Who to trust: Help-seeking behaviours in education settings of children and young people experiencing family violence in Australia

Principal Investigator: Dr Rebecca Stewart

Research Assistant: Paige Fletcher

Project overview

The new National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 (the Plan), has responded to the  growing demand for family violence (FV) prevention and response efforts to centre children and young people as victim-survivors in their own right. In order to achieve the Plan’s objective to end gender-based violence in one generation, trauma-informed and age-appropriate initiatives are required across all four domains outlined in the National Plan – prevention, early intervention, response, recovery and healing (DSS, 2022). Crucial to this will be the inclusion of the voices and experiences of young victim-survivors and greater attention to the ongoing impacts of family violence on these young victim-survivors, which the research shows to be very real and long-lasting.

This project will add to the evidence-base examining children and young people experiencing FV by looking at:

  • The family violence experiences, educational impacts and help-seeking behaviours in education settings by young Australians aged 16-20 with lived experience of FV via an existing data set* (n = 5,000), and
  • The potential for schools to act as a site of early intervention for young victim-survivors. This includes consultation with an expert panel on the barriers and facilitators currently impacting schools in accessing and supporting these students, as well as currently reporting and disclosure management practices.

*This project draws from the survey data set collected as part of an ANROWS funded national study led by Associate Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon. For further details of that project please visit: Adolescent family violence in Australia: A national study of prevalence, use of and exposure to violence and support needs for young people.

Research aims

The project aims to:

  1. Highlight the voices of young people who have experienced FV, looking at their experiences of family violence and subsequent educational impacts experienced, as well as their help-seeking behaviours in education settings,
  2. Understand the limitations and areas for improvement in current reporting and disclosure management process in schools when a student discloses they are experiencing family violence, and
  3. Identify barriers and enablers in education settings to identifying and supporting children and young people experiencing FV and looking at what schools and their staff need in order to be a site of early intervention for this cohort of students.

Project outputs

Project findings will be relevant to all Australian state and territory jurisdictions:

Seminar presentation: Exploring the help-seeking behaviours in education settings of young people experiencing family violence in Australia

Research Brief: Fletcher, P., & Stewart, R. (2022). The educational impacts of family violence on children and young people. Monash University. https://doi.org/10.26180/21652100


For further details about this research please contact project lead, Dr Rebecca Stewart via email: Rebecca.stewart@monash.edu

Funding Acknowledgement

This project is funded via the State Government’s Victorian Higher Education State Investment Fund (VHESIF).