Chief Investigators

Income

Years

Project Title and Synopsis

Administering Institution

Dr Nadine McKillop, Dr Larissa Christensen & Dr Susan Rayment-McHugh (in partnership with University of Tasmania)

$22,000

UniSC Launch Partnerships Grant

2022-2023

Engineering the second-generation CSAM-prevention

UniSC Australia

Chief Investigators

Income

Years

Project Title and Synopsis

Administering Institution

Rayment-McHugh & McKillop

$16,809

University of Newcastle

2021

This project will evaluate the Name Narrate Navigate program, developed by the University of Newcastle to address youth perpetrated family and domestic violence in the Hunter Region of New South Wales.

UniSC Australia

McKillop & Rayment-McHugh

$12,000

Lucy Faithfull Foundation & Stop It Now! U.S.

2021

This qualitative project will record the history of the Stop It Now! movement over the past 30 years, with a view to providing recommendations for future developments and collaborations.

UniSC Australia

McKillop, Rayment-McHugh & Christensen

$50,000

Save the Children Australia

2020-2021

Informing Child-Safe Practice from a Contextual Lens

This mixed-methods project measures current organisational safety climate and practices in Australia. Data from this project will be used to inform an online professional development training package focused on contextual prevention frameworks to support and enhance child-safe practice. The secondary aim is to further validate Kaufman’s Organisational Safety Climate Survey, and assess the psychometric properties the newly developed short-form survey (McKillop, Rayment-McHugh, Kaufman, Ransley, & Gardiner, 2020) for measuring organisational change.

UniSC Australia

Rayment-McHugh, McKillop, Christensen

$10,451

Life Without Barriers

2019-2021

Enhancing risk assessment for preventing child sexual abuse: An evaluation of Life Without Barriers 'train-the-trainer' program

The aims of the project are to evaluate the implementation of new foster carer recruitment tools, designed to enhance the prevention of child sexual abuse in out-of-home care settings.

UniSC Australia

Rayment-McHugh, Christensen (co-leaders), McKillop,Moritz,Burton,Jones, Prenzler, Lacey & Edwards, in partnership with Queensland Police Service

$68,860

Australian Institute of Criminology

2019-2020

'LEADing evidence-informed Child Exploitation Material (CEM) Reduction.'

Effective CEM reduction requires policy and practice to be evidence informed. This project synthesises the current evidence across a range of disciplines that contribute to CEM reduction and presents it in an accessible format for use by academic, government, and practice professionals. This synthesis will ascertain what is most effective (i.e., ‘what works, for whom, in what circumstances, in what respects and how’) as well as ‘what looks promising’. To enhance knowledge-to-practice transfer, the research team will disseminate these findings via an accessible, interactive, and consumable online toolkit (website).

UniSC Australia 

Christensen, Rayment-McHugh, McKillop

$17,625

Queensland Police Service

2019

'What Works' in Policing: Managing Child Sex Offenders in the Community

This project aims to provide a systematic review and synthesis of current empirical and practice literature on the management of chid sex offenders in the community, to identify ‘what works’, particularly with regard to community-based policing practices. The review will target risk assessment and management, intelligence, supervision and monitoring, situational management strategies, and prioritisation of resources to enhance community safety.

UniSC Australia

McKillop, Rayment-McHugh, Christensen, Prenzler

$22,271

Queensland Corrective Services Grant Scheme

2018-2019

The effectiveness of sexual and violent offender rehabilitation and reintegration programs: integrating global and local perspectives to enhance correctional outcomes

This project aims to identify the most successful pathways from rehabilitation to reintegration for sexual and violent offenders. The impact of individual-level (e.g., cultural heritage, gender, age) and program-level (e.g., type, design, delivery, dosage) factors on outcomes will be examined. Significant to QCS, this project will identify key strengths and areas for enhancement to guide future policy and practice, consistent with international best-practice standards and in line with recent Queensland review recommendations.

UniSC Australia

McKillop, Rayment-McHugh

$33,700

Queensland Corrective Services

2018

Evaluation framework for therapeutic interventions delivered within a forensic context

This project developed an evaluation framework to measure therapeutic progress and other associated outcomes at the individual, practitioner and system levels for adult clients undertaking individual or group therapeutic programs across custodial and community correctional settings. The proposed framework recommended for adoption by QCS is based on realist approach (Pawson & Tilley, 1997), operationalised through the EMMIE Framework (Johnson, Tilley & Bowers, 2015). This is recommended on the basis that it accommodates the complexities inherent in correctional programming and is adaptable to group and individual modalities, and custodial and community settings.

UniSC Australia 

McKillop

$40,000

The Benevolent Society

2018

Examination of the Benevolent Society’s ‘child-safe, child-friendly’ risk management framework: Recommendations for enhanced practice

The aims of this project are to systematically review current workplace culture, policies and practices and to provide recommendations for augmenting current prevention strategies at an individual, situational and systemic level, to mitigate risks associated with abuses occurring in the first place, and for appropriate responses, when abuses do occur. Guidance for developing locally-tailored, place-based prevention strategies that address the unique settings (e.g., out-of-home care, residential settings, day-care) served by the organisation will be a key focus of the final report and recommendations.

UniSC Australia 

McKillop

$50,000

Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women

2016-2018

A short-term outcome evaluation of the Bravehearts Turning Corners program

The purpose of this project is to evaluate the short-term outcomes and effectiveness of the Bravehearts Turning Corners program for addressing sexually harmful behaviour by youth. Turning Corners program was developed to fill a perceived service gap in responding to and preventing harmful sexual behaviours by youth within the community. The program provides a comprehensive, integrated and multi-systemic response to this issue through support and counselling, to address these problematic behaviours and prevent future harms. Turning Corners is unique in that clients do not need to be currently engaged in the juvenile justice system and the program has a strong focus on early intervention and improved outcomes for the young person, their family and the community. Findings and recommendations stemming from this research will help inform decision-making regarding service expansion. Learnings will help to improve and refine the Program and its service delivery as part of a broader ongoing program development strategy.

UniSC Australia 

McKillop, Burton, Patterson Hobbs, Christensen, Rayment-McHugh

$10,000

Research Collaboration Grant

2018-2021

Sentencing disparities for female and male sexual offending in Queensland: Do they exist, and what is the impact?  (RG18/03)

Using sentencing data from 2012-2017, the aim of this project is to determine whether sentencing disparities exist between female sexual offenders (FSOs) and male sexual offenders (MSOs) in Queensland. This is an under-researched area in Australasia. Historically, there has been debate in scholarship concerning gendered sentencing disparities for these crimes. Sentencing decisions are important as a deterrence measure and for ensuring access for all individuals to appropriate assessment and intervention programs to address these behaviours and reduce reoffence risk. This project strengthens an existing international and interdisciplinary collaboration between USC researchers in criminology and justice, and law, with NZ researchers in psychology (University of Otago). Extending the NZ study to Australia will produce the largest comparative sample of MSO and FSO sentencing data in Australasia and allow for cross-cultural comparisons.

UniSC Australia

McKillop, Brown, Labhardt, Jones

$12,550

Research Collaboration Grant

2016- 2018

Comparison of UK and Australian, students and offenders, experiences of unintended exposure to indecent images online and online pornography use (RCG16/02). Prevention of sexual violence and abuse in online and offline contexts (RCG18/02)

UniSC Australia