhD on the peak community welfare body, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS).

Philip has also published widely on child abuse and child protection, including leaving care policies, globalisation welfare lobby groups, welfare politics and ideology, and drug law reform. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Australian Social Work, and has also been a committee member of both the Victorian Council of Social Service and the Australian Association of Social Workers Victorian Branch. Philip's book Australia's Welfare Wars: the Politics, the Players and the Ideologies was published by UNSW Press in March 2003.

Associate Professor Rosemary Sheehan

Prior to joining Monash in 1989 Dr Sheehan worked as a social worker in Australia and overseas in the areas of oncology, mental health and women's health. She has post graduate training in family therapy.

Her research areas: child welfare and the law; family violence, mental health, judicial and corrections responses to offenders, with particular reference to women offenders and social work curricula. Her research has examined the nature of child abuse matters that are presented in the child welfare jurisdiction, the extent to which family violence and child abuse are manifest in Family Court matters, the extent to which children of parents who have mental health issues also feature in these matters, and have studied judicial decision-making in child welfare and family law matters. Her widely recognised contribution to scholarship in the area of child welfare and the law culminated in the publication of /Magistrates’ Decision-Making in Child Protection /(Ashgate, 2001). Recent research grants (ARC Linkages 2002-04) the effectiveness of prison transition programmes; she has convened two international conferences at the Monash Centre in Prato, Italy, in 2005 and 2007 addressing: /What works with Women Offenders: effective responses to female //offenders/. Australian Criminology Research Council Grant (2206) examined the impact of parental imprisonment on children in the child protection system. She is currently undertaking a study of Australia's Children's Courts (ARC Discovery 2009-10).

She is convening, in September,2009 an international conference: /Children and the Law: International approaches to children and their vulnerabilities/, to explore the rights and best interests of children in the 21st Century.

Dr Sheehan is a Council Member of Mannix College at Monash University, a member of the Quality and Advocacy Committee at MacKillop Family Services, and holds a sessional appointment in the Children's Court of Victoria as a Dispute Resolution Convenor.

Associate Professor Chris Trotter

Associate Professor Trotter worked for almost 20 years as a social worker and a regional manager in child protection and corrections prior to his appointment to Monash University in 1991.

He has published widely on the subject of 'effective casework' particularly in public welfare settings. His research on the relationship between worker intervention styles and client outcome has achieved international recognition and the casework model developed in his research is being used in several countries.

In recent years Dr Trotter has received a number of research grants to continue his work and he has been in demand, both in Australia and overseas, for papers and consultancies. His latest book Working With Involuntary Clients has been published by Allen and Unwin.

Lesley Hewitt

Lesley Hewitt joined the Department of Social Work in 1991 after working for several years in child protection services in both policy and direct service. Lesley was the inaugural co-ordinator of the first 24 hour hospital based sexual assault counselling service operating at the former Queen Victoria Medical Centre.

She has published in the area of sexual assault, family violence and child abuse. Her MSW thesis explored factors that influenced the decisions of child protection workers investigating allegations of child abuse. Her current research interests included family violence with particular emphasis on the impact on children, and she is a member of the Departmental research team that includes Thea Brown and Rosemary Sheehan who are examining how the Family Court of Australia deals with child abuse allegations.

Lesley has been involved in utilising on-line technology in the teaching of the undergraduate social work degree and has completed post graduate qualifications in this area.

Dr Bernadette Saunders

Prior to working at Monash, Dr Saunders worked in the field of Medical Social Work, particularly in the areas of cancer and terminal illness. As part of her MSW at Monash, she conducted and wrote a report on a program evaluation at a foster care agency, and she published a non-commercial book on child abuse risk assessment.

In 1996, she was invited to join the Child Abuse & Family Violence Research Unit at Monash University (now known as Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia – CAPRA) as a researcher, and the Social Work department as a sessional teacher. The Australian Research Council funded research project in which she participated explored risk assessment in child protection practice and the response of community professionals to mandatory reporting legislation. This, and subsequent, research in CAPRA resulted in publications in both national and international refereed journals on child abuse risk assessment; language and children’s rights; child abuse and the media; and the physical punishment of children. She also co-authored, with Chris Goddard, a chapter on child sexual abuse and the media, as part of a Queensland Crime Commission inquiry: Project Axis.

Bernadette has completed her PhD, which was funded by the Australian Research Council and The Australian Childhood Foundation as part of an Australian Post-Graduate Award (Industry). Her PhD research focused on legally sanctioned physical punishment of children, children’s rights, and the intergenerational transmission of family violence. Her most recent publication is a chapter on the physical punishment of children, co-authored with Chris Goddard, in a Jessica Kingsley book, Mason, J. and Fattore, T. (Eds), ‘Children Taken Seriously’.