Partnering with families known to child protection in an interprofessional context.

BACKGROUND: To meet the diverse needs of children and their families known to child protection, interprofessional collaboration across a range of services is critical. Children and their parents/caregivers are key stakeholders in these collaborations and current research highlights the need to strengthen their participation in these service responses. Practitioners have a critical role in strengthening family member participation in child welfare and protection responses. OBJECTIVE: To explore professional's experiences and perceptions of working in partnership with children and families known to child protection in an interprofessional context. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: 14 professionals with extensive experience in the fields of family support and child protection. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were completed, recorded, transcribed, and then coded using NVivo 12 Pro. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to guide data analysis. RESULTS: Trusting practitioner-family relationships were affirmed to be critical to engaging and partnering with families. Results pertaining to the interprofessional context encourage a more community-oriented perspective of practitioner-family relationships, where practitioners have a collective responsibility to welcome families into an integrated network of community services. Further, the conflict for child protection practitioners between their legislated role and their need to build trusting relationships with families to support partnered work is discussed. CONCLUSIONS: The centrality of practitioner-family relationships needs to be better recognized and supported in policy and practice across all sectors supporting children and families known to child protection. An interprofessional approach to building practitioner-family relationships across this range of services may enhance family engagement and partnerships in their service responses.

Australian Early Childhood Teachers' Understanding of Bullying.

School bullying is a global phenomenon with teachers often at the forefront of responding to this behavior. It is, therefore, important that teachers are able both to understand and articulate what bullying is and to recognize bullying behavior. Ninety-five Australian early childhood teachers participated in an online survey to define bullying, fighting and identify the differences between the two behaviors. They were also asked to identify from 20 scenarios whether the behaviors depicted traditional bullying behaviors, cyberbullying behaviors, non-bullying face-to-face behaviors or non-cyberbullying behaviors. Results found that teachers described some of the three characteristics of bullying, that is, the intention to harm, power difference, and repetition; however, many teachers had difficulty clearly explaining the distinguishing differences between bullying and fighting. The majority of teachers identified the bullying behaviors in the scenarios; however, some teachers misinterpreted some non-bullying behaviors as bullying. The need to increase teacher's knowledge of bullying to support the prevention and intervention of bullying are discussed.

Educational strengths and functional resilience at the start of primary school following child maltreatment.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: This study explored the associations between child maltreatment and functional resilience at school commencement, and investigated factors related to resilience separately for boys and girls. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: Children were part of a birth cohort of all children born in South Australia between 1986 and 2017 who had completed the Early Australian Development Census (AEDC) at about age 5-6 years when starting primary school (N = 65,083). METHODS: Multivariable logistic regression analysis was conducted with a subsample of 3414 high-risk children who had a maltreatment substantiation or investigation, with resilience defined as having well or highly developed strengths on the Multiple Strength Indicator of the AEDC. RESULTS: CPS involvement was strongly associated with poorer functioning at school commencement. Among high-risk children, 51.2% demonstrated resilience. Predictors of resilience in the multivariable model were being older, not having an emotional condition, and being read to at home. Risk factors were being male, living in rural or remote areas, having a physical or sensory disability, or having a learning disability. Boys who had been maltreated demonstrated few strengths and had less resilience than girls. Boys and girls who were read to regularly at home had more than three times the odds of showing resilience than children who were not read to at home. CONCLUSIONS: The early learning environment provides an ideal opportunity to identify and intervene to help those children who are struggling with school adjustment following familial maltreatment. Boys are likely to need additional help.

Educators' Observations of Children's Display of Problematic Sexual Behaviors in Educational Settings.

It is widely recognized that children are sexual beings and their sexual development begins at an early age. Recently, there has been some concern about children's sexual behavior in educational settings (Knowles 2014). Obtaining a better understanding of what behaviors children are displaying in these settings provides valuable information to inform teacher education in this area as well as support systems for children. One hundred and seven Australian educators from care organizations, preschools, and government, independent, and Catholic primary schools participated in an extensive online questionnaire in relation to their understanding of and experiences with children's problematic sexual behaviors and their management strategies. Results found that 40.8% of educators had observed children displaying problematic sexual behavior in their educational setting. Educators' descriptions of their observations variously involved children physically acting out sexually with other children, sexually harassing other children, verbally attempting to coerce other children to participate in sexual behavior, and individual displays of sexual behavior. A minority described behaviors that are considered developmentally typical but are not socially acceptable in an educational setting. These results indicate that there is a need for educator training, child education, and support services to enable an early intervention and prevention strategy to support the well-being of children.