ANROWS Research report, Issue 06, November 2021

Recent Australian research suggests that domestic and family violence (DFV) often co-occurs with parental alcohol and other drug issues (AOD) and mental health issues (MH) in reports of child abuse or neglect. It further suggests that the co-reporting of these three risk factors often precipitates child protection involvement. Given the reported prevalence an co-occurrence of DFV, AOD and MH in families embroiled in child protection systems in overseas jurisdictions (primarily the United Kingdom and United States), it is important to understand how these factors operate and interact to impact children and families in an Australian context.

This report presents findings from Stage 1 of a larger national project entitled, “Analysis of linked longitudinal administrative data on child protection involvement for NSW families with domestic and family violence, drug and alcohol issues and mental health issues”. In this report, the researchers critically examine the evidence base for both the prevalence and intersection of DFV, AOD and MH in a child protection context in order to provide key context for the subsequent data analyses to be undertaken in Stage 2 of this project. By using a critical interpretive synthesis, the researchers were able to interrogate both Australian and international academic and grey literature on the intersections of DFV, AOD and MH in the context of child protection. (From the website). Record #7373