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Publications

Children's Contact Services: Expectation and Experience
Final Report

Grania Sheehan and Rachel Carson
and
Belinda Fehlberg, Rosemary Hunter, Adam Tomison, Regin Ip, John Dewar.

This report presents the results of the Children's Contact Services Study . The study explored the role of children's contact services (CCSs) in Australia and the expectations different parties may have regarding the use of contact services. It was conducted in Queensland and Victoria by researchers from the Socio-Legal Research Centre at Griffith University in Brisbane, the Law School at The University of Melbourne and the Australian Institute of Family Studies in Melbourne.

The aim of the Children's Contact Services Study was to provide this information by exploring systematically the usages and perceived roles of CCSs from the perspectives of the clients and service providers, referring agencies and other key stakeholders. Specifically, the study examined:

The extent to which expectations on the part of parents, the courts and other referral agencies, and CCS delivery are consistent, and any challenges to child welfare that may arise as a consequence of divergent expectations and contact service usage;
The extent to which expectations on the part of the courts and other referral agencies, and contact service delivery are consistent, and any challenges to contact service delivery that may arise as a consequence of divergent expectations; and
The extent to which CCSs are expected to, and do, provide services directed at enhancing children's and parents' capacity to move on to self-managed contact, and any limitations on the provision of this assistance for parents and children with backgrounds of domestic violence and child abuse.

To obtain a hard copy of this report, please contact the Socio-Legal Research Centre, Griffith Law School, Griffith University, Nathan QLD 4111, Australia. Ph (07) 3875 3747, or email p.adams@griffith.edu.au

Click the link below to download an electronic version of the report in PDF format.

Griffith Legal Aid Report

THE IMPACT OF CHANGES IN LEGAL AID
ON CRIMINAL AND FAMILY LAW PRACTICE IN QUEENSLAND

A Research Report commissioned by the Queensland Law Society
and The Family Law Practitioners' Association

The last five years or so have seen levels of concern about the legal aid system in Australia that are unprecedented. Although never as comprehensive and well-funded as the system established in the Welfare State of post-War Britain, it seems that legal aid provision in the period from about 1975 to about 1990 was generally regarded as minimally adequate for a society that believed in access to justice irrespective of financial means. In 1990, the National Legal Aid Advisory Committee was able to report that at least the national infrastructure for meeting established needs in civil, criminal and family law was "generally effective", although greater funding was required. Now, however, it is not uncommon to hear judges and leaders of the legal profession talk about a "crisis" in legal aid. Legal aid for general civil matters, except in quite specific categories, is effectively non-existent. Within family law and criminal law there are significant numbers of matters that are rarely funded in practice, even though they are strictly within the scope of legal aid. To adopt the title of a recent collection of essays on legal aid, we are "at the crossroads again". Nor is Australia alone in this.

Chapter 3 The Availability of Experienced Practitioners to Undertaken Legal Aid Work

Research Report

Negotiating child residence and contact arrangements against a background of domestic violence

by

Miranda Kaye
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney

Julie Stubbs
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney

and

Julia Tolmie
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney

This report outlines the results of an Australian study examining the experiences of 40 women who have had to negotiate and facilitate child contact arrangements with an ex-partner who had abused them. Those results are supplemented by findings from interviews with 22 individuals and representatives of bodies professionally involved in the process of facilitating the development or implementation of child contact arrangements.

This page is currently under review

Publications

Children's Contact Services: Expectation and Experience Final Report

Griffith Legal Aid Report

Research Report

Children's Contact Services: Expectation and Experience
Final Report