Partnerships & projects

with Women’s Safety Services SA

CHANNEL 7 GRANT

This research will develop, implement and evaluate a child-informed, child-centred practice approach that prioritises the needs and wellbeing of children who have experienced domestic and family violence (DFV) and are being accommodated with their mothers in a DFV shelter.

The research is designed to generate the resources and processes necessary to align DFV shelter practice with the emergent sector recognition that children are clients in their own right, with needs separate from those of their accompanying mothers. The research will increase the capacity of DFV shelters to immediately identify and respond to those needs, thus laying the foundation for effective longer-term interventions.  The research aims to generate a child-informed, child-centred practice approach to guide work with children in DFV shelter settings, enhance DFV shelter workers’ capacity to identify and respond to children’s therapeutic, safety and service needs in DFV shelters, limit the immediate and cumulative harms and trauma experienced by children and improve children’s longer-term wellbeing and life chances. 

with AnglicareSA

We are working with AnglicareSA to co-design, implement, and evaluate a practice framework that guides the work of supporting young people leaving the formal care system and in family restoration practices. Together we will draw on existing evidence and research, incorporating the expertise and practice wisdom of practitioners in AnglicareSA, to form and underpin the framework with the tools required to sustain it. The co-design process will include inviting, facilitating and hearing the experiences of young people and families in determining outcomes. The evaluation will ensure an evidence base that supports young people and families and measures the effectiveness of the framework long term. Together we aim to improve the experience and outcomes for South Australian children and families engaged with AnglicareSA services and build the evidence base for improved service design and practice in the area of leaving formal care and family restoration work. 

with Department for Child Protection, Women’s Safety Services SA, KWY Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Family Services, and the Department of Human Service’s Early Intervention Research Directorate

We seek to understand the intersections between domestic and family violence, child abuse and neglect. With that goal in mind, we’ve brought together research, policy and practice with our many partners across child protection, women’s domestic violence services, and Aboriginal family violence services. We’re not afraid of having ‘too many cooks in the kitchen.’ We’re sharing ideas, observations, knowledge, and results to find a better way to support practitioners in their everyday work to recognise and respond to domestic and family violence in the context of child protection.

Privileging Aboriginal ways of knowing

The research agenda informing the building of collaboration at the intersection of domestic and family violence and child protection includes the privileging of Aboriginal ways of knowing. In partnership with EIRD,  we are proactively enabling the privileging of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural knowledge by employing Aboriginal researchers and supporting Aboriginal PhD candidates to build capacity in improving social work outcomes for Aboriginal children, their families and communities. Through our postdoctoral program we will create an Aboriginal Research Circle whereby Aboriginal PhD candidates will be supported during their research journey by other Aboriginal colleagues. Candidates will receive group supervision by academics in SWIRLS and be supported culturally during their research by Aboriginal leaders.  SWIRLS members will work alongside Aboriginal leaders to reflect and document such learnings from the Circles to privilege Aboriginal and Torres Islander cultural knowledge development.

with Emerging Minds and Parenting Research Centre

We’re focused on child mental health and wellbeing in our work with Emerging Minds and Parenting Research Centre. This project identifies and assesses the professional educational tools which can better equip families experiencing domestic and family violence. We collaborate and co-design with multidisciplinary practitioners and educators to help them deliver improved services to children and their caregivers where domestic and family violence exists in the home.

For further information, please visit our resources page.

with ANROWS and Uniting Communities

We collaborate with family violence counsellors to speak to men about their use of violence in their intimate partner relationships. We explore the invitational narrative approach which aims to build greater understandings of how to engage men who are perpetrators of domestic and family violence. This project is funded by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) and conducted in partnership with Uniting Communities and ANROWS.

For further information, please visit our resources page.

with Department for Child Protection

This professional development course contributes to strengthening the Department for Child Protection’s response to children, young people and families experiencing domestic and family violence. The course is designed for staff in leadership positions (Senior Practitioners, Practice Leaders, Principal Aboriginal Consultants and other relevant staff) within the South Australian Department for Child Protection (DCP). Course participants build leadership capacity to respond to, and improve outcomes for, children and families who experience domestic and family violence in the context of child protection. The course focuses on the development of, both, advanced understandings of domestic and family violence (DFV) and leadership capacity in responding to children and families experiencing DFV in the context of child protection.

This course is informed by contemporary research, evidence, and peer-reviewed literature, and is co-designed with and for the DCP.

with Housing SA and the Department of Human Services

We work with Housing SA’s Supporting Young Peoples Program to understand the way young women experience violence and how these experiences shape their housing circumstances and needs. We also explore how housing support can be used to increase these women’s sense of safety. We form evidence-based knowledge, conclusions and recommendations through appreciative inquiry and participatory research. Our project is co-designed with Housing SA staff and the young women in their programs.

Read the research reports on our resources page here.

with Early Intervention Research Directorate (EIRD) & Dept Human Services: Aboriginal leaders Group

The implementation of this research involves the establishment of a partnership between SWIRLS and EIRD. The focus of this research is twofold. Firstly, it will contribute towards the development of an Aboriginal Outcomes Framework for Aboriginal children and families in South Australia and develop a culturally informed practice tool to guide assessment and evaluate intervention outcomes for Aboriginal children and their families.  The Aboriginal Outcomes Framework will provide a context for working with Aboriginal children and families and the practice tool will be designed to operationalise and assess Aboriginal children’s safety and wellbeing outcomes and broader family level change to sustain children’s safety and wellbeing. 

