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Our Staff
Director
Dr Morag McArthur
Contact morag.mcarthur@acu.edu.au or 6209 1225Dip. Welfare: BSocSci (Hons) UNSW; Postgrad Cert Higher Ed Teaching UNSW; PhD UNSW
Morag is the founding Director of the Institute of Child Protection Studies and is an experienced human services researcher. Prior to this appointment she was an academic in the School of Social Work at ACU National where she taught research methods, public policy and electives in substance abuse. Her research interests include issues facing children and families such as homelessness, implementation of social policy and early intervention approaches. Her PhD examined methadone services in Australia.
Senior Research Fellow
Dr Gail Winkworth
Contact gail.winkworth@acu.edu.au or 6209 1226PSM, BSW (Hons) UNSW; DSW USyd
Gail is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Child Protection Studies. Prior to completing her doctoral research in government service delivery and partnerships and her recent work developing a model for community engagement within Centrelink, Gail was Director of statutory care and protection services in the ACT. For many years she managed government programs for children and families including prevention and education, child protection, substitute care and adoptions. Gail worked with others to set up the Schools as Communities and Parentlink Programs in the ACT.
Research Fellows
Kate Butler
Contact kate.butler@acu.edu.au or 6209 1151BA App SocSci (Hons); MA Women's Studies; Postgrad Dip Health Promotion; Postgrad Cert Assessment & Evaluation.
Prior to joining the Institute, Kate worked as an independent consultant specialising in evaluation, planning and service development. Kate's background is in health promotion. She has held positions at several State Government agencies and worked in the areas of population health policy development, program planning and implementation, and evaluation. Her particular interests include prevention and early intervention issues associated with youth health, child and family health and rural community health.
Ms Lorraine Thomson
Contact lorraine.thomson@acu.edu.au or 6209 1207BSW (Hons) UNSW; M.Litt (Peace Studies) UNE; MSW ACU National
Lorraine is a Research Fellow in the Institute of Child Protection Studies with experience in generalist social work and professional social work issues. Lorraine was a project officer for the Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) funded research on sole father families who are homeless, and continues to work on the ACT Health funded evaluation of the ACT Sobering up Shelter. Within the Institute she has undertaken research in a number of projects, including Good practice for placement planning ( for the Office of Child Youth and Family Support) and Good practice in residential care (for Marist Youth Services).
Research Scholars
Mr Tim Moore
Contact tim.moore@acu.edu.au or 6209 1229BA ANU; M.Child&AdolWelf CSU; M.Youth Studies ACU National
Tim is a Research Scholar with the Institute of Child Protection Studies. For ten years, he has worked with children, young people and their families, particularly those experiencing homelessness, affected by alcohol or drug programs or parental disability or mental illness. Over the past four years, Tim has been involved in a number of research projects that have elicited children and young people's experiences and views about their lives and the systems that support them. As a youth worker he is particularly interested in youth participation and access issues for those most marginalised. Tim is the inaugural recipient of a Canberra Southern Cross Club Phd Scholarship. Tim's project will explore children's participation in research.
Project Officers
Ms Megan Layton-Thompson
Contact megan.layton-thompson@acu.edu.au or 6209 1219BSW Monash, BA ANU, Cert IV Training and Accreditation
Megan has spent the last 12 years working with refugees and migrants, with a focus on children, young people and their parents and has a particular interest in cross-cultural work. She worked at Companion House for 8 years in a number of roles including Children's Counsellor/Advocate, Community Development Team Leader and Acting Director. Much of her work has focused on prevention and early intervention strategies and collaboration. She has also run training for support workers working with people with disabilities. She has coordinated youth services for young migrants and refugees in Canberra and south-east Sydney.
Ms Stella Conroy
Contact stella.conroy@acu.edu.au or 6209 1266Grad Cert Human Services (Leadership), ACU National, Grad Cert Human Resource Management & Industrial Relations, Griffith
Stella is a research assistant with the Institute of Child Protection Studies. Stella has a long history or employment in the human services, primarily in organisations that support families with young children. In recent years Stella’s focus has been in management and leadership of organisations that specialised in improving access to services for Indigenous, sole parent and culturally diverse families. Stella will assist the Institute with a number of projects in 2009 including the ACT External Evaluation of Communities for Children Program and the Child Protection Practitioners Values Survey.
Ms Vicky Saunders
Contact vicky.saunders@acu.edu.au or 6209 1227RN, BSW(Hons) ACU National
Vicky is a Research Officer with the Institute of Child Protection Studies. Over the last eight years, she has predominantly worked with foster carers and children and young people in out of home care. More recently Vicky has been involved in a number of research projects at the Institute including exploring the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in the ACT and evaluating the RACR counselling service. Her research interests include: community participation; participatory action research and child protection policy and practice.
Adjunct and Associate Staff
Barry Smith
BSW [Hons], M Soc. Pol.
Barry is a former senior public servant with the Australian Government. Over the last 30 years, Barry has worked in the community sector, academia and many parts of the public service including social security, disability, community and Indigenous affairs. Originally trained as a social worker, Barry also has a Masters in Social Policy.
Barry's areas of expertise include: the theory and practice of community development; program development and administration particularly in Indigenous communities and rural and remote areas; social research in Indigenous and rural and remote communities; professional facilitation; social policy training and education; and government relations and processes.
Christine Healy
(B.A, Dip Soc.Studies Uni Melbourne; Dip Business Admin, Swinburne Inst. Tech; Masters Social Policy, University Wollongong)
Chris has an extensive career in public sector senior management in the Victorian, NSW and ACT State and Territory Governments and a long professional background and experience in community recovery after emergencies and disasters. She is a regular lecturer at the EMA Training Institute at Mt Macedon, and provides community recovery training in the ACT and in other states. As well as being the ACT partner on the Canberra Bushfire Recovery Research undertaken by the Institute Chris was a consultant to the Queensland Government on community recovery services after Cyclone Larry.
Chris was the ACT government community recovery coordinator for many years and wrote the first ACT community recovery plan. She was the Director of the ACT Bushfire Recovery Centre after the devastating 2003 bushfires. Chris is experienced in working in partnership with government and non-government organisations in providing services in times of emergencies. She has recently developed an emergency management training program for Lifeline ACT’s use with external agencies and a Train the Trainer package to accompany the emergency management training.
Chris is chair of the ACT Victims Advisory Board and a member of the Woden Community Services Board of Management.
Fiona Dempster
B. App. Sc. [Physiotherapy], Grad. Cert. Pub. Sector Mgt.
Fiona previously worked as an SES Officer in the Australian Public Service and as a Ministerial Adviser. Whilst working in the APS Fiona helped establish the Australian Government's National Agenda for Early Childhood and worked across family policy, disability, child care and carers policy and program management.
Fiona has managed and led several large organisational change processes. She recently established a framework for organisations to anticipate, prevent, minimise and respond to issues both large and small, and has extensive experience in organisational governance and performance.
Giovanna Richmond
B.Soc.Stud., (Sydney Uni.)., B.A (Hons) (ANU).,PSM
Giovanna is a lecturer and a PhD student in the School of Social Work at the ACU. Prior to joining the School, Giovanna was Director of Child, Youth & Women’s Health Program in ACT Health. For many years she has worked in the ACT and NSW as a practitioner and manager of health, disability and family support services for government and non government organisations. Her research interests are in policy development and sustainability in human services, cross disciplinary service and knowledge integration, and child protection policy and practice.
Dr Paul Chesterton
MEc Dip Ed USyd; MA PhD Macq; FIAIR
Paul is an Adjunct Professor at ACU National and a former Director of the University's Institute for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. He specialises in evaluation, focusing on policies, programs, service provision and organizational structures. During the past 18 years, he has undertaken more than 35 evaluation projects for state and federal government departments, education systems, universities and international development agencies. He has been regularly contracted to provide evaluation training workshops for federal government departments and in 2008 for the Australasian Evaluation Society, across Australia and New Zealand.
There are also staff contracted to assist with projects. These staff members are listed with the relevant project description.
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