This report is a response to the following previous reports: Report of the Inquiry: Review into the System Level Responses to Family Violence in the ACT; Findings and Recommendations from the Review of Domestic and Family Violence Deaths; ACT Domestic Violence Service System Final Gap Analysis Report.

(For further reading, our research network has also just released our own booklet focusing on Family and Domestic Violence for professionals working with young people and their families)

Delivery systems other than in-office therapist-led treatments are needed to address treatment barriers such as accessibility, efficiency, costs, and parents wanting an active role in helping their child. To address these barriers, stepped care trauma focused-cognitive behavioral therapy (SC-TF-CBT) was developed as a parent-led, therapist-assisted therapy that occurs primarily at-home so that fewer in-office sessions are required. The current study examines caregivers' perceptions of parent-led (SC-TF-CBT) and therapist-led (TF-CBT) treatment.

Forty-nine infants and toddlers were killed and 93 others were injured in the ABC Day Care Center fire disaster in Hermosillo, Mexico. This study describes the experiences of ten mental health professionals who researched the community-scale grief and provided clinical services to the parents and caregivers of the affected children.

For many of the participants, scrapbooking was identified as an activity that provided a creative emotional outlet (Karns, 2002; Kohut, 2011; Williams & Lent, 2008), a way to gain closure, and a tool to help adjust to new situations (Karns, 2002). Since this is a relatively new area of research, some findings are limited due to design structure (case studies) (Karns, 2008; Kohut, 2011), and the inclusion of individuals who were already receiving other supports (Castle & Phillips, 2011). Scrapbooks are most meaningful, however, when customized to each individual. [...]everything from photographs and drawings to poetry and personal mementos can be included within the scrapbook (Karns, 2002), and the therapist can help participants to identify symbolic items that have significant personal meaning for inclusion in their scrapbook (Castle & Phillips, 2003).

As understanding of the impact of trauma on children has grown, there has been increasing interest in the use of screening the medical setting to identify which children at risk may be symptomatic. This study was undertaken to determine whether the use of a trauma assessment tool to screen for trauma symptoms in the setting of a foster care clinic was feasible and more sensitive than non-standardized approaches in the context of outpatient primary care.

"This report contains comprehensive information on state and territory child protection and support services in 2014-15, and on the characteristics of Australian children within the child protection system. This report shows that: - 151,980 children, a rate of 28.6 per 1,000 children, received child protection services (investigation, care and protection order and/or were in out-of-home care); - three-quarters (73%) of these children had previously been the subject of an investigation, care and protection order and/or were in out-of-home care; - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were 7 times as likely as non-Indigenous children to be receiving child protection services."

"There is a mismatch between investment and opportunity in early childhood policy in Australia. The early years are a critical window for building foundations that enable all children to become creative, entrepreneurial, resilient and capable learners. Yet current policy settings are not meeting the needs of the children who stand to benefit most."

Evidence-based practice requires the use of data grounded in theory with clear conceptualization and reliable and valid measurement. Unfortunately, developing a knowledge base regarding children's coping in the context of disasters, terrorism, and war has been hampered by a lack of theoretical consensus and a virtual absence of rigorous test construction, implementation, and evaluation. This report presents a comprehensive review of measurement tools assessing child and adolescent coping in the aftermath of mass trauma, with a particular emphasis on coping dimensions identified through factor analytic procedures. Coping measurement and issues related to the assessment of coping are reviewed. Concepts important in instrument development and psychometric features of coping measures used in disasters, terrorism, and war are presented. The relationships between coping dimensions and both youth characteristics and clinical outcomes also are presented.

"The type of family system during pregnancy and the baby’s first year predicts the way the child processes emotional information. The results of a ten-year longitudinal study conducted at the University of Tampere highlight the importance of the whole family system in children’s emotional development in addition to the early mother-child relationship."

"Children who enter kindergarten behind in social-behavioral development are more likely to be held back, need more individualized supports and services, and be suspended or expelled, according to new research."

"Having parents diagnosed with depression during a child's life was associated with worse school performance at age 16 in a new study of children born in Sweden, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry."

"The purpose of this study was to systematically review the literature to identify school-related outcomes associated with trauma in school-aged youth. The sample of articles (n = 83) included data on school-aged youth (pre-kindergarten to grade 12) who were 18 years or younger. Cognitive, academic, and teacher reported socialemotional-behavioral outcomes associated with traumatic event exposure and traumatic stress symptoms were examined. The findings from this systematic review further assist educators and school professionals in recognizing the potential impact of traumatic event exposure and traumatic stress symptoms on school-related functioning. Implications for future research include the need to utilize clear operational definitions of traumatic event exposure and traumatic stress symptoms to allow for aggregation of findings across studies, to conduct longitudinal studies to be conducted within the school context, and to take the critical next step of school-based trauma interventions to incorporate school-related outcomes."

"From the city streets of New Haven, Connecticut, the rural mountains of Appalachia, and the heart of San Francisco, students across the nation are coming to school with traumatic histories that are greatly impacting their school performance. Schools are recognizing the impact of trauma and beginning to adopt trauma-informed practices. When school systems approach students through a trauma lens, they are better equipped to provide the educational and social–emotional supports necessary to help students reach their potential. The following commentary reviews the implementation efforts of three different trauma-informed school programs and their use of the multitiered interventions to address the differing needs of trauma-exposed students. Implications for future directions are addressed, including the need for support for more intensive educator professional development."

"A new study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) by the team of Dr Marie-Claude Geoffroy, researcher at the CIUSSS de l'Ouest-de-l'Île-de-Montréal (Douglas mental health university institute, McGill group for suicide studies) and the Sainte-Justine hospital research centre, reports that adolescents chronically victimized during two school years at least, are about five times more at risk of thinking about suicide and six times more at risk of attempting suicide at age 15 compared to those who were never victimized."