Working together for Toby : early childhood student teachers engaging in collaborative problem-based learning around child abuse and neglect

Early childhood teacher education programs have a responsibility, amongst many, to prepare teachers for decision-making on real world issues, such as child abuse and neglect. Their repertoire of skills can be enhanced by engaging with others, either face-to-face or online, in authentic problem-based learning. This paper draws on a study of early childhood student teachers who engaged in an authentic learning experience, which was to consider and to suggest how they would act upon a real-life case of child abuse encountered in an early childhood classroom in Queensland. This was the case of Toby (a pseudonym), who was suspected of being physically abused at home. Students drew upon relevant legislation, policy and resource materials to tackle Toby’s case. The paper provides evidence of students grappling with the complexity of a child abuse case and establishing, through collaboration with others, a proactive course of action. The paper has a dual focus. First, it discusses the pedagogical context in which early childhood student teachers deal with issues of child abuse and neglect in the course of their teacher education program. Second, it examines evidence of students engaging in collaborative problem-solving around issues of child abuse and neglect and teachers’ responsibilities, both legal and professional, to the children and families they work with. Early childhood policy-makers, practitioners and teacher educators are challenged to consider how early childhood teachers are best equipped to deal with child protection and early intervention.

Using routinely collected hospital data for child maltreatment surveillance : issues, methods and patterns

Background: International data on child maltreatment are largely derived from child protection agencies, and predominantly report only substantiated cases of child maltreatment. This approach underestimates the incidence of maltreatment and makes inter-jurisdictional comparisons difficult. There has been a growing recognition of the importance of health professionals in identifying, documenting and reporting suspected child maltreatment. This study aimed to describe the issues around case identification using coded morbidity data, outline methods for selecting and grouping relevant codes, and illustrate patterns of maltreatment identified. Methods: A comprehensive review of the ICD-10-AM classification system was undertaken, including review of index terms, a free text search of tabular volumes, and a review of coding standards pertaining to child maltreatment coding. Identified codes were further categorised into maltreatment types including physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, and neglect. Using these code groupings, one year of Australian hospitalisation data for children under 18 years of age was examined to quantify the proportion of patients identified and to explore the characteristics of cases assigned maltreatment-related codes. Results: Less than 0.5% of children hospitalised in Australia between 2005 and 2006 had a maltreatment code assigned, almost 4% of children with a principal diagnosis of a mental and behavioural disorder and over 1% of children with an injury or poisoning as the principal diagnosis had a maltreatment code assigned. The patterns of children assigned with definitive T74 codes varied by sex and age group. For males selected as having a maltreatment-related presentation, physical abuse was most commonly coded (62.6% of maltreatment cases) while for females selected as having a maltreatment-related presentation, sexual abuse was the most commonly assigned form of maltreatment (52.9% of maltreatment cases). Conclusion: This study has demonstrated that hospital data could provide valuable information for routine monitoring and surveillance of child maltreatment, even in the absence of population-based linked data sources. With national and international calls for a public health response to child maltreatment, better understanding of, investment in and utilisation of our core national routinely collected data sources will enhance the evidence-base needed to support an appropriate response to children at risk.

Reliability of routinely collected hospital data for child maltreatment surveillance

Background: Internationally, research on child maltreatment-related injuries has been hampered by a lack of available routinely collected health data to identify cases, examine causes, identify risk factors and explore health outcomes. Routinely collected hospital separation data coded using the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) system provide an internationally standardised data source for classifying and aggregating diseases, injuries, causes of injuries and related health conditions for statistical purposes. However, there has been limited research to examine the reliability of these data for child maltreatment surveillance purposes. This study examined the reliability of coding of child maltreatment in Queensland, Australia. Methods: A retrospective medical record review and recoding methodology was used to assess the reliability of coding of child maltreatment. A stratified sample of hospitals across Queensland was selected for this study, and a stratified random sample of cases was selected from within those hospitals. Results: In 3.6% of cases the coders disagreed on whether any maltreatment code could be assigned (definite or possible) versus no maltreatment being assigned (unintentional injury), giving a sensitivity of 0.982 and specificity of 0.948. The review of these cases where discrepancies existed revealed that all cases had some indications of risk documented in the records. 15.5% of cases originally assigned a definite or possible maltreatment code, were recoded to a more or less definite strata. In terms of the number and type of maltreatment codes assigned, the auditor assigned a greater number of maltreatment types based on the medical documentation than the original coder assigned (22% of the auditor coded cases had more than one maltreatment type assigned compared to only 6% of the original coded data). The maltreatment types which were the most ‘under-coded’ by the original coder were psychological abuse and neglect. Cases coded with a sexual abuse code showed the highest level of reliability. Conclusion: Given the increasing international attention being given to improving the uniformity of reporting of child-maltreatment related injuries and the emphasis on the better utilisation of routinely collected health data, this study provides an estimate of the reliability of maltreatment-specific ICD-10-AM codes assigned in an inpatient setting.

Monitoring children's progress using child portfolios

Introduces a method to early childhood professionals of observing children as they are involved in everyday play episodes, record children's development and plan for this, while utilising the knowledge and input of the key players in the partnership, parents and teachers.

The effectiveness of a short-term group music therapy intervention for parents who have a child with a disability

Background The relationship between positive parent-child interactions and optimal child development is well established. Families with a child with a disability may face additional challenges to establishing positive parent-child relationships. There are limited studies addressing the effectiveness of interventions which seek to address these issues with parents and young children with a disability. In particular, prior studies of music therapy with this group have been limited by small sample sizes and the use of measures of limited reliability and validity. Objective This study investigates the effectiveness of a short-term group music therapy intervention for parents who have a child with a disability and explores the factors associated with higher outcomes for participating families. Methods The participants were 201 mother-child dyads, where the child had a disability. Pre and post intervention parental questionnaires and clinician observation measures were taken on a range of parental wellbeing, parenting behaviours and child developmental factors. Descriptive data, t-tests for repeated measures and a predictive model tested via logistic regression are presented. Results Significant improvements pre to post were found for parent mental health, child communication and social skills, parenting sensitivity, parental engagement with child and acceptance of child, child responsiveness to parent, and child interest and participation in program activities. There was also evidence that parents were very satisfied with the program and that it brought social benefits to families. Reliable change on six or more indicators of parent or child functioning was predicted by attendance and parent education. Conclusions This study provides positive evidence for the effectiveness of group music therapy in promoting improved parental mental health, positive parenting and key child developmental areas. Whilst several limitations are discussed, the study does address some of the gaps in the music therapy evidence base in this area.

Motivating blue-collar employees : a case study of the Chinese workforce

The Katz and Kahn (1978) motivational framework is an open system management theory that underscores the importance of self-regulation while stressing the significance of using continuous feedback to adapt in a rapidly changing environment. This study aims to examine Katz and Kahn’s prepositions that the implementation of a system of rule compliance, external rewards, and internalized motivation can decrease employee turnover, increase quantitative and qualitative standards of performance, and enhance cooperation and creativeness. The results among 233 Chinese employees (96.6% response rate) indicated partial support for Katz and Kahn’s motivational framework. The implication for improving the Chinese workforce, in particular blue-collar occupations, is discussed.

Children of substance-using mothers : child health engagement and child protection outcomes

Aim: Maternal substance use has been associated with a range of child risk factors. The study investigated the relationship between engagement with child health services and child protection outcomes for children of substance using mothers. ----- ----- Methods: A sample of 119 children of mothers who disclosed opiate, amphetamine or methadone use during a maternity admission between 2000 and 2003, as included in a previous matched co-hort study1, were included in the current study. Statutory child protection agency and child health engagement information for the first two years of life, was obtained. The relationship between type of maternal substance use, child health engagement and child protection outcomes was examined. ----- ----- Results: Seventy two percent of study group infants were engaged with child health services during the first two years of life. Chi square analysis showed no significant relationship between child health engagement and child protection reports. Child health engagement was associated with decreased substantiated child protection notifications for children of methadone using mothers, but not for children of illicit substance users. ----- ----- Conclusions: Almost a quarter of identified children of substance using mothers are not accessing standard child health services in their first two years of life. This study provides support for increased attention to the provision of child health services for children of methadone using mothers. Further research into effective intervention strategies for children of illicit substance using mothers is indicated.

Workforce gender diversity: Is it a source of competitive advantage?

Research on workforce diversity at the organisational level gained momentum in the 1990s, because of the growing trend in HR research to link HR practices with organisational performance. The new parallel wave of research focused on the business case for diversity, in which diversity was linked to organisational performance. However, the results of these studies, mainly focusing on linear diversity-performance relationships, have been inconsistent. Based on contrasting theories, this paper proposes three competing predictions of the gender diversity-performance relationship at the organisational level: a positive linear relationship derived from the resource-based view of the firm, a negative linear relationship derived from self-categorisation and social identity theories, and a U-shaped curvilinear relationship derived from the integration of the resource-based view of the firm with self-categorisation and social identity theories. The U-shaped relationship accounts for the inconsistent findings in past research, because different proportions of men and women produce different social dynamics that have different effects on organisational performance. Further, the proposed U-shaped relationship can have different slopes in the manufacturing and services industries. The paper contributes to the field of diversity by strengthening its weak theoretical foundations and by highlighting the industry differences.

Employers and child workers : an institutional approach

This article explores employers' perspectives on the introduction of child employment legislation in Australia through the lens of the three pillars—regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive—of institutional theory. The study extends the traditional industrial relations (IR) focus on regulation to examine how human resource (HR) practices around child employment become legitimised, normalised and socially supported.

Developments in measuring the “creative” workforce

This article outlines the contribution the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation has made to the project to improve statistical parameters for defining the “creative” workforce. This is one approach which addresses the imprecision of official statistics in grasping the emergent nature of the creative industries. The article discusses the policy implications of the differences between emphasizing industry and occupation or workforce. It provides qualitative case studies that provide further perspectives on quantitative analysis of the creative workforce. It also outlines debates about the implications for the cultural disciplines of an evidence-based account of creative labour. The “creative trident” methodology is summarized: it is the total of creative occupations within the core creative industries (specialists), plus the creative occupations employed in other industries (embedded) plus the business and support occupations employed in creative industries who are often responsible for managing, accounting for and technically supporting creative activity (support). The method is applied to the arts workforce in Australia. An industry-facing spin-off from the centre's mapping work, Creative Business Benchmarker, is discussed. The implications of this approach to the creative workforce is raised and exemplified in case studies of design and of the health industry.

Everything is child abuse

In 2008, the Australian federal Senate held an Inquiry into the Sexualisation of Children in the Contemporary Media Environment. I made a submission to this Inquiry, noting that in public debate about this topic a number of quite distinct issues, with distinct aetiologies, were collapsed together. These included: child pornography; children being targeted by any form of marketing; young people becoming sexually active; sexual abuse of children; raunch culture; protecting children from any sexualised material in the media; and body image disorders. I suggested that commentators had collapsed these issues together because the image of the helpless child is a powerful one for critics to challenge undesirable aspects of contemporary culture. The result of many different ideological viewpoints all using the same argument - that the forms of culture they didn't like were damaging children - gives the impression that there is no element of culture today that isn't (somebody claims) causing harm to children: everything is child abuse. The danger of such discourses is that they draw attention away from the real harm that is being caused to children by sexual and other forms of maltreatment - which overwhelmingly occur within families, and for reasons ignored in these debates.

Children’s food and activity patterns following a six-month child weight management program

Objective To describe the impact of a parent-led, family focused child weight management program on the food intake and activity patterns of pre-pubertal children. Methods n assessor-blinded, randomized controlled trial involving 111 (64% female) overweight, pre-pubertal children 6 to 9 years of age randomly assigned to parenting-skills training plus intensive lifestyle education, parenting-skills training alone, or a 12-month wait-listed control. Study outcomes were assessed at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. This paper presents data on food intake assessed via a validated 54-item parent completed dietary questionnaire and activity behaviours assessed via a parent-report 20-item activity questionnaire. Results Intake of energy-dense nutrient poor foods was lower in both intervention groups at 6 months (mean difference, P+DA -1.5 serves [CI -2.0;-1.0]; P -1.0 serves [-2.0;-0.5]) and 12 months (mean difference P+DA -1.0 serves [CI -2.0;-0.5]; P -1.0 serves [-1.5; 0.0]) compared to baseline. Intake of vegetables, fruit, breads and cereals, meat and alternatives and dairy foods remained unchanged. Regardless of study group there were significant reductions over time in the reported time spent engaged in small screen activities and an increase in the time reported spent in active play. Conclusion Child weight management intervention that promotes food intake in line with national dietary guidelines achieves a reduction in children’s intake of energy dense, nutrient poor foods. This was achieved without compromising intake of nutrient-rich food and changes in were maintained even once the intervention ceased.

Why a child needs a critical eye, and why the art classroom is central in developing it

It is a common acceptance that contemporary schoolchildren live in a world that is intensely visual and commercially motivated, where what is imagined and what is experienced intermingle. Because of this, contemporary education should encourage a child to make reference to, and connection with their ‘out-of-school’ life. The core critical underpinnings of curriculum based arts appreciation and theory hinge on educators and students taking a historical look at the ways artists have engaged with, and made comment upon, their contemporary societies. My article uses this premise to argue for the need to persist with pushing for critique of/through the visual, that it be delivered as an active process via the arts classroom rather than as visual literacy, here regarded as a more passive process for interpreting and understanding visual material. The article asserts that visual arts lessons are best placed to provide fully students with such critique because they help students to develop a ’critical eye’, an interpretive lens often used by artists to view, analyse and independently navigate and respond to contemporary society.

Mother and child sharing through drawing: Intergenerational collaborative processes for making artworks

This paper presents a preliminary study into collaborated processes for art-making, undertaken by a young child and an adult. The study explores collaborative drawing in the context of sociocultural research into early childhood education. The study particularly examines whether childhood techniques for making marks, creative processing and art-making could be ‘re-learned’ by the adult, while new opportunities for expanding on extant repertoire could be available to the child. In this context the child teaches and learns from the adult, and the adult teaches and learns from the child. The study utilised video-data-recording to facilitate microanalysis of the researchers in action, enabling the adult researcher to present a discourse into the dynamics of how the visual, mark-making repertoires of an adult and child can be co-developed. Preliminary findings help contribute to the various discourses available into sociocultural research that supports processes for exploring and making art, and which allows a challenge to the role of the adult educator as a provider or director of what is learned.

Parents’ views about child sexual abuse prevention education : a systematic review

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of literature on the topic of parents’ views about child sexual abuse prevention education. It describes: i) what parents know about child sexual abuse prevention education; ii) what child sexual abuse prevention messages parents provide to their children and what topics they discuss; iii) what parents’ attitudes are towards child sexual abuse prevention education in schools; and iv) their preferences for content. Electronic database searches were conducted to identify relevant literature published in English relating to child sexual abuse prevention programs and parent’s views. A total of 429 papers were evaluated with 13 studies identified as meeting the study’s inclusion criteria. Worldwide, empirical research on parents’ views about child sexual abuse prevention programs is limited and more research is needed in Australia. Implications for future research and practice are outlined.