Ms Wendy Hermeston

Overview

Wendy Hermeston's PhD research is supported by a NHMRC Infrastructure Capacity Building Grant located at NSW Sax Institute

Research Summary

In Australia, children are increasingly ending up in the care of their grandparents, due to often traumatic circumstances such as their parent/s’ death, imprisonment, health or poor social and emotional wellbeing, or child neglect and/or abuse. Rising numbers in New South Wales (NSW) need placement away from their parents through formal means, such as out of home care (OOHC). As numbers of OOHC placements available have declined, a shift in the NSW child protection system towards ‘kinship care’ has occurred. Consequently, extended families are more often assuming the care of Aboriginal children. Grandparents generally provide the large proportion of kinship care; Aboriginal grandparents too, have taken on this role in their own families. Yet there is little research regarding the suitability of existing policies for meeting the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families where grandparents care for their grandchildren (or “the grannies” as grandchildren are typically referred to in many Aboriginal families). This research reviews Commonwealth and NSW legislative and policy frameworks, with respect to laws directly affecting Aboriginal grandparent headed families’ wellbeing and resources. Grandparental care related policies will also be considered from a human rights perspective, particularly in relation to the United Nations Children’s Rights Convention. Methods include an analysis of national and NSW data sets on child protection, focus groups and qualitative interviews. Finally, the research will draw conclusions regarding the role policies play in preserving Aboriginal families.