1 May 2006
Abused Australian children will be given a voice through a new centre designed to reduce child abuse in the community.
The National Research Centre for the Prevention of Child Abuse is a collaboration between Monash University and the Australian Childhood Foundation.
The centre, to be launched at 1pm today, Monday 1 May, at BMW Edge Theatre at Federation Square, Melbourne, aims to develop innovative new programs for preventing child abuse and evaluating the effectiveness of public policy in preventing child abuse.
More than 250,000 incidents of child abuse and neglect are reported in Australia every year. Despite a government system that tries to keep children at home, the number of children in out-of-home care increases by about 1000 every year.
Centre director and head of the Department of Social Work at Monash, Professor Chris Goddard, said despite the high incidence of child abuse in the community there was no uniform way of defining the problem and no national standard for dealing with it.
"In our view this is a national scandal because the downstream costs of child abuse are catastrophic for our society both at the personal and economic level," he said.
"This centre is attempting to give children and young people a voice in the research, to give priority to the rights of children and to provide new insight into the problem of child abuse."
Australian Childhood Foundation Chief Executive Officer Dr Joe Tucci said the centre would play a critical role in advocating for better government, institution and community responses to child abuse.
"The combination of the extensive research capacity of Monash University and the direct experience of the foundation in its work with vulnerable and traumatised children will produce important outcomes about how to more effectively prevent abuse before it occurs," he said.
"The partnership will enable us to seek out and incorporate the feedback from children about their experiences of abuse and the systems designed to protect and support them."
For more information or to arrange interviews contact Diane Squires, Media Communications, on 9905 9315 or 0417 603 400.
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