A life-course approach to risk, resilience and crime prevention

Prof Joyce Arditti has made her presentation available for download here:

Resilience processes in the lives of families impacted by Parental Incarceration: Implications for intervention and policy (PDF 5.19MB)

Date: Friday 20th October
Time: 9.00 am - 1.00 pm | Keynote presentations
1.00 - 4.00 pm | Translating research into practice and policy (roundtable)
Venue: Auditorium, The Edge, State Library of Queensland, Stanley Place, Cultural Centre, Southbank, Brisbane City QLD 4101
RSVP to only the morning Keynote presentations here

RSVP to the morning Keynotes and afternoon Round Table discussion here

Keynotes will include presentations from:

Professor Joyce Arditti

Resilience processes in the lives of families impacted by Parental Incarceration: Implications for intervention and policy

A burgeoning research literature has documented a disturbing sequelae of parental incarceration for children and families that is fraught with multiple risks and poor developmental outcomes. It is no surprise that the literature focusing on children and their incarcerated parents has been “problem-focused and oriented toward psychopathology.” While such a focus is warranted in terms of seeking ways to reduce harm and provide necessary services to children and family members affected by a parent’s incarceration, it obscures the heterogeneity of outcomes of children with incarcerated parents. The next “wave” of research on the implications of parental incarceration moves beyond a problems framework and considers how and why some children and families achieve competence despite adversity. In this talk I examine key proximal processes in the family, such as caregiving quality and stability, that hold promise in terms of understanding the capacity of families to adapt successfully to parental incarceration. Proximal processes, integral to bioecological theories of human development, can be conceptualized as a source of resilience as well as “leverage points” to improve well-being for parents and children in multiple domains of functioning. Such “leverage points” hold the potential to mobilize positive cascades or spillovers that widen patterns of long-term resilience for both parents and children.

Professor Nick Tilley

Evaluating Crime Prevention Programs

Crime prevention programs include diverse activities with a wide range of targets. This presentation will concentrate on evaluations of programs that aim to reduce risks of criminal involvement. It will argue that the incorporation of a ‘realist’ orientation is important if findings that can usefully inform those who design and deliver crime reduction programs are to be provided. It will also briefly outline what would need to be done in practice in order to undertake reviews of existing studies and to conduct of primary evaluation studies to meet decision-maker needs.

Professor Greer Johnson

Creating Pathways to Child Wellbeing, Prosocial Behaviour, and School Achievement in Disadvantaged Communities

The presentation will focus on benefits of bringing together the long-term research programs of Griffith Criminology Institute’s (GCI) prevention science team and the Griffith Institute for Educational Research (GIER) Leadership for Learning to support the Creating Pathways to Child Wellbeing, Prosocial Behaviour, and School Achievement in Disadvantaged Communities project. A special feature of this work is the collaboration between interdisciplinary researchers and industry partners, including governments department, and NGOs. The presentation will offer a convincing rationale for why these kinds of collaborations matter for the next generation of children.

About the Presenters:

Joyce A. Arditti is Professor of Human Development and Family Science at Virginia Tech. She received her doctorate in Family Studies from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.  Her research interests include family disruption, parent-child relationships in vulnerable families, and public policy. Her scholarship is recognized nationally and abroad and she has published numerous empirical and review articles in therapy, human services, family studies, and criminal justice journals. She is the author of the book “Parental incarceration and the family: Psychological and social effects of imprisonment on children, parents, and care-givers” published by New York University Press, for which she was the 2014 recipient of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) Outstanding Book Award, an honor awarded to a member of ACJS who has authored a book representing extraordinary contribution in the field of criminal justice. Additionally, in August of 2016, Joyce was awarded the Alumni Award for Research Excellence by Virginia Tech for her significant research achievement in the area of parental incarceration. Joyce is also the editor of the recently released textbook: “Family Problems: Stress, Risk, & Resilience” published by John Wiley & Sons.

Nick Tilley is a member of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science (JDI) at UCL. He has long-term research interests in policing and crime prevention as well as in programme evaluation methodology. Among his many publications, he is the author of Crime Prevention (2010) and co-author of Realistic Evaluation (1997). 

Greer Johnson is Director of the Griffith Institute for Educational Research.  For many years Greer and her colleagues at Griffith University have pursued school leadership research and development opportunities with school principals in the primary and secondary sectors in a range of contexts including remote Australian Indigenous schools. To date their suite of Principals as Literacy Leaders projects, conducted in collaboration with state and territory governments, educational professional bodies such as the Australian Primary Principals Association and charitable organisations have enabled her team to engage with over 1000 Australian school principals, staff members and communities. Greer’s particular interest in this field of school leadership is finding equitable ways for school principals, teachers, parents, carers and community members to engage with children’s schooling: aiming for better levels of achievement and well being for all children.