University of Melbourne First Nations project receives $5 million to research experiences of family violence and child removals

A First Nations-led research project led by Melbourne Laureate Professor Marcia Langton has received $5 million as part of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Targeted Call for Research (TCR): Addressing Violence for Safer Families and Communities.

The project, ‘Harm to Healing: Strength-Based Approaches to Family Violence for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’, will be undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team with community partners in the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation (VACCHO), Binarri-binyja yarrawoo (BBY), the Wunan Foundation, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Service (ATSICHS), the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) (QLD), the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and Djirra (Vic), across four jurisdictions.

It aims to improve understanding of the experiences of families affected by family violence and child removals and build on years of research and frontline work with women and children by the project’s chief investigators and community partners to reduce family violence.

The team of chief investigators, Laureate Professor Marcia Langton, Professor Catherine Chamberlain, Professor Sandra Eades, Professor Sean Taylor, Associate Professor Kristen Smith, Professor Rhonda Marriott, Dr Jacynta Krakouer, Dr Kimberley Jones, Professor Amalia “Emily” Karahalios and Dr Andrea Clarke are highly experienced epidemiologists with expertise in longitudinal studies of youth and children, perinatal, maternal and child health, biostatistics, public health experts and medical anthropologists, with extensive expertise in culturally responsive, violence-and-trauma-informed, action-orientated approaches that contribute to rebuilding social norms.

“Trends in violence now represent a crisis for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children, but the tools exist to reduce violence.” Professor Langton said.

The project will be administered through the Indigenous Studies Unit (ISU), part of Onemda: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing and Wellbeing, within the University of Melbourne’s School of Population and Global Health.