Both the Aboriginal Outcomes Framework and the tool will be informed by evidence and research, existing culturally responsive frameworks and practice tools, the knowledge, experience, and wisdom of Aboriginal people including practitioners and community. 

The research will strengthen the culturally informed evidence base that supports culturally responsive practice for Aboriginal children and family’s wellbeing.

with Department of Child Protection: Aboriginal Directorate

This research project is being led by the Aboriginal Directorate in the Department of Child Protection and facilitated by SWIRLS to describe and document Aboriginal cultural safety and protection. The findings will influence practice inside the Department, to ensure Aboriginal knowledge leads decision making for Aboriginal families. 

with Northern Adelaide Local Health Network

This project is a partnership between NALHN Social Work, NALHN Aboriginal Health Division and SWIRLS. The NALHN social work (SW) team aim to improve their culturally responsive and inclusive practice when engaging with Aboriginal health consumers. The lived experience of Aboriginal health consumers in receipt of NALHN SW services will inform the delivery of professional development and culturally responsive practice to increase the cultural capacity of the SW team. 

Following these professional development sessions, the SW team will engage in the development of SW Model of Care to guide their work with Aboriginal health consumers and develop a social work implementation plan for the NALHN Reconciliation Action Plan, committing the team to ongoing action.

with Women’s and Children’s Health Network

Working together in partnership with Aboriginal Health Division at WCHN, we are examining the hospital policies, procedures and practices and their contributions to the disproportionately high number of Aboriginal infant removals. This research aims to examine the hospital staff role, interpretation and assessment of risk, decision to make a mandatory notification and their contributions to the DCP social workers’ decision to remove Aboriginal infants 2019-2021 at Women’s and Children’s Hospital. There is Aboriginal involvement throughout this project from the development of the research concept, as co-designers in development of the data collection tool, data collection, analysis and on project governance. This project aims to influence policy, procedures and practices toward culturally responsive and safe environments for Aboriginal families and communities.

with Office of the Guardian for Children and Young People (OGCYP)

In 2018, the Office of the Guardian for Children and Young People (OGCYP) was tasked with implementing a pilot in preparation for the implementation of a Child and Young Person’s Visitor Scheme. The introduction of a visitor scheme stemmed from Recommendation 137 of the Child Protection Systems Royal Commission: ‘Legislate for the development of a community visitors’ scheme for children in all residential and emergency care facilities’. Working in partnership with the OGCYP, SWIRLS designed, implemented and documented the evaluation of this pilot.

with Fair Work Commission

SWIRLS prepared two reports to inform the Fair Work Commission in its review of Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) leave entitlements in modern awards. The first of these reported on the nature, prevalence, and impacts of FDV in Australia as well as the range of, and potential impacts of, workplace responses to FDV.  SWIRLS also conducted an analysis of the Attorney-General’s Department Workplace Agreements Database (WAD), this providing the basis for the second report. Both reports were tabled in February 2022.

with Sammy D Foundation

We are working with the Sammy D Foundation to evaluate their Northern Youth Mentoring Program. Sammy D’s mentoring programs support young people living in the northern suburbs of Adelaide at risk of contact with the youth justice system. The evaluation will investigate the young people’s experiences of the matching process, the impact of the model of the mentee’s wellbeing, and factors that contribute to the prevention of offending. The project will inform best practice for youth mentoring programs and evidence their impact on young people’s lives. 

with Uniting Communities

SWIRLS has partnered with Uniting Communities to explore their elder abuse unit data to report on the types of people affected, the most common situations, offenders, and to make recommendations for government to address this issue. The partnership will also explore case studies of lived experience, best practice, and effective interventions.

with the Early Intervention Research Directorate (EIRD) - Dept Human Services

This project has established a partnership with The Early Intervention Research Directorate (EIRD), who aim to develop new strategies to better support vulnerable families and assess the effectiveness of early intervention child protection initiatives. By working together, this partnership undertakes research that explores safety and wellbeing outcomes from the experiences and viewpoints of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and their families. Ensuring that culture is recognised for its strengths and protectiveness and then seeks to understand how culture could then influence child protection systems. This project has contributed to the South Australian Aboriginal Outcomes Framework, as well as, partnered with Aboriginal Family Support Service to assist with the implementation of a new culturally adapted assessment tool that assists their workforce to enable families to address child protection matters.

with SA Community Centres

This project set out to investigate which programs in Community Centres in South Australia build social connection, and by doing so address the issues of social isolation and loneliness in their communities. The findings outlined in this report demonstrate that a much of the existing practice and service delivery by staff and volunteers in community centres reflects the recent literature in this area.

The project invited community centres to participate in the project through Community Centres SA networks.15 community centres responded to the EOI and participated in a focus group. 123 people participated across the 15 focus groups. Participating community centres included a spread of socio-economic areas across the greater Adelaide region, the Adelaide Hills and regional South Australia.

Read the report here