Dr Emma Mckenzie

Adjunct Associate Lecturer
Medicine & Health
School of Clinical Medicine

Emma McKenzie is a Research Fellow with the Griffith Criminology Institute and an Adjunct Associate Lecturer in the Discipline of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UNSW Sydney. She is a multidisciplinary researcher whose work adopts criminological and psychological approaches to understanding key policy issues in child protection. Emma obtained her PhD in 2023. Prior to this, she worked for five years in non-government support services for children and families who experienced, or were at risk of experiencing, harm. Her research aims to understand the continuities and discontinuities of intergenerational child maltreatment, with a particular focus on families who break the cycle. She has extensive experience using record-linkage data across Queensland and New South Wales, and is currently working on the New South Wales Child Development Study (NSW-CDS), which involves population-based, multi-agency, intergenerational data.

 

 

  • Journal articles | 2026
    Green MJ; McKenzie E; Watkeys O; Cheung MMY; Dean K; O'Hare K; Zulumovski K; Butler M; Carr VJ; Tzoumakis S, 2026, 'Intergenerational patterns of child protection system involvement in an Australian population cohort', Child Abuse & Neglect, 172, pp. 107844 - 107844, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2025.107844
    Journal articles | 2025
    McKenzie EF; Thompson CM; Ogilvie JM; Tzoumakis S; Hurren E, 2025, 'Examining mental health service use across intergenerational patterns of child protection system contact: A case for cross-sector supports', Child Abuse and Neglect, 163, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2025.107426
    Journal articles | 2025
    McKenzie EF; Thompson CM; Tzoumakis S; Ogilvie J; Hurren E; Stewart A, 2025, 'The Overlaps between Intergenerational (Dis)Continuity of Child Protection Services Involvement and Mental Illness Diagnoses from Hospital Admissions', Journal of Family Violence, 40, pp. 489 - 501, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10896-023-00610-x
    Journal articles | 2025
    Tzoumakis S; Whitten T; McKenzie E; Dean K; O’Hare K; Watkeys OJ; Harris F; Carr VJ; Green MJ, 2025, 'Criminal justice system contacts of young people who were placed in out-of-home care in childhood: A population-based descriptive study of over 79,000 young people in New South Wales, Australia', Journal of Criminology, 58, pp. 629 - 642, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/26338076251379336
    Journal articles | 2024
    McKenzie EF; Hurren E; Tzoumakis S; Thompson CM; Stewart A, 2024, 'New directions in intergenerational child maltreatment research and responses: Knowledge gaps and recommendations', Australian Journal of Social Issues, 59, pp. 316 - 327, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.281
    Journal articles | 2024
    McKenzie EF; Thompson CM; Hurren E; Tzoumakis S; Stewart A, 2024, 'Intergenerational (Dis)continuity of Child Maltreatment: Variation by Parents’ Childhood Victimization Experiences and Sex', Child Maltreatment, 29, pp. 24 - 36, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10775595221138551
    Journal articles | 2021
    McKenzie EF; Thompson CM; Hurren E; Tzoumakis S; Stewart A, 2021, '“Who maltreats? Distinct pathways of intergenerational (dis)continuity of child maltreatment”', Child Abuse and Neglect, 118, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105105

Research Interests: Intergenerational child maltreatment; cycle breakers; mental health; domestic and family violence; developmental and life-course criminology; prevention and early intervention opportunities.