Putting families at the centre: Our research at the AIFS Conference

June 17, 2022

The Parenting Research Centre and Raising Children Network teams were pleased to be among the inspiring group of researchers and practitioners at the Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference in Melbourne this week.

With the conference theme ‘Putting families at the centre’ in mind, Parenting Research Centre Senior Project Manager Kate Spalding, Senior Practice Design Specialist Vannessa Montoya-Barbaro and Implementation Specialist Christopher Tran spoke about how practitioners could benefit from taking a coaching approach when offering parenting support. The team outlined how the coaching approach can lead to successfully helping parents and caregivers strengthen their core skills and motivate them to reach parenting goals.

Raising Children Network Director Derek McCormack joined a panel of experts to discuss how families navigate change and adversity, which highlighted the complex and diverse nature of families and how policy and supports do better when co-designed and flexible to be accessible to varied types of family units.

Principal Research Specialist Dr Catherine Wade outlined the results of the latest Parenting Today in Victoria study, which revealed that most parents are confident in their parenting and know where to go if they need support. But there is a sizable minority that are not getting the support they need as they do not know where to seek help – read more in the parental help-seeking report and sign up to our newsletter to be among the first to know when we release our new 2022 findings from this study.

Finally, the Raising Healthy Minds app, which was developed by the Raising Children Network team after research suggested that parents needed help to improve their mental health literacy, was presented as an accessible tool to help parents to support the social and emotional wellbeing of their child.