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ASPC: Social policy conference at UNSW concludes with a focus on children

Children's experiences of parental relationship breakdown, and life for refugee children after settlement, will be among the topic discussed on the final day of Australia’s largest social policy conference.

Published on the 27 Sep 2017 by Wendy Frew
How do refugee children cope in the countries that accept them for resettlement?
How do refugee children cope in the countries that accept them for resettlement?

Children's experiences of parental relationships after separation, sex and gender diversity in the 2016 Census, and the ethical limits of attaching conditions such as child immunisation to welfare payments are among the presentations being given on the closing day of Australia’s largest social policy conference.

The biennial Australian Social Policy Conference, hosted by UNSW’s Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC), brings together over 300 leading national and international researchers, practitioners and policy makers with a view to influencing debate and practice.

Professor Jill Manthorpe from King's College London will begin the final day with a keynote address about how social policy studies are linking money to new social problems.

Drawing on examples from UK social policy and in the wake of policy discussions in this year’s UK general election, Manthorpe will highlight how those participating in social policy debates and social welfare practice need to be more "financially literate". 

In the afternoon, Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald, from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, will deliver a plenary address, "Research program of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse". The address will outline how providing a foundation and framework for further inquiry has ensured that the Royal Commission's research legacy will live on. 

The day's program will include a special session on refugee children. Papers being presented include:

  • Intrusive fear for family amongst family resettled as refugees in Australia (Zachary Steel, UNSW Psychiatry, & St John of God Health Care) 
  • An ecological approach to reporting the adjustment of refugee children and adolescents in Australia: outcomes from wave three of the Building a New Life in Australia study (Angela Nickerson, UNSW)
  • Settlement outcomes of humanitarian youth: combining research, policy and practice (Pilar Rioseco, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Nadine Liddy, Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network Australia, Cuc Hoang, Australian Institute of Family Studies)
  • Interviewing children in humanitarian migrant families, methods and challenges. (John De Maio, Pilar Rioseco, Australian Institute of Family Studies)
  • The parenting styles of mothers and fathers and their implications for the development of refugee children. (Ben Edwards, ANU, Walter Forrest, University of Queensland)

What: Australian Social Policy Conference
When: Wednesday, 27 September 2017
Where: John Niland Scientia Building, UNSW Kensington

For the full conference program, go here.