Masters proposal presentation by Bianca Conroy
Date: Wednesday, 12 December
Time: 11:00 am
Location: ECU Joondalup, Building 2, Room 443 (Val Pervan boardroom).
Presenter: Bianca Conroy
Supervisors: Dr Karine Hamilton, Associate Professor Pamela Henry and Dr Patricia Sherwood.
The School of Law & Justice invites you to a Masters Proposal Presentation
by Bianca Conroy:
Mothers experiences of child protection in the Western Australian Family Law system
Across Australia during 2011-2012 there were substantiated claims of child maltreatment concerning 163,767 children (Western Australian Police Commission, 2012). In Western Australia, police attended 42,000 incidents of family violence in the same period (WA Police, 2012). Such figures expose the "continuing systematic failure" of Family Law Systems to protect women and children (McInnes, 2003, p.2; Nair, 2012).Observers note that child protection concerns are not effectively addressed and communicated across criminal, family and child protection agencies (Higgins & Kaspiew, 2011; Peel & Croucher, 2011). Moreover, there exists inherent gender bias in research, policy and practice that jeopardises family safety (Garcia & MacMinimon, 2011).
As current family law processes continue to jeopardise the safety of thousands of women and children, this is a matter worthy of attention from both policy-makers and researchers (McInnes, 2003, p.2; Ryan, McInnes, Rodgers, 2012). The proposed research adopts a methodology and data analysis informed by a Husserlian framework which focuses on understanding the essence of lived experiences.
The study aims to interview twelve mothers who agreed to grant unsupervised child contact to an ex-partner despite expressing safety concerns, which resulted in substantiated child maltreatment. The interview data will then be analysed employing a Phenomenological Reduction Process to explore participants' intuition, gender perspective, world views and taken for granted assumptions (Therkleson & Sherwood, 2004; Campbell, 2011). The findings aim to inform policies and early intervention initiatives with research about mothers' perspectives to ensure that legislation protects families in parental separation where there are family violence concerns.