Children’s Voices in Australian School Age Care: What do They Think About Afterschool Care?

Purpose: Adolescent-to-parent violence (APV), especially son-to-mother violence, often occurs in the context of adult-perpetrated domestic and family violence (DFV). APV interventions largely focus on the behaviour of the young person using violence, and their relationship with the protective parent, often the mother. Focus on the mother-young person dyad is important yet ignores their relationships with siblings, who have also experienced DFV and APV. If dynamics within the home are unaccounted for, strategies developed within the contained environment of an intervention program are unlikely to be sustained. This paper examines the experiences of siblings whose mothers and brothers are attending an APV intervention. In order to inform more responsive policies and practices, it addresses two research questions: 1) What are the needs of siblings whose brothers are engaging in APV? and (2) how can APV interventions better recognise and respond to the needs of siblings? Methods: This paper reports on a subset of qualitative data from the evaluation of an Australian APV intervention, conducted between 2020 and 2022. Interviews were undertaken with mothers ( n = 17), sons using APV ( n = 9), practitioners ( n = 11) and a sibling ( n = 1). Case files ( n = 16) containing data related to the levels of violence witnessed by siblings were also reviewed. Results: Thematic analysis produced five themes: (1) intersecting complexity; (2) recognition of violence experienced by siblings; (3) different sibling cohorts; (4) family disruption; and (5) siblings and the program. Conclusion: We argue that a whole of family response is needed for families recovering from DFV where APV is present.

Institutional child sexual abuse has come to public attention in recent decades due to persistent advocacy by victim/survivors and their supporters. Disclosure is often a critical step, and victim/survivors' lived experience is central to informing policy and practice. We studied the narratives of male victim/survivors who spoke with the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) to understand the experience of their abuse over their life course. De-identified narratives of 412 male victim/survivors from four institutional types - armed forces, religious, sport and recreation, and youth detention - where abuse occurred in the 1970s and 1980s - were reviewed, coded and analysed. A qualitative content analysis approach allowed for an examination of the data. Inductive coding was the method used to develop categories from the data - survivor narratives - emerging from the Royal Commission. Survivor narrative comments were grouped into three categories: (1) the abuse; (2) reporting/not reporting the abuse; and (3) the institutions. This article focuses on the analysis of the second category, finding several reasons for victim/survivors not talking about their abuse at the time, primarily that they would not be believed, concerns about their parents' possible responses, and threats from perpetrators. Frequently, victim/survivors adopted a strategy of shut it down/shut it out. Victim/survivors who spoke about their abuse following the event commonly reported negative responses. Implications particularly with respect to understanding and responding to disclosure are discussed, as are strengths and limitations of this research.

Introduction: Online services have expanded cross-cultural communication worldwide and have facilitated cross-border forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA), highlighting cultural differences in conceptualisations of the crime. Methods: This article uses a case-study methodology to examine how cultural beliefs are integrated into CSEA risk assessments and policy responses in three differing cultural contexts: Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei Darussalam. The case-studies contain structured snapshots of policy responses to CSEA in each country and were thematically analysed. Results: Five key themes were identified across the case-studies: intersectionality, policy dislocation, power and control, child participation and the invisibility of adults. Conclusion: These areas represent reflection points for policy makers, when conceptualising legislative and policy responses to CSEA, to consider where cultural beliefs may be impacting the development or implementation of responses.