kContact: keeping contact between parents and children in care

Investigators:

Prof Morag McArthur, Dr Stephanie Taplin, Prof Cathy Humphreys (University of Melbourne)

Project Manager: Aino Suomi

Funding Source:

Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, with significant partner contributions

Aim:

kContact is a three-year study to develop and trial an enhanced model of managing and supporting contact between children in care and their birth parents. The aim is to reduce current and future distress related to contact, improve children's relationships with their birth parents and increase successful reunifications in the long term. Conducted in the ACT and Victoria, the project is a joint initiative between ICPS, the University of Melbourne, and a number of government and community partners.

Learn more about this project

Outputs:

Bullen, T., Taplin, S., McArthur, M., Humphreys, C. Kertesz, M. (2016). 
Interventions to improve supervised contact visits between children in out of home care and their parents: A systematic review. Child and Family Social Work.

Bullen, T., Taplin, S., Kertesz, M., Humphreys, C & McArthur, M. (2015). 
Literature review on supervised contact between children in out-of-home care and their parents (PDF File, 678KB)
Canberra: Institute of Child Protection Studies, ACU.

Taplin, S., Bullen, T., McArthur, M., Humphreys, C., Kertesz, M., & Dobbins, T. (2015). 
kContact, an enhanced intervention for contact between children in out-of-home care and their parents: protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial. 
BMC Public Health, 15, 1134.

Bullen, T., Taplin, S., McArthur, M., Humphreys, C, & Kertesz, M. (2014, August). 
Contact between children in care and their parents: The development of guidelines to facilitate contact. 
Presentation at the 8th Association of Children's Welfare Agencies Conference. Sydney, Australia.

Associated publications

Bullen, T., Taplin, S., & Barry, E. (2015).
Supporting quality contact visits for children in out-of-home care.(PDF File, 948 KB)
Research to Practice Series, Issue 10. Canberra: Institute of Child Protection Studies, ACU.

Institute of Child Protection Studies. (2013, 3 July). 
Half-million dollar ARC grant for ACU's Institute for Child Protection Studies (PDF File, 678KB)  [Media Release]. 
Canberra: Institute of Child Protection Studies, ACU